A/N: This was written as a gift for Elsanna Secret Santa 2018, with Arendellecitizen as the recipient. God Jul, everyone! :)
Summer, 1825
Elsa sat by the window, entranced by the sight of the ships in the harbor. Odin's Fjord was tumultuous tonight, and the occasional flash of lightning illuminated a stormy sea. Gigantic waves buffeted the docks as tiny torches of light moved to and fro, ship to ship, no doubt being carried by brave sailors that were doing their best to limit the worst of the storm's damage. A particularly violent crack of thunder sent reverberations through Elsa's entire body, and the low rumble that followed caused her teeth to chatter. It was not a comfortable feeling, but it left her in awe for a long moment afterward.
"Elsa!"
The knocks were difficult to hear over the whipping winds battering the windows, but the voice was unmistakable.
"Elsa, are you there?"
Anna sounded panicked, and Elsa knew exactly why. Thunder always terrified her little sister, and tonight's storm was the worst that Elsa could remember.
"I'm here, Anna! The door's open." Elsa tried not to smile as Anna burst into the room. "This is your room too, you know. You don't have to knock. Where were you?"
"Knocking is polite! Gerda said so," Anna huffed. She still looked nervous, but her panic seemed to have gone.
"She did? When did she say that?"
"When I went to ask her... if there was any... krumkake left," Anna replied with exertion, climbing up onto the window seat to join her sister.
"Did you enter her room without permission?" Elsa asked, doing her best to project her voice like Papa had taught her.
"No!"
"Anna…"
"I knocked!"
"And did you wait for a reply before you opened the door?" Elsa asked with arms folded, trying her best to remain the stoic, responsible older sister. Anna always seemed calmer during storms when Elsa took her role as older sister seriously, and tonight's storm was worth the precaution.
"Well… Sort of," Anna replied, eyes downcast.
"You don't need permission to enter our chambers, but you do to enter other's rooms."
"I know… It was just really scary in the hallway and there was this huge noise right when I knocked and I really really wanted to get some krumkake to eat while we finished that story!"
Elsa smiled. "Those are all important reasons, but you still need permission first. Next time, I'll go with you. Okay?"
Anna simply nodded. "There wasn't any krumkake left." The sulky tone drew a laugh from Elsa, and Anna pouted further.
"After how much we ate at dinner, I'm not surprised."
"She might have magical dessert powers! You don't know!"
Anna's gaze was fierce, and Elsa thought better about challenging that claim for the moment. "Maybe," She said. With a yawn, Elsa moved to stand walking over to her bed. "Anyway, we'll have a delicious breakfast waiting for us when we get up. You go get the book and I'll pour us some tea, all right?"
At this, Anna perked up, all traces of consternation gone as she rushed over to the bookshelf and enthusiastically destroyed all the work Elsa did to set the books back in order last night.
"You're helping me clean that up before we go to sleep," Elsa said absentmindedly as she poured her tea.
Wide teal eyes stared at her from the corner of the room, and suddenly Anna was much more careful as she dug through the various tomes to find…
"Aha!" She shouted, the book held over her head triumphantly.
"Bring it here," Elsa giggled, fixing Anna's cup. Milk and five sugars, every time, no matter the flavor. Elsa quickly learned that if it still tasted vaguely like tea, then it needed more sugar before Anna would even touch it.
Another flash of lightning and Anna squealed, knowing what came next. The frantic patter of her feet on the floor was lost to the deep rumble that seemed to shake the very castle itself. Elsa saw the ripples in Anna's teacup. A powerful storm, indeed.
"It's alright. It's just thunder," Elsa said softly as Anna struggled to clamber up into the bed.
"Nuh-uh!" Anna exclaimed, holding Elsa tight. The book lay forgotten at the edge of the bed,
After the thunder passed and Anna made no move to release her, Elsa remarked, "If you want me to read the story, I'll need to breathe."
Anna just shook her head. Luckily, Elsa had a wealth of experience extracting herself from her little sister's impressive hugs. With both arms free, Anna just held on tighter, but Elsa drew the book over to them with her foot and eventually managed to settle in and find the page they left off on.
"I won't start until you have a sip of tea, Anna."
The most pitiful, put-upon moan of misery that Elsa had ever heard caused her to roll her eyes and wait patiently for Anna to realize that she was embarrassing herself.
Sometimes it took a while.
After a few minutes that brought about another peel of thunder, with no fanfare whatsoever, Anna released her grip and quietly sipped at her tea, peering up at Elsa with a sort of simple innocence that only a guilty person could project.
"Right then. Are we ready to continue the story?"
Anna nodded quickly, nearly spilling the tea on Elsa's bed.
"Careful!"
Anna put the tea down on the nightstand as though the cup had burned her.
"That's not what I- Nevermind." Elsa sighed and cleared her throat. "Chapter thirteen… A gallant rescue."
"What's 'gallant'?", Anna asked, tiny hand shooting into the air.
Elsa sighed with a smile. "Remember from the beginning of the book? Gallant is like… bravery and kindness all mixed together."
"Ohhh…" Anna nodded sagely.
"Ready?"
"Yep!"
As Elsa read on, taking care to use the regal voice that she'd been practicing, Anna began to grow restless. "...and the brave knight responded in kind- Ow! Anna!"
"'Anna'? The princess's name is Hilda!" Anna giggled.
"You elbowed me in the stomach," Elsa said, rubbing the sore spot.
"I didn't mean to!"
"You should still apologize."
She looked ready to cry. "I'm sorry, Elsa."
"It's okay! Just be careful, that's all."
Anna nodded gravely. Still looking for all the world like she'd burst into tears.
"Come here," Elsa said with an exaggerated lilt in her voice. "Do you want to try reading some?"
"Can I? Ms. Kleppe says I'm really good at the alphabet!"
"Of course! I'll help."
Anna's grin was infectious and soon they were both giggling as they read on, much slower than before, but with plenty more amusement as Anna plowed through words with little regard for their safety.
"And… the… kni-knight sm… iled at the pr-princess, r-rising-"
"Raising."
"Raising! Raising his sword to the sky. 'F-fear not, princess. That be… beast will fall be-fore my m… mi…"
"Might," Elsa offered gently, smiling at Anna's scrunched up nose as her little sister concentrated as hard as she could.
"'Fall before my might!' He ex… exclai-med p-proudly."
"Wow, Anna! You read better than I did when I was your age." Anna's smile was blinding, and Elsa hugged her tight. "Ms. Kleppe must be really happy with you."
Anna just giggled. "She hates it when I don't pay attention. She made me write the alphabet twenty times in a row last week!" She looked to the side before whispering, "It was kinda easy."
"You should take this book to your lessons! Show her how well you can read. That might get her to go easier on you."
"Nah, her punishments are really easy. If she knew I could read like this, she'd make me read!" Anna looked horrified at the thought.
"You were just reading," Elsa said, wondering if she even needed to say so.
"Well yeah, coz I wanted to! Reading when I want to is fun," She said simply.
"I guess…" Elsa replied, shifting slightly to prevent her arm from falling asleep.
"And anyway, that story is getting boring. Can you make up the rest?"
"Why is it boring?"
"Why is that dumb old knight the one who gets to go on adventures and stuff? The princess is just stuck there in the tower for the whole story waiting for the dragon to eat her! That sounds really boring."
"It's a princess's duty not to put herself in harm's way. It's safer to wait for rescue than to leave on her own."
"Well, that's stupid!"
It didn't seem that stupid to Elsa, but then again, she hadn't really thought about it too much. "I think… since it's the princess's job to lead the kingdom one day, she shouldn't risk her life so easily?" She said hesitantly, unsure if she had the right answer.
"Well I'm a princess and if you were in danger from a big scary dragon then I would beat him up!"
Elsa giggled. "Yeah, I'd do the same for you."
"See? We don't need any smelly old knights!"
"Well… knights are trained to fight dragons."
"Then we'll train too!"
"Against what? Nobody's seen a dragon since Ancient Times."
"Hmm…" Anna looked around the room, scratching her head. "Oh! We could make one!"
"Make one? A dragon?"
"Yeah! Grab your pillows and blankets!" She shouted as she ran to her own bed and yanked the covers off, pulling the pillows with them and piling them in the middle of the room.
"Okay but we have to put all this back before bed…"
"Yeah, yeah. Hurry up!" Anna called over her shoulder. She was already making a head out of a folded pillow and two separate sheets. She even used the corners of a sheet to make horns.
"All right, here. Oh, neat!" Elsa said, marveling at the fact that she could even tell it was supposed to be a dragon's head.
"Okay, roll the blanket up and we'll use it for the body."
"Like this?" Elsa asked as she rolled the blanket diagonally. "This way, it'll be thick in the middle for its stomach, but it'll have a thinner neck and tail."
"Yeah, that's perfect! Great job, Elsa!"
Elsa felt a little silly for being so proud of a tube of blankets, but she pushed the thought aside. She set the blanket tube down behind the pillowy head and stepped back to admire their creation. "But what about the legs? And the wings?"
"Hmm... " Anna seemed stumped until she looked at the pillow making up the beast's head. "Pillowcases!"
"Excuse me?"
"We can use pillowcases for the legs. Oh, and one of the sheets can make the wings!"
Anna ran off to grab a sheet while Elsa busied herself with the legs. "Is it two legs or four, Anna?"
"I knew we should have picked a book with pictures! Let's do four legs, just to be safe."
"All right," Elsa laughed. "There!" She even crimped the ends of the feet to approximate the dragon's claws.
Anna came stumbling from behind her bed, a ball of sheets blocking her view.
"Woah, careful!" Elsa said quickly, hurrying to Anna's side to help. "I thought we just needed one?"
"At least one! Dragon wings are huge, Elsa." Her tone implied that Elsa should have already known this, but Anna was clearly the dragon expert here.
Elsa snorted. "Good thing you're here to teach me then."
"Yep! Now help me fold this sheet."
They each grabbed two corners of the sheet and spread their arms wide, creating a messy sort of half-fold when they brought their hands together.
"Okay, you're taller, so grab the ends and lay it flat on the ground."
"Like this?" The sheet lay in a crumpled heap, but it was longer than it was wide, which seemed to have been Anna's intent.
"Yeah! Kay, now you grab that side and I'll grab this end… Then we'll lay it across the beast's back."
Elsa stepped around the hulking monstrosity while Anna stood still at the dragon's side, giggling when Elsa fluttered the sheet up and down, creating waves. Once Elsa was directly across from her she set her side down and Elsa did the same.
They weren't very convincing wings.
"Anna, I think we need to fold the sheet a bit more."
"Yeah… Wait!" Anna rushed onto the great beast's back and grabbed the middle of the sheet, slowly bundling it up until it could almost fit inside her hands, turning the entire thing into a comically oversized bow. "Now take the ends and pull them back to the tail. Then we'll have wings!"
Nodding, Elsa stooped down and folded the sheet back carefully. "So, what should we call our new friend?"
"We can't be friends yet! We don't even know its name!"
"I'm gonna call him Smarty Pants."
Anna leaned forward, whispering into a pillowy ear, "Do you like that name, Smarty Pants?"
Elsa managed to suppress an eyeroll as she stood waiting for a response.
"He says you're being rude," Anna announced with an impressive haughtiness.
"Is that so?" Elsa asked lowly, circling the dragon.
Anna followed her sister's path with her eyes. "Y-yeah… That's what he said."
"Well, as one of the two princesses of this realm, surely I can't stand for such an insult! Especially not when my fellow princess is fighting for her life on the back of such a foul beast."
Giggling, Anna played along. She quickly leapt off the dragon's back and ran to her toy chest, pulling out a wooden sword.
"Oh, are you ever in danger now, Mr. Smarty Pants!" Elsa cried out, standing face to face with the giant drake, her arms outstretched. "Anna! Stand behind me. When I freeze this thing's head, you'll finish him with your sword."
Anna let out an awed gasp as she took up position behind her battle partner, practically vibrating where she stood.
Elsa glanced back at her sister, nearly breaking down in a fit of giggles at the wide-eyed look of wonder on Anna's face. "Are you ready, Princess?"
"Ready!" Anna squealed with delight.
A familiar feeling bloomed in Elsa's chest as she felt tendrils of ice under her skin. The tips of her fingers tingled with the buzz of magic, and a small flurry began to blanket the brave pair.
The dragon remained unfazed by this development, but Anna was giggling, catching small flakes with her tongue.
"Anna, focus! The kingdom is at stake." Elsa tried her best to sound commanding even through her joyful smile, and Anna snapped to attention with her sword at the ready. "Stay right there, and don't move until I tell you it's safe."
"I understand," Anna responded solemnly. She was still grinning madly, but she kept her composure.
Elsa felt the burst of magic before the room glowed a pale blue. It started in her chest, as it always did, and the feelings of fondness that overtook her seemed to imbue her power with a sense of solidity. She could feel the weight of the blast as it flowed from her fingertips. It was slow at first but then with a crack, it created a gigantic mess of feather and fabric where the dragon once stood. Ice frosted the edge of the bed and the desk on either side of the beast, with spikes of opaque, white ice still forming along the edges.
"Whoa…" Elsa breathed. She hadn't meant to cause such damage! Yet, beyond the coating of frost, everything except the dragon remained, essentially unharmed.
"Where did it go?!" Anna piped up gleefully. "That was awesome!"
Elsa cleared her throat, turning to her sister with a sheepish expression. "Sorry, you were meant to finish the battle…"
Anna just shook her head, her tiny twin braids swaying as she did so. "No, that was way better! You exploded it!" She leaned to her side, peering around her older sister. "You're gonna be a great queen if you can explode dragons that easily."
Elsa laughed freely, cheeks tinged pink from pride. Her parents never seemed to like her magic that much, but Anna was always so encouraging, in her own silly way.
"Can I go look at it?" Anna asked, already bounding over to the bed.
Elsa didn't see the harm, so she nodded as Anna stooped down and ran her fingers along a particularly jagged spike of solid ice.
"Just be careful! It's probably too cold…" Elsa whispered, hands wringing together anxiously. She might not feel cold the way others do, but she has seen its effects.
She knows how dangerous it can be.
Anna giggled as she poked at the ice. It seemed to crackle and groan, pulsing with a magic of its own. "Ooh… Elsa, I think it's still growing!"
"What? What do you-"
"Your ice, it looks like it's moving!"
"Anna, come over here."
"But-"
"Please, just come here."
"Okay…"
When Anna was close, Elsa took her shoulder and moved in front of her, waving a hand and concentrating hard to get rid of the frost in the room. Snow and sharp ice swirled at the spot where the dragon was, and suddenly it all began to coalesce into a solid pile of pure white snow.
Harmless.
Elsa sighed in relief. Their papa might tolerate her magic, but she knows that it needs to be controlled. That freeing feeling might feel nice, but it's not worth the risk of hurting others.
Unburdened by any sense of self-control, Anna was free to scream in delight and dive headfirst into the soft, powdery snow. Elsa stood there, apprehensive but pleased that she hadn't ruined the fun. Anna emerged a moment later, her eyes peering out from the top of the pile. Elsa could just make out her sister's bunched up cheeks, indicative of a wide grin that could probably thaw even the coldest heart.
Elsa let her arms fall to her side, tension ebbing away. They were safe, and no harm was done. "So! The dragon is defeated and the kingdom is safe once more," Elsa announced, projecting her voice as she stood proudly, hands on her hips.
A muffled voice came after a giggle, "Thanks to you, Princess!"
"Thanks to us, you mysterious talking snowpile." Another giggle, and Elsa couldn't stop smiling. "How should the story end, though?"
The snowpile began to shift as Anna dug her way out, and as she huffed a breath, she stood and let out a quick "Brr!" along with a shiver. Elsa rolled her eyes and walked over, pulling the last blanket off of her bed and wrapping Anna up while they moved over to the fireplace. Miraculously, it was still smoldering. As Elsa stoked the flames, Anna gasped. "We gotta get married!"
"Anna, what?"
"Yeah! In the stories, the knight and the princess always get married and live happily ever after by the end. So we need to do that too!"
"But there is no knight. We're both princesses. Princesses can't get married! I think. Can they?"
"Who says they can't? Mama said that marriage is for when two people love each other more than anything else in the world!"
"Mama said that?"
"Mm-hmm!"
Elsa stared at the flames for a while in silence. Papa had always told her that marriage was a duty to the kingdom. He made it sound so… empty. But she saw the way he and Mama looked at each other. She knew there was love there. If love was all it took… "I don't know, Anna. It seems strange."
"Fine. I didn't wanna marry you anyway!" She said angrily, dropping the blanket and stomping over to her bed.
Elsa looked over her shoulder in shock. "Anna?"
"Leave me alone! You're mean." Anna huffed as she tried to climb into her bed, tiny sniffles carrying well in the silent room.
"Anna, wait, I wasn't trying to-"
"If you don't wanna marry me then just say so! You don't have to make it sound so bad."
"No, just hold on, I thought we were playing! It's just a game, right?" Elsa felt awful now. She hadn't meant to hurt her little sister.
"Then what's the big deal! It's not strange that I want to marry you if I love you. Mama said so."
"I don't think that's what she meant."
"That's what she said, and I believe her!" Anna cried out.
The ticking clock taunted Elsa as she tried to think of what to say. Why was she being so weird about this? It was just a game. If Anna wanted to end the story with a wedding, then what was the harm? "You're right, Anna. I'm sorry. We can get married."
Anna peered up from her pillow, a pout on her lips. "Don't wanna."
"Why not?"
"It only works if both of us want it with our whole heart. Mama said that too."
Why had Elsa never asked their mother about this? She made marriage sound much more fun than Papa ever did.
"My whole heart?" Elsa repeated quietly.
Anna nodded, her face buried in the pillow once more.
"This isn't just a game anymore, is it, Anna?"
No response beyond a minute shake of her head.
"Listen, I'll admit that Mama makes marriage sound way better than I was imagining, but we are far too young. If I promise to marry you when we're older, will you forgive me?"
Her little sister hunched her tiny shoulders in a shrug, and Elsa couldn't help stroking a bright red braid of hair. "I promise, Anna. We'll always have each other, okay? When we're older, and we still love each other just as much as we do now, then we can get married. We'll defeat dragons and protect Arendelle and we'll live happily ever after. Together. Does that sound nice?"
Anna looked up from her pillow with reddened eyes, tears on her cheeks. When she nodded, her small smile lit up Elsa's entire world. She felt the prickle of tears as well. Her heart was full, no longer being squeezed tight by Anna's sadness and disappointment. "I love you, Anna."
"I love you too," Anna said, reaching her arms out for a hug. When Elsa bent over, Anna wrapped her arms tightly around her. "You're my favorite person, you know. Even over Mama."
Elsa's throat felt tight. She tried to keep it in, but a choked sob burst forth and Anna just held on even harder.
"W-we should clean up this mess," Elsa tried, but Anna just shook her head, rolling over and making room for Elsa to lie down.
"I'm tired, and now that the thunder is gone, the sky is finally going to sleep!"
Elsa laughed painfully, her throat still constricted with emotion, but she sidled up next to Anna and soon drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Promises made were not forgotten, but the world takes little heed of a child's wishes. It would be years before they were able to seize their own happiness, but the spirit of that fateful promise remained in their hearts, always.