This was/is being written for astrarisks as a Christmas present because you deserve something really nice (um, I hope it's really nice). I will probs go through and edit again, but like all of my stories, I actually have a plan for this one.

Inspired by Angel!Anna/Elsa headcanons, His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, and swing my heart across the line, by astrarisks :)

part one | a bouquet of genetic disposition

❄︎

She is born two days before the new year; the colour red paints the sky as token of good fortune, and people cheer and light firecrackers, scaring away bad spirits and omens. No one sleeps until all are gone and the houses are lit up as tribute, fragrant candles offerings to Gods unnamed and unseen.

They decide, within seconds of her entering the world, that she is inauspicious. They do not swath her in luck; no red finds its way into her crib, nor lucky coins. The room is silent as though inviting bad spirits, and not a single word is spoken in her presence.

She does not cry as her parents do, for there is no cure for a non-Natural non-human. There will be no luck nor fortune in her future, and they refuse to give her spirit any hope.

Why? Because she is alone in the world. She has no Sjel to accompany her, unlike her mother's red fox and her father's wolf. They look on in barely concealed horror at the little girl, so naked in her mother's arms without the protection of her own Sjel. And as the new parents cry together, their Sjels finding comfort in each other, they think of nothing but their daughter, cursed by a Heaven she will never be allowed to enter.

The baby with blonde hair will forever be cursed; it is only fitting that they begin now.

They name her after Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, that she will give her wealth to help the poor. She will give her life to help others because she's a Sjelløs, non-human, and that's all she is destined to do.

Their little Elsa.

❄︎

Family does not come to wish them well, or offer condolences. Agdar and Idun mark the passing of a year alone by moving to a reservation as their little girl begins to show her peculiarities. As people begin to notice her missing Sjel.

They point and stare and look at Elsa as though she is a freak. She is a freak.

People who don't have Sjels don't exist. They perish, because how can one live when such an integral part is missing? Those people and their Sjels ignore the way she watches them with bright, intelligent eyes, shooting their own pitying glances that echo Idun's thoughts that every day is a blessing because it won't be long—can't be long–until there is no more Elsa.

People without Sjels don't survive.

And everyone knows it. There have been experiments, see, long since outlawed, that tore and ripped and shredded through that invisible, sacred bond. Because no one can be apart from their Sjel; to do so is to drown, a tsunami crashing down on a mountain, flooding every valley with utter anguish and fear because they're being ripped apart where no one should ever be ripped. Life is a journey you make together; you are never alone. You enter the world, a little Sjel clasped in your hands, and you leave it together, separate, and yet still one being.

People without Sjels don't survive.

That is why Elsa is an anomaly. She is alone.

Her parents sit and watch as she sits in silence, hours upon hours spent gazing at Fåmælt and Hjertelig, her father and mother's Sjels. Fåmælt, much like Agdar, is still and silent. She sits from afar, watching over Elsa like a guardian because Elsa doesn't have her own.

Apparently, Sjels can talk, but not once does Elsa ever hear her parents' speak. They snuffle and whimper on occasion, but they are, to her, simply animals. Intelligent ones, yes, but uncommunicative.

Elsa doesn't see the way she appears to them. Fåmælt can see the emptiness in the little girl and wishes beyond all measure for just a moment of touch, a soul to a human, to comfort her.

It is, alas, impossible, and though Hjertelig is less wary when approaching Elsa, his reddish fur as warm as he himself, he does not—cannot—be near her for long.

It's no fault of his own, even as Idun holds her daughter as much as possible, as though her presence might make up for the lack of Elsa's own Sjel. But he can tell that she isn't... she isn't right.

Agdar and Idun talk some nights, after Elsa has been put to bed. Their daughter isn't afraid of bogeymen. As she grows, she doesn't beg or plead for a story to whisk her away to dreamland. She is calm and collected, reserved and obedient, and perhaps that's the worst of it because she's not a zombie—not like other children, the ones whose Sjels were torn from them. She simply... doesn't feel.

Agdar and Idun seek comfort in each other, and comfort in Fåmælt and Hjertelig, but it's not actually enough because they know that Elsa does not have the same chance.

She was born alone and she will die alone, and there will be no one in between to fill the gap because there will always,always be someone missing.

❄︎

She will sit in silence for hours, attention grasped by nothing but the glow-in-the-dark stars tacked to her ceiling and walls. She crawls and points and questions with looks and frowns. Her dainty hands grasp at fireflies invisible to others, pulling along strings that no one else can see. Her gaze is captured by the corner of the room as though there is somethingthere, just beyond the shadows of the world.

It is the only time she smiles.

And when she grows a little and begins walking, her parents watch on in abject anticipation with each new milestone, waiting for the day she does perish because how long can one truly survive? She laughs, once, for a reason hidden from all but her, and it sets Idun off in a flurry of tears as she cradles her little girl, Elsa looking at her mother with wide, clueless eyes.

She sees her parents' Sjels play, as her parents do. She watches from beyond the boundaries of their room as the four trade gentle touches while she is excluded because you do not touch another's Sjel; there is but one exception, and that is True Love.

And her parents love her, she knows, but it's not enough because she's not like them. It's not a true love and as she grows, five, six, seven years passing, she understands.

Because she might maybe love them but she doesn't know for certain. She can love with the heart of her, but even then, it's not quite the same. She doesn't have a Sjel to love with, so how can anyone truly love her?

And she can't begrudge them, either, for not being able to love her with more than the heart of them.

The knowledge is a heavy weight in her gut, but it doesn't hurt even when it should.

Perhaps that's the saddest part.

❄︎

The other children on the reservation avoid her like the plague and she sees it but can do nought but stand and watch, offering handfuls of snow as though it might make them fear her a little less.

It doesn't make her feel sad.

She's eight, and all she wants to do is build a snowman.

And so, she does. With carrot noses and coal eyes, she talks to the snowman because they are her friends. She names one 'Olaf' and another 'Marshmallow', and both seem right but don't feel it.

She makes it her mission to find the right name for the right snowman. It takes her two whole seasons before she creates the perfect one.

She calls it Anna, and thinks that maybe she could cry when it eventually melts.

The other children are scared of her—Elsa Àrnadalr, the 'girl' who barely deserves that title because she's not reallyhuman, is she?

They don't understand when she plays in the snow, oblivious to the biting wind and chilled powder. They push and shove and ignore her because she's different, and Different People should be feared. How can she even be alive without a Sjel? She's a witch, a sorcerer. Monster.

She's someone less than everyone else.

Childhood will only protect her for so long. Her parents dread the day she, or anyone else, realises just how special she is, their little Elsa. Their little girl with a too-bright smile that those people claim is painted and mischievous personality they claim is false. No one sees the truth behind them because they don't want to.

Because a Sjel has always defined someone, and without one, isn't that a sign?

She's nothing.

❄︎

She's ten when she finally goes to school. She watches the principle stamp a menacing red sign of "Sjelløs" on her file, and she watches as it is locked in a drawer, away from prying eyes.

She's told, in no uncertain terms, that it is not to protect her, but to protect her classmates, to protect the school. She should not be here, she realises, and her parents hand over a hefty envelope that pays more for silence than it does tuition.

The school is busy, out of the way, underfunded. Nobody cares that she is there.

She's used to people not caring about her. These people don't push. They don't shove. There isn't that air of uneasy not-acceptance. They simply don't see her, and she's... happy with that.

She is because she doesn't have to see them. She sits in the back of the class and takes down notes and never raises her hand.

She's a ghost, gliding through the hallways, only a cool breeze to mark the fact that she was ever there at all.

❄︎

It's one month into that first year at her first school when she accidentally touches another's Sjel.

She doesn't mean to, it's just that the library is packed and there's no room to move. She's got her head down, carrying her books, not really watching where she's going. Her arms are wrapped around thick textbooks, dog-eared and smelling of thick musk that isn't unpleasant.

They are heavy, though, and one slips from the pile, desperately seeking the freedom of the ground. She watches it fall, a look of mild shock upon her face; it doesn't really matter, though. It doesn't land on her foot. It's a simple matter to just pick it up and carry on her way.

Except, when she stands up once more, there's a sharp pain in the back of her head, as though a rock has collided with it, before that pain is drowned out by a screaming in her chest. She stumbles forward, books falling as she gasps for breath, choking on nothing.

She lands on the floor, curling inwards as much as possible, holding herself together as she convulses.

There's a wretched feeling in her stomach and her chest, and she feels like she might be sick. Her eyes close, not clenching, as she attempts to calm her breathing.

It seems to take hours for her body to calm down, and by that stage, there's a circle surrounding her, watching on with wary eyes. Even the teachers don't dare approach her as she rolls to her feet, head bowed.

In front of her is a girl, no older than she, with hazel eyes and thick brown hair, a tawny owl clasped in her hands.

Elsa wonders what she felt, if her own reaction to touching the Sjel was so violent.

She scrambles away, away from accusing eyes and horrified stares, and the books that lay forgotten.

❄︎

She spends her days dreaming of blue skies and clear nights. Her father buys her a telescope for her 12th birthday and she catalogues the Heavens for hours on end, marking notes and creating charts that cover her walls in something pure.

It does little to make her feel less alone, but at least now, she has a tangible reason she can tell herself. At least here, eyes turned upwards, she can tell herself that everyone else is alone, too, eventually. Their Sjels will vanish into the night and become everything as their bodies crumble to dust.

It doesn't work, really, those thoughts, so she usually tries to keep her mind from straying to such topics. Perhaps one day in the future, she will be able to look up and imagine, but that day is not this day. Philosophising and self-reflection have always suited her, always come too easy

She wonders, instead, what it would be like to fly amongst the stars, to walk in their light and be free. She doesn't know if the thought makes her happy or sad.

But that doesn't bother her as much as it should, she thinks, because when she looks up at the galaxies swirling, she feels safe. There's a power greater than she, and there's a power greater than anything anyone can do to her, and when she looks up, she doesn't feel so alone. She doesn't feel so lost.

When she looks up, she sees a future that couldn't possibly exist anywhere else than in that moment as everything fades away like an old photograph, until it is but a memory, the only evidence it ever existed a faded sepia, the subjects forgotten save for their smiles.

❄︎

Her parents hug her as she stares at the stars, counting each one, wondering if her Sjel is up there somewhere.

They don't say anything when she asks if she will ever find her Sjel. They don't believe her when she says she can feel it, just out of reach. You can't be separated from your Sjel and survive. She is different, but not that different. Agdar and Idun, and Fåmælt and Hjertelig, they merely stand there, just out of bounds, silently. They don't say anything.

There's nothing to say, she supposes.

❄︎

Everything manifests at puberty.

She'd think that perhaps she is human after all, except it's more than just her growing up. It's more than her just getting boobs and changing shape.

After all, how many people develop cryokinetic abilities?

So, not only is Elsa a Sjelløs, she's a Hybrid. Someone who truly cannot claim to be all human because she can createice and snow. Someone that other people don't talk about, feigning ignorance Her mother holds her close, crying, and her father buys her a pair of thick gloves to hide it, and she knows.

Because Hybrid rights have come a long way in the last thirty years. Sure, there's still discrimination, but it's by no means as common nor accepted now. They're protected by confidentiality laws and Hybrid Equality Now, an organisation to help those who are... different.

They can't help Elsa. Her whole life she's been told she's no human and now...?

Now she's starting to believe them.

She's fifteen when she grows tall and slim and beautiful. Her eyes remain a pale, piercing blue that watch and observe, and her hair is braided in a plait that hangs loosely over her shoulder in an imitation of the one her mother used to do for her as a child.

They don't really touch her anymore, and she both craves and abhors the little contact they give her.

And, with the release of the Human(?) Growth Hormone, she begins to notice other changes that other little girls don't go through.

The nightmares—night terrors—when she sleeps. If she sleeps. She sees things in the corner of her eye that no one else seems to see. Teal and Red.

The snow.

The first time they occur, she is on her own. They all lead to each other, connected in ways she can't decipher because she spent so long looking out and not looking in. She doesn't understand herself.

So when she wakes, heart thumping, blaring in her ears like a warning siren, she almost feels like maybe she could cry if she was capable of it. Her clock ticks out an uncomfortable metronomic, monotonic tone, echoing in the chilled air. She knows it's precisely 3:47 in the morning without needing to look.

She's hot and sweating, trembling uncontrollably even in the cold room, and perhaps the scariest part is that she doesn't know why. She can't remember her dream—she can never remember her dreams—but it was enough to wrench her back into consciousness. Wiping a hand over her face, she takes several slow, steadying breaths.

Her eyes flick up and for a second, there is a pierce of teal and a flash of red before it fades, never there at all. There's something familiar and oh so comforting, like a place she once visited but has forgotten all but the sensation. Something new and exciting and she wants it to come back. She wants it to be tangible.

She must be seeing things, though, because red is not a colour she is allowed, on her person or in her room. Red is forbidden.

But when she stands from her bed, the silky sheets falling to the side as her feet run over the floor, she's given her third surprise because it's not soft carpet she feels. It's a comforting mix of cool snow—fluffy powder—resting atop a thin layer of frost that doesn't hurt her feet nor trip her over as she steps up and makes her way to her door.

It's snowing in her room and once more, she doesn't know if this would be the occasion to laugh or cry, and so she settles for simple awe.

She doesn't need a drink of water anymore; the beat of her heart slows against the inside of her chest as she sinks to the floor and maybe this is her Sjel; not an animal, but a gift. A single, solitary snowflake bursts from the tip of her finger, exploding into a thousand more like the world's most expensive firework, drifting diamonds to the floor.

And Elsa smiles.

❄︎

Elsa no longer spends her nights looking to the stars. Sometimes she will spend an hour tracking Jupiter or Saturn, but more often than not she will sit in the corner of her room, surrounded by ice and snow, and just... be.

The snowmen she builds here are perfect, and sometimes she imagines they talk back to her as she creates them. She swears she hears their voices lulling her to sleep, soft and gentle and beautiful, a flurry of snow across a transparent lake.

She doesn't know how to defrost anything yet, but that's okay because that makes the snowmen something that doesn't leave her.

She has a Sjel, now. It may not be the same as everyone else's, but it's there, protecting her. She locks herself away, the times she's not at school, and builds and creates.

She sometimes sees that same flash of red, but never longer than a second. Never anywhere but the corner of her eye.

She builds magnificent ice statues, sequestered away. They don't melt as fast as other statues do, and that simple fact catches the attention of a small arts college barely an hour's drive away. With such a talent, it's easy to win the scholarship that ensures her place within their walls.

They don't seem to mind that she doesn't have a Sjel. They don't know she's a Hybrid, but that closely-guarded secret is something she'll take with her to her grave. She needs something to be just hers.

She's twenty when she makes the move, Agdar and Idun wishing her teary farewells as Fåmælt and Hjertelig watch on in silence. Elsa smiles, though, because there's no reason to be sad. She'll see them again.

❄︎

She's at a train station when the apparition appears once more. Teal and Red. Teal and Red.

She's sketching a new ice design, the sounds of bells and people fill her ears rhythmically like the ticking of a clock, when she glances up. A gasp tears from her throat and her eyes widen, and it mattered not what she told herself because she couldn't she can't tear her gaze away.

The teal and red materialise into something solid, and for the first time in... forever... Elsa finds herself making eye contact. This other person, this girl... sees her.

Teal and Red.

And she doesn't know what to make of it.

They're on opposite platforms, separated by two train lines. A tinny voice crackles over the speaker, and Elsa is dimly aware that her train is pulling into the station. That small fact only truly registers when she's forced to break eye contact with the strange girl, the locomotive cutting them off.

An immense wave of emotion washes over Elsa, and for a second, she can't breathe. She can neither react to it nor identify it, and in another life, she knows she'd be scared. Right now, in this moment, she only wonders why.

Then, she turns to the right and Teal and Red is standing right there, impossibly close, a soft smile on her face, and the world fades to nothing around them. Elsa is captivated by her eyes, and how this girl is a magnet—a positive to her negative.

"Hello, Elsa," she says quietly, like a whisper of summer carried in on a winter breeze; the breath leaves Elsa's body in one fell swoop, because she knows this girl. Somehow, somewhere. In another life, or a different life. She knows this girl.

People push past, unseeing and unfeeling, but they don't touch, and there is a feeling in Elsa's stomach that she can't place. It's soft and warm and right.

There is sorrow in the girl's eyes, and she leans up to Elsa, emanating familiarity and comfort. Elsa wants to close her eyes and have the world stop, but of course it doesn't. The world has never heard her prayers—why would it start now?

Instead, it's she who freezes as a warm breath washes over her ear and the girl pulls her close, wrapping her in a freckled hug. Elsa doesn't know what to make of it—how long has it been since she was last touched like this?—but it doesn't matter because it feels... safe.

Even when the girl whispers with an impossible softness, "I'm sorry," it still seems perfect.

And then she's gone, lips lingering on Elsa's cheek for a moment before she vanishes.

By the time the blonde has gained her wits, her train has left and the station is empty.

Nothing has ever felt more perfect. Nothing has ever felt more right that the touch of tender lips on her barely-freckled cheek. Even now, Elsa cannot hardly remember what the girl looked like and she sinks to the floor, scrabbling for her charcoal and paper because she needs to remember what Teal and Red looked like. It's not an option.

There was something different about the girl. Different in a way that Elsa is different. It isn't in the way she just appeared. It isn't in the warmth and softness. It isn't in the apology, whatever that means.

She's halfway home, hours late, when she realises.

The girl was alone. She didn't have a Sjel, either.

❄︎

She fades slightly, Teal and Red, only to be thought about when Elsa's eyes align with the sketch blu-tacked to her dorm room. She fades like a candy-wrapper, left too long in the sun, or an old toy tucked away in the corner of an attic. She's still there, but not quite.

Elsa wonders sometimes if her powers really could be thought of as her Sjel; they aren't as comforting as they once were. She builds and creates others like herself, others of ice.

They, like her, don't have a soul. They cannot laugh or cry. She sees a piece of herself reflected in each one and maybe it hurts. She doesn't know.

She wants to see the girl again.

❄︎

It's Christmastime and Elsa has asked her parents to visit. She knows it's against the norm—students go home for Christmas, not have their parents come to school—but they say nothing.

She doesn't have a roommate, so there's no one to ask if they'll mind.

It's three days before the celebratory day, one week before her birthday, when the knock resounds against her door. There's no bounding in excitement to see her Mama and Papa, but there is still a spring that had been missing the last two decades of her life.

That's why she invited them, Elsa knows. She knows a lot more now, it seems. She knows that what she feels is real, no matter how small. Her Sjel is coming home, maybe. Or someone in the Heavens finally answered her prayers. She doesn't care. She wants to see her parents and be able to cry with them, not in sadness, but with joy.

The uniformed officer, her falcon of a Sjel on her shoulder, crushes that dream with two words.

"I'm sorry."

And Elsa thinks that it should be raining, to mark the day. There should be something more remarkable because there needs to be good along with bad. She's had too much bad,

But it isn't. The skies are clear and bright and Elsa hates it like she's never hated it before.

It's Christmas and her parents were coming to see her.

Were.

But now they're not. Their car is trapped in the grill of a truck and their smushed against it like bugs.

And... the thought hurts in a way it never really hurt before. Because Elsa knows now that her parents loved her and that she was capable of the same love. It just came too late.

She collapses against the door, her breath caught in her throat. She blinks and her eyes align on a solitary figure, standing across the road beneath a birch tree.

Teal and Red.

I'm sorry.

And there's a flash of pain in her chest and she stumbles forward. The woman in the uniform catches her but Elsa's still staring past her at the place the girl was standing, vision blurring in a way that is completely foreign and unfamiliar andexcruciating.

For the first time in her life, Elsa Àrnadalr, twenty-two-year-old Sjelløs Hybrid, cries.

For the first time in her life, she feels human.

Sjel, and Sjelløs, mean 'Soul' and 'Soulless' in Norwegian.

Please let me know if I need to do more world-building. The more au-type stories are practise for one I have planned for the future :) For those waiting on Scarf, there will be another three chapters :) This one will be 4 total, all of which I have titles for but nothing written.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and astrarisks, I hope this made your day a little better :)

[reuploaded 2014-12-31. added words and plot and shit]