By popular demand {You mean, by one person's demand.} Yes, well... one of my favorite authors. Hush.

All right, so only one person has asked, but I'm sure my IRL friends who like this will be happy too. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Flame.) Frozen fanfic, obviously. My second one. The first (a trilogy) will not be posted here, mostly because it is largely old writing and roughly one-fourth Flame's writing and frankly it's not my best fanfiction. This is better. How much better is questionable, but better. In any case, this is an AU, but the movie still happened exactly as in the canon-verse, other than possibly Do You Want to Build a Snowman involving Letha as well. Why it's still compatible with the canon-verse will be explained in the next chapter. {No, the third chapter.} Is it the third? Hm. We'll have to see how it breaks down. Anywho.

Yes, this was inspired by the "Evil Elsa" fanart. Yes, this first scene was totally inspired by the piece Child's Play on DeviantArt by tauwnycat. Full credit for that goes to the respective owner. Go look up the artwork, it's fantastic. Please note that I actually started writing this privately BEFORE that top comment, about the twin thing with Elsa and Evil Elsa, was posted, and it actually scared me with the similarities XD

Without further ado, on to the story. Word count: 2,037

"Fear will be your enemy."

~Grand Pabbie

"Elsa! Psst!"

A muffled snort from the figure in the bed, nothing more.

"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" A small strawberry blonde girl scrambled up onto the bed, bouncing the bed while simultaneously shaking her older sister.

"Anna, shove off," the sleepy girl mumbled.

"Go back to sleep," a matching voice came from the bed a few feet away.

Anna flopped down on top of Elsa, eliciting a grunt from her sister. "But I just can't sleep! The sky's awake, so I'm awake, so I have to play!"

"Go play by yourself," Elsa laughed, shoving the younger girl playfully off the bed.

Anna rolled over to sit upright on the floor, pouting a little. Then she clambered onto the other bed, only for a hand to immediately shoot out and push her back to the floor. "Letha!" she complained.

"Some of us want to sleep," the girl grumbled, her platinum hair gleaming as she buried her face in her pillow.

Anna sat on the floor and pouted for a few seconds, before she thought of something. Grinning slyly, she asked both sisters, "You wanna build a snowman?"

Slowly, both pairs of crystalline blue eyes turned to her, grins spreading over their faces.

The three bounded down the stairs, as fast as they could while still being quiet enough not to wake parents or staff. They pushed open the huge doors and Elsa and Anna ran out into the center of the empty ballroom, leaving Letha to close the doors again.

All need for stealth gone, Anna begged, "Do the magic! Do the magic!"

Elsa and Letha exchanged a glance and a smile. The twins were nearly identical, matching hair, eyes, and faces. If Letha were to pull her hair back into a neat braid, or Elsa to let her platinum locks flow loose, the two would be almost impossible to distinguish. "You ready?" Elsa asked Anna. She bounced in place with the enthusiasm behind her nod.

Elsa cupped her hands together and felt cold run through her veins, though it didn't bother her. Pale blue light emanated from her palms and a white ball of snow formed between her hands. She tossed it up into the air and it exploded, sending flurries of snow falling all over the room. Anna giggled and danced in place in the snowfall, absolutely delighted.

Letha, for her part, looked on with a tinge of envy. Her twin must have sensed this, because she looked over sympathetically and said, "Try it again, Lee! Maybe you'll get it this time!"

The girl nodded and slowly brought her hands together. She reached for the cold spot inside her that held the ice, but try as she might, she couldn't pull it free. She knew it was there, knew she was capable of the same things as Elsa, but she just couldn't seem to control it when she wanted to. Looking up, Letha spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "It won't come," she said simply.

Elsa nodded, understanding, and wrapped her chilled arms around her twin. Letha returned the embrace gratefully. "You'll get it," she promised. "I know you will."

Letha started to reply, but was interrupted by Anna's thrilled, "Wheeeeeee!" and the impact of her small body into the twins in a ferocious tackle hug. All three went sprawling in the snow, laughing.

Letha sat back and watched as Elsa and Anna started rolling snow up to make a snowman. After a moment, she fell back into herself, concentrating on the magic she could feel inside her. She flicked her fingers at the floor in front of her. "Come on," she muttered under her breath as blue sparks flew, but nothing more. She shook her hands again. More sparks, but no real result. "Come – on!"

Abruptly, her body flooded with cold. For a split second, Letha was thrilled by the rush of power, but then she realized that it was so fast. Too fast. She yelped as ice shot from her hands and spiked up off the floor, pointing away from her – toward her sisters. Panicking, she smothered the magic, stopping the flow and stopping the growth of the ice spikes, but also sending the delicate magic scurrying back to its hidden place locked up inside her.

Elsa and Anna were staring at her, a mixture of shock and concern in their faces. For a moment, the three just stared at each other. Then Letha made a small, hopeless sound and pulled her knees up to her chest, hiding her face behind them. Her eyes and throat stung with tears.

Elsa was the first to move. She crawled around the ice, through the snow, and wrapped her arms around her frigid sister. Even to Elsa, herself chilled by the magic, Letha felt cold. To Anna, who quickly scrambled around to Letha's other side and joined the group hug, it felt as if she was hugging a statue of ice. Still, the young girl stubbornly clung on, determined to help comfort her sister.

Letha lifted her face, revealing tear-stained cheeks. "I can't do this," she sobbed, turning her head to bury her face in Elsa's shoulder. "Every time I try, I just..." she trailed off and focused on crying.

Undaunted, Anna scuttled around so she could hug both of them as Elsa pulled Letha halfway onto her lap. Anna's young mind didn't fully understand why Letha was so upset – after all, she couldn't do magic at all, and it didn't upset her too terribly – but she did know that her sister was upset, and she didn't like it one bit.

After a few minutes, Letha sat up again. "I'm okay," she said, and it seemed to be true – her face was clear again, and she could smile at Anna and Elsa without it seeming forced.

"Come play with us," Anna invited her, pulling her to her feet. Letha's skin had warmed where Anna and Elsa had been touching it, and was starting to warm up all over now again, back to a normal temperature. And play they did.

"Catch me!" Anna giggled, jumping up into the air. Elsa smiled and snow formed beneath the younger girl, fast enough to catch her and boost her upward. Jump after jump, pile after pile.

Despite her intentions, Letha found herself watching in envy and frustration. She tentatively tried for magic again, but this time no matter how she tried it refused to manifest itself. Feeling as if she was running herself into a wall repeatedly because she was too stupid or slow to find a way around or over it, she suddenly stamped one foot in irritation.

The ice on the floor beneath her jumped, and she almost lost her balance. A ripple passed through the ice in a wave, an impressive display considering her usual lack of proficiency with magic.

At the same moment, Elsa's foot slipped and she tripped over her own ankle as she turned. She might have recovered in time to catch Anna anyway, if it hadn't been for the ice that jumped beneath her as Letha's ripple of power passed beneath her at the worst possible moment. She slipped and fell. "Anna!"

Her magic flew anyway, desperately. But in the fall, her aim was thrown off, and the blast struck their younger sister, whose eyes rolled up in her head as she went limp, tumbling down the side of a snowbank.

"Anna," Elsa gasped, stumbling in her haste to get to the girl. She reached her just as white streaked through her hair, replacing a single lock of red. Finding Anna unconscious, Elsa cried out for the only people she could think might be able to help: "Mama! Papa!"

Fear flooded her voice, and ice flooded the room. Letha could do nothing but stare, frozen in place as the ice behind the doors cracked and they flew open, letting her mama and papa stumble into the room. "Elsa! What have you done?" their father demanded, seeing Anna. Despite his words, there was no anger in his voice – only concern and more of that strange thing Letha barely knew the word for: fear. "This has gone too far!"

"I'm sorry," Elsa choked, trying not to cry. "I-it was an accident! I'm sorry, Anna..."

Why aren't I crying, too?

Their mother scooped Anna up and bit her lip. "She's ice cold," she gasped.

That might be the result of playing in snow for almost an hour with nothing but a nightgown and slippers on. Without powers.

Papa touched Anna's skin and said grimly, "I know where we need to go."

Why can't I feel anything? Except...

I did this.

Letha still couldn't move. She stared at their parents, and at the sobbing Elsa, and at Anna, who was so terribly still.

I did this.

And with that realization, the first emotion that finally, belatedly, hit her... it wasn't grief, or remorse. It was something she'd never felt before. The guilt struck her only a heartbeat later, but for just a moment... Letha felt powerful. She knew it was wrong, knew it in her bones, but she couldn't push the feeling away. That feeling that she had never had before. She had done this, with her magic. Letha. The one who could never do anything with her powers when she wanted to.

At five years of age, Anna was having her first brush with death. At eight years of age, Elsa was having her first brush with fear. And at eight years of age, three minutes younger than her twin, Letha was having her first brush with the thing that would rule her life for a very long time: her lust for power.

"She'll be all right," Grand Pabbie promised, brushing his thumb over Anna's forehead gently. He had removed the ice from her head – as well as all memories of magic.

"But she won't remember we have powers?" Elsa asked, giving Letha a worried glance.

"It's for the best," Papa assured them.

Pabbie gestured Elsa forward. "Listen to me, Elsa. Your power will only grow." As he spread his hands, light danced, silhouetting a woman summoning magic, identical to Elsa's, right down to the tiny details no one ever noticed that differentiated her magic from her twin's. "There is beauty in your magic... but also great danger." The blue light shattered, turning to red, and rose up to threaten the representation of Elsa. "You must learn to control it. Fear will be your enemy." With a sharp hissing cry, the red light swamped the figure. Elsa cried out in fear and buried her face in her papa's chest. He wrapped his arms around her protectively. Before he could speak, Pabbie turned to Letha.

The ancient troll examined her with wise eyes, and Letha knew he saw right through to her heart – right to the strange things she had felt at the moment she had realized her hand in Anna's being struck. He shifted and made a small "Hmm" in his throat as he looked at her. At last, he spoke again. "Letha. You too must be careful. Your powers are as beautiful, and as dangerous, as your sister's. They will become stronger."

"I can't start them anyway," she muttered under her breath. He shouldn't have heard her, but clearly he did, because he hmmed again.

"You will find that will change, I think," he said. "Listen to me when I say: you must learn to control yourself, or yours will be a terrible fate indeed. You know of what I speak." His eyes held hers until she finally nodded meekly. She knew exactly of what he spoke. Then she, too, retreated to the side of Elsa and the king.

As the king made his plans to close up the castle, Letha hardly listened. She knew already that she would not stay in her room. There was no point, since she couldn't use her power anyway, not without trying very hard indeed.

She also knew that these next few years would be very interesting indeed. The lives of everyone in that castle were about to change forever, herself included. But maybe... maybe she could learn more about her magic. Maybe this was her chance.

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