The early morning light made its way above the treetops, lighting up an awaiting little girl's eyes. She sprung up, her red hair sticking almost straight up as she made her way to her older sister's bed. She shook the sleeping form endlessly, making the young girl buried underneath the sheets and blankets groan in exhaustion.
"Elsa, wake up!" She whispered to her sister.
"Go back to sleep, Anna." She muttered, rolling onto her stomach. Anna humphed, jumping onto her sister so they were back to back.
"I can't! The sun's awake, so I'm awake, so we have to play!" She sighed dramatically.
"Go play by yourself." Elsa rolled over partially so that her sister fell off her back and onto the floor. The youngest sat there, devising plans to get her sister out of bed. After a few minutes, a final plan had been made, which almost guaranteed her elder sister's awakening. She stood up and rested her chin on the edge of Elsa's bed.
"Do you wanna go ice skating?" She asked her older sister. The girl lifted her black-curled head, turning her mischievous grin unto Anna. The two girls raced out of the room, Anna giggling all the way down to the ball room, holding her sister's hand as Elsa tried to keep her quiet on the early morning adventure. When they reached the large oak doors to the ballroom, Anna swung them forward to let herself in. Elsa shut the doors behind them, her back to the large oak panels. She practically tip-toed to where her sister stood in the middle of the gigantic room, stopping in front of her. Anna jumped up and down in anticipation in the middle of the room.
"Do the magic, do the magic!" She urged, making Elsa grin. She swirled her hands in front of her, creating a large orb of water, and threw it up into the air, where it exploded in a swirling mass, causing it to rain down onto them. Anna laughed, holding out her hands to the newly falling water.
"Watch this!" Elsa said, lifting up her foot and slamming it into the ground, making a two inch layer of water to form at her feet, where it spread all around the room. "On the count of three, jump!" She told her younger sister."One," She grabbed Anna's small hand in hers. "Two," She bent her knees, making sure Anna did the same. "Three!" They both jumped, and when they landed, the water beneath them turned to ice, forming a massive ice skating rink. Anna giggled again, trying to move, but almost falling on her face. As she was still clutching onto Elsa's hand tightly, she did not fall fully, and Elsa pulled her back onto her feet. Elsa raised her hand slightly, causing thin ice blades to attach themselves to Anna's slippers, creating matching ones on her own feet when she had finished. She moved so that she was facing Anna, and pulled her sister forward. For what seemed like hours, the two skated around the large ballroom. Elsa entertained Anna with her magic endlessly, until the two collapsed next to each other, out of breath and drained of all energy.
"Up you go." Elsa said, heaving herself up and holding a hand out to her sister.
"I can do it myself." Anna stated, a determined and proud look gracing on her small face. In minutes, Anna had managed to get to her knees, and with a little burst of energy, to her feet. "See?" She said, her voice laced with self-pride. She twitched suddenly, sending her feet out from under her, and she landed on her back, hitting her head on the ice.
"Anna!" Elsa shouted, dropping to her knees beside her now-unconscious sister. She rolled her sister onto her back, revealing a large bump, roughly the size of an egg, on the top of her sister's head. Elsa sighed deeply, closing her eyes, willing herself to concentrate. She put her hand on the ice, forcing it to melt into a ball that fit into Elsa's palm. She focused all her energy into making the swelling go down, and the water began to glow with a soft blue light. She placed the orb onto Anna's head, where it encompassed her head, healing the bump and washing away trickles of blood from a small cut in Anna's skin. Elsa smiled inwardly, but she jumped when the doors to the ballroom burst open, revealing her very tired and very worried mother and father.
When Elsa's mother almost slipped on the ice, her eyes widened in fear, clutching to her husband's arm for support. She tried walking further into the room when she stopped suddenly, noticing the body of her unconscious youngest daughter.
"Anna!" She rushed forward, falling and slipping on the ice as her daughter had done moments before, but the queen took no notice of this and pushed herself next to her daughter. "What happened?" She cried loudly, taking Anna's small form into her arms.
"Anna really wanted to play and so we came down here and we skated and then she got up but fell and hit her head." Elsa babbled, looking at her mother, tears filling her eyes. The queen looked at Elsa, silencing her with a look, then back at Anna. For a long while, she looked from Anna to the ice beneath her. As she looked back and forth between her youngest daughter and another new spot on the floor, Elsa's mother developed a kind of look that made Elsa's heart drop deep within her chest, as if something were pressing down on her lungs. Her father seemed to notice this too, as he shifted uncomfortably where he was rooted to the spot in the doorway.
"Ingrid?" He asked timidly, looking both concerned and as scared as Elsa was. The queen did not say or do anything for a long while, and when she finally looked back up at her husband, her stare was colder than the ice she sat upon. Very slowly, she walked over to the king, who seemed to be getting more nervous with each step his wife took.
"Alexander." She began softly. "You will take them both to the trolls, and when you come back, I do not want Anna remembering anything about Elsa's magic." The queen's voice got softer, but more frightening.
"Ingrid, please, it was just an accide-" The king pleaded to his wife, but the hard stare he received made him close his mouth from where his jaw had hung open to continue talking. He sighed, taking Anna from his wife and cradling her in his own arms. "We'll wait before we do anything drastic though, right?" He asked, as if unsure of the answer.
"We will act according to the plan we made a year ago." She said, her voice still soft, but she spoke more sharply, staring straight ahead of her. Elsa still sat in the middle of the room, entranced in fear and confusion by how her mother was acting. She finally stood up, pushing her hand down, letting the ice sink into an evaporated nothingness. Elsa slowly walked over to her mother, reaching out and holding onto her skirt. When she looked up, Elsa saw that she had tears forming in her eyes.
"Mommy?" She asked timidly. The queen looked down, and she looked like she was about to start crying. She reached down and stroked her fingertips along Elsa's face, before closing her eyes, and pulling Elsa's hand away from her dress.
"You should go before dawn." She said, turning down the hallway that led to their bedroom. Elsa's father sighed heavily.
"Come on Elsa." He said, holding out his hand for her. She took his hand lightly, following him as he led her to the stables.
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Elsa held onto the belt of her father's coat as they rode into the mountains. She stayed silent the entire horseback ride to the unknown location, as did the king. While Elsa daydreamed about her mother's strange behavior, her father's mind wandered back to almost a year ago, remembering in almost perfect detail the conversation he and his wife and been forced to have.
"We cannot let this go, Alex. What if she becomes dangerous, like-" His wife stood in front of the window, gazing out across Arendelle.
"I know Ingrid, but if we lock her up it could make it worse, and you know that." He walked over slowly, putting his hands on his wife's shoulders. "I know you don't want another repeat of your sister but we can't let her suffer because of what happened in the past."
"She killed my family, Alexander, and then ran off. I never wanted my children to have to go through this but now that Elsa inherited it..." The queen trailed off, tears forming in her eyes. "No one can know about this, Alex, but we can't let her turn into a monster." The queen said sadly.
"We need to at least give her a chance. If she hurts anyone, whether on accident or not, we'll deal with it. But for now, she needs to know that we trust her."
After what seemed like forever, the horse they were riding on slowed to a trot, and then the forest they had been riding through opened up into a rock-filled clearing.
"Hello." The king said loudly. "We request the help of the trolls." The seemingly randomly placed rocks shook violently, before springing to life, opening up to reveal living beings. A path opened up in the middle of the small rock people, and a large, worn looking troll with a large, mossy cape and straw grass hair rolled forward.
"Your majesty." He said, bowing.
"We need help." The king said remorsefully.
"Whatever you need."
"Elsa has, a, um, a gift, that my wife wants you to keep from growing and, she wants you to erase Anna's memory of Elsa's gift. Permanently." He held out the still sleeping Anna, gently pushing Elsa forward so that the troll could inspect her further.
"Was she born or cursed." He asked, looking intently at Elsa, who shied away, trying to push past her father's hand to hide behind him.
"Um, born." The king stuttered, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her in place.
"And what powers do you have, my dear?" He asked kindly. Elsa concentrated for a few moments, before opening her hands to reveal an intricate flower, made out of water. She tapped it, turning it to ice.
"We cannot rid her of them completely, they have developed too much." The troll said, cupping his rough, rock hands around Elsa's small ones. "But we can restrain them, even if a bit." The king sighed with relief. "But I want you to make sure that she keeps training herself to control them, not to try and keep it hidden." He insisted, looking over towards the king. "Your powers can be very great, causing many to marvel." He looked back towards Elsa, and lifted a hand into the air, showing what seemed to be a much older Elsa showing off her magic to a crowd, made of swirling mist. "But if you try to hide them, they will grow stronger, and more restless, you could hurt someone." Suddenly the picture turned dark, and the crowd around the copy Elsa enveloped her, looks of anger on their non-existent faces. Elsa gasped, grabbing her father's hand with her free one. "The most dangerous place to strike someone is their soul. It drowns them, figuratively speaking. It leaves them unable to function, or even die, but they are still very much alive. And sadly, I am unable to heal or fix a drowned soul." The troll looked down, before looking back up at Elsa. "I have a stone, it is special, created as a sort of conductor. It will help to lower your magic's power, and will help you become able to control it as it grows`." He walked towards what seemed to be a cliff face, but upon resting his hand there, revealed a hidden cave. He pulled out a clean cut crystal, a dark purple that swirled with light blues and sea greens, glowing faintly. Elsa smiled, taking it gently from the troll's hands and looking at it with fascination. "You will need to wear it at all times, so figure out where you will put it so that it never leaves your person." Elsa furrowed her eyebrows in concentration. Finally, she focused her mind focused on a shape, she turned the flower she was still holding into a chain, large enough for her to slip on and off her head without a clasp. She carefully made a small and intricately carved top, roughly the size and diameter of the top of the crystal she had been given. She slipped the top onto the crystal, shrinking the ice so that it fit perfectly without worry of the crystal falling out. When Elsa was done, she closed her hand around her new creation, turning it into a kind of metal, never-melting ice. She put the chain around her neck, and the crystal laid an inch or so below her collarbone. Elsa smiled.
"And now for your other daughter." The troll walked the few steps over to the king and Anna. The troll lifted his hand, touching Anna's forehead lightly. Memories materialized above Anna's head, all picturing her and Elsa, whether ice skating or dancing underneath Elsa's rain in the ballroom or their bedroom. In an instant, all the backgrounds changed to a frozen pond or a forest clearing, and the girl's acquired both boots and coats. When the troll was done, he turned his head to the king. "She will be alright."
"Thank you so much." He said, quickly repositioning Anna in his arms and turning to leave.
"Thank you, too." Elsa piped, quickly following her father. The king took one last look towards the large family of mountain trolls, before lifting his daughters' up onto their horse, beginning the ride back to Arendelle.