Frozen 1. Smores

Winter in Arendelle was unforgivably cold this year. Thick layers of snow covered every house, every street, every bridge, in its freezing cold blanket, fountains had been turned to ice statues, icicles hung precariously along the edges of roofs like see-through daggers and the air was certainly below freezing, causing breath to come out in wisps of visible vapour. Not even the royal family were prepared for such weather, meaning that many were wearing their cloaks inside – an act permitted by the king himself, to prevent anyone literally freezing to death.

Despite this rather dark, miserable night, however, the royal family tried to make the most of it, as the king and queen had a rare and precious evening free of work, one of which they intended to spend with their youngest daughter of 6, Anna. At the request of the young princess, who longed for something fun to do since the rest of her day had been rather dull with no one to play with – her older, 9 year old sister, Elsa, had locked herself away in her room a year ago and had yet to come out, despite young Anna's pleas -, the royal family sat in the library in front of the fireplace, blankets wrapped around them as they made smores.

They were all having fun and Anna's mouth was covered in chocolatey-marshmallowy goodness, but that changed soon after the queen wiped the mess from her daughter's face, the strawberry-blonde little princess looking to the space beside her, where Elsa should be. Why couldn't Elsa spend time with the family? Why did she always have to miss out on the fun? Why wouldn't she ever play with Anna anymore? Anna always asked, but no one ever really answered, so this time she decided to change tactics.

"Mama, Papa, can I take a smore to Elsa, please?" Big blue pleading eyes gazed at her parents, who both exchanged a look which Anna would come to understand in the distant future as the look of someone with a secret, a sad, scary secret, and after what seemed like forever to the young child, her father addressed her with a sad smile.

"Leave it outside her room, Anna, but don't go in; it would be best not to disturb your sister." Despite the soft words, the tone was more commanding, not even giving Anna a chance to at least peek into Elsa's room. Frowning slightly, the little princess nodded, taking a napkin and a smore and heading upstairs towards Elsa's room.

The further away Anna got from the warm fire of the library, and the closer she got to her sister's room, the colder it got. Her blanket left behind, goose bumps crawled up Anna's arms, though she tried to ignore it, because she _had _to give the smore to Elsa, so that she could feel like being a part of the fun too (and maybe her sister would answer some of Anna's questions). Eventually the princess got to the big white door, adorned with paintings of simple blue flowers and took a deep breath, knocking on the door which seemed to be even colder than the air around her with her usual, rhythmic 'Dun, dun, da-dun, dun' tapping.

"Elsa? I brought you a smore! Papa said to leave it outside though, so I'm gonna do that, ok?" No response, though there was a slight shuffling noise of someone moving about and, after hearing dead silence for at least a week now, that tiny sound itself brought a beam to Anna's face as she carefully set the smore down on the napkin outside the bedroom door. "We're camping in the library, Elsa! Well, not really because we don't have any tents, but we have blankets, and smores and the fireplace is kinda like a camp fire." Anna sat on the floor, just outside the door, hugging her knees to her chest as she attempted a conversation with Elsa, who must've been just as lonely as she was. "Remember when we went camping that one time and I pushed you into the lake and your dress got all wet? And then you pulled me in for laughing at you?" Was that giggling Anna could hear? The little girl's grin brightened, glad to hear her sister laughing and being happy instead of telling her to go away like she usually did. "That day was fun! We got into trouble a little but it was worth it!"

Silence enveloped both girls for a moment, and Anna was worried that her sister had fallen asleep or something, but she still tried to ask questions anyway.

"… Elsa? Why can't we have fun anymore?" No answer, and if Anna was paying attention to the top of the door, she would've seen frost start forming on it, but instead, she just stared at the wood that was directly in her line of gaze, trying to imagine Elsa on the other side. "Why won't you come out and play with me? I promise I won't tug on your doll's hair anymore, or steal your paint! I just want us to be friends again." And now the laughter had been replaced by sniffles on the other side of the door and Anna's face fell as she realised that her questions had made her older sister sad, which was the last thing she wanted. "I'm sorry, Elsa, I just mi-"

A yawn broke into Anna's sentence. Rubbing her eyes which were suddenly starting to close, Anna gave in. Maybe she could try to set things right tomorrow, when her brain wasn't trying to tell her to go to sleep. "I'm gonna go to bed now, Elsa. Don't forget your smore's out here. If you don't eat it soon, Kai might think you don't want it and take it away. Goodnight."

Her feet dragged against the floor as she moved towards her own bedroom, just down the hall from Elsa's, tiredness slowly taking over her little body. By the time she had clambered into her bed, without even saying goodnight to her mother and father, Anna was sound asleep, curled up underneath the covers, as well as several blankets, cuddling her doll to her chest.

The next morning, as Anna emerged from her room and began running down the hall, intent on having a yummy, warm breakfast on a cold winter's day, the young princess slipped on something by Elsa's door, sending her skidding down the hall until the lack of balance caused her to topple over, landing flat on her face with an, "Oomf!" Princess Anna didn't start crying like normal 6 year olds would, however. Instead, she just sat up, rubbing her face with a wince before staring down curiously at the piece of paper she had slipped on. Picking it up, she studied the words written on it:

'Thank you ~ Elsa ~'

A glance to the big white door showed that the smore had vanished. Elsa had eaten it! And given Anna a note! That was the most progress she had ever made! A smile to rival the Cheshire cat's spread across Anna's tiny features and she got up, running back towards Elsa's door. Knocking once more, she said, "You're welcome, Elsa!" through the keyhole before making her way downstairs to breakfast again.

Despite the winter weather being cold and grey, Anna was filled with warmth and brightness for the rest of the day, all because of three little words on a piece of paper.


	2. Handmade Cards

**Author's Note: Wow, wasn't expecting so much love for the first chapter (Smores)! I'll be keeping this up from now on (When I don't have homework, that is), and I'll probably be accepting prompts after chapter 3, which is already being formulated in my head thanks to a friend giving me an idea. Anyway, I just want to say that these stories aren't going to be in any chronological order, since it's literally just random ideas popping into my mind so... Yeah. This one's set about a week after the accident, so Anna's 5 and Elsa's 8 and Anna has no idea why her sister hasn't been around for the past week. Oh! And this is also set before Elsa gets her gloves from her father. On top of that, please excuse grammar/spelling issues as a certain someone has fallen ill and her brain doesn't work as well when she's ill. Anyway, I'm going to shut up now! Enjoy!**

Anna's P.O.V

All Anna could do to stop her boredom was play with her food. It was normal for important people from other countries to join them for dinner, but this was the first time Anna had had to suffer through it without Elsa. On a normal day, the King and Queen would listen to stories of what their youngest daughter had done that day – painting, drawing, playing with her dolls, typical 5 year old activities – and Anna loved the attention she received as she embellished the details of her stories to make her day sound even more exciting and adventurous than it really was, but on days like these, the entire mealtime conversation was centred around treaties, trade agreements and alliances, things too serious and complex for a child's mind to comprehend.

Without her older sister to make whispered jokes about the visiting French ambassador behind his back – and with the incredibly long grey-brown beard and barely a hair on top of his head, not to mention his stick-like figure, there were a _lot _of jokes she could have made - Anna was left to roll a yucky brussel sprout around her plate with her fork, trying to imagine that it was a ball and that she was the fork, playing outside in the courtyard, kicking the ball around. She tried to imagine Elsa there too, running around before calling to Anna to kick the ball her way. Of course, Anna kicked the ball to her big sister…

And the sprout rolled off of her plate, across the purple satin tablecloth, bumping into the French ambassador's forearm. Big blue eyes widened and the fork dropped onto the plate as the princess snapped out of her daydream, looking rather like a startled bunny. All eyes fell on her with disapproval, making her feel smaller than she already was. Sure, Anna liked attention, but not this kind of attention! Slowly, Anna reached out to the escaping vegetable and-

"Anna." Her mother's voice, while soft, held a stern tone behind it as her eyes looked towards Anna's outstretched hand. Oh, yeah, table manners! The little strawberry blonde picked up her fork once again, stabbed the brussel sprout, and returned it to her plate, refusing to eat it now; who would want to eat a gross vegetable that had touched a wrinkly old man's arm?

As Anna returned to her food silently, the French ambassador cleared his throat, addressing the King of Arendelle.

"I see that your oldest daughter is not here, your majesty." He pointed out, gesturing to the empty seat which Anna had begged her parents to reserve for Elsa, just in case she made an appearance. "That is a shame; I was hoping to meet the next in line to the throne. If you don't mind my asking, where is Princess Elsa?" The ambassador asked, stroking his long beard in an almost comical way which Anna missed as her gazed focused on the potatoes, as if the action would magically make them do something, _anything, _to entertain her.

"Princess Elsa is… Well, I'm afraid that she is sick." Wait, what? Anna looked up from the plate of food to her father, noting the flash of confusion on her mother's face out of the corner of her eye before it soon disappeared. Elsa was sick? But Elsa hardly ever got sick! Was that why she had locked herself in her room? Was she contagious? Was she ok? Many thoughts of worry and concern for her sister in her mind, but the King would answer all of her questions as he spoke. "She has been rather sick for the past couple of days and is bedridden. I would say that you could go and see her, but her illness is rather contagious." Aha! That explained everything!

"Oh, I see. Well perhaps next time." The French ambassador returned to his meal, as did the King and Queen, but Anna's mind was too preoccupied with the new information to eat. Instead, she couldn't stop thinking about what she could do to make Elsa feel better. Even if she couldn't go near the sick princess, there had to be something she could do, right?

Soon after the meal, which ended with a chocolate cheesecake made by the royal chef (Who had even given Anna chocolate covered strawberries, knowing how much she loved them), the little princess was excused from the table and was free to do whatever she pleased, since the adults had to go through some important documents and would be too busy to spend any time with her.

Anna ran straight into her room and started pulling out her arts and crafts supplies. Paint, different coloured pieces of paper, safety scissors, various coloured crayons and even pretty ribbons were soon surrounding her as Anna sprawled out on her stomach on the floor. She picked a piece of blue card, knowing that Elsa loved the colour blue, and folded it in half as best as she could before grabbing a paintbrush and dipping it into the yellow paint.

'A happy picture of pretty flowers and sunshine will make Elsa feel better!' The young royal thought as she started painting the sun in the corner, her tongue stuck out to the side in concentration as the paintbrush was next dipped into the black paint to add the sun's smiling face. Next came the flowers, which Anna also painted, using yellow for the centres, red for the petals, and green for the stalks and leaves. Being a 5 year old, the flowers looked more like splodges than works of art, but it was the thought that counted, and Elsa would understand that. Finally came some grass in green crayon, and little stick figures with happy faces, an arrow pointing to the shorter one saying 'Me' and an arrow pointing to the other saying 'You'. Princess Anna impatiently waited for the paint to dry, trying to entertain herself with some pink ribbon, before tying the ribbon around the centre of the card. Last of all, she added a note to her sister on the inside of the card:

'To Elsa

I'm sorry you are sick and can't play with me!

I made you a happy card to make you feel better :)

Get well soon! I miss playing with you and making jokes about visitors!

Love Anna'

Done! Elsa was going to love it! Without even bothering to pack her supplies away, Anna ran out of her room with the handmade card and headed towards her sister's door, yelling 'Elsa! Elsa! I've got something for you!' loud enough for everyone to hear as she did so.

Elsa's P.O.V

Ice blue eyes snapped up from her book on Arendelle's history as she heard her name loud and clear from down the hall. She'd know that voice anywhere and, with the accident still so fresh in her mind, haunting her nightmares, her daydreams, every thought of her sister, it terrified her. Anna had something to give her? Oh no, what if Anna tried to force her way in? What if she succeeded and Elsa hurt her again? What if-

A gasp escaped her lips and the frost-covered book dropped from her hands and onto her bed, but it didn't stop there; the frost crept across her bed, up the walls and onto the ceiling, threatening to encase the entire room in tiny crystals of ice. No, she had to control it, she _needed_ to control it, otherwise more bad things would happen. The older princess took deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself, tried pushing the fear to the back of her mind, and watched as the frost slowed to a stop, though it refused to disappear, no matter how much she desperately wished it would.

As footsteps began to be heard, getting closer and closer to her door, Elsa leaped from the bed, lunging towards the door and locking it. At least Anna wouldn't be able to force entry now and see her big sister's magic at its worst so far. The footsteps got louder until they paused at the opposite side of the door. The handle turned but, thankfully, it would not open. A knock soon came at the door, a 'Dun, dun, da-dun, dun' that Elsa had heard previously in the week, more than once.

"Elsa, I made a 'Get well soon' card for you! I made it all by myself with no help!" The cheery voice of her copper-haired sister called from the other side, leaving a confused expression on Elsa's naturally pale face as she stared at the door. A 'Get well soon' card? But Elsa wasn't sick, she was just… Dangerous.

"Anna, I'm not-"

"Papa told the French visitor that you have been sick aaaall week, and that it was contagious so no one was allowed to see you." Anna interrupted, "Are you ok? You're going to get better soon, right? Ooh! The card might help you feel better!"

The snow princess felt something hit her foot, causing her gaze to lower to see the handmade card beside her. Blue, sunshine, flowers, ribbon and the two sisters; all the things that Elsa liked. A small smile tilted up the corners of her mouth as she picked up the card, studying the front of it, running her fingertip carefully along the ribbon, half expecting it to freeze beneath her touch. When nothing happened to the silky pink fabric, Elsa breathed a sigh of relief and opened the card to read her sister's scruffy handwriting. A giggle broke through the silence as she read the part about making jokes about the visitors, and the platinum blonde felt her heart warm up (Little did she realise that the air around her began to warm as well, the frost thawing ever so slightly).

From what Elsa gathered, 'being sick' was her father's way of keeping her secret and preventing anyone from trying to see her, which would possibly end up with them being hurt. If this was the result of her father's lie – a precious handmade card from her little sister that Elsa would surely treasure for years to come – then the next in line to the throne didn't mind one bit.

"Soooo… Did it work? Are you feeling better?" Anna broke the silence, and Elsa could hear something pressing against the door, probably Anna's ear trying to hear a response.

"I… Yes," Elsa nodded, though the smile fell a little, "But I don't think I've fully recovered just yet. Give me one more week, ok, Anna?" One week. She could control her powers in a week, right? Perhaps it was optimistic, but if she tried really really hard…

A sigh came from the other side, but the voice that followed didn't seem too downhearted. "Ok, one week. Exactly one week on this day at this time, which is… Uhhh…"

"1:37pm." Elsa supplied her sister as she gazed towards the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, frost still lingering there from the fear she had experienced earlier.

"Right! 1:37pm! I'll come and see you at 1:37pm and then we'll go and play together and catch up on what you've been missing out on this week! Bye Elsa!"

As Anna's footsteps moved further away, Elsa returned to her bed once more, though didn't pick up her book again. Instead, she re-read Anna's card over and over again, looking forward to next week.

Little did either of them know that Elsa's 'Illness' would get worse, meaning that she wouldn't be able to come out of her room for 13 years as her powers grew more and more out of control with age. For the next couple of weeks, Anna would make a handmade card for Elsa every day, with a drawing of something that happened that day as well as a description. It brought some light to Elsa's increasingly darkening world, but eventually stopped when their father complained to Anna about using up her art supplies so fast. Still, those 17 handmade 'Get well soon' cards would be things that the snow princess cherished for decades, as they were the things that kept her strong when times got tough, for it wasn't the quantity or quality of something that made it special, but the love and affection put into that something that truly counted.


	3. Spring's bad and Winter's good

**((Author's note: This one is probably going to seem really drawn out in places and then really short in others and I apologise for that (Someone was unhappy with the small chapter so added loads of unnecessary detail to places DX)! Also I'm still not happy with the end, but I'm not sure how to improve it. I have a few ideas for future chapters but I'll be taking prompts now in case those ideas fall through so send me a prompt in the PMs or something and eventually there'll be a chapter on it. (No Elsanna stuff, I don't roll like that :S) I hope you enjoy this chapter, though if anyone's got some helpful constructive criticism, don't be afraid to speak up! Thanks for reading ^_^ P.S. I don't own the song, it's actually from the Spring Pageant song that never made it to the movie!))**

Elsa often looked out of her bedroom window and gazed down into the town, her blue eyes pausing on every vibrant face, longing to be amongst them, to at least meet the people she would rule one day, but scared of hurting them with her ice powers if she got too close. Today was one of those days, although today was more special than any other day within the past couple of months, as it marked the first day of spring, and hence the kingdom of Arendelle was in the midst of it's spring festival. Sitting in the windowsill, the young princess looked out to the town, to the fjords which sparkled under the sun's radiant light, to the blue skies which brought a much happier feel to the town than the drab grey skies of the previous wintery days. In the town square, flowers were starting to bloom in reds and whites and the occasional purple, opening their petals towards the mid-day sun and posts stood erect in the centre of the streets, a rainbow of streamers from the tops to the ground below. One window in Elsa's bedroom was open, allowing the cool spring air to swirl around. For a moment, she closed her eyes, breathing in the fresh scent of the breeze… And then she stiffened, hearing children playing near the gates, beginning to sing an old folk song:

_Winter's gone and Spring is springing_

_Shines the sun with warmth of old_

_Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Chapel bells are ringing!_

_We're done with being cold_

_Flowers a-bloom with odours pleasant,_

_All of Arendelle is glad!_

_Mother Earth, we thank you for the presents!_

_Spring's good and Winter's bad._

Her eyes flashed open as she glanced at the children, the air getting colder as sadness set in. Elsa hated that song, and yet agreed with it at the same time. 'Winter's bad'. It was not meant to be a personal attack – the song had been around long before Elsa had even been born – but to a girl who could only create winter, it felt like she was being indirectly bullied by the children. Yes, winter was bad; she couldn't deny that fact after witnessing how her ice powers could be dangerous. Not only was it dangerous, however, but the citizens of Arendelle disliked winter and much preferred the spring and summer months when it was warm and sunny and food could grow with ease without having to worry about harsh weather conditions. What would happen if they found out that their future queen could turn everything to ice and snow without even meaning to? What if they realised that she could ruin all of their crops if she simply got angry or scared or even sad? Elsa dared not to find out; it caused frost to cover the sky blue walls out of fear of just thinking about it.

'Conceal it, don't feel it. Don't let it show.'

As the children's joyful laughter disappeared from near the castle gates, Elsa contemplated reading a book to rid herself of thoughts that would only make controlling her powers worse and was about to move away from the window when a blur of strawberry-blonde, with a slight hint of platinum blonde, caught the corner of her eye. Anna was in the courtyard, running towards the gates with a hopeful look on her face, wishing to at least attempt communication over the castle walls, but it was already too late.

"Oh who needs them, anyway?" Elsa heard her younger sister, now 9 years of age, mutter to herself as she kicked at a stone on the ground. Though she could not see Anna's face, the disappointment was clearly evident in her tone of voice. "They're wrong about winter, anyway."

What? They were wrong? What did Anna mean by that? How could the other children be wrong when Elsa had witnessed for herself what winter, ice and snow could do to people if they- if _she_ wasn't careful? Immensely confused by her sister, she rested her gloved hands on the second, closed window, her face pressed up against it as if to get a better view, all senses on edge, awaiting an explanation.

For a moment, nothing happened, then a meowing sound to be heard, causing both girls to look to their left. Their gazes were met by another meow from a tortoiseshell cat that slowly walked towards Anna, clearly seeking attention. 'Since when did we get a cat?' Elsa thought silently to herself. Had her parents bought one to keep Anna company? However, observing the cat more closely, no collar could be seen. Perhaps it had just found its way in through a gap in the wall somewhere.

Anna crouched down, a hand held carefully out towards the cat as it sniffed cautiously, then began rubbing its chin against her fingers. Satisfied with the reaction, the youngest of the royal family sat down, pulling her braided pigtails to rest in front of her shoulders instead of behind them, and stroke the cat affectionately. The cat was not the only one who craved much-needed attention, as Elsa soon discovered upon observing Anna.

"You agree with me, right Mr Whiskers?" Anna asked the feline as it purred softly to her, eyes closed in relaxation as it's silky fur was stroked from head to tail gently. "I think Joan would agree with me too, if she could talk."

First talking to herself, then talking to a cat, and now talking to... Joan? None of the remaining servants were called Joan, Elsa knew that, so who was she? Had her little sister been so deprived of human contact that she had even made up her own imaginary friend? As guilt contorted Elsa's young features, the older princess looked away from Anna, but still continued listening to her sister through the open window.

"I mean, sure it's sunny and the flowers are out and it's all really pretty, but what is there to do in Spring? Especially when you have no one to play with?" There was a pause, a thoughtful look on Anna's face, and then she corrected herself. "Ok, so maybe you can do a _lot_ of things all by yourself, but it's not as fun as playing in the snow and drinking hot chocolate and drawing by a fireplace, you know? Well, you would know if you were human, anyway." Anna smiled down at 'Mr Whiskers' as she scratched him behind the ear, and then she did something which caused Elsa to turn her gaze back to her little sister:

_Spring is nice but it's a killjoy,_

_I just wish they understood_

_No more snowflakes, no more building snowmen_

_Spring's bad and Winter's good._

A small part of Elsa's heart melted upon hearing Anna's sweet, melodic voice sing her own lyrics to the song that the children had sung, and she smiled affectionately down towards the strawberry-blonde princess, who simply continued playing with her new feline friend, humming the tune of the song to herself. Her sister really thought that winter was good and, although Elsa had a lot of evidence to prove otherwise, she couldn't help feeling a tiny bit better knowing that if her secret ever got out - and she prayed that it never would, for the sake of Arendelle's safety, as well as Anna's - at least there would be one person in the entire kingdom who wouldn't fear her. Only one, however, as Elsa had to admitted that sometimes - most of the time - even she was afraid of herself.


	4. Love is stronger than fear

((**Author's note: Chapter 4! My longest one yet! I'm a bit irritated with a few things and I'm not sure about some grammar, but I'm such a perfectionist, so it'll never be posted if I have my way :S Aaanyway, already have chapters 5-7 planned out in my mind (Kind of) But I need your help! Chapter's 5 and 6 are going to be loosely connected, so it's kind of like a two-shot, but I'm not sure which event to write about first: Anna teaching Elsa to dance or Elsa teaching Anna to skate. Yes, major spoilers for the next two chapters, sorry! But I need help deciding which one to write about first sooo... Yeah... Let me know what you think and thanks for reading my drabbles, I hope you enjoy chapter 4 :D P.S. The stars are just there to show where narrator's P.O.V starts and ends ^_^))**

Ever since The Great Thaw, many people saw Princess Anna as a brave, courageous young woman who was willing to face the dangerously cold weathers to bring back the Queen and save Arendelle from freezing to death. The children saw her as some sort of warrior Princess as tales spread through the different friendship groups of how she fought off wolves, snow monsters and even put herself in front of a sword to protect her sister, knowing that she would probably die by doing so. In the wide, dream-filled eyes of those children, and in the thoughts of the adults, Anna was fearless!

But the castle's servants knew otherwise.

Even though Queen Elsa had vowed to never shut her younger sister out again, Gerda, Kai and the other servants would often find Anna outside Elsa's flower-decorated bedroom door, eyes wide as she stared at it. Her hand would raise, hesitate, then lower, and then the process would repeat a couple times before the strawberry-blonde gave in with a defeated sigh and walk off, deciding to wait until dinner to discuss things with the Queen, who was probably too busy to speak with her anyway, or spend time with her. Or maybe Elsa just wouldn't _want _to spend time with her.

Yes, Anna was afraid of rejection. It was foolish since, in the past 5 months, ever since Elsa learnt how to control her powers better, the self-proclaimed Snow Queen had become more open to the Princess, making sure that there was always enough time to spend with her every day, but after 13 years of constantly being told to go away – if she was lucky enough to even get a response from the other side of the door – it had scarred Anna, making her fear that history would repeat itself.

She just couldn't go through rejection again.

'*****'

**Anna's P.O.V**

Today, Anna awoke, as always, later than everyone else; she claimed that everyone else were just early risers, but in truth, she was a bit lazy, especially in the winter months when the warmth of her bed was so, so irresistible. The crown Princess forced her eyes to crack open, wiping the drool from her face as she sat in an upright position, pulling the covers and additional blanket up to her chin in an attempt to fight off the cold air that desperately tried to form goose bumps on her skin. Her blurred vision began to focus with every second that she remained awake, and eventually she could look out her window to the snow gently falling.

Snow. _Snow_! The first genuine snowfall of winter, which was just as magical as any snowfall as her sister made, but perhaps even more special! A grin spreading across her face, Anna rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and rose from the bed, taking the covers with her. Attempting to run to the window for a better look was not a good idea, however, as Anna soon found herself flat on the floor, face-planting the wooden floorboards. Needless to say, she was wide awake now, and in pain.

"Ow! Good morning, floor, thanks for the wake-up call." She grumbled, standing to her feet, cautiously touching her nose and recoiling with a hiss at the sharp shooting pain from it. Anna sure hoped it wasn't broken, but if she had done any serious damage, it would be bleeding, right? Safe in the knowledge that she'd probably just get a bruise there tomorrow, the mess of bedhead continued her journey to the window, her cheerfulness returning upon seeing the snow covering Arendelle in thick layer. Maybe she could go outside in the snow! Maybe she could drag Elsa outside too! An excited squeal escaped Anna's lips at the thought of having fun with her sister as she dropped the blankets, rushing to get dressed.

Anna took pride in how fast she could get ready. Within 5 minutes she had washed, brushed her teeth, tamed the nest of copper hair and dressed in her winter clothing, the same she had worn of July's journey to the North Mountain. Checking herself over once in the mirror and deeming her appearance presentable, she ran out of her room and down the hallway towards her sister's chambers. Had it not been for the loose rug, Anna would've arrived at the door safely, but instead she skidded past Elsa's room entirely, almost colliding with a wall. Luckily, Anna's reflexes kicked in before she hit the wall and her hands stopped her from getting into yet another accident. Breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that she hadn't hurt herself for a second time within the space of 10 minutes, Princess Anna retraced her steps, returning the rug to its rightful position before facing the door.

She froze. Every muscle in her body tensed to a point where they refused to move. Anna's breath caught and for a moment she forgot how to breathe as memories of countless past rejections flashed before her eyes. _'Go away, Anna!'_ The words echoed in her mind, haunting her. She tried to push thoughts out of her mind, not wanting to recall the number of times she had cried as a child, because all she wanted to do was play with her sister. Blocking the memories out, a shaky breath escaped Anna's lips as her hand raised, poised to knock. _'Just leave me alone! I can't play with you!'_ Her resolve wavered, then disappeared as her hand lowered to her side again. Who was she kidding? She just didn't have the courage to knock and possibly be told to go away again; it would be too hurtful for her. Maybe if she could catch Elsa some other time, maybe when she wasn't in her room, but out in the open where she couldn't shut her out.

Little did Anna know that Elsa wasn't even in her room, but about 10 metres away, watching her sister's internal struggle with the door.

**Elsa's P.O.V**

It was common for Elsa to get up early, usually being the third to rise from her peaceful slumber after Kai and Gerda, but waking up at 6am was just ridiculous. The Queen tried to go back to sleep but she was wide awake now. At least she could finish of the paperwork she had started the previous night, and get ahead of schedule with today's paperwork, then she could spend more time with her precious younger sister, Anna. Yes, that would be a good use of the extra time she had now.

Elsa had dressed slowly, making sure that not a hair was out of place – she was a Queen, after all, and had to maintain appearances – and once done she walked straight to her office. The hallways were dark at this time of morning, but luckily the moonlight beaming through the triangular windows lit her path. Entering the office, Elsa lit the candles to illuminate the room more and glided over to the oversized oak desk, sitting down in the equally oversized chair, decorated with simple floral rose mailing upon the padded cushion at her back and rear. Picking up the papers, the platinum blonde identified one she had yet to read and began her work.

It must have taken her at least 5 hours of mind-numbing work, the only pause being for the breakfast Kai had brought in for her, before she finally finished. Every single paper had been read, signed and stamped with Arendelle's signature three-petal flower and now her day was entirely freed up, albeit a meeting with the Duke of Kennington in the afternoon to discuss a new trading deal. To be honest, Elsa felt like having a nap, the hard work having drained her of energy, but to spend the day sleeping when she could be spending time making up for 13 years of abandoning Anna would be a crime in the Queen's eyes, one she would not forgive herself for, so instead she decided to go to the Princess' room and see if she would like to spend time together.

Leaving the office, Elsa headed towards her sister's chambers, only to pause as soon as she saw Anna outside the white door, decorated with simple flowers of Norse design, which indicated it as Elsa's own bedroom. The Snow Queen paused, for a moment, going unseen by her younger sibling who stared at the door. A look of determination crossed her freckled features as a hand rose to the door, but then a look of fear returned, to which Anna lowered her hand. Elsa watched the repetition of movements for a little while longer before finally giving in, a look of concern crossing her face.

"Anna? Is everything alright?" She asked, watching the girl in question jump slightly, startled by the sudden realisation that she was being watched- that she had probably been watched for a while now.

"Oh! Elsa! H-Hey there. What are you, uh, what are you doing here?" Anna asked, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly, avoiding Elsa's gaze out of embarrassment.

"Actually, I was on my way to see you, but it looks as if you had a similar idea and was coming to see me." The Queen walked closer, hands clasped in front of her as she took in Anna's body language, trying to put together pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was whatever was bothering her. The fact that Anna had not answered Elsa's question did not go unnoticed, so the blonde tried again. Ice blue eyes gazed down into sky blue eyes, searching for answers. "Is there something wrong? You almost looked as if you were afraid to knock..."

And there it was; the lowering of the head to stare at the floor, avoiding eye contact, the frown that tilted the corner of Anna's lips downwards instead of upwards like they were supposed to be. Elsa had hit the nail on the head; Anna was scared to knock on her older sister's door. And she knew exactly why. The temperature of the hallway dropped a couple of degrees, frost threatening to creep up the walls. Guilt crashed over Arendelle's ruler like the waves that once claimed her parents' lives, drowning her in it, making her feel like a horrible sister for shutting Anna out of her life, for not answering the door whenever she knocked. No matter how justified she once thought her actions to be, she realised now that it had scarred her sister more than she though, and Elsa would never forgive herself for neglecting her beloved little sister.

"Oh Anna, I'm so sorry." Her voice was barely a whisper as she pulled Anna into a hug, stroking her strawberry blonde hair as she remembered her mother doing to comfort her children when they were much, much younger. She felt Anna return the much-needed hug, felt the tears against her shoulders, which she quickly brushed away.

"_I'm _sorry." Anna countered, pulling away to wipe the tears away herself, thinking that it was ridiculous of her to cry over such a little thing. "You must think I'm foolish for-"

"No, no, it's not foolish to be afraid," Elsa interjected, hands still resting on Anna's shoulders. "It's never foolish to be afraid, Anna, I just feel horrible for making you afraid to knock." How would Elsa ever rectify this mistake? Was there even a way? She thought long and hard about it, trying to come up with a plan, and then took a deep breath, moving away from her sister. "You never have to fear knocking on my door ever again, I'll always open the door to you, and I'll prove it. Right now." And with that, Elsa walked into her room, shutting the door behind her.

Silence. Deadly silence. It was quiet for such a long time that the Queen got worried and had to look through the keyhole to make sure Anna was still there. She was, she just looked stunned, even a little hurt. Did she think that Elsa had shut her out again? Elsa couldn't have her sister thinking such things again, so she spoke up. "Well, are you going to knock? I promise I'll open the door. I swear it, Anna. You're my little sister and I'm not going to neglect you anymore, you can trust me on this."

Determination spread across Anna's face once again and her hand rose towards the door, but Elsa heard no sound. Anna had hesitated again, despite her sister's caring words. What now? Rising to her full height, the Snow Queen ran a hand through her platinum blonde locks and tried to think of a plan B. What else could she say to encourage her sister?

"Anna, I love you too much to let you down again," She tried, fingers crossed on one hand while the other poised on the door handle, ready to open it straight away. "Love is stronger than fear, let love overcome your fear of knocking. Come on, you can d-"

Before she had even finished her sentence there was a quiet knock at the door and within seconds Elsa had opened it, almost being knocked over as Anna practically jumped into a hug, which was soon returned. "See? I told you that I would open the door. For someone so impatient, though, you sure took your time."

Anna couldn't help but laugh at Elsa's words and held on tighter for a moment, only to pull away to wipe more tears from her eyes, this time tears of joy. The Snow Queen did not realise, but ever since Anna had told Elsa that she loved her after her sacrifice, she had been waiting to hear the same thing in return. It had taken a while, but it was so worth it, just to know how much she really cared.

"So, uh, you were coming to see me?" Anna asked, changing the subject now that she was more in control of her emotions, tucking some loose strands of hair behind her ear.

Elsa, thankful to get back to the reason why she had come upstairs, smiled softly and nodded. "I'm free until this afternoon now, I was wondering if you wanted to spend time together?"

She watched as the grin she was so used to seeing returned to her sister's face. "Actually, I was going to ask you the same thing." There was a slight pause before Anna started speaking again. "Sooo... Uhhh... Do you- I-I mean you don't have to but, you know, it's snowing outside so you wouldn't have to use your powers, a-and maybe it'd be fun if we... You know... B-But if you can think of something else fun to do, we could do that, I'm really not fussy about- I'm rambling, I'll be quiet now." The younger royal bit her lower lip to make sure that she didn't start rambling again, and her gaze met the floor upon hearing Elsa giggle behind the hand that was now raised to her mouth. Despite the jumble of words escaping her lips, the older sister knew exactly what Anna was trying to ask.

"I think playing in the snow is a wonderful idea. Besides, I owe you a snowman, don't I?" Elsa smirked slightly, an eyebrow delicately raised as she watched her words sink into Anna's mind. Realisation dawned on the strawberry-blonde, then the grin grew so big that the Queen swore Anna's cheeks must've been hurting her, and all of a sudden she found herself being dragged downstairs and outside to the Princess' constant chanting of, 'Come on come on come on!'

'*****'

The rest of the day, up until the meeting Elsa had to attend, was filled with snowball fights, snow angels, and the biggest snowmen the sisters had ever built. As the snowy weather continued, not stopping until a couple weeks later, going outside became a daily occurrence, even if it was just for an hour or so on Elsa's busier days. Of course, Anna didn't get over her fear straight away, but it didn't take too long to overcome the fear of knocking and facing rejection, as she had a new mantra that helped her work up the courage to knock: _**Love is stronger than fear.**_


	5. Skating lessons

**((Re-upload: So when I woke up this morning to read chp 5, I realised that the first paragraph was missing, and the first paragraph was my favourite... Sorry if this messes things up a bit for people, but I thought it best to re-upload it with the first paragraph in tact. Sorry for any inconveniences! DX))**

**Author's note: Sooo sorry for the delay! I was ill Monday and Tuesday so I really couldn't do much DX So, t****his is part one of the 'Lessons' two-shot-ish thing I'm doing and this is Anna trying to learn how to ice skate. Shout out to Tare-chan who gave me the idea for how to start this, because I was seriously just gonna do it so that one day Elsa was randomly like 'Hey, Anna! Do you want to learn how to skate?' but this idea was a lot better so, thank you Tare-chan. I'm my own worst critic and to me this chapter seems pretty repetitive because Anna's struggling to stay upright a lot of the time (And the first half is literally just the ending of the movie) so I apologise in advance! I hope you enjoy it, though and thanks for reading! Look out for part two some time at the weekend and feel free to give feedback :D**

"Are you ready?" Elsa looked around at the cheering villagers surrounding her, a little nervous of what she was about to do, but more confident in being able to control her powers now that she knew that love would thaw. An icy heel rose, then stomped against the ground, emitting a sheet of ice from where it landed, which quickly spread out around the courtyard, underneath the feet of the citizens of Arendelle. The Queen watched her own creation as it travelled up the walls that once used to keep people out, and then looked around at all the smiling faces, a look of wonder in her crystal blue eyes as her own grin twisted the corner of her mouth upwards. She'd never forget this moment, and the heart-warming feeling of acceptance that came along with it. She wasn't a danger anymore, now that she could control her powers, and now that everyone knew that fact, they loved the snow and ice she could create – they loved _her _– and for the first time in forever, Elsa's powers weren't a curse, they were a gift!

Glancing to the fountains either side of her, Elsa raised her hands towards each one, freezing the water upwards into two spectacular ice statues, before moving onto her finale, a blue glow surrounding her hands as she sent her powers skyward, exploding in the air into snowflakes which gently fell onto the mesmerized crowd. People –mostly children - raised their hands to the sky to catch the falling snowflakes, then the platinum blonde watched people begin to skate around. Upon seeing the head butler, Kai, skating like a pro with one of the maids, even adding a few spins as if he were a graceful ballerina, Elsa had to hold in a giggle, her hand rising to her mouth to control it, and then she took once last look around, in awe of her powers and the reaction to them, before she noticed strawberry-blonde hair moving rather unsteadily towards her out of the corner of her eye.

"Woooah." Anna looked as if she was about to fall forward onto her face. A flash of worry contorted Elsa's features as she quickly reached out and grabbed the princess' arms, steadying her before relaxing back into an affection smile. "I like the open gates." Anna told her older sister, returning the smile.

"We are never closing them again." Elsa's declaration came without hesitation, as she meant every word she said. No more shutting people out, no more isolation, no more hiding her powers, and certainly no more neglecting her little sister; Elsa vowed never to let the horrible past repeat itself for as long as she should live.

As she thought about the truth in her words, she remembered that she had 13 years of sisterly bonding to catch up on, and what would be a better time to start than now? Finally releasing one of Anna's arms, the Snow Queen sent a flow of magic towards Anna's white boots, the snow swirling around before compacting into ice blades at the soles. With a smirk, she admired her craftsmanship, then turned the smirk towards the younger royal as she began to hear her gasp in surprise, knowing what was about to happen.

"Oh Elsa, they're beautiful, but you know I don't ska-!"

"Come on!" Elsa grabbed Anna's wrists, and began pulling her carefully across the ice, the childish grin she once thought she had lost returning, reaching her eyes. "Do it!"

A look of sheer terror crossed the copper-haired girl's face, as she began slipping, but she didn't pull away because she had never seen Elsa so… So _normal_ before! Happy, carefree, wanting to have fun, _wanting to spend time with her_! Even if she was afraid that she'd slip on the ice, Anna wouldn't give up this moment for all the chocolate in the world! From somewhere to her right, she swore that she heard Kristoff saying something along the lines of 'Look out! Reindeer coming through!' But she was too focused on trying to regain balance to even pay much attention to the Ice Harvester.

The older of the two pulled her sister into a semi spin before coming to a halt and straightening her. "I got it, I got it! I don't got it, I don't got it!" As Anna's feet began slipping out from underneath her again, Elsa clung on to preventing her from falling, supressing the chuckle trying to escape her lips at the spectacle in front of her.

"Hey guys!" Olaf's voice sounded from somewhere behind Anna and all of a sudden she was being pushed upright by the optimistic, sun-loving snowman.

Looking down at Olaf beside her, Anna smiled and said a quick, "Thanks Olaf." Before she was being pulled around the courtyard again by Elsa, their best snow-friend following while chanting 'Glide and pivot, and glide and pivot' the whole time. Hearing the Queen's joyous laughter, Anna couldn't help but laugh as well and carefully lifted her gaze from her feet to her sister with a grin.

Elsa had the same sparkle in her eyes as she had as a child, the same smile, the same laugh, the same playful attitude. Nothing had been lost during 13 years of separation. Anna finally had her sister back and she was going to make sure that she would never disappear out of her life ever again.

As the day continued, people started, rather reluctantly, drifting away from the castle - only a few townspeople, the staff, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf remained - meaning that there was more space on the ice for Elsa to drag her sister around. Having fashioned a pair of ice skates for herself, the queen glided effortlessly across the slippery surface, taking Anna along for the ride as her speed increased. Sure, Anna liked going fast, but that was when she was stable on her feet, and right now she was anything but stable!

"Woah woah woah! Elsa, slow down!" Exclaimed the flash of copper hair as her feet started wobbling and slipping out from underneath her. She could hear the audience beginning to laugh, and could hear her own sister laughing as well as she slowed to a stop, letting the Princess lean against her as she attempted to regain balance.

"I'm sorry, are you ok?" The grinning Queen asked as she helped her sister stand upright, trying to control her laughter as Anna shot a playful glare in her direction, which soon morphed into a smile.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just-" Anna glanced at the laughing crowd and sighed, shaking her head. It'd be ok; she wasn't going to humiliate herself in front of anyone _too _much. "I just don't think I'm capable of going at the same speed as you, especially since I'm so clumsy on the ice." Then again, Anna was clumsy anyway, but on the ice she was especially worse.

"I see…" Elsa pursed her lips slightly as she tried to think of a way around the problem. "Well I supposed that you're left with no choice but to learn how to skate by yourself." She supplied, releasing Anna from her grip once she was sure Anna was stable, skating backwards slightly away from her, but keeping close in case Anna began slipping.

"Wait, what? Elsa, I-I don't that I caaa-" Anna's arms began waving frantically in front of her as she lost her balance, but luckily she remained standing. A breath she hadn't even realised she had been holding escaped and she looked to her sister with a sheepish smile with a, "See? I told you."

"Just try it, you can do it!" Elsa encouraged, looking to the sides of her ice rink to Olaf, Kristoff and Sven, gesturing for them to help her.

"You can do it, Anna! Just push off on one foot, and then push off on the other!" Olaf called from the sides, soon being followed by Kristoff's supportive cheer. Eventually the words of encouragement rippled throughout the courtyard, leaving Anna blushing bright red at being the centre of attention.

"Right, I, uh, I can do this. Sure, no problem." Sky blue eyes glanced around at everything and Anna swallowed her nerves before doing as Olaf instructed. She was slow and shaky on her first attempts at moving, but as she gained confidence, she steps became more certain and eventually she was slowly making her way around the ice.

"You're doing it!" Elsa exclaimed with a proud smile as she glided backwards across the ice as if she had been doing it her entire life, keeping in front of Anna the whole time, prepared to catch her if she fell.

"Yeah! I'm doing it! I'm actually doing it!" Anna beamed a huge grin as the staff, remaining villagers and their newest friends, who were already pretty much family in the Princess' eyes, applauded. She made the mistake of looking away from her feet then to gaze at the crowd, and the strawberry blonde lost her balance entirely, falling backwards onto her rear instead of forwards as Elsa had anticipated.

There was silence for a moment, and then everyone started laughing at her. Elsa tried to supress the giggles erupting from her, but doing so only caused her to snort, and then her laughter was just as uncontrollable as everyone else's. The crimson which had only just started fading from Anna's cheeks returned again and a bout of embarrassed chuckling escaped her lips before she decided to pull Elsa down with her – if Anna was going down (Quite literally) she was taking Elsa with her.

The two sisters laughed for a moment longer, happy tears forming in their eyes, before eventually calming down. Anna wiped her tears away while Elsa blinked hers back, rising to her feet and helping her little sister up.

"Do you want to try again?" The Snow Queen asked with an affectionate smile, releasing Anna's arms and moving back a bit, preparing for 'Round two.'

"And humiliate myself again?" The younger royal shook her head with a smile. "I don't think so. I think we're done for the day. Now help me get inside, I think I hear a chocolate cake calling my name." Anna gestured to Kristoff, Sven and Olaf to follow them as Elsa waved goodbye to her subjects, then all five of them – yes, even the reindeer, much to the irritation of the staff – went back inside.

Little did Elsa know that, while eating her slice of chocolate cake innocently, Anna was planning revenge on her, plotting a way to embarrass her sister to make up for the embarrassment she experienced this evening when she fell over on the cold, unforgiving ice.


	6. Dance lessons

**Author's note: So here it is, part 2 of the 'Lessons' two-shot-ish thing and Anna's revenge! Although, as you'll find out, her revenge doesn't go the way she wants it to. Word of warning: I did proof read it, but there might be little issues that avoided my gaze - there was a _lot_ to read! Look out for chapter 7 and, in theory, chapter 8 should be a Valentine's day one, if I can be bothered (I'm not actually a big fan of Valentines day ^_^") if not, I'll just put up whatever's next on my list or whatever prompts you guys come up with :) Anyway, I hope you enjoy chapter 6 and thank you for reading my drabbles!**

Anna had been waiting as patiently as she could before acting out her revenge, allowing time to past since Elsa forced her to ice skate in front of everyone so as not to make her actions seem suspicious. Despite all the time to plan, however, she had not come up with many ideas. She decided that it needed to involve the staff, as they had been there to witness her embarrassing fall at the hands of Elsa's skating lessons, but she wasn't exactly sure what to do. What could embarrass Elsa, who acted so calm and collected most of the time unless she was having one of her childish moments with her? And how could Anna even drag her sister away from all the work that piled on the Queen's desk like it was doing right now?

The Princess had to admit that being a Queen looked like it was a lot of hard work. Boring, time-consuming hard work filled with trade agreements upon trade agreements, shipments upon shipments, and treaties upon treaties. Anna had been watching Elsa sign documents at her oversized oak desk for almost an hour now, slumped forward in the chair across from the Queen's, elbows on the table and her head resting in her hands. She was beginning to fall asleep as the silence dragged on so, in an effort to busy herself and remain awake, she picked up one of the documents Elsa had signed and began reading. For a moment she just stared, not really taking anything in, and then her eyes caught the words 'Winter Ball'.

They were planning the Winter Ball already? Wow, Elsa planned things _months_ ahead of schedule! Did that mean that Anna herself should be planning ahead of schedule? Ooh! Maybe she could even drag Elsa into town to get some dresses for the ball; as much as Anna loved the royal tailor, she wanted to explore what the local shops had to offer in terms of outfits, especially since she fell so in love with the winter clothing she had bought at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post And Sauna during July.

Thinking about the Winter Ball brought a smile to Anna's face, her mind distracted from complete and utter boredom as she dreamt about all the delicious luxury food – most of which would be infused with chocolate in one way or another, if Anna had her way – that she'd be stuffing in her face, and the music that would be played by the same musicians who played the upbeat tunes heard during the Coronation Ball nearly a month ago. What Anna would look forward to the most, however, was seeing everyone smiling and dancing, including herself. Perhaps she'd even drag Kristoff into a clumsy dance.

One person who would not be dancing, however, was Elsa.

'_Thank you, only I don't dance._' Anna frowned as she remembered Elsa politely refusing the Duke of Weselton's offer of a dance, just after her Coronation and just before the 'Eternal Winter', which was soon followed by tactically forcing Anna to dance with the tiny, evil man. Was that just a sneaky way to get out of dancing with the crazy Duke, or was there something else to her refusal?

"Hey, Elsa, can you dance?" The Princess asked as she set down the document about the Winter Ball, her gaze focusing on her sister, who peered up from the papers she was currently going over with a look of slight confusion on her face, wondering what had caused this sudden outburst from the strawberry-blonde after almost an hour of silence.

"Why do you ask?" The Queen inquired, skilfully avoiding Anna's question with one of her own as she tried to focus on her work once again. Just two more documents to go, then she could have a little fun with the most important person in her life.

"I don't know," Anna folded her arms across her chest, her gaze lifting to the ceiling above her. "I just remembered that you never danced at the Coronation Ball and I was thinking 'Maybe she doesn't know how to dance.'"

"Oh." Elsa had expected some sort of plan hidden up Anna's sleeve, but she was merely curious. Deeming Anna's intentions harmless, the platinum blonde decided to give an honest answer. "Well, no, actually. I never really let anyone close enough to me to teach me how to dance during my years of isolation, and my room wasn't exactly a safe place to attempt dancing in." Especially since the majority of the time it was covered in ice and frost, which stemmed from Elsa's fear of hurting others, and sadness about being alone.

"Oh." Anna repeated her sister's first word, sadness filling her eyes. She thought that it was a shame Elsa, didn't know how to dance because dancing was so joyous and uplifting, especially when done with those you cared about. Then again, there was something kind of funny about the fact that Elsa couldn't dance. The Princess could imagine how ridiculous she'd look if she even attempted it, standing on people's feet, maybe even tripping up and making a fool of-

Hey, now _there_ was an idea!

A mischievous grin spread across Anna's face as she leaned forward, waiting until Elsa looked up from the paperwork before asking, "What if I taught you how to dance?"

"I don't think so."

It was such a blunt reply that it left Anna in shock for a moment, but she stood her ground, not giving up on her little spur-of-the-moment revenge plan. "Oh come on, Elsa, it'll be fun! Besides, you're the Queen, you're eventually going to have to dance with someone otherwise some dignitaries from other countries are going to get frustrated with your refusals, and then who knows what they'd do? If they get too mad, they might even, I don't know, sever alliances and cut off trades and-."

Was it colder in here, or was it Anna's imagination? The copper-haired Princess looked around for a moment, seeing no sign of an open window, then looked back to her older sister, only then noticing the blanket of ice beginning to cover the desk. "Hey, what's wrong?" The look of mischievousness disappeared, being replaced with nothing but concern and worry.

It took Elsa a moment to reply as she tried to control her powers, to at least prevent further damage being done to the desk, but eventually her ice-blue gaze met Anna and she let out a sigh.

"What if I make a fool of myself? What if I'm terrible at dancing and look ridiculous."

Oh boy, now Anna felt terrible about her plan. Here she was, trying to embarrass the Queen and that was what Elsa was worried about the most! She couldn't go through with this, could she? Ok, she'd still go through with it, but if it got too much, she'd put an end to her vengeful antics. Moving from her seat, Anna walked around the desk and draped her arms around Elsa's neck, giving her the famous puppy dog eyes. "Please, Elsa? Just this once, just let me try and teach you. It'll be fun, I promise!" Of course it would be! It'd be embarrassing at first, sure, but Anna was certain that her sister would be laughing by the end of it… At least, she _hoped _Elsa would be laughing by the end of it…

The Snow Queen took her time to answer once again, trying to avoid Anna's big blue eyes as she thought thoroughly about whether or not to accept her offer of dance lessons. Honestly, she didn't want to go through with this, but Anna had a point; what if ambassadors and other dignitaries began to get irritated with her constant refusals? What if it damaged Arendelle's reputation in their eyes? The spunky Princess had promised that the lessons would be fun and-

Elsa made the mistake of glancing at her sister and caved the moment she saw Anna's pleading eyes, letting out a defeated sigh. "Fine. You may teach me how to dance-"

"Yesss!"

"_But_, the first lesson will be a trial lesson, if I don't like it, I may quit. On top of that, you'll have to wait until after dinner to teach me; a few of the staff are currently cleaning the ballroom, but it should be done after dinner. Is that ok?"

"Yes, of course it's ok!" Anna grinned, mentally doing a victory dance at the fact that her pleading eyes had succeeded in getting Elsa to agree to dance lessons. Plus, the fact that it was being postponed until after dinner gave her more time to track down the servants and explain the plan to them… Well, she wouldn't tell them that she planned on embarrassing the Queen, of course, otherwise they wouldn't agree to it. No, perhaps she'd just tell them that she wanted them to 'Give Elsa support'; that would be a better idea.

"Good." Finishing off the final document, Elsa pushed the stack of paper away from herself and set down her quill, breathing a sigh of relief. Thank goodness it was over. Now she could finally take a break and spend some time with Anna. Removing her younger sister's arms from around her neck, the Queen rose and stretched out her limbs, wiggling her slender fingers to rid them of cramp. "Now, we have two hours before dinner, so what would you like to do until then?"

Anna eyes widened slightly. How was she going to get out of this one? 'Think, Anna, think!'"Oh! Well, umm, I, uhhh…" Ever the drama queen, the strawberry blonde smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead, jaw dropping in a gasp. "I just remembered! I, uhh, I-I have to see Kristoff for, uh, something! Haha, I'm so forgetful! I'll be back for dinner, though, I promise! Bye!"

With that, the Princess left the room swiftly, leaving behind a very perplexed Queen, staring at the doors her sister had just exited from. "Ok… That was strange…" Despite being confused by her sister's actions – clearly Anna was up to something that she couldn't know about – Elsa decided to drop it. She was sure everything was fine and she needn't worry herself with Anna's antics. No, instead she would have a cup of tea, then track down a certain snowman. Perhaps Olaf would like to learn how to play chess, since Elsa couldn't teach her sister at this particular moment in time.

During the time leading up to dinner, Elsa had spent the entire time in the library with Olaf, giving Anna the opportunity to spread the word to all the staff without getting caught. "Go to the ballroom at 6:30pm sharp!" She had told them all, trying the mask her mischievous grin. "Queen Elsa's going to learn how to dance and she needs all the emba- I mean _support _that she can get!"

Dinner itself was rather uneventful, though Elsa had yet again picked up on her sister's odd actions; glancing at her, giggling at her, but always avoiding any of Elsa's questions about what exactly was so funny. It made the Queen paranoid that something was wrong with her appearance but, after checking her reflection in her glass several times, she found nothing wrong with the way she looked at all. Honestly, what was making Anna act like this? Had she eaten too much sugar while talking to Kristoff?

As soon as both sisters had finished their third course of apple strudel, Elsa was pulled out of her seat by an over-excited Anna and was led out of the room. "Come on, it's time for your dance lessons!" Elsa grimaced at her younger sibling's sing-song voice, but she had agreed to this, and there was no way to get out of it now.

"Take it easy, Anna. It's just one dance lesson, it's not as if it's a performance…"

As Anna opened the doors to the ballroom, she heard Elsa's voice trail off in shock as the staff lined the edges of the ballroom, bowing deeply to the Queen and Princess. Looking to her, she couldn't help but smirk slightly at the shock in Elsa's wide eyes. 'Perfect!' She thought.

"Wh-What is this?" The frost was already beginning to creep up the doorframes. She had expected this to be a private dance lesson, not one which involved all the staff as an audience!

"Oh, they're just here for support," 'And to laugh when you fall.' Anna thought, not noticing the frost, or the sudden chill, in her excitement. "Just pretend they're not there and you'll be fine." She began dragging the reluctant ruler in, who protested and pulled against Anna's grip.

"I really don't think I can do this, Anna. Not in front of everyone like this!" Elsa protested, but it was no use as the younger sibling pulled her into the centre of the room.

"Trust me, you'll be fine! Now, I'll do the man's steps so that you can learn the woman's steps, ok?" Anna gave no room for protest as she repositioned Elsa's hands so that one rested on the Princess' shoulder and the other was held by Anna, whose free hand rested on the ice blue fabric at the Snow Queen's waist lightly.

Terrified eyes looked left and right repeatedly, glancing at all the servants who smiled at the platinum blonde. Were they genuine smiles, or smiles of those who tried to hold back laughter? Elsa couldn't tell and that made her even more nervous about learning how to dance in front of people. The air had dropped from its high summer temperature into a mildly cool breeze, the ice shards crawling up the walls near the door and onto the ceiling above them. She felt like she couldn't breathe, her heart was pounding hard against her chest and she almost missed Anna's voice calling her back to attention.

"Elsa. Ellllsa. Elsa!" Elsa snapped out of her thoughts then and looked to Anna, who gave her a heart-warming smile. "Are you ready? I'll try to make it easy for you, I mean, all you really have to do is mirror my actions."

Closing her eyes, Elsa took a deep breath to calm herself. Once she felt more composed, she nodded, opening her ice blue eyes to meet sky blue ones. "I'm ready."

"Great! Hit it, Kai!" As instructed, the butler started playing the music on the gramophone. Anna listened for a moment as a waltz played – she thought a slow waltz would be easier for Elsa than the upbeat local music – and then began to instruct her.

This was not what Anna had in mind.

Within seconds of starting Elsa had stepped on her foot, muttering an apology and now, only 20 minutes into the lesson, she had stepped on poor Anna's feet _six times!_ Each time, was because Elsa was too busy looking around at the maids and butlers with nervous glances to focus on what she was doing. Sure, Anna's plan had worked and Elsa was embarrassed – the bright pink colour in her cheeks contrasted with her naturally pale complexion – but was it really worth so much pain in her feet to get revenge like this?

"Ow!" Make that seven times. "Ok, ok, stop a second." The sisters stopped dancing as Kai cut the music, Anna lifting her foot up and rubbing it with a wincing as Elsa gazed at the floor, frowning deeply.

"I'm sorry, Anna, I just… I just can't." The Queen muttered as snow started falling down from the ceiling and all around the room.

Feeling the cold snow falling onto her head and shoulders, the Princess lowered her foot and tore her eyes away from Elsa, her jaw dropping as she noticed the state the ballroom was in. It was far from a Winter wonderland, heck, it was more like a Winter _nightmare! _ Frost covered the entire room now, dangerous spikes of ice stuck out from the ground everywhere and the room was so cold that vapour escaped everyone's mouth with every breath. The servants' expressions were a mixture of nerves and fear, wanting to escape the ballroom but they couldn't unless ordered to do so by Princess Anna. Maybe she had pushed her revenge too far…

Heaving a sigh, the strawberry-blonde turned to the audience and waved to them. "Thanks for your help, but you can go now. I think I need some time alone with my sister." The speed to which the staff left the room amazed Anna, but she decided not to comment on it in front of Elsa, who was glancing around the room now with a 'What have I done?' look on her face, mixed in with sorrow.

Yup, Anna had messed up.

Resting a hand on Elsa's shoulder, she tried to fix her mistake, although she wasn't sure if apologizing would really fix anything, but it was worth a try, right? "Elsa, I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have invited the staff to come and watch, I just-"

"You don't have to apologise, Anna." The older royal cut in, looking to Anna with a sad smile. "This is mostly my fault. I allowed my nerves get the better of me and look what happened." She gestured to the frozen ballroom around her and sighed, making Anna feel guiltier than she had previously been feeling. The Princess opened her mouth to speak, to say that Elsa didn't have to continue, when she was quickly cut off. "I_ would_ like to learn how to dance, though. Maybe now that it's just you and me, we can try again." Perhaps she would be less nervous now that everyone wasn't staring at her.

To say that Anna was shocked would be an understatement. "Are- Are you sure? Because we really don't have to continue if you don't want to, I-I'd completely understand if you never wanted to do it again and-"

"Anna!" The Queen struggled to hold back a laugh, the smile returning to her face as she thought about how much she loved her little sister's rambling and how much she loved spending time with her. She focused on these thoughts, knowing the power behind the love she had for Anna, and watched as the frost thawed, the snow evaporating into nothingness. Satisfied with the fact that the ballroom had returned to normal, Elsa walked past her awestruck sister and over to the gramophone, playing the music again. "So, what's that first step again?"

Snapping out of it, Anna turned to Elsa with her hands resting on her hips, an eyebrow raised and a smirk forming on her lips. "You're not going to stand on my feet again, are you? Because I think I've had enough of that for one day." She teased, sticking her tongue out at the approaching blonde.

"I can't make any promises," Admitted Elsa with a sheepish smile, placing one hand on Anna's shoulder and holding the other in her free hand. "But I'll try not to."

Beaming her brilliant grin, Anna started the whole learning process again. For a while, Elsa was still clumsy and stood on Anna's foot more than once, but eventually she got the hang of steps and was able to keep up with her sister's movements. The nerves returned at first, as did the frost, but eventually the Queen became more confident and the evidence of her nerves disappeared.

From that day up until the Winter Ball, every Thursday evening became a day of dance lessons and after a month or two, the staff slowly returned to the ballroom to watch the royal sisters laugh and dance together, having the time of their lives.


	7. We Know Better

**Author's note: O.o Ok, so these chapters are getting longer and I don't know whether or not that's a good thing. On the plus side, it's a sign that my writing skills are improving somehow (Right?), on the minus side... I don't know, are they getting too long for you guys or is it just me? Let me know and if they're too long, I'll try and shorten them ^_^" Anyway, I really like the song We Know Better which didn't make it into the movie (Randomly-placed disclaimer: Yes, it's a song from the movie, therefore no, I don't own it DX) because I like the fact that it implies that Anna and Elsa were pretty rebellious as kids, especially with Elsa using her magic for pranks, so I kinda wanted to write a chapter about them being rebellious kids. At first I wasn't going to include the song, but I thought it'd be nice if I incorporated it somehow, even if I suck at incorporating songs so... Tra da! Note that the lyrics have been altered slightly, because it's the first time Elsa's ever sung this song, so Anna wouldn't know any of the lyrics and therefore wouldn't be able to sing her parts. Anyway, I feel like I'm talking too much so, uh, yeah, the next chapter, in theory, will be the Valentines day one on Friday so look out for that :) Until then, thanks for all the reviews, follows favourites - heck, thanks for _everything, _guys, seriously, I never thought anyone would love my Elsa and Anna oneshots - and I hope you enjoy this crazily-long 4k+chapter ^_^**

History was never Elsa's favourite subject, she had to admit, but she did find the tales of how her ancestors came into power rather interesting, if only the tutor, Mr Klaus, put some enthusiasm into his speech, rather than just droning on about how great great great great grandfather Demitri conquered Arendelle in a dull, monotone voice. The 7 year old Princess was finding it hard to concentrate when the way he voiced the tales of the past did not captivate her young mind and as for Anna, well…

Elsa glanced over to her sister at the next desk merely a couple metres from hers, only to find that Anna's head was resting on her arms, a soft snoring sound escaping as she slept through Mr Klaus' monologue. Poor Anna, she was only 4 and she had to suffer through lectures about things she probably wouldn't understand yet. Still, Elsa enjoyed sharing a tutor with her sister, just to have someone there to entertain her. Then again, a sleeping Anna wasn't nearly as entertaining as an awake one.

A smirk lit up the young Princess' face, looking forward for a second to make sure Mr Klaus' back was to her, and then she formed a snowball in her hand, throwing it at the sleeping royal.

"Oomf!" Anna startled as the snowball collided with her strawberry blonde hair, almost falling off of her chair in shock. Two sets of blue eyes snapped forward, but Mr Klaus remained obvious to Anna's almost-accident. Giggling came from the other desk, and she narrowed her eyes playfully at Elsa, knowing instantly that she was the snowball thrower – who else would be able to create a snowball in April? The youngest Princess opened her mouth to speak, but Elsa stopped her with a finger to her own mouth, pointing towards the blackboard. The message didn't need to be voiced for Anna to understand it; 'Don't speak, just focus on the lesson.'

"Hmph!" Was Anna's only response as she crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. Still, she _tried_ to focus like her big sister told her to.

That lasted for about 5 minutes before Elsa was suddenly hit in the head by something light. Her gaze wandered to the floor to see what appeared to be a paper snowball – perhaps Anna was getting revenge – but upon further inspection, she realised that something was written on it. Small hands swiftly picked up the paper, then carefully began to straighten it out.

'Elsa! I'm booooored!'

Elsa sighed at her sister's words, knowing that there wasn't much she could do about it, and wrote a reply as neatly as she could. 'I'm sorry, Anna, but there's not much I can do about it. I know how you feel, Mr Klaus is boring me as well, but we have to learn this.' She threw the paper back to her little sister, but Mr Klaus caught sight of her actions and folded his arms across his chest with a stern look.

"Princess Elsa, are you even paying attention?" He asked the girl, who resembled a startled deer, her blue eyes wide with the shock of being caught.

Well, Elsa _had_ been paying attention, but then she had been distracted by the mischievous little redhead on the opposite desk, who was now trying to hold back laughter, but she would never let Anna take the blame, even if it was her fault, because the next-in-line hated to see her upset. So instead Elsa simply frowned and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr Klaus."

"Hm. Very well." Mr Klaus returned to the lesson at hand, leaving Elsa to breathe a sigh of relief, thankful that she didn't get punished for her actions.

The slight shuffling of a chair could be heard, though Elsa tried to ignore it as she began writing notes about how King Demitri had positioned his men prior to his battle. However, as soon as she felt her personal space being invaded, the Princess looked to her right to see that Anna was sitting right next to her, a smug grin on her rounded face.

"Oooh, Elsa got into trouble." The copper-haired little princess teased light-heartedly, causing Elsa to roll her eyes, but with a smile.

"You're just lucky I didn't shove the blame onto you." She whispered back, poking Anna in the side and causing her to giggle.

"That's because you love me, right?" Anna received a nod. "And I love you too. Soooo…" The little Princess moved some blonde hair away from her sister's ear and whispered into it. "Let's sneak out!"

"What?"

"Come on, Elsa! Just for one day! We could sneak into the kitchen and eat all the chocolate! Pleeeeaaase?"

Ugh, not the puppy dog eyes! Elsa couldn't resist when Anna used the puppy eyes, her lower lip jutting out into a pout to emphasise the pleading look. And the promise of chocolate if she escaped this boring lecture was so, so tempting… Glancing over to Mr Klaus, then to her sister, then back to Mr Klaus, she surrendered, heaving a sigh.

"Ok, ok, fine. We'll sneak out." Seeing Anna about to say 'Yay!', Elsa covered her mouth. Once again, she put a finger to her lips, then pointed to Mr Klaus, although this time her actions had an entirely different meaning: 'Be quiet! We don't want him to hear us leaving!'

As the tutor began writing on the blackboard, the chalk squeaking against the surface, Elsa took the lead, slipping out of her chair and getting on her hands and knees. Anna came up next to her, holding back the excited giggles trying to erupt from her throat, then followed Elsa to the door as quietly as possible. The older Princess took a deep breath then, opening the door and letting Anna crawl out first before doing so herself, closing the door quietly.

The Princesses of Arendelle ran. They ran as quickly and quietly as possible, making sure they had turned several corners before they slowed and allowed the laughter to consume them. Elsa's sides hurt so much from the laughter that it literally hurt, and she had to clutch her sides in an attempt to ease the pain.

"We did it! We're free!" Anna giggled, twirling around with her hands raised to the sky. The platinum blonde smiled fondly at her sister through the laughter, enjoying how carefree and happy she looked.

"You do realise that as soon as Mr Klaus realises we're gone, we're going to be in big trouble, right?" The more sensible sibling pointed out, though the smile never left her face. "And if we get into trouble and Mama and Papa yell at us, you'll owe me for getting me into this mess."

"I'll pay you back with chocolate after we steal it from the kitchen!" Bouncing to her sister's side, Anna took Elsa's hand and tugged on it, trying to get Elsa to move again. "Come on! Before Mr Klaus realises we're gone and come looking for us!"

"Hold on, hold on!" Releasing her hand from Anna's grip, the next in line to the throne moved her to the side slightly, out of the way, before a blue glow surrounded her hands. Within seconds of the blue glow appearing, Elsa thrust her hands forwards towards the ground in front of her, magically creating a strip of ice which went all the way down the hallway. "Ok, let's go!"

Jumping on the ice, Elsa skidded towards the end of the hall, hearing Anna giggle and following in her path. A quick glance backwards told her that her sister was unstable on her feet, but didn't look like she was about to fall, so she continued onward. Keeping her hands out in front of her, Elsa created her own path to the kitchen, only stopping once she reached the door.

"Ok, we've made it. Now, how are we going to-"

"Woah! Woooaah!" CRASH! Unable to stop, Anna bowled right into her sister, knocking her right off of her feet. The two toppled to the ground together with a loud thud. It took Elsa a moment to figure out what just happened, but an image of the 4 year old banging her head against the solid floor snapped her out of confusion, her eyes widening with worry as she looked toward the smaller Princess. "Anna!" She exclaimed, sitting upright and pulling the injured Princess' upper body into her lap. "A-Are you ok?"

Anna's body began to shake. Then giggling could be heard, and then the giggling turned into a laughing fit. "That was sooo fun! Let's do it again! Again, Elsa, again!"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Elsa allowed herself to laugh a little and rose to her feet, helping Anna up as well. "Not right now, we have chocolate to steal, remember?" She prompted, her protective side carefully checking Anna's head for signs of blood.

Flinching away from the Snow Princess' painful touch, the strawberry-blonde nodded, trying to ignore the dizziness she felt from the action as best as she could. "Yup! I remember! Ok, we'll do more ice-sliding _after_ we get the chocolate… Now how are we going to get it?"

Even though Anna was the one who came up with the idea of stealing chocolate, she had no idea how to carry the act out? As the older sister, it seemed as if Elsa was left to come up with the cunning plan. Peeking into the kitchen, she surveyed the area, and the people in that area. The head chef, Chef Garrett, was keeping a close eye on the lunch preparations made by 10 other highly qualified cooks. How were the Princesses meant to evacuate the kitchen? Before Mr Klaus, or Mama, or Papa, or even Kai and Gerda saw them? Surely they must've been looking for the missing students right now, and it was only a matter of time before they came across the ice path that led right to the kitchen!

Elsa was annoyed with herself now for creating the ice path. She should've thought it through! She should've realised that, since she couldn't get rid of it, it'd be leading the adults directly to them! She should've just tried entertaining her sister some other way, maybe with a huge snowman! At least a huge snowman wouldn't have led anyone directly to the Princesses!

Wait a second, a snowman! A scary snowman would scare the staff right out of the kitchen! That was a brilliant idea!

Smirking at her own genius, Elsa turned to her younger sibling, a mischievous glow in her ice blue eyes as she asked, "Anna, do you want to build a snow beast?"

Thanks to Elsa's powers, it had only taken about 5 minutes to put together the 'Snow beast', with the Snow Princess using her magic to form the huge balls of snow and Anna drawing a scary face on the rather misshapen snowman, being held up by Elsa so that she could do so. Of course, working under the pressure that anyone could come by and see them – and Gerda almost did, had it not been for the girls' quick thinking, hiding the scary snow beast behind a suit of armour, then hiding themselves under a covered table – meant that they had no time to find sticks from outside for arms, but Anna argued that the stubs she had attempted to make into arms looked even better than sticks ever would've, so they left the snow beast as it was.

Poking holes in the snow beast's face to create hollow eyes, the younger sister covered her mouth to suppress a giggle, and then pointed to the ground with a whispered, "Down! Down! It's done."

The 7 year old obeyed the order, setting her little sister on the ground as she moved the snow beast closer to the kitchen door. "Are you ready for this?"

"Yup! Wait! No!" Running over to the door, the copper-haired Princess opened it slightly, then ran to hide under the table out of sight again. "Ok! Go!"

Hiding behind the one closed door, Elsa used her powers to push the snow beast into the castle's kitchen, trying to stifle a giggle at the roaring noises Anna made to make the snow beast seem even scarier.

The extra effects weren't needed. Seeing a… A _thing_ – a _snow thing_ – enter the kitchen, presumably without assistance, was enough to send the kitchen staff screaming and running out of the back door. Even the men let out some rather undignified screams as they escaped from the monster. After what seemed like seconds, the kitchen was completely silent, void of all life, except for a little girl who peered around the door, her cautious expression turning into one of sheer joy and excitement when she found the large room empty.

"We did it, Anna! We conquered the kitchen like how great great great great grandfather Demitri conquered Arendelle!" She giggled, running past the snow beast and into the kitchen, soon being followed by an even gigglier redhead.

"Woohoo! History's more fun when we learn like this! We should have less talks and more playtime!" Elsa had to admit, that idea sounded very tempting, but she wasn't exactly sure how much learning would be done if they went through with Anna's idea. Still, it was worth a try at some point, right?

Just as she was about to tell the younger royal that they should discuss that idea with their Papa, the King, she was dragged closer to the long line of cupboards, about 10 of them, all located above counters, the oven and the stove. Anna's thumb and index finger framed her chin as she looked up at the counters, her tongue sticking out in thought as she tried to figure out which cupboard the chocolate would be in. The thinking process lasted mere seconds as the redhead decided to just pick a random cupboard and hope for the best.

"That one!" She exclaimed, pointing to the third cupboard away from them while glancing at Elsa. "The chocolate's in there!"

The more logical Princess wasn't convinced, however, and, to be honest, she wanted to avoid the cupboard that hovered directly over the stove as much as possible, in case something went horribly wrong. "I don't think it is, Anna. It would melt if it was above the hot stove, so I don't think anyone would have put it there." Hopefully that was enough to deter her sister away from trying to climb onto the stove.

"Hmmm… You're right! Our chocolates are never melted and yucky, so it can't be up there." She didn't hear the quiet sigh of relief escaping the blonde's lips as her sky blue eyes, glanced at the cupboards again, this time choosing the one furthest away from the stove and running over to the counter that it stood above.

"Ok, ok! This one has the chocolate in it, I'm sure of it! Now help me up!" Anna tried scrambling onto the counter herself, but was far too short to do so, so she needed Elsa to give her a boost up onto the counter.

The anticipation and excitement of reaching the chocolate building up inside of her, the older Princess eagerly did as her little sister instructed, lifting her up onto the counter. Still, her eagerness did not outweigh how protective she was over Anna so, just in case, she made a blanket of snow to cushion Anna should she fall. It would be like landing on a pillow, in theory, but even so, she kept her arms outstretched, never taking her eyes off of her sister, just in case.

Though she refused to admit it, Anna had been wrong on the first few attempts to find the chocolates. Nevertheless, she continued her quest, crawling along the counters with Elsa never too far away, carefully rummaging through the cupboards in search of the precious sweets. As she got closer to the stove, Elsa got more worried. That was until the 4 year old let out a squeal of excitement and pulled out a box of chocolate!

"Victory! We've found them!" Anna exclaimed, waving the box of chocolates in her arms.

"Anna, be carefu-" Too late. Anna overbalanced as she waved the chocolates around and fell off of the counter, into her sister's thankfully awaiting arms. "It's ok, I've got you." Elsa breathed, rolling her eyes at the younger Princess' laughter.

"Woopsies." As she was let down on her feet once again, Anna tried to control her giggling.

"Are you ever going to stop being clumsy?" Elsa teased, her hands on her hips with an eyebrow raised – something she had only recently learnt to do.

"Nope!" Came the simple answer as Anna reached into the box of chocolates and put one in her mouth, savouring the sweet flavour for a moment before adding. "But you'll always be there to catch me, so that's ok!"

Elsa contemplated whether or not it'd be ok to be clumsy, before realising that Anna would never be under the same pressures to be perfect like she would be, so Anna would be able to get away with being clumsier a lot easier. "I guess you're right." She concluded, taking one of the chocolates for herself and eating it, taking her time so that she could really enjoy the rewards of her victory – the first of many, as she decided that she might just have to do this again one day, especially when the results were chocolate and her sister's beaming grin.

"And what exactly is going on here?"

The Princesses tensed as they heard the stern, angry voice behind them, slowly turning to be met by the glare of their father, their mother close behind him, staring at the snow beast and the blanket of snow by the counters in mute shock.

"Uhhh… Nothing, Papa!" Came Anna's voice almost instantly, though her words were all in vain, because it was all too obvious what was going on here; she had been caught chocolate-handed. "We just, uhh… W-We-"

"Snuck out of lessons, left a trail of ice throughout the castle and now _this_!" The King gestured to the snow in the kitchen, his gaze narrowing in on Elsa, the only one who could've cause all this snowy chaos in Spring. "Elsa, this is not what we expect from a Princess, let alone a future ruler; you _know_ that. Be the good girl you always have to be and stop causing mischief with your powers."

Elsa sighed, but nodded her head, obeying her fathers as always. "Yes Papa, I'm sorry."

"And Anna," With wide eyes, the strawberry-blonde, who had been trying to make an escape towards the back door, snapped her attention to her father. "When are you going to learn to remain calm, and not get both you and your sister into trouble?"

Her jaw dropped, as did the box of chocolates she had been holding. Of course, Anna knew that it was partially her fault, since she came up with the idea of sneaking out in the first place, but Papa didn't know that! Wait, did he? "But I-"

"No buts. Now, both of you, return to class. Once that's over – and once your mother and I convince the staff to return – you will have dinner and then go straight to bed. Do you understand?"

Both Princesses nodded reluctantly, then watched as their parents left to track down the fleeing kitchen staff. Heaving a sigh once again, Elsa took hold of Anna's tiny hands and started leading her back to class, being a good girl and doing what was right.

After dinner, the two Princesses of Arendelle went to bed as they were told to do, although Anna was far too excited about what had happened today to sleep. In fact, she was too excited to stop talking!

"- And then I went 'Roar!' and then the staff went 'Aaah!'" Anna recalled the day to Elsa, even though her sister had been there to witness everything. "Even Chef Garrett screamed like a girl, it was so funny!"

"I suppose it was." Elsa answered simply as she brushed her little sister's hair by the vanity, not really paying attention as she thought about her father's words. 'Elsa, this is not what we expect from a Princess,' She was only 7, and Anna was only 4, and yet they expected a whole lot from them - everyone did. A Princess wasn't proper and wasn't poised and perfect like they wanted the two sisters to be, a Princess was… Just a normal girl. A_ real_ Princess, not the Princesses found in fairytales, was just like Anna and Elsa, not this graceful, pink-loving person that everyone thought. Nuh uh, the Princesses knew better than that.

"- And then Papa told me to stop getting us into trouble, but I-! Elsa? Ellllsaaa!" Anna waved her hand above her, in front of Elsa's eyes, causing the platinum blonde Princess to snap out of her thoughts.

"Oh! Sorry, uhh, I'm done now." Putting the brush away, Elsa made her way towards her own bed and climbed in, only to be joined by Anna, who clambered under the covers and snuggled into her cold – but, at the same time, warm - hugs.

"You weren't listening, weren't you?" There was a frown in Anna's voice, though it never showed on her face, because she knew that Elsa wouldn't just zone her out unless she had a good reason for it.

"Sorry, Anna, I just have a lot on my mind." Elsa replied, stifling a yawn as she pulled the covers up to her chin, making sure that both she and Anna were tucked in nicely.

"That's ok. It just means I'll have to tell you all about it again tomorrow!" The copper-haired Princess smirked, causing the slightest eye-roll from Elsa, accompanied by a small smile. "Will you sing me to sleep? Pleeeaaase?"

How could Elsa refuse her precious little sister a lullaby? It would be impossible, especially when Anna was cuddled up to her like this. "Ok, I will. Which one of Mama's lullabies would you like to hear?"

"None of them!" This reply confused Elsa, but Anna quickly explained what she meant. "I want to hear one of your songs."

"But I don't have any of my own songs, Anna."

"Then make one up!" Big blue eyes pleaded with Elsa and she let out a sigh. Elsa had no idea how to make up a song, but it was just thoughts put to music, right?

"Ok, but… I can't promise it will be any good." Thinking for a moment about what she was going to sing, the Snow Princess took a deep breath and let the words flow out in a soft melody, hoping that it would put her sister to sleep:

"_They say a Princess is full of charm and grace,_

_They say she always knows her place,_

_They say a Princess wears pink and frilly clothes,_

_They say she never laughs and snorts milk out her nose,_

_They say she's calm, they say she's kind,_

_They say she never speaks her mind,_

_Or freezes nanny's big behind…"_

Elsa paused as she listened to Anna's laughter, reflecting on one of last week's prank in the last line and smiling to herself.

"_But you and me, we, we know better."_

Anna was beginning to calm down now as she listened to her sister sing, but she wasn't ready to be lulled into sleep just yet, so Elsa continued, trying to create a whole song out of her feeling towards the expectations of a Princess, hoping that one day Anna would be able to sing it with her.

"_They say a Princess is super-duper sweet,_

_She doesn't fight, she doesn't sweat and you never see her eat,_

_They say a Princess doesn't climb and scrape her knee,_

_They say a Princess wouldn't freeze her tutor's tea,_

_They say she's poised,_

_They say she's fair,_

_She never mentions-" _ Leaning forward, Elsa whispered into Anna's ear, "_Underwear!" _receiving more laughter, followed by a small yawn.

"_Or longs to see the world out there,_

_But you and me, we, have big ideas of our own,_

_For the distant someday when we're grown,_

_When I'm queen and you're my right hand,_

_You'll get to travel throughout the land,_

_You'll tell them of your sister, and the magic things she can do,_

_We'll take care of our people and they will love me and you."_

In her head, Elsa painted a picture of an older version of herself, sitting on the throne in front of a bowing crowd with her sister right beside her, and then another picture of them on a boat, having an adventure and going off to explore different countries.

Letting out a yawn of her own, the blonde Princess felt herself getting sleepy, her eyelids struggling to stay awake. Just before she fell asleep, though, she kissed Anna's head, her smile growing affectionate at the snoring she heard coming from the sleeping Princess' lips. Settling down, Elsa decided to add just a couple more lines to her song in a gentle whisper, the most important lines, which meant the most to her,

"_No one can tell us what a Princess should be_

_As long as we're together, you and me."_

Yes, as long as they were together, no one could tell them what to do. As long as they were together, they could face any threat or fear or beast, made of snow or otherwise. As long as they were together, everything would be alright.

Whispering a soft, "Goodnight, Anna." Elsa hugged her sister tighter and fell into a peaceful slumber, allowing dreams of a bright future, one which she could spend every day with Anna and have fun and live a happy life as Queen of Arendelle, flood her mind.


	8. Valentine's day

**Author's note: Well... Happy Valentine's day people! To be honest, I'm not a fan of Valentine's day, having always been single on the day, but I hope you guys are all happy and loved up and, if not, I at least hope you're having a good day ^_^ Anyway, as promised, a Valentine's day themed chapter! This was really hard for me to right since I'm not really experienced with Valentine's day stuff, but I figured there'd be cake and presents involved so... Tra da! Sorry if my romance fails... And my Kristoff ((He's probably out of character!)). Just a heads up, I don't have many happy chapters on my 'Chapter ideas' list and the next one is... Well, you might love it for the possible sisterly feels, might hate it because... You'll see. I don't want to give it away but, yeah, I'll be a bit mean to Anna in the next one. If you have happy prompts for me, put them in a review or a pm and I'll add there somewhere onto my list :) I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thanks for all the reviews/favourites/follows and look out for chapter 9! P.S, 'XXX' shows the passing of time, but you could probably figure that out by yourselves.**

Elsa was usually the first of the two sisters to wake up in the morning, so it baffled her when she left her office, walked into the kitchen to retrieve her breakfast and saw Anna there, making a mess, at 8am. 8am was 2 hours early for Anna, especially on a Friday when she had hardly anything to do.

The Queen's gaze explored the counters at which her sister worked on… Something – Anna's back blocked Elsa's view of whatever she was making - taking in the flour powdered over the floor like freshly fallen snow, broken eggshells littering it every now and then. Cocoa powder dusted the worktops either side of her copper-haired sister and… She sniffed the air. Was something burning?

Her eyes widened as she ran over to the stove, quickly turning off the heat before the concoction which appeared to be melted chocolate could burn anymore and ruin the chef's saucepan.

"Anna, what on Earth are you doing?" She asked, raising a delicate eyebrow as she eyed the bowl of light brown batter that Anna was currently mixing, her hands on her hips. As the younger royal looked to Elsa, she could've sworn she saw her mother's ghost catching a 7 year old version os herself red handed with her hand in a box of chocolates. Well, she could've if it wasn't for the platinum blonde hair that fell over her left shoulder in a long, snowflake-adorned braid.

"Well, it's Valentine's day," she answered smoothly as she added a bit more cocoa powder to the mixture and stirred it in. Ah yes, Valentine's day, a day in which Elsa had never – and probably would never – take part in, since she had no significant other. "And I thought I'd make Kristoff a cake since he comes back from the mountains later. A chocolate cake, of course." Of course, Anna's favourite. Elsa wasn't sure whether or not Kristoff even liked chocolate cake, but it was obvious that, even though it was supposedly for him, the poor Ice Harvester would hardly get to eat any if Anna had her way.

"Ok, so that explains the mess, but why are_ you_ doing it? Why aren't any of the kitchen staff helping?" In fact, now that Elsa thought about it, where _was the kitchen staff_? Looking around, she saw no one, just a tray with a note saying 'Her Royal Majesty' on it. Walking over to the tray, Elsa carefully lifted the lid off and was met by the wonderful aroma of pancakes and omelettes filling her nose. Breakfast! Just what her stomach needed! As her sister spoke of the kitchen staff's whereabouts, the Queen began eating her breakfast with a more casual etiquette than if she were to be eating in anyone else's presence.

"Oh, I dismissed the staff until lunch time. They kept asking to help but it wouldn't be special if they made it really fancy. It can't just be 'Another cake', it has to be a… Uhhh, a cake from the heart! Yeah! That makes sense, I think." Pouring the batter into the heart-shaped tin, the strawberry-blonde scanned the big recipe book for how long the cake needed to be in the preheated oven for and carefully put it in, leaning against the counter afterwards and letting out an exhausted sigh – making a cake at 8am with less sleep than usual was harder than the Princess had expected it to be.

"I see…" Elsa knew Anna had a point, but she still felt wary about leaving Anna to make a cake without anyone watching over her. Revising her schedule in her mind, Elsa realised that she had at least two hours before she had to do any important work… Leaving her half-eaten breakfast behind – rather reluctantly, though she knew that it would probably be for the best -, Elsa walked over to her little sister, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Well can I at least supervise? And perhaps help with the decorating? With all the chocolate that seems to be going into the cake, I'm worried that you'd eat all of the decorations before the cake has even finished cooking, if I left you alone to do it."

"Haha, very funny." Anna rolled her eyes slightly at Elsa, glancing out of the corner of the sky blue eyes to see the Queen's teasing smirk. "But we both know that I'm not the only one at risk of eating the cake decorations here, especially this delicious frosting I'm making!"

Peering down at the second bowl on the counter, the Snow Queen inhaled, the scent of chocolate almost being overpowered by the sickening scent of far too much sugar. If Kristoff were to attempt eating that, he'd mostly likely just throw it right back up. Elsa wouldn't even dare to taste test it herself!

"Not bad," A little white lie never hurt anyone, "But you might want to add more chocolate." She grabbed the saucepan of melted chocolate off of the stove, pouring as much of the contents into the frosting mixture as possible, given that quite a lot had burnt and stuck to the bottom of the saucepan – it seemed that her previous attempts to save the cooking utensil had failed, and now she would owe the chef a new one.

"Great idea, Elsa!" The younger sibling praised with a grin, walking to the fridge and grabbing some strawberries from it, which she quickly washed and began cutting into vertical slices, while her sister took over the job of making the frosting. "You can never have enough chocolate! Kristoff's going to love this!"

After 30 minutes of cooking, followed by another 30 minutes of cooling, the cake was ready to be decorated by the royal sisters, mostly Anna since, after all, it was _her_ cake… Well, her boyfriend's cake, at least (Although it would probably be her cake as well, if she gave him the puppy dog eyes and asked for a slice).

The cake was placed on the counter in front of them as Anna dipped her index finger into the frosting to taste it, judging her sister's work. "Hmmm… Not bad, Elsa, not bad." She tried to look indifferent, but soon the beaming smile Elsa had grown so used to within the past 8 months spread from ear to ear.

"Thank you, now what exactly are we meant to do with these?" The blonde asked, gesturing to the assortment of different coloured sugar hearts, heart shaped marshmallows and strawberries that had been slice lengthways very thinly.

"I'm glad you asked, sister, because this cake is going to be a sugary masterpiece! One second!" Anna ran over to the large table in the centre of the kitchen, pulling a small sketchbook off of it before running back to Elsa, showing off what appeared to be a rather elaborate design for the chocolate cake. "So most of the strawberries, as you can see, are going to outline the cake with the pointier bits sticking up, then the marshmallows are going to go in between the gaps, then there's going to be more strawberries and marshmallows in the centre. The sugar hearts are just going to be sprinkled on top, so it looks like a multi-coloured explosion of love! Did you get all of that?"

"An explosion of love?" Elsa covered her mouth with her hand to hold back the laughter trying to escape her throat. An amused smile painted her face as she lowered her hand once she was certain that she wouldn't laugh at her sister poetic imagery.

"Yes, Elsa, pay attention." Anna dotted Elsa's nose with frosting, then laughed so hard that she clutched her stomach in pain as the older royal went crossed eyed to look at the chocolatey goodness on the tip of her nose.

Uncrossing her eyes, the Queen retaliated, smearing frosting on onto Anna's cheek, letting out a chuckle as Anna tried to lick it off. "Come on, we better get to work on this cake before Kristoff comes home."

XXX

Later that day, Kristoff returned with Sven after harvesting some ice and had barely stepped a foot into the castle before Anna dragged him into the kitchen to show him the Valentine's present she had made him. Kristoff stared down at the chocolate cake in sheer awe. Now the man wasn't usually one to be impressed by something as simple as cake – ice was the thing that interested him the most, after all – but the cake Anna held in her hands had been so carefully decorated and was so colourful that he couldn't help but stare at it, wondering how Anna's clumsy hands could've made something so… Perfect.

"_You_ made this." His voice couldn't disguise his shock, which caused him to receive a slight glare from his girlfriend before it vanished and her smile returned.

"Yup! Well, Elsa helped out too, but it was mostly me, and I designed how the cake would look, too. Sooo… Do you like it?" There was almost a hint of uncertainty in Anna's voice as, for a moment, she worried that the shock on Kristoff's face was a bad sign, not a good one. Luckily, Kristoff soon put an end to her worry with his answer.

"Yeah, but… Are you sure I can eat this? I mean, it looks so well made, I'm almost afraid to eat it and destroy your hard work; you must've worked on this for _hours,_ Anna." The Ice Harvester had his own worries now, as he clutched the bouquet of red and white assorted flowers behind his back. Anna put in hours of labour with his Valentine's day present and he put in 5 minutes and a couple of coins; his gift paled in comparison, and that in itself felt like an understatement.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I could always make another one in the future. Just eat it!"

As Anna held up a sharp knife, Kristoff's eyes widened and he backed away, his hands raised in surrender, accidentally revealing his gift though his eyes were too trained on the weapon in the Princess' hand to notice his mistake. "Woah! Ok, ok, I'll eat the cake, just take it easy, feisty-pants, there's no need to be wielding a weapon!"

For a moment, Anna looked confused, then she realised that her boyfriend was referring to the knife and rolled her eyes at him. "It's to cut the cake, silly, not to threaten you into eating the cake." And then she noticed the bouquet. Anna's grin brightened, her eyes twinkling with excitement as she handed the cake and knife to Kristoff, swapping them for the flowers.

"Oh, right. I-I, uh, I knew that." Kristoff rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly until Anna swapped gifts and he felt the blood rush to his cheeks, quickly lowering his head to hide the unmanly pink colour. "Oh yeah, and those, uh, well, they didn't require as much effort as a cake, and the price- it didn't cost much but, uh, I just saw them and thought of you and how you like bright colours and I just thought, you know, maybe you'd like them. I-If you don't, though I can probably return them and get you something el-"

"Kristoff!" Anna's voice cut into the nervous rambling, giving the taller man an amused smile as she inhaled the scent of the flowers, letting out a content sigh. "I think they're beautiful, thank you. Happy Valentine's day, Kristoff."

Looking back up at her, Kristoff smiled, setting the cake and knife back onto the counter as he moved his hands to the copper-haired Princess' waist. "Happy Valentine's day to you, too, Anna." Was his only response before his lips met hers in a short but sweet kiss that made Anna's heart flutter and her stomach do somersaults. As they pulled back, Kristoff spoke once more. "You know, I kind of feel bad for Elsa." He admitted. "She doesn't have anyone to give her presents on Valentine's day and show her love."

The smirk that spread across Anna's face worried the blonde haired Ice Master. He knew that look, that was the look Anna gave when she was up to something, or had done something and, most of the times, those things only caused trouble. It only confirmed his suspicions that she was up to something when the Princess responded with, "Don't worry, I've got that covered."

XXX

Apart from this morning when Elsa had helped Anna make the cake for Kristoff, the rest of her Valentine's day had been uneventful, the only excitement – if you could even call it that – coming from the papers she had to sign and the preparations she had to make for the Spring Festival which was only a month away, and the only love came from how much Elsa loved her dinner of roasted pheasant with caramelised parsnips and potatoes. Now, after a tiring afternoon of work, she decided to retire to her room early.

As she entered her chambers, however, the Queen paused, noticing a small box on the bed. Who had come in here without her permission? How had they even gotten in here when the door was locked? Elsa recalled the time Anna mentioned that Olaf could use his carrot nose to pick the door locks, but what purpose would Olaf have for sneaking in her room?

Cautiously approaching the mysterious box, she picked it up and opened it, being met with a heart shaped necklace. The platinum blonde's gaze travelled across the words engraved into the silver, her heart-warming as she recognized the words written above a small snowflake:

_As long as we're together_

_You and me._

Anna. Elsa recognised the final lines of a song she had not sung in over a decade, a song only Anna knew, because it was their song and no one else's. This could only have come from Anna, who probably asked Olaf to assist her in getting into the room to put the present on her bed. She was surprised that her sister could remember the song from 14 years ago, but the fact that she did brought a smile to the Queen's face. This gift was symbol that Anna cared for her, and will always care for her, no matter what the future brought for the sisters and Elsa would cherish this gift forever.

Putting the necklace on despite being about to go to sleep, Elsa got ready for bed and slid in under the covers. She felt bad about not getting Anna a gift – the Snow Queen hadn't expected to get any gifts on Valentine's day and it didn't even cross her mind to get someone else a gift – but that didn't matter, because she could always make it up to her tomorrow, probably in the form of a snow day.

As sleep took over Elsa's body, her final thought of the day was a lesson she had learned: Valentine's day was not just a day between partners, it was about showing those who you held close to your heart – romantically or otherwise – just how much you truly cared about them, be it through a gift or through precious time together.


	9. Nightmare

**Author's note: Woohoo! Chapter 9! I promised myself that I wouldn't write a chapter like this, because I head read so many 'Anna has a nightmare' fanfics and I was worried about my version becoming too cheesy, but then I actually came up with a nightmare for Anna for a roleplay and was like 'Oh gosh, I _have _to type this up!' et voila! Apologies for cheesiness, apologies for giving Anna a really bad nightmare (I ran the idea by a friend and she said that if she had a nightmare like that she'd cry, so I'm sorry if it makes you guys cry when you imagine it happening!) and I promise that the next chapter will be cutesy in involve smiley happy princesses, although it might be a while because I'm taking a 2 week break to study for some tests I have next week :S Until next time, thanks for reading, please offer up some non-angsty prompts since I'm overwhelmed with too many angsty ideas right now, and I hope you enjoy this chapter :) Oh! P.S. In case I haven't made it quite clear, this chapter's set about a week after 'Love is stronger than fear', so Anna's not quite over her fear yet, but she's trying to get over it ^_^**

_Fire. The world around her was on fire, blazing a terrifyingly brilliant orange brighter than strawberry blonde hair. Flames danced up the walls of Arendelle's castle, licked at every pattern on the wallpaper and burning it a nightmarish black. The poisonous air around her was thick and grey, choking her and threatening to make her pass out, and still Anna ran. She dodged falling bits of ceiling, ran around obstacles, trying to block out the cries of fear from somewhere else within the burning castle – probably the staff, trapped who knows where, losing their own battle to the unforgiving, all-consuming fire._

_No, Anna couldn't focus on them right now, nor could she focus on the intense heat that scorched her skin and parched her throat, she had to get to Elsa; she wouldn't dare leave the fiery chaos until she knew that her sister was safe too._

_The Princess, at the age of 16, finally managed to run ahead of the flames, relief barely having time to wash over her for she knew there was only a small amount of time before they would catch up again, and sped to the older Princess' flower-painted doors. Anna turned the handle and-_

_Nothing. It was locked._

_No no no no no! Elsa was still isolating herself even now! Did she even realise that the castle was on fire? Frantically knocking on the door, the copper-haired sister yelled through the solid wood, her voice cracking from being so dry. "E-Elsa! Open up! You- You've got to get out of there!" She warned, trying to get through to the blonde whom she had not seen in 11 years now._

_But Elsa wasn't opening the door, not wanting to deal with Anna, who always pestered her to leave the safe yet lonely four walls of her chambers. Just like any other time, she wasn't going to cave in to her, no matter how desperate the voice sounded so, as always, she simply responded with, "Go away, Anna!"_

"_Elsa, _please_! There's a fire! If you don't leave now you'll die! Please, you've got to believe me!" Anna argued, now trying to break down the door though it was no use; the sister-separating door was so thick that, even if she weren't feeling lightheaded and weak, there'd be no budging it._

_As Anna started coughing from the smoke circulating in the air, as the fear-striking roaring noise of the flames crept closer, she heard Elsa's reply and it shattered her heart._

"_No, why should I believe you?" Of course, the younger Princess knew what was going through the older sibling's mind. Anna had tried to trick her sister into coming out multiple times before, and now could just be another trick. But it wasn't, and even though it was a life and death situation, Elsa still didn't open the door. She'd _never_ open the door to her little sister._

_And then it was too late. The heat became too much and Anna turned around to see the flames encircling her, mere metres away. As the first flames began to sear her skin, she used what would probably be her final breath to let out an ear-piercing scream._

_Only then did she hear the worry in Elsa's voice._

"_Anna?! Anna, wake up! _Please_!"_

XXX

"Anna?! Anna, wake up! _Please_!"

Anna woke up with a start, sitting bolt upright in her bed. She was hyperventilating, with eyes like saucers as they took in the dark, frost-covered room around her. Her eyes locked on Kai and Gerda standing warily in the doorway, but was then distracted by Queen Elsa who cupped the Princess' face, her gaze showing nothing but concern, perhaps even slight panic and fear, for the younger royal.

"Are you ok?! The entire wing could hear your shouting in your sleep!" Elsa had feared the worst for her precious sister and jumped out of bed, running down the hallway to Anna's room leaving a trail of frost in her path. She was soon followed by the head servants, who was also equally as worried and, once Elsa had entered the room, she did not find a kidnapper or someone trying to harm Anna, but the Princess tossing and turning in bed, shouting something that sounded roughly like 'Fire'.

Was Anna ok? No. The answer to that was obvious. The nightmare had been so vivid, so _real _that it was as if it really did happen, even though she knew it never did, but what if it happened in the future?

No, she couldn't think like that. Elsa had promised last week that she would always answer the door – had even proved it with a demonstration! She had to get over this fear; it was starting to get ridiculous!

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." She lied, wiping the sweat from her forehead. But as the images flashed in her mind over and over again, refusing to let her shove the dream aside so easily, tears started brimming at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over. It was this that triggered the protective side in the Snow Queen who instantly pulled her little sister into a hug, one that would've been impossible 6 months ago, in which case Anna would've had to have found some way to cope on her own. But now? Now she was able to cry into Elsa's shoulder. For the second time in almost two weeks. With Kai and Gerda looking on as she sobbed.

Gosh, she felt so stupid.

As if Elsa had read her mind, Anna heard the Queen say, "Kai, Gerda, please leave us. I think I need some time alone with Anna." In a soft yet strained voice and, although the younger royal's world was blackened out by the fabric of Elsa's nightgown, she heard the door close shut as they were left alone.

For a while, the only sounds were Anna's sobbing and the two sisters' heartbeats. Comfort alone was enough to calm the Princess down slowly as she forced herself to take deep breaths, mentally commanding the choking tears to stop. Once the tears had ceased to fall, she lifted her head off of Elsa's shoulder to wipe away the final stubborn tears, though she never left the safety of her big sister's arms.

Eventually Elsa's voice broke the silence, her voice soothing as she rubbed Anna's arm comfortingly. "Would you like to talk about it?" She asked, resting her cheek on top of the mess of strawberry blonde hair as she waited to listen carefully.

Perhaps a talk was needed. Maybe, if Anna spoke the dream out loud, it'd empty the images from her mind. Sniffling a little, she recalled the dream in a shaky, tear-drowned voice. "I was- Th-The castle was on fire and w-we were inside, and I – me from a year or two ago - was running to your room because you- you hadn't left, and the door was locked! I-I tried to get you to come out but-" Anna didn't continue, opting instead to take more deep breaths, to try and relax, because she knew that continuing would make Elsa feel even more guilty than she already did for the years of isolation, for the years of neglecting Anna in an attempt to 'Protect' her.

It was too late, though. Anna could feel the tension in Elsa's arms as they stiffened, almost felt the Queen wincing, and the room… Entirely covered in frost, freezing cold to the point where Anna was covered in goosebumps, almost contemplating pulling away from her older sister to pull the covers up around her body more. Instead, though, she decided to just hug Elsa tighter and let out a whispered, "Please don't blame yourself for my nightmare. The past is in the past."

Those last words seemed to snap Elsa out of it, though the Queen briefly looked down at Anna in confusion, recognising the words she had once said in her ice castle on the North Mountain, just before she threw her crown away, vowing never to return to Arendelle – to Anna. Had Anna somehow heard those words? If she had, then- No, it must have been a mere coincidence, for Anna hadn't' shown up until a couple days later.

Focusing on the present again, the Snow Queen processed her sister's dream again, trying to look past all the guilt she felt for shutting her out, and then shook her head. "It was just a dream, Anna, that never did happen, nor will it ever happen." Beginning to rub her sister's back, the blonde then continued, in the hopes that her words may cheer Anna up. "In fact, there are a few mistakes in your dream that I'm surprised you haven't noticed."

A questioning look crossed Anna's face as she gazed up at the platinum blonde. Mistakes? What mistakes? What did Elsa mean? "Mistakes? Like what?" She asked, wiping her nose as she sniffed again, allowing her head to rest in the crook of Elsa's neck, just like she used to over a decade ago before their bond was obstructed by isolation.

"Like, for example, I always open the door for you now, even for the tiniest matters, let alone a raging fire. Second of all, there would never even be a fire – at least not one that consumed the entire castle –, not while I can act as the castle's personal fire extinguisher," To prove her point, the Queen lifted her palm towards the ceiling, sending out a burst of snow. Of course, Elsa wasn't exactly sure whether her powers would be a match for a powerful fire, but nevertheless, the thought of her extinguishing the flames with snow and ice, turning the castle into a winter wonderland in the process, caused Anna's musical laughter - albeit quieter than normal - to fill the air. Hearing it caused Elsa's heart to warm up, as well as the room, the frost thawing and disappearing.

"Finally," All joking aside, Elsa's expression turned serious, her icy gaze locking with Anna's, "If there ever was a fire,_ I'd_ be running through the fire to get to _you_, to make sure _you_ were safe, not the other way around."

"Even if it meant risking being burnt by flames?" Anna challenged, a small smile creeping onto her face at her older sister's word.

"Anna, I'd risk anything and everything for you. You're all I have left; I'll protect you no matter what."

In the seriousness of Elsa's words, there was a moment of silence. Anna tried to digest it all – her nightmarish thoughts were all gone at this point – and then finally broke the silence with a smirk. "Well, that's not good, because I'll be doing the exact same thing. We'll both be running around the castle like headless chickens trying to find and save each other from the fire and then _neither _of us will get out."

As the last bit of frost thawed, the platinum blonde let out a slight chuckle. "Hey, you've already saved me once; I owe you." She pointed out, returning the smirk with one of her own.

"Maybe you're right," Letting out a yawn, Anna moved out of Elsa's comforting arms and lay back down under the covers once again, pulling the quilt right up to her chin. "But that doesn't mean I won't try to save you again the next time something happens."

"I see your stubbornness hasn't disappeared over the years." Queen Elsa teased, reminiscing on the past, to a time where the two sisters were joined at the hip, as they were now, only they were a lot smaller. "You always wanted to play the role of the knight when we were younger. You always wanted to be the one to slay the dragon and protect me from it, even though it was always my job to protect _you_. When are you going to let me do my job, and do it correctly?" Leaning down to kiss Anna's forehead and whisper a gentle, "Goodnight." Elsa got up and made her way towards the door, taking her leave so that Anna could sleep in peace.

"Hey, Elsa?"

She paused mid-step, turning back to look at the figure curled up in the bed. "Yes, Anna?"

"Can you stay here tonight? I-I mean, you don't have to if you don't want, it's just-" A yawn escaped, muffling Anna's words, though she was sure Elsa would still be able to understand them. "If the nightmare comes back…"

As the Princess' voice trailed off, the Queen nodded her head in understanding and climbed into bed beside her sister, who soon snuggled up to her. "Would you like me to sing a lullaby too?" It was meant as a joke, but the joking tone of Elsa's voice was lost on the half-asleep girl who nodded a 'Yes please' into her shoulder, remembering how her mother's lullabies used to help lull her into a nightmare-less sleep at night.

With a slight sigh, Elsa complied anyway, unable to bring herself to refuse Anna anything when she seemed so vulnerable, and began singing a lullaby her mother had once taught her, a lullaby that she would sing on the majority of nights, even through an ice cold door, whenever the young Snow Princess' sobs could be heard on the other side. About halfway through the song, snoring reached the Queen's ears, signalling that Anna had finally fallen asleep again, though she continued to the end of the song just to be on the safe side. Eventually she, too, fell asleep, and both sisters slept without fear until dawn woke them up once again.


	10. Camping

**Author's note: I LIIIIVE! So, as I said, I took 2 weeks off for studying and mock exams and then my laptop decided to break. *Rolls eyes.* My laptop chose a completely bad time to die. On the plus side, it's now fixed, so I'm back! Woohoo! Ok, so if you remember in Chapter 1, Smores, Anna mentioned a time when the royal family went on a camping trip and, well, this is it! I'm not entirely pleased with the ending, but it's better than the ending I had original put sooo... Yeah... Still looking for prompts, I promise I'll try to update more regularly now that I've returned aaand, I hope you guys enjoy the cute sisterly fluff! X3**

For a normal three-and-a-half year old, getting up early on a Saturday morning was unheard of – unimaginable, even.

But Anna was no ordinary three-and-a-half year old, and today was no ordinary Saturday.

Princess Elsa was peacefully sleeping in the bed across from her sister's, the early-rising summer sun not affecting her slumber whatsoever. What did affect her slumber was the sudden, unexpected weight landing on top of her with a thud.

"Elsa! Elsa, wakey wakey!" The older princess heard as something - or, rather, _someone_ – tried to shake her awake. At first she just ignored it – the sleep-disrupter would probably give up eventually and let her happy, carefree dreams continue if she pretended to remain asleep - and it almost worked until-

"ELSA!" Her name was yelled right into her ear, startling her so much that she let out an undignified yelp, a flurry of snow escaping her palms and swirling around in the air beside the bed. "Pretty!" Anna exclaimed in awe, clambering off of Elsa with a giggle to reach out and grasp the little snowflakes. Thankful for her sister's distraction, and the fact that she didn't have a dead weight crushing her now, the Snow Princess reluctantly sat up with a disgruntled groan, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Ok, I'm awake, what do you want?" Her words were slurred with tiredness, a yawn escaping her lips as she stretched out her little arms. Her memory of the importance of this day soon returned to her, though, long before Anna had return to reality from her flurry-filled excitement to realise that she had been asked a question.

"Huh?" The redhead snapped to attention, then grinned at her older sister, mimicking the Cheshire Cat's smile with her bright blue eyes sparkling in the sunshine that seeped into the room. "It's camping day! We're going camping!"

Ah yes, the camping trip. The King and Queen had been rather busy within the past couple of months trying to form alliances with the Northern and Western Isles and felt as if there hadn't been enough time to spend with their daughters so, in order to make up for their absence, they had booked the weekend off from their royal duties and planned a camping trip with the beloved Princesses of Arendelle. How could Elsa ever forget when she had been so looking forward to escaping the castle walls?

Their parents had stated that they were leaving for the forest at 9am in order to make the most of their day. Elsa glanced to the grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Despite having only recently learnt to tell the time, she managed to figure out from the little hand pointing straight down and the big hand pointing straight up that it was 6am. _6am!_

"Anna! We could've slept for at least another two hours!" She complained with another groan, lying back down and preparing for the extra two hours of sleep that would never come, thanks to a certain someone who could be extremely stubborn, even at her young age.

"Nuh uh!" Came the protest from the youngest sibling, who crawled into bed beside Elsa and pulled her sister's paler blue eyes open. "Nuh uh 'cause we have to put our toys and clothes in the bags, and get dressed, and eat breakfast, and we have to make sure we don't forget the chocolate! We're in charge of the chocolate, remember? Mama said so!"

Elsa believed that all of that could've been done in the hour she had planned to give herself if she stuck to a schedule and gave each job a specific amount of time to complete, but she knew that the excited toddler wouldn't give in without a fight so, reluctantly, she complied to her little sister's will, sitting up in the bed and running a hand through her bangs in an attempt to neaten them. "Fine. What should we pack first, Little Miss Packing Expert?"

The platinum blonde smiled affectionately as Anna sat up, a look of deep, focused thought crossing her small features and her index finger and thumb framing her chin in an adorable fashion. The expression of pure concentration didn't last long, however, as Anna broke into yet another beaming grin. "Let's pack Little Anna and Little Elsa first!"

3 hours later, the girls, along with their parents and eight guards – two for each member of the royal family – were at the front gate. All members of the camping trip were on horseback, as there were a lot of camping supplies to carry on the journey. Anna sat in front of her mother on the Queen's Norwegian Fjord, and Elsa sat in front on her father on his. While Elsa remained calm, however, the younger Princess couldn't stop bouncing up on down which resulted in an annoyed snort from the poor horse that she sat upon.

"Anna, dear, be careful, otherwise you'll hurt Alec." The Queen scolded lightly, using a hand to steady her hyperactive toddler.

"Sorry, Mama," Came the reply with an innocent smile, followed by a tiny hand petting the horse's black and white mane. "Sorry, Alec, I'm just so excited!"

The Snow Princess chuckled slightly under her breath at Anna's antics before she was distracted by the sound of hooves moving towards the side of the King's horse, Vladimir.

"Your Majesty, all preparations are complete." The soldier on horseback stated with a respectful bow of the head.

"Very well." The King of Arendelle turned his attention to the guards that protected the castle gates, his voice ringing with an authority the older sister could only wish to have in the future as he commanded, "Open the gates."

With a salute, the guards did so and the royal family set off, guards positioned both in front of them and behind them as they trotted through town. The townspeople smiled and bowed to their beloved King, Queen and Princesses. Out of the corner of her eye, Elsa could see Anna waving to everyone, though she herself just gave a shy smile. Was this how people would react to her presence one day? Would they love her when she came into power as much as they loved her mother and father? There were many questions on the six year old's mind that wouldn't even appear in an average six year old's childish thoughts, but Elsa couldn't help but think about her future as Queen of Arendelle and wonder what it would be like for her.

It did not take long to reach the outskirts of the forest, as Arendelle was a relatively small kingdom. It was then that Anna began singing happily. "We're going on a camping trip, camping trip, camping trip, we're going on a camping, it's going to be su-per! We're going on- Elsa! Join in!"

"Do I have to?" The song sounded like it would be repetitive and just irritate everyone, and if Elsa could avoid being partially blamed for everyone's annoyance and getting into trouble with her parents…

"Pleeeaaase?" Anna pleaded, giving Elsa the puppy dog eyes she was growing famous for.

Oh no, why must she use the puppy dog eyes? Elsa was still trying to combat the effects of the puppy dog eyes, but had yet to master it (Little did she realise that she would _never_ be able to resist the puppy dog eyes, even in future decades)! She tried avoiding her sister's gaze as best as she could, but would always find herself glancing back to Anna, just to see if she had finished giving her the dreaded look, only to find her resolve wavering as a pout was added to Anna's unfair method of persuasion. Well, maybe a song would past the time for a little while… Eventually the blonde Princess sighed, giving in, and took a deep breath. "We're going on a camping trip, camping trip, camping trip-"

With a victorious grin, Anna soon joined in, putting more enthusiasm into each note than Elsa did.

The young heir had been correct, the song had passed the time until the group of royalty and guards reached the camping location – a small area beside a glistening lake, surrounded by trees which seemed to glow in the sunlight filtering down through the emerald leaves. Elsa was used to the beautiful sight of the forest, having spent time out there with her parents before, and she would soon get used to it even more once she started taking horse-riding lessons, but young Anna was not as used to it, and was staring wide eyed at the scenery, not even noticing when her mother dismounted Alec and lifted her off of the horse.

"You two have fun for a moment while we set up the tents, ok?" The King told his daughters as he too dismounted his horse and helped Elsa down. "Don't stray too far away from the guards, though; there may be bears nearby and we wouldn't want you two getting hurt." With a kiss on each of the Princesses' heads, the King then went to assist with putting the tents up.

To mention bears in front of Anna, who instantly associated 'Bears' with the cuddly teddy bears she was forced to leave at home this morning, was a bad idea. The warning of getting hurt flew over her small head as she imagined the adventure set out in front of her, searching for giant teddy bears in this magical forest with her magical sister, and then eventually getting to hug the giant teddy bears once the Princesses had found them, burying her face into their soft fur.

Anyone who could read Anna's mind at that moment would know that her next few words would be inevitable. However, Elsa was not a mind reader, so when her younger sibling declared, "Let's go and find the bears, Elsa!" and started trying to drag her away from the group, she was too shocked to even react. That was until she heard the four guards assigned to their protection start trying to coax Anna out of her little plan, to no avail.

"W-Wait! Anna!" Elsa slammed on the brakes, coming to a halt and forcing the copper haired little girl to do the same. "Didn't you hear what Papa said? He didn't want us getting hurt!"

"But teddy bears won't hurt us, Elsa, they're cuddly!" Anna countered, causing Elsa to let out a sigh. Of course, her little sister thought that the bears their father had been referring to were teddy bears, not the real bears that could attack them if they weren't careful. Not wanting to scare the toddler with an explanation of how dangerous these 'Teddy bears' could be, the older princess decided on an alternative game, one that required more imagination and, therefore, less danger. In theory.

"I have a better idea; let's find a dragon!" Elsa suggested with a grin, watching Anna's sky blue eyes light up at the new adventure.

"That sounds funner!" The guards surrounding them breathed a sigh of relief, as did Elsa, when Anna started looking around the outskirts of their camping site for the imaginary dragon, searching under every rock and every stick as she called, "Dragon! Come out and play!"

The Snow Princess chuckled as Anna searched around the camp, two guards following closely behind her even though it didn't seem as if Anna would get hurt anymore, now that she was staying close to the camp site. She knew, however, that if they didn't find a dragon soon, Anna would start looking elsewhere, further away from the safe surroundings.

For a moment, Elsa contemplated making a snow pile with her powers and building a dragon but it was too risky to use her powers around the unknowing guards who watched over her like hawks. No, today would have to be magic free and tomorrow she'd create multiple snow dragons and snowmen for her beloved sister to make up for the distinct lack of any today.

Thinking swiftly, Elsa ran to hide behind one of her guards, acting out a look of sheer terror. "Anna! Help! The dragon's got me!" The Princess held back the giggle that wanted to escape her lips not because of her overdramatic acting, not because Anna gasped just as dramatically and was running over to save Elsa, but for the pure, dumbfounded confusion on the poor guard's face – when Alrik Andersen joined the royal guards, no one warned him that he may fall prey to the kid-Princesses' little games.

"What? B-But Princess Elsa-!" He tried to protest, glancing over to the fellow guards who were smirking and trying to hold back their laughter.

"Just go along with it, please." The six-year-old interrupted, gesturing over to the approaching Anna, her fist thrust forward as she held a stick, pretending that it was a sword.

How could Andersen say no to the look of pure joy on the child's face? More importantly, how could he say no to a request from his future Queen? What would the current King and Queen say if he denied the order from the Princess? Having no choice, he took a deep breath, tried to tune out his fellow comrades, and started playing with the Princesses. "Roar! I'm a big scary dragon and I have captured Princess Elsa." The adult laughter surrounded poor Alrik Andersen as he tried to make himself look bigger and more intimidating. However, nothing could scare the tiniest Princess, especially when her sister was in trouble.

As her little legs finally reached the 'Dragon', Anna skidded to a halt, standing up as straight as she could to match the guard's technique of trying to look bigger –her attempt was, obviously, all in vein, but the redhead didn't seem to care – and glaring at her sister's captor. "Give her back, you meany!"

"Never! You'll have to get through me first!" The Andersen responded, the laughter and teasing from the others becoming less of a bother for him as he heard the sisters giggle at his acting. Allowing himself to act unprofessional for the sake of their happiness, he thrust his hands forward and started wiggling his fingers while making roaring noises. Anna stared at him blankly, wondering what he was doing, until the guard elaborated his actions. "This is me breathing fire at you! I'm breathing fire because I'm a dragon!"

"Ohhh! Aah!" The copper-haired Princess jumped to one side to avoid the fire, then started swinging her 'Sword' wildly at the 'Dragon'. "Don't worry, Elsa! I'll save you!"

"Hurry, Anna! Before he eats me!" Elsa's cry for help came out muffled by her hands as she desperately tried to hold back her laughter, not wanting to ruin the dramatic scene. It didn't exactly help that the three other guards weren't even bothering to contain their laughter.

It took half an hour and many swings for Anna to defeat her fiery foe, Andersen falling to his knees with the stick wedged under his armpit. "Oh no! Princess Anna got me! I'm dead!" He called out as Elsa ran around him and hugged the victorious little Princess.

"I knew you'd be able to do it, Anna! You're my hero!" The older girl exclaimed, pulling back from her hug to give Anna a proud smile.

"No one messes with my big sister and gets away with it!" Was the response, which was soon followed by laughter from the two youngest members of the royal family. Little did they realise that they had gained an audience.

"Well done," The King called from a short distance away, his arm wrapped around his wife as she struggled to contain her amused smile at the antics of her daughters. He himself wore a proud smile, proud that he had two adventurous – albeit sometimes mischievous – children.

"Y-Your Majesty!" Alrik exclaimed, quickly standing to attention and bowing to his King, thankful that the action would hide his embarrassed blush. "I was just- I mean they-"

"No need to explain, Andersen. Thank you for entertaining my daughters." The King offered the guard a small smile before turning his attention to Anna and Elsa. "Now if you're quite done distracting the guards from their duties, why don't you find something else to entertain yourselves."

Several hours later, after spending time with their parents and playing little games of hide and seek, the girls had gone their separate ways, Anna becoming fascinated with watching a squirrel run around and collect nuts while Elsa occupied herself by the lake with a book, taking advantage of Anna's distraction to delve into a different world, read about another person's tales of action and excitement. As much as Elsa adored her little sister, she liked her moments of peace and quiet too, and enjoyed the moments when she could take a break from the endless ball of energy in the form of a three- year-old.

By the time the snow Princess had finished her book, the sun was beginning to set, hues of vibrant pinks, oranges and purples reflecting off of the glittery lake. It truly was a beautiful sight, as magic as the powers that coursed through her veins, though far more natural. The young heir rose to her feet, the book remaining on the ground beside her as she took in the sight, letting out a deep breath of awe, feeling grateful to live in such a beautiful land. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed two of the guards fishing, trying to catch their dinner for the evening. Having never really witnessed people fishing before, the curious child began to watch, wondering how the men caught the fish.

Little did she know that her peaceful observation was about to come to an abrupt end, as Anna returned from watching the squirrel go about its daily business, albeit a little more cautiously than usual as it realised that it was being watched. After Anna had let out a loud "Hi there!" when it looked her way and scared the poor creature away, she pouted and walked back to the camp.

The original plan had been to simply tell Elsa about the squirrel and how adorable it looked when it was nibbling on his acorn, but as soon as she saw her sister with her back towards her, Anna spotted an opportunity she would regret for the rest of her childhood if she did not act upon it. Letting out the mischievous giggle now, before she got too close and risked Elsa hearing her, the young redhead snuck up behind the unsuspecting older Princess, mentally counting to three before giving her a shove, pushing Elsa off of the bank and into the water with a loud SPLASH!

As the platinum blonde surface and hacked up some water she swallowed, the lake around her began to lower in temperature, out of shock and a small bit of anger towards the toddler laughing her head off and clutching her stomach on the bank. "Anna! That wasn't nice! And this is a new dress." She scolded, though it fell on deaf ears; Anna could barely hear her own thoughts over the laughter escaping her lips!

That did it.

Narrowing her eyes mischievously at her clearly distracted little sister, Elsa started to climb the bank, only to grab Anna's tiny hand and pull her into the cold lake too. Of course, Anna had yet to learn how to swim, so Elsa kept one arm around her at all times, but even her protective side couldn't ceased the giggles when she saw the shocked look on the younger Princess' face.

"Elsa, it's cold!" Anna squealed her complaint, making Elsa laugh even more.

"It serves you right for pushing me in." She countered, splashing the three-year-old playfully and smiling at the giggles it created. Even when cold and wet, Anna was happy, and that was all that Elsa could ask for in her life; to make her sister happy.

"Oh yeah? Well… Well…" Without a comeback, the copper haired Princess resorted to retaliation, splashing Elsa in return, a challenge in her sky blue eyes. Before a splashing war could break out, though, the Queen noticed the two in the water, a look of worry crossing her features until she realised that Elsa had a hold on Anna. Then the worry was replaced by a stern look, which Anna noticed as her mother began to make her way over to the bank. "Uh oh…"

"Elsa, Anna, what do you think you're doing in the lake? The water's probably filthy; you've both ruined your dresses, and I only bought them last week!" The tone of the Queen of Arendelle was gentle, but firm at the same time, scolding the two naughty Princesses without being too harsh on them.

"Sorry, Mama." The older sister set an example for her sibling, being the first to reply.

"Yeah, sorry, Mama." Anna responded also, a guilty frown on her face.

Seeing the sorrow in Anna's eyes, the Queen's heart melted, her expression softening. Of course, they wouldn't get away with their antics, but to punish them on a family day out, one which was so rare, would ruin the fun and joy for not just the children, but for the adults as well. Heaving a sigh, the Queen shook her head at her children. "Just don't cause any more trouble on this trip, you two. We'll discuss a suitable punishment when we return to the castle." Outstretching her arms, she, with the help of Elsa, pulled Anna out of the lake, and then also assisted Elsa. She then ushered the dripping wet Princesses towards their tent to get dressed into something drier.

The rest of the evening was spent around the campfire, eating smores with their parents and gazing up at the stars, listening to the wilderness around them beyond the sound of the crackling campfire fire. There were even songs from Elsa and her mother, Anna humming along though she didn't know the lyrics. The King had been too reluctant to join the chorus, but was quite content to just listen to the three most precious people in his life sing soft tunes together.

It was no surprise that, when the time for bed came and the two young Princesses were in their nightgowns, Anna was reluctant to see 'The best day ever' end.

"But can't we stay up just a little longer, Elsa?" She pleaded as she sat in their tent, watching the shadowed figures of the guards pace around, keeping an eye out for bandits or dangerous animals that might attack the royal family, as her older sister brushed her unruly copper hair for her.

"No, we can't. You heard Mama, if we don't go to bed, we'll be in even more trouble than we already are." The more logical sibling answered, not wishing to make things worse than they were – if any more trouble was caused, Mama and Papa might try to take away the girls' chocolate supply, and chocolate-deprived Princesses weren't a pretty sight at all.

"But we could prank the guards! Or stay up telling stories, or- or-"

"Or we could go to sleep." Elsa countered with a giggle, tying Anna's hair into piggy tails. "Alright, all done! And besides, there'll be other times we go camping. I heard Papa saying something to Mama about doing this every year for one day, like Christmas and our birthdays."

"Really?" The toddler's expression brightened at the thought of a yearly camping trip. She loved Christmas and her birthday, so a yearly camping trip would be just as amazing. She wished it would be more than once a year, but this way it'd make the camping trip super special!

"Mhmm. And, on the other days that Mama and Papa aren't working, we'll do other things like go to the beach, or the park or maybe just go shopping in the village, buuut Mama and Papa might cancel those plans if you don't go to sleep now."

Anna gasped at such a thought and immediately clambered under the blankets they had brought with them, hugging Little Anna close to her. "Ok, ok! I'm going to sleep now, I promise!"

Elsa laughed at Anna's sudden obedience and then copied her little sister, climbing under her own blankets and hugging Little Elsa. She faced the toddler - both children were lying on their sides – and gave her an affectionate smile. "Goodnight, Anna."

"Goodnight Elsa. I love you!"

"I love you, too." With those simple yet meaningful words, the sisters of Arendelle fell into a peaceful sleep.

The following year, Anna had fallen sick on the eve of the big camping trip. Elsa, feeling sorry for her younger sibling, refused to go on the camping trip without her and so the trip was cancelled in favour of spending the entire day as a family in the daughters' bedroom. Had she known what the future held for the Royal family, she might've agreed to go without Anna, because that was the only chance she would've gotten to go camping again before the incident that made her shut herself away for thirteen years, and would've been the last chance for fourteen years that she had to see the glittering sunset lake that she had adored so much.


	11. No more secrets

**Author's note: This chapter didn't turn out to be as long as I expected it to be :/ I hope it's still good though. Anyways, this is basically the typical 'Elsa tells Anna about the accident' story, although I added something I hadn't seen anyone else do so... Yeah... I don't know what chapter's got next. I've got a couple which are really vague and probably not even worth 1000 words, and I have one with the potential to be pretty long, maybe two, actually, but they're both depressing so... Happy prompts would be highly appreciated! Thank you for reading my little collection of one-shots, I hope you enjoy it and I'll see you in the future.**

**Elsa's P.O.V**

"_No more secrets, no more closed doors."_

Those words were spoken mere hours ago, by the youngest of Arendelle's royal sisters, just days after the older sister had discovered her fear of knocking on the big white door or, well, any door in which she was behind. It was to become their new motto, apparently, a promise to each other – and to the rest of the kingdom as well – that the siblings were to take to their graves. Elsa, wanting things to go back to the way things used to be as much as Anna did, agreed in an instant, vowing to never close another door on her little sister, or keep another secret from her.

She hadn't thought about what exactly those words meant until now, which was why the restless Queen lay in bed, wide awake and staring at the canopy above her as she dwelled on the first three words of that sentence. 'No more secrets', and yet there were so many things Anna still didn't know - _deserved _to know. The reason why she didn't know of Elsa's powers, the reason why Elsa shut herself out of Anna's life, the reason why their parents lied to her for 13 years about _why _Elsa no longer spent time with her. Yes, these were all things that the Princess deserved to hear now that the secret of her sister's powers had been discovered, but…

But it would mean revisiting a part of Elsa's past that had crushed her spirit, a part which she wished she could forget but couldn't, because it scarred her so deeply and every time she had revisited that time in the past, it had only reopened the wound – made her move further into her bedroom and away from the door that could grant her the ever tempting freedom. Could Elsa bear to relive the events yet again, when she had just promised herself that she would be a better sister for Anna? What if merely thinking about what happened made her relapse or, much much worse, what if her emotions got out of control again and something bad happened?

No, her life had been ruled by what-ifs for thirteen years already and Elsa refused to let that happen again, not when she had finally begun to fix things with Anna. Love will thaw. Anna would be there as she recounted the events that happened that dreadful night, and Anna would help her fight the despair and fear with love, that is, if Anna didn't hate her after finding out what happened. Then again, Anna didn't hate her after Elsa actually froze her, so that had to count for something, right?

The grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed 12 times. Midnight. Everyone would be asleep by now, meaning that, if explaining things to Anna did result in some form of breakdown, there would be no one around to witness the Queen of Arendelle in such a weak condition. Now would be the best time to tell Anna, if she was really going to go through this this.

Rising from the bed, Elsa pulled a dressing gown on, then left the safety zone that had always been her bedroom, making the unfamiliar journey to her little sister's room. Pausing outside the door with pink flowers and green vine patterns decorating its white surface, she took a deep breath, trying to collect herself, then knocked gently on the door. No answer. Maybe she knocked _too _gently. Elsa tried again, harder this time, and let out the breath as she heard the mumbled response from the other side of the door.

"Who is it?" The slurred voice of Anna called into the darkness.

"It's me, Elsa." A simple reply for a simple question, although it only seemed to stir up more questions.

"Elsa?" There was the sound of shuffling, a thud of something either being knocked over or bumped into, and eventually the door opened to reveal a half-asleep Anna, her sky blue eyes barely staying open, her hair sticking out in all directions; if Elsa wasn't feeling so nervous about what she was about to do, she might have struggled to retain a laugh at the sight. "What is it? What's wrong?" The younger sibling asked, rubbing her tired eyes.

"Come with me. I- I need to tell you something important." Old habits died hard as Elsa hugged herself, keeping her hands away from Anna as a safety precaution.

"Can't it wait until tomo-"

"No. No it can't." If the platinum blonde were to put this off until tomorrow night instead, she probably would've lost the courage to go through with this. No, it was better to get it over and done with tonight, so that she didn't have to deal with the anxiety of telling Anna even longer.

Without another word, Elsa began to walk towards the staircase, leaving the tired Princess to stare at her confusedly for a moment – what could be so important that it required waking her from her beauty sleep? - before her curiosity got the better of her and she followed the trail of frost downstairs.

**Anna's P.O.V**

"Ok, so why are we in the ballroom?" Anna asked as she glanced around the darkened room, a pale light from the aurora borealis dancing through the windows in the ceiling, illuminating the grand room. Why would Elsa drag her down into the Great Hall at midnight for an important talk? Weren't important talks usually held in the meeting room?

The Princess was going to question the Queen further, but then she noticed Elsa clutching herself, the aura of anxiety surrounding her practically visible. Anna moved toward her sister, wanting to comfort her, but paused mid-step as she saw her recoil, taking a deep breath.

"You said that you didn't want any more secrets between us," Elsa started, avoiding Anna's gaze. "But… But I- _we_ - Mama, Papa and I – have been keeping a secret from you for over a decade. Another secret regarding my powers."

There was _more? _How could there be more than what Anna had recently discovered? The sudden discovery of Elsa's ice powers had been overwhelming enough, but now there were other things as well? Biting her lip a little, Anna decided that, no matter how much more overwhelming the new information might be, it was best that she heard it, so she gestured for Elsa to continue.

There was a moment of silence as the Snow Queen hesitated, trying to think of the right words to say, and then, eventually, she spoke. "Anna, you knew about my powers from the moment you were born." A confused look crossed the copper haired girl's face, but she wasn't given any time to voice her argument. "When you were born, you used to cry so much but as soon as I made a little flurry of snowflakes, you'd calm down and giggle. From then onwards, we always played using my powers until…- and you don't remember any of this because of… What happened thirteen years ago…"

Those final five words made a connection in Anna's mind almost instantly. Thirteen years ago, Elsa first started to shut herself in her room, and shut the younger Princess out. At first Anna hadn't thought much of it, because her father said that Elsa was simply ill, but as days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months… But how was this all connected to her sister's powers? And apparently forgetting about them? "Elsa, I don't understand, I-"

"Please, just allow me to explain before you comment."

With that, Anna fell silent, merely watching Elsa as she rubbed her upper arms. She could almost hear the shaky breaths of her sister's nervousness; feel the drop in temperature that would've caused her to rub her hands together if she wasn't too focused on listening to the Queen's speech.

"Thirteen years ago, on a night like this one, when the aurora borealis painted the sky, you woke me up, wanting to play with me since you couldn't get back to sleep. You were so stubborn that eventually I surrendered, after you asked me to make a snowman, in the middle of Spring." There was the slightest chuckle at the memory, but as quickly as it came, it also died. "You dragged me downstairs, being so loud that I had to try and shh you – to no avail, of course – and then, well, we came here."

Anna could only stare in amazement and wonder as Elsa stomped her foot on the ballroom floor, coating the entire area in a thin sheet of ice. Her sister sent a snowball up into the air, which then exploded into snowflakes that fell gently all around them. Big blue eyes took in the new winter wonderland as Elsa made snow drifts, each one getting increasingly higher.

It wasn't until the magical display had ended that Anna looked over to the Queen, and noticed her condition worsening. This time she didn't hesitate when Elsa recoiled, she skidded right over and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her shaking form into a hug. "Hey, what's wrong?" She asked as she rubbed Elsa's back, ignoring the futile attempts to pull away – Elsa _had _to stop refusing contact in an attempt to 'Protect' her, especially when she desperately needed comforting, like now.

"I-I- We were-" The platinum blonde could barely talk, so Anna just kept hugging her for a moment longer, repeating 'I'm right here' over and over again in the hopes that the soothing words would comfort the distressed Snow Queen.

Eventually it took effect and the anxiety died down, enough so that Anna felt as if she could pull away from the freezing cold hug and let Elsa try to continue while she discreetly rubbed her hands together, attempting to warm them up again.

"It was all going so well. We were having fun and we built a snowman – the first Olaf -, we even slid down the snow drifts together but then…" Taking a breath, Elsa walked over to the snow drifts, gesturing for Anna to follow her. The Princess' eyes followed the older sibling's hand as it gestured to each snowdrift individually. "You kept jumping off of the snow drifts, and I would catch you by creating another just as you started to fall. With each jump you went higher, and then you started speeding up. I- I told you to slow down but you didn't pay attention to my warning, and then I slipped just as you were jumping off of the highest one and-"

As Elsa's hand reached the final, highest drift, Anna recognised the far off look in her eyes. It was the same look as she had gotten at the ice palace, as if the blonde wasn't even in the present anymore. Frost was already beginning to creep up the walls, icicles looming down from the corners of the room. She was about to try comforting Elsa's again, but her sister had found her voice again. "Oh Anna, I'm so sorry. I struck you with my magic, that's the whole reason you had that white streak in your hair. I could've- I almost killed you. If I had been a second sooner, it would've hit your heart."

Elsa was blinking back tears, but now it was Anna's turn to have a far-off look as she processed all the new information she had just received. Everything was still a blank to her, as if it never happened, but she believed Elsa, and that meant… If she had slowed down like her sister had told her, then the accident wouldn't have even happened and then… It all made sense now. _'Go away, Anna!'_ _'Just go away and you'll be safe from me' _"You shut me out for thirteen years because you loved me so much that you didn't want to risk hurting me again. You were trying to keep me safe from behind that door." Anna concluded, leaving out the voice in her head that told her that her sister had only been behind that door in the first place because of her – Elsa would only deny it and throw all of the blame onto herself if she did, anyway.

"Yes, exactly." The Queen breathed, relieved that Anna seemed to understand. However, she wasn't done explaining and therefore the negative emotions she had spent years telling herself to conceal overpowered that relief, causing fear to course through her veins yet again. Pointing to a spot on the ground, she added, "You fell down the snowdrift and landed right here, unconscious, not moving a muscle. I was so scared as I held you in my lap that I yelled out for Mama and Papa. They took us to see the trolls-" Anna's eyes widened slightly in recognition. Trolls? As in Kristoff's family? They had helped her before? "And their leader removed the memories of my magic from you; he altered them so that it seemed like a normal memory of us playing outside in Winter. He explained how dangerous my powers were and warned me that my powers would only get stronger. We were all so scared about what might happen that Papa ordered the gates to be locked, reduced the number of staff and I, well, if staying in my room meant that I could protect you, I was more than willing to do so."

**Elsa's P.O.V**

Silence passed between the two sisters. Elsa waited anxiously for what she believed to be inevitable now. How could Anna ever forgive her for putting her life in danger more than once? For being the cause of so many of her lost memories? For having their own parents lie to the lonely little girl on the outside of the door up until their death? How could Anna even forgive her for denying her the comfort they both desperately needed on the day of their parents' funeral? There were so many unforgivable things that Elsa had done that she was expecting Anna to hate her and never wish to speak to her again.

What she wasn't expecting was for the younger royal to pull her into a hug.

"All these years I thought I did something wrong; that you hated me so much that you never wanted to see me again. Ok, so maybe I _did _do something wrong – I really should've listened to you when you said to slow down – but… You _never _hated me, you _loved _me."

Elsa could feel tears – she assumed they were tears of joy but was unsure - soak into her dressing gown and quickly returned the hug. Now it was Anna's time to be comforted. "Anna, don't blame yourself for what happened, it was all my fault for not being more careful with my powers. And you're my sister; of course I loved you, and still do." She reassured her little sister with a kiss to her coppery hair. All around her, the frost and threatening icicles started thawing as she allowed those words to resonate, her love for the Princess conquering her fear. "Don't ever think I hate you, ok? No matter what happens, no matter how frustrated I may get with you or how many arguments we may get into in the future, promise me this."

"I promise." Was mumbled into the fabric of her clothes and, after a second, the Queen felt Anna pull away and begin wiping the remains of her tears. The two glanced around at the winter wonderland surrounding them, both letting out a shaky breath for entirely different reasons.

It was Anna who spoke up first and, as if she was reading her mind, picked up on the reason for Elsa's shaky breaths. "This… Brings up a lot of bad memories for you, doesn't it." It was more of a statement than a question, but Elsa nodded her answer, anyway. "Then why did you recreate it? You could've just told me without having to go through all of this."

"I don't know." She replied verbally this time, running a hand through her platinum blonde hair. "Closure, I suppose. I thought that maybe if I… Revisited the scene of the crime, so to speak, it would help to bury the past and put it all behind me." If Elsa could move on from her past mistakes, maybe she could be a better sister, the sister Anna deserved.

"Oh, I see,…" Another moment of silence, then, "Did it work?"

"A little, but not to the extent I wished it would." The Snow Queen admitted, her gaze shifting to the icy floor as she frowned. She felt a hand slip into her own, squeeze it reassuringly, and when she lifted her head, Elsa was greeted with a small smile from Anna.

"Well, maybe if you turned the sight of a snow-covered Great Hall into a positive memory, rather than a negative one, maybe you'll be able to put the past in the past once and for all." The Princess suggested, a hint of playfulness sparkling in her bright blue eyes which caused the older sister to return the smile.

"Do you really think that will work?" She inquired, raising an eyebrow at her younger sibling. Elsa had her doubts about whether it would work – she figured that it would take a lot of hard work to rewire her brain to think of happy memories associated to the snowy scene surrounding her, but it did seem like a rather intriguing idea. Besides, with Anna involved, a happy memory was bound to include some amount of fun, and perhaps even a little touch of mischief, too.

"I think it's worth a try, at least." Anna shrugged in her simple reply, always one to, as Kristoff would say, 'Just roll with it'. "Don't you?"

Elsa thought about it for a moment, debating on whether or not to try out Anna's little plan, then eventually caved, feeling the need for some stress relief after a tough day of meetings and signing documents and an even tougher conversation with her sister. "Ok, we'll try to create a happy memory for me to dwell on instead of dwelling on the past."

"Great! And we'll start creating the happy memory riiight-" In one swift motion, Anna grabbed a handful of powdery snow and threw it right in Elsa's face without even bothering to form an actual ball. "Now!" She laughed as Elsa gave her an unimpressed look, wiping the snow from her face. The unimpressed look soon turned into a smirk as she waved her arms around each other, forming a snowball the size of a boulder. As she raised the snowball over her head, Anna let out a yelp, realising what was about to happen, and started skidding across the ice in an attempt to escape. "That's not fair, you have an unfair advantage!" She called over her shoulder, but Elsa couldn't hear it over her own laughter.

**Author's note (again!): P.S. I don't really think the whole isolation thing was Anna's fault, or Elsa's fault either. Really, I don't think you can blame one sole person for what happened. Anna didn't listen, which lead to the accident, the trolls caused the royal family to fear Elsa's powers, the King and Queen acted irrationally and made a mistake in isolating Elsa, and Elsa let them do it so... Just saying. Your opinions may vary, but that's mine. *Shrugs.***


	12. Team Arendelle

**Author's Note: Woohoo! This is my longest chapter yet! I procrastinated a lot with this one (Sorry!) but the basic idea came from a roleplay I'm apart of where Anna, Elsa and a couple other characters had a snowball fight and we called the sisters 'Team Arendelle'. But 'Team Arendelle' doesn't just refer to the snowball fight, it could refer to the dynamic between Elsa and Anna and how they work together to rule Arendelle so... Yeah... On a sad-ish note, I've only got a couple chapters of this left to write (I think) but don't worry, I'm not stopping, I'm just gonna be working on this new collection of Frozen one-shots called 'Making Up For Lost Time' and I'm pretty sure it's obvious what that series will be about :P Many sisterly feels, I garuntee! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and thanks for reading ^_^ (P.S I did proof read, but I'm tired and it's almost 11pm which is late for me so please forgive me if there's still some issues ^_^")**

**Anna's P.O.V**

When Anna had agreed to help her sister with any of her royal duties, she didn't expect it to involve babysitting. The Princess loved children, don't get her wrong, and she often spent time in the town playing with the younger kids at the weekend when they weren't in school – if they could afford to go to school – but they were happy, lively children not… The zombie teenagers staring blankly at her right now!

Of course, Anna wouldn't voice that thought out loud, lest the twin brother and sister of Cordonia told their parents, King Lucius and Queen Aria, who were in a very important meeting with Elsa right now, discussing an alliance in case Weselton tried any vengeful attacks against Arendelle. Without this alliance, Arendelle wouldn't be strong enough to defend themselves against Weselton and would probably crumble under the threat of war. No, she couldn't risk ruining any chance of an alliance so, for once, she had to try and control her mouth. Still, sitting in awkward silence was torture!

"So," She tried to break the silence, giving Luca and Reyna a small smile and only receiving a blink of their bright green eyes in response. "What do you guys usually do for fun?" The silence continued throughout the library. You'd be able to hear a pin drop, but the whisper of the summer breeze outside the windows was the only audible noise right now. That was until Reyna, thankfully, spoke up.

"We like to play chess." It was more of a suggestion than an answer, one that received a shake of Anna's head.

"Sorry, no can do, that's more Elsa's division than mine." She recalled the time when she attempted chess, her impulsive tactics swiftly being defeated by her sister's more logical mind. It was one thing to lose to an older sister, but it was an entirely different thing to lose to 14 year old children, so the copper-haired Princess planned on avoiding that situation at all costs.

"We also read books." The brunette boy gestured to the library around him.

Anna's eyes lit up. "Fairy tales? Romance novels?" Yes! Finally she'd have some common ground with the younger Royals! Maybe they'd be able to read fairy tales together and then, if she got along with them, maybe they'd tell their parents, and maybe that would help-

"No. Non-fictional books, mostly." Luca was quick to shoot down Anna's hopes. Darn, she wasn't getting anywhere with these two. Here she was, the Princess who was loved by all the children in Arendelle, and yet she couldn't even connect with a fellow Prince and Princess from another country!

Reyna must've spotted Anna's defeated frown and rolled her eyes. "Really, Princess Anna, is there _anything_ you can do? Are you really as talentless as you appear to be?"

Well that was rude, considering the fact that Anna had given up her free time just to be stuck with them. Her eyes narrowed at the audacity of Reyna's words, a fire growing in her stomach which would erupt if these twins weren't careful. "I'll have you know that I'm an excellent snowball thrower, thank you very much." She snapped at the girl in particular. "And I have many other talents too, but they're just not the sort of activities I think you'd enjoy." Somehow she didn't picture the stuck-up, too-proper twins sliding around the ballroom or singing or dancing, so there wasn't exactly anything they could do.

Or was there?

Reyna and Luca exchanged a glance. For a moment, Anna believed that they must've been able to use telepathy, because although no words were spoken, the teen Royals smirked at exactly the same time, then looked to the older Princess. The strawberry blonde would've been freaked out if they started talking in unison as well, but luckily it was only Luca who spoke.

"You're a good snowball thrower, huh? Well, with Queen Elsa's help, of course, Reyna and I challenge you to a snowball fight in the courtyard. We believe that we'll have no problem defeating the both of you."

"Ha! You really think you'll be able to defeat me and my sister, the 'Snow Queen', in a snowball fight?" The fire in Anna's stomach reached her eyes, lighting them with competitiveness. These two children were far too arrogant if they thought they could take on the Snow Queen and the expert snowball thrower herself and needed to be put back in their place.

"Provided Her Majesty only uses her powers to create the snow and not throw it, we think we stand a good chance." Reyna clarified the one rule of the game, one that would hinder Arendelle's royal sisters greatly but still Anna believed that they would be victorious.

"You're on, 'Team Cordonia'. We'll see who the champion of the snowball fight is."

"Yes we shall." Luca's voice was as confident as Anna's, fuelled by the same competitive nature as the redheaded Princess opposite him. "Now let's retrieve the other half of 'Team Arendelle' so that we can start this snow war."

**Elsa's P.O.V**

The Snow Queen was in the middle of discussing the conditions of the alliance. She estimated that, if things ran smoothly, King Lucius would be signing the documents within 10 minutes, and she would follow suit. But of course, things were never known to go quite according to plan in Arendelle Castle, as everyone had come to learn quite quickly.

Today was no exception.

There was a knock at the door of the meeting room, but before Elsa had even given permission for anyone to enter, the door swung open to reveal her sister and the heirs to the Cordonian thrown. "Anna, I thought I told you not to disturb us." She scolded, only then recognising the look in her sister's eyes. Oh no, Anna's competitive nature only led to trouble, and now she had brought that trouble into the most important meeting of the year!

"I know, I'm sorry, but-" Anna seemed to remember that Elsa was not the only one present in the room and turned to curtsy to King Lucius and Queen Aria. "I'm sorry, Your Majesties, but your children have challenged my sister and I to a snowball fight."

A snowball fight? Now? It was such poor timing for fun and games with her magic, especially since Arendelle was _so close _to forming an alliance with Cordonia, one that might save them from any attacks from Weselton. "Can it not wait 10, perhaps 20 minutes? We are-"

"Pardon me for interrupting, Queen Elsa," King Lucius spoke up suddenly. "But I think engaging Prince Luca and Princess Reyna in a snowball fight would be a wonderful way to take a break from the business conversation, especially when it's so hot and stuffy in this room, don't you?"

"Besides, we've been longing to see your powers in action, since we were unable to attend your coronation." Admitted his wife with a sheepish smile on her aging face, quickly adding before Elsa could refuse again, "Then perhaps after you display your powers, we shall see whether or not an alliance with Arendelle is beneficial to our country."

So now a performance of her powers and playing with the two teenaged Royals as well as Anna would decide whether or not their Kingdoms became allied? Elsa could understand why showing her powers could be seen as important – perhaps seeing her control her powers would convince the King and Queen that it would be safe to ally with Arendelle – but the snowball fight seemed like an inappropriate event to judge an alliance on. Still, what little choice did the Snow Queen have right now when refusing to partake could lead to losing the alliance altogether.

Supressing a sigh, she reluctantly gave in, running a hand through her platinum blonde bangs. "Very well, what are the rules of this snowball fight."

"There's only two rules." The Cordonian Princess spoke up, folding her arms across her chest. "Rule number one: You can only use your powers to create the snow. You cannot use them to form or throw snowballs, nor can you use them to form a fort; all of those things must be done by hand."

"That seems understandable." Elsa agreed with a nod of her head. "And the second rule?"

A confident smirk tilted the corners of Reyna's lips up as she recited the second, equally important rule. "The first team to infiltrate the enemy's territory wins and trust us, Your Majesty, we will be the winners."

"Oh no you won't!" Anna piped up, walking over to her older sister and hooking her arm around Elsa's. "We'll beat you two easily, right Elsa?"

Should they win against Cordonia's heirs? What if they were sore losers and their loss caused an argument? What if that argument then went on to put the alliance at risk? Could Elsa really afford to risk the alliance over a victory in a snowball fight? As Anna stood there, waiting for the older royal to back her up, the Queen of Arendelle decided that the safest answer would be a neutral one, so she simply answered with, "We'll see." before she allowed herself to be dragged out of the castle and into the courtyard by the excitable redhead.

The Queen and Princess moved to the centre of the courtyard, in between the two grand fountains, while the more cautious Royals of Cordonia stood closer to the front doors of the castle, keeping their distance while Elsa worked her magic. The sisters smiled at each other for a brief second before the oldest swirled her hands around each other, forming a snowball which she sent up into the sky. Like a firework, the snowball exploded into billions of snowflakes, which glittered in the sunlight as they drifted down to the ground. Elsa formed small mounds of snow for each team to use, then smiled proudly at the sounds of awe coming from behind her, and the wide-eyed look of amazement on Anna's face.

"You know, no matter how many times you do that, it never gets old." The youngest commented, causing the Snow Queen to laugh. Anna could be so easily impressed sometimes – she was well aware of that – but it seemed that the powers she possessed, whether she viewed them as a gift or a curse, always seemed to impress her little sister the most, no matter how often she used them in public now.

"Come on, we've got a fort to build." She told Anna as she took the awestruck Princess by the hand and started running to the other side of the courtyard to build their fort.

**Anna's P.O.V**

Prince Luca and Princess Reyna were kind enough to give 5 minutes to build a fort. It wasn't much time, but at least they could start off with some protection, rather than having none at all. The real fun came when those 5 minutes were over and the King called out to the teams, "Let the battle commence!"

"ATTACK!" Anna yelled at the top of her voice as she formed a snowball and threw it over the half-made fort towards Team Cordonia's much more impressive fort. Her snowball only just clipped the Prince's shoulder before she received a snowball right in the face, the force of it almost causing her to topple over.

"Bullseye! Well done, Reyna!" She heard from the Prince, grumbling as she wiped the snow from her face. From her side, she could hear Elsa trying not to laugh as she continued working on the fort.

"So, how's the lack of a strategy going for you?" The Queen quipped, much to Anna's dismay, too intent on her work to even look over to her sister.

"Terribly." Anna could only answer with the truth as she dodged another snowball and formed one of her own. "I don't suppose-" With a grunt, she threw the snowball as fast as she could, hitting Reyna in the side and leaving a white patch of snow on her dress. "You have a better plan, do you?"

"Maybe, but first thing's first, help me finish the fort. We can't leave ourselves out in the open; that's just asking to be attacked." Elsa answered, quickly sidestepping to avoid one of Luca's snowballs before returning to building the wall of snow they called a fort.

"Ma'am, yes ma'am." Anna saluted goofily, before obeying her older sister, hoping this plan of hers worked.

As the sisters worked on piling the snow higher, there were a few attempts from the Cordonian twins to conquer their fort. If it hadn't been for Anna's suggestion that they multi-tasked, making snowballs and working on the forts at the same time, the attempts would've been successful. Luckily, the sisters kept a close watch, particularly Anna who was more determined to get a sweet taste of victory, so whenever the twins approached, she would yell, "Enemies approaching! Enemies approaching!" And they would pelt the fellow Royals with snowballs, while dodging the retaliations as best as they could.

Eventually, with the disadvantage of having to form the snowballs at the same time as dodging and trying to conquer the opposition's fort, Prince Luca and Princess Reyna thought it best to retreat to their own territory and go back to the drawing board, giving Anna and Elsa the chance to restock their weapon supplies, work on the fort, and discuss tactics that the platinum blonde sister had insisted 'Were the key to winning any war'; apparently Anna's 'Fight without thought' technique would only end in defeat.

With the frequent attacks from Team Cordonia, and having to divide their efforts between making snowballs and adding more snow to the fort, it took an extra 20 minutes to complete the shoulder-high wall of snow that the sisters could duck behind. If Elsa had been able to use her powers, it would've taken seconds, but rules were rules.

As Luca and Reyna began throwing snowballs from behind their shorter fort yet again, Anna quickly ducked behind the safety of the snow wall. The adrenaline rushed through her body, the competitive fire inside her growing as she felt the snowball fight reaching its climax. If there was a good time to carry out Elsa's strategic invasion, it'd be now. Now was the time to strike in this all-or-nothing snow war between Arendelle and Cordonia.

But when Anna asked, "Are you ready to take them down, Elsa?" as she peeked around the side of the fort, she was met with silence. Looking back to the older sister, ignoring the snowball that hit the back of her copper hair, she noticed the worried look on the Snow Queen's face. Her own expression contorted with worry at the sight, and she rested a concerned hand on Elsa's ice cold shoulder. "Elsa, what's wrong?"

**Elsa's P.O.V**

'Take them down'? Those words alone sounded far too competitive for a simple snowball fight. Elsa knew about her sister's incredibly competitive nature from the many games they had played together before, and if Anna decided to rub it in Prince Luca and Princess Reyna's faces… If they wound up feeling insulted by Anna doing so…

She couldn't lose this alliance. As days passed, more and more rumours about a potential attack from Weselton were whispered amongst the council, through the halls of the castle, even through the streets of Arendelle. If an attack really was being planned, Arendelle's only hope would come from the weapons and powerful army of Cordonia. The Snow Queen couldn't put the alliance at risk over a silly little snowball fight, and that was why her next words came out as, "I've changed my mind; I don't think we should win, Anna."

"Wait, what?" Out of the corner of her eyes, Elsa could see the mixture of confusion and hurt in Anna's cyan eyes as the platinum blonde refused to give her support in this miniature snow war. "But… Your plan is genius, we could win and-"

"And upset the Prince and Princess in the process?" The question was rhetorical, yet Anna went to speak anyway, causing Elsa to have to interject quickly. "If we win, they might get upset and if they get upset, then so will their parents and that might risk them refusing to sign the papers for the alliance."

The realisation seemed to flicker in her sister's eyes, but that didn't stop Elsa's heart from twisting painfully as she saw Anna's lips curve into a small frown. The Queen had thought she'd made a breakthrough then, but it seemed that Anna had other plans than to give up the idea of winning.

"You're right, they _might _get upset but, in all honestly, I don't think that they will. Sure they're a little bratty and might be annoyed, but we'd be winning fair and square, so they'd just have to accept the defeat. I think they'd be more upset if we let them win without even trying, anyway. Come on, Elsa. Don't let 'What ifs' ruin the fun." Anna tried persuading the older Royal, for once not using her famous pout.

Even so, Anna's persuasive techniques were rather effective. She had a point about the Cordonian twins being more upset if the sisters simply let them win; Elsa couldn't deny that fact. On top of that, her copper haired little sister had a point about letting the 'What ifs' ruin the fun. Elsa had let 'What ifs' ruin the fun for 13 years and, in truth, it had left everyone miserable. Would she really let more 'What ifs' control her actions again and make even more people miserable in the process?

"Just promise me one thing." She said after a minute or two of thought, letting out a soft sigh as she passed a snowball to her sister.

At that, Anna seemed to light up, the smile returning as an aura of excitement practically glowed around her. "Sure, anything. What is it?" She asked, passing the snowball from one hand to the other, barely able to resist bouncing up and down on the spot, which made the blonde chuckle lightly.

"Promise me that, _when_ we win, you won't rub it in their faces, ok?" The Queen smirked, moving to one end of the fort and slipping off her heels to prevent herself from falling.

Anna's grin outshone the Cheshire cat's as she herself got into position, edging closer towards the pile of ammo they had made together. "Well I can't promise _that_, but I promise I'll try my best."

Looking away from her little sister once she had finished speaking, Elsa peeked out to look at the Cordonian fort. The twins looked perplexed, which was unsurprising since Anna and Elsa had gone a good few minutes without even showing themselves. Smirking, seeing the moment of confusion as the perfect time to strike, the Queen called out, "3, 2, 1, GO!" to Anna, and then the grand finale begun.

**Anna's P.O.V**

"Long live Team Arendelle!" Was the cry Anna let out as she suddenly popped up from behind the snow wall, throwing snowballs at the twins, managing to smack Luca in the face with the first of many snowballs. It took Luca a moment to recover before he returned fire, his sister soon joining in on the attack.

It was two against one in this fight as Anna was left to defend herself, but despite getting pelted with countless snowballs, soon resembling one of the snowmen she often made with her older sister, she never surrendered. Why? Because she was the distraction and, by the looks of things, she was doing her job perfectly.

Out of the corner of her eye, the Princess watched Queen Elsa, the fastest and least likely to trip over and draw attention to herself, sneak around the outskirts of the battlefield that was the courtyard, making use of the pillars to hide from Luca and Reyna. Yes, a stealthy approach was sure to help infiltrate the fort! The plan was foo-

"Hey, Princess Anna!" Reyna called from no-man's-land in the centre of the courtyard, snapping Anna out of her own little distracted gaze. In her hands was a snowball the size of a cannon ball, which she raised above her head. Anna's eyes widened but by the time she processed what was about to happen, the younger Princess had already grunted out a "Take this!" and thrown the snowball.

The force of the impact against the redhead's chest knocked all the wind out of her, sent her flying backwards and onto her rear with an "Oomf!" As Anna peered around the corner of the fort, she could see the concerned eyes of her sister, the silent 'Are you ok?' that was mouthed across the distance. Elsa was a mere 15 feet away from Prince Luca and Princess Reyna's, frozen mid-step behind Luca's line of sight. Anna knew that she wanted to run back and make sure everything was ok, but she was_ so close! _She _had _to continue! With that thought in mind, Anna gave a slight nod, the answer that she was fine and that the Queen should continue their little mission.

"Reyna, now! While she's down!" Luca called out, pumping his fist in the air, already celebrating their victory prematurely.

Reyna, however, wasn't as convinced as she glanced at the fort, desperately looking for signs of platinum blonde hair, light blue fabric or pale skin behind the snow wall. "But what about Queen Elsa? I… I can't see her!" It was then that the twins realised that they hadn't seen the Snow Queen for a couple minutes and Princess Anna's smirk confirmed their worst fears.

While Luca scanned the sides of the courtyard with his eyes, searching for Arendelle's ruler, it was Reyna who spun 180 degrees, her wavy brunette hair whipping at her face in the process, and noticed Elsa first. "Luca, look out! She's behind you!"

"Run, Elsa! You can do it!" Anna exclaimed as she got to her feet, watching the scene unfold in front of her.

Luca turned, his eyes widening at the sight of the Queen running towards him to claim the fort. He bent down to gather up snow, trying to form a ball out of it, but just as he straightened up, preparing to throw the snowball, Elsa's hand reached out and touched their wall of snow. Game over.

**Elsa's P.O.V**

"I claim this fort in the name of Arendelle!" Elsa declared loud enough for all to hear. Despite herself, a slight smirk formed on her lips at the Prince's disgruntled look. Clearly he had believed that he and his sister would win, but she had stolen victory away from them.

"WOOHOO! We did it!" Anna cheered excitedly, running across the courtyard while Elsa put her heels back on and bringing her into a hug. "Way to go, Elsa! Your plan worked!"

The modest Queen laughed a little, hugging her sister back as she responded with, "It was a joint effort, Anna; I wouldn't have been able to make it across if it weren't for your brilliant distracting skills."

As Princess Reyna joined them, Elsa decided that perhaps showing good sportsmanship would remove any hard feelings about losing, so she released Anna from her grip and carefully extended a hand out, first to Luca who seemed the most irritated by the defeat. "You fought well." She complimented with a small, Queenly smile, hoping that she could hide her nerves behind the façade.

For a moment, Luca just stared at the hand, his lips pursed in thought as he thought it over. Eventually he decided to let the defeat go and shook the Queen's hand. "As did you, Your Majesty. Sneaking up on us was a clever idea." He returned the smile, then released Elsa's hand so that she could then shake Princess Reyna's hand.

"The next time we meet, we'll get our revenge and make sure to win." Reyna said, though the smile she gave Elsa made the threat more light-hearted. The brunette added a curtsy after the handshake, which was met with a polite nod of the head, and then the oldest of Arendelle's royalty let out a sigh of relief, thankful that the snowball fight ended on a high note with the Cordonian twins.

As the King and Queen of Cordonia approached the group, they gave a round of applause, congratulating the royal sisters of Arendelle on their victory as well as congratulating their children for their efforts. "Well done, everyone, that was quite entertaining to watch." King Lucius spoke up as he reached his son's side, giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder.

"Indeed it was." Queen Aria addressed Elsa as she wrapped an arm around Reyna's shoulder. "I believe we have seen another side to you, Your Majesty, one that – what with all the rumours from Weselton – we did not expect to see. You seemed to control your powers rather well when you created the snow, despite what the Duke said."

"On top of that, you are not the evil sorceress he claimed you to be." The King added. Elsa's smile grew at that, thankful that whatever she had done had managed to dispel any thoughts of her being the monster the weasel had once called her in this very courtyard. "It seems to us that you are simply young woman who loves to have a little fun with her sister, am I correct?"

"Yes, King Lucius." Elsa answered with a nod and a genuine smile, slipping an icy hand into Anna's as if to emphasise their bond to the King of Cordonia. "It's hard to balance my duty to Arendelle and my duty to my sister, but I do enjoy spending time with Anna and having fun with her."

"So I can see." King Lucius smiled. For a moment, Elsa believed he was going to stop there, but then he continued to speak, his next words lifting the Snow Queen's spirits to the sky. "Now, I believe we have some papers to sign, do we not?"

"Really?" It was Anna who spoke this time, her smile matching Elsa's which was beginning to resemble a grin. "You're going to sign the alliance papers?"

"We have seen all that was needed to be seen. Queen Elsa is not a danger to Cordonia and if Weselton try to start a war with Arendelle," His gaze fell upon the Snow Queen, looking directly into her icy blue eyes to prove that his next words were true. "We will stand by your side, no matter what the Duke attempts."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Elsa curtsied respectfully, grateful that the King and Queen of Cordonia had saved them from a potentially hazardous situation. As she straightened, she gestured towards the front doors of the castle. "Now please feel free to return to the meeting room while I clear up the snow out here."

"Very well. Come along, children." With that, King Lucius, Queen Aria and the twins returned inside.

Anna was about to follow, but Elsa stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, pulling her into an unexpected hug. "Thank you so so much." She thanked her younger sister, giving her a squeeze, then releasing her before she could crush the strawberry blonde Princess to death.

"You're welcome" The response was immediate, reflexive, but then Elsa saw the confusion in her sister's eyes. "Wait, what are you thanking me for, exactly?"

"For interrupting the meeting for a snowball fight." She answered as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. "If you hadn't have disobeyed my order, the meeting could have gone either way but now they've agreed to be an ally, because of you."

It seemed as if Arendelle's ruler wasn't the only modest one – perhaps it ran in the family – as Anna cast her eyes to the floor and tucked a loose strand of coppery hair behind her ear. "It wasn't my idea, it was the twins' plan. They mentioned the snowball fight, I just, y'know, got riled up enough to agree to it."

"Nevertheless, I think this calls for celebratory chocolate cake." At that, Anna's head raised to reveal her grin, which Elsa swore she saw reflected back in her sister's sky blue eyes. "Just give me about 10 minutes to finish going through the papers with King Lucius and Queen Aria and I'll meet you in the kitchen, ok?"

As Anna bounded inside, Elsa glanced to the courtyard again, smiling proudly at the sight of the two forts at either side. Before she thawed the scene and went back into the castle herself, she took a mental picture of the snow-covered area because she knew in her heart that that courtyard was where history was made. That was where Arendelle was saved by a snowball fight.

Long live Team Arendelle, indeed.


End file.

Frozen, Family, Friendship