Author's Note:

Based (loosely) off of the following Tumblr prompt: "It was always the same. Every week, outside her bedroom door would appear a envelope. In it would be a poem, each one more beautiful than the last. Anna never knew who sent them. She tried catching them in the act but never could. She thought it was Kristoff but he didn't seem the poetic type. Maybe it was a servant. And so Anna goes along her days, never noticing the sad look Elsa gives her whenever she babbles about her secret admirer or the fact that each poem always had a cold feel to it."

It Was All for You

"Letter for you, your Highness," Gerda said, offering the envelope to the girl as she pulled her door closed. Anna blinked and took it from her, peering curiously at the front, which had her name written on it in swooping, elegant lettering, but no other markings whatsoever. Her brow furrowed, she fiddled with the edge of the envelope, tearing it open as she muttered a distracted, "Thanks, Gerda." The serving woman nodded her goodbye and left.

It couldn't be from her cousin. Rapunzel had totally different handwriting, and she had a habit of painting her envelopes differently each time, which was why she kept each one: her current favorite was a dark landscape lit by a single lantern with a long, glowing trailing ribbon.

It couldn't be from Olaf. If it had, he'd be tugging on her skirts right now and asking her if she liked it and if he should send more and whether he'd spelled everything correctly, all before she got it completely open.

It couldn't be from Kristoff. Though fluent in reading and writing runes, his pen flashing in quick, darting movements while the slashes all blurred together in her eyes, Kristoff was unfortunately much slower when it came to ordinary letters, and preferred spoken communication for that very reason.

With this in mind, she tugged the letter inside free and opened it.

There was no address, no greeting for the Princess of Arendelle, or for Anna, and there was no signature, just a series of short lines clustered to the side of the paper, huddling there like a group of children underneath an overhang while the rain poured inches from their noses.

An Introduction

I've always been told that beginnings are auspicious things

That to every start there is a finish

Waiting for its own time.

I've been told that to each season there is a rise and fall,

To every person is given a birth and death,

A single, irreversible line that rolls and churns like a tempestuous sea.

I've been told that there is no rhyme or reason

To a chaotic world where things end and things begin,

With no pattern drawn between.

But if I could wrap up every beginning,

Every first, needy breath,

Every tentative, quavering bloom,

Every long-awaited sunrise,

I would give them to you to hold,

Because your hands have stopped the world from ending,

And if that would lend my world no meaning,

That would be more than enough.

Her eyes stuttered on the final lines, and she jerked her gaze up to the top of the page again. Still no name. She looked down at the bottom. No signature. Nothing had changed at all. Nothing, that is, but for her quiet, unsteady breaths as her thoughts lingered on anonymous words, thin lines of ink bled into the creamy parchment that trembled in her tight grip as she gazed out into space and wondered.

"…and they didn't leave their name?" Kristoff's puzzlement didn't stop him from threading the needle with the finesse of a well-trained sewer. She supposed that was true, though the training was more from experience than specific apprenticeship: fingers made of flesh hold delicate instruments much more easily than rock ones, after all, and troll children are just as skilled at tearing clothing as human ones.

She shook her head wordlessly. He shrugged and looped two knots into the string before pulling it and the pants taut, and she watched him as she mulled over the contents of the letter. His stitches were short and crisp, the needle flashing in and out of the heavy gear like a fish leaping above water as it followed a boat.

"Could be that they're not sure if their poetry's good enough to lay claim to it," he added, and she considered this new idea. She'd already spent some time examining the paper, flipping it over and over in her hands until the edges were starting to fray, even though it'd only been a few days, and yet she had come no closer now to discovering who had sent her it than when she'd first read the poem.

"Well, I wouldn't say that they're bad, or anything, but then I'm not really good at poetry myself. It's just…it's kind of weird, you know?"

"Hmmmm," he agreed, and wiggled the needle underneath a stitch, tying it off.

"Because I haven't met anyone new-okay, I…guess that's not true." There were many benefits to having open gates, not the least of which was a rapid influx of new people to meet and greet and get to know, and Lords knows she had happily indulged in this luxury. The downside, of course, meant more possible culprits. But that was the wrong word to use for someone who seemed…enamored? No. Intrigued? No, because something about the poem suggested a closeness, a personal touch that meant there was more than just curiosity behind it.

…longing?

She waved her hand, her thoughts dissipating like smoke. "It doesn't matter: I don't know who they are, and that means I don't know how to say thank you, or at least ask them what they meant."

His eyes met and held hers as he regarded her with some bemusement. "Wait…do you mean to tell me you really don't know?"

She yawned so loudly something in her jaw gave a "crick" that had her rubbing it as she frowned. "That didn't feel good at all," she told herself. It didn't hurt, but nor was it the best wake-up she'd ever had, that's for sure.

"That would be why we don't yawn like we take after cattle," Gerda informed her testily as she strode into the room, and Anna shrugged, her frown reversing into a beaming smile that had Gerda pursing her lips as she fought back her own grin. The older woman chuckled under her breath and brought out an envelope from her pocket. "A letter, your Highness. For you," she added quickly. Anna shot her a playful look, and Gerda's eyes flashed to the Heavens above: it was impossible to be formal, so early in the morning that Anna hadn't even left her bed yet, but Gerda always did love to try.

"For little old me?" Anna asked, and accepted the envelope. Once again, her name was the only writing present, and she was about to ask Gerda where the letter had come from when she looked up to see the door shutting behind her. Hmmph. Oh well. Maybe this time there'd be a name attached.

She tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter, leaning back against the headboard and her pillows as she read.

Changing Tides

I dreamt of you.

When I dreamt of you, everything was gay and happy and bright,

Your laughter was my heartbeat, and they moved together,

Entwining on and on and on until any separation would doom us both.

If a dream could last forever I would wish mine lasted longer,

Because we can be safe together, locked in eternity,

Even as I dread the dawn.

I dream of you.

When I dream of you, I dream of sound and fury and color and fire,

I dream of heat that is painted on my every breath

And that fills me with a hope that hurts,

That beats against my chest like a long-ignored notion,

And I awake, aching, because the darkness is not big enough,

Not deep enough,

To hold every emotion that I want to let bleed out and spill between us,

Curling like smoke from a dusky fire against a cold winter's night,

Our quiet refuge against a battered world.

The paper fluttered to the sheets and she sank into the pillows, mouthing words silently to the walls of her room, and they returned her silence diligently, as they had for years.

It hadn't been enough for her then. It wasn't enough now.

He had listened to her quietly, nodding with every pause in her rambling monologue, his head following her as she paced and gestured wildly with her hands in time to her increasingly stilted, wandering speech, and waited until she had finally wound down before he asked, "What's a poem?"

Oh. She should have known better: it wasn't like she knew everything there was to know when she was several months old, too. Olaf watched her patiently, twiddling his oddly mobile stick fingers together as his blocky little feet tapped against the tabletop.

Anna opened and closed her mouth and then gnawed at her lip. Somewhere out there one of her past tutors was groaning and banging his head against the nearest wall, but she hadn't any set definition in mind when she stumbled through an explanation of a poem that included "and I guess it's supposed to make you feel" and "it's like…singing, but spoken? Yeah that doesn't really help" and "people use them to say things that are important, but I don't know what they're trying to say, here".

"Except, of course, that they…they love me," she finished, and dropped her hands to her sides.

"Oh," Olaf said, and rubbed his hands together, and then stopped. "Oooh, I'm not supposed to do that; Kristoff says that's how you make fire."

Anna laughed and folded her arms over her chest, leaning against the table. "Actually, Olaf, you have to rub them together a lot faster than that to start a fire."

"I see," he responded, filing this new information away. Returning to their previous conversation, he said, "So ask Elsa. She's smart. She knows a lot about love."

Why not ask her? Was it because she wanted to impress Elsa with her clever deliberation of who her contact was? Was it because she thought it not worth her sister's time, occupied as she was with the governance of an entire nation? Was it because she thought Elsa knew, and disapproved?

Or because, for now, she could imagine, in her mind's eye, a delicate hand scribbling line after line, striking through some and underlining others, and knew that for all she burned to know, sometimes having that ambiguity helped.

Anna sighed and hefted herself up beside him. Olaf scooted closer so that she felt a line of cold against her side, and she smiled at her knees. "It's funny," she said, "but I still don't know much about love at all."

He shook his head. "No, you do." He smiled up at her and patted her thigh. "You just don't know it."

Every week, it began anew. A tap on her shoulder, an expectant cough, and she was holding the newest in a long line of missives directed at her, with a tight-lipped servant offering no explanation, her only clues the ones she could find buried in text that breathed feelings and emotions and thoughts and images that she could not fully understand but yearned to.

One week she slipped the envelope into her jacket and held it against her breast for the entire day, and it burned a hole in her skin as she waited for the moment she could slip under the covers and slowly unwrap her newest gift.

Another week she spent three days in the library, trying and failing to find if there were any books that could explain to her a metaphor that likened the author's trembling desire to a grove of trees bending and swaying in a powerful wind . She still wasn't sure what "trails drawn across the sky in cold remembrance" meant, but its placement in the same letter had made it seem important, so she'd pored over it with just as much fascination as she did with the parts that she did understand.

"Longing" had been the right word to use. Every letter was filled with a sense that there was only that thin sheet of paper in between them, and Anna could only wonder why those bars were there, why her hidden companion sank their feelings into the ink and etched it onto the page and her heart but could never leave any other sign of their person besides their ever present love. If she could bear to tear the pages apart, she would, if it would only bring her closer to the person whose words made her hands grasp the empty air, wanting to have and to hold until she could see them before her, with her, all their secrets flown away like dust in the wind.

Follow

If ever I am lost, with no map nor trail nor guide,

If a harsh winter wind steals fire from the land,

If the Moon shivers and shatters into a thousand glass shards,

If the stars tremble and fade like gems dropped into a bottomless sea,

If the very Sun should die,

Then I will light my way by the warmth in your heart,

And it shall lead me home into your open arms.

Anna gasped.

Anna set the paper beside Elsa's still hands. The queen had stopped working the moment her sister came to a halt before her, her hand poised guiltily over the page. The desk was the only physical barrier between them as Anna stood there, looking down at her, as Elsa waited.

"So." Anna swallowed, her shoulders trembling as she stared down at the paper. A single drop of ink dripped from Elsa's motionless pen and splattered on the parchment. Anna looked up at her, at her eyes, as light as the summer sky and as deep as the sea. She swallowed again. "What's that one called?" she asked, her voice shaking with the strain.

Elsa slowly looked down at the page, and Anna watched as her chest rose and fell mechanically. "I suppose," Elsa began quietly, "that, in light of upcoming events…I'd call it 'Happy Birthday'."

"That doesn't sound like a name for…well. I guess you know better than me."

"No," Elsa said, so quickly it hardly sounded like a word at all. "No," she repeated. "I don't know better than you at all."

A silence fell over them, and Anna was perplexed. Usually she would be filling the silence with some sort of foolish babbling or other, but the air felt too heavy for that. It felt like there was a pressure between them, and she wasn't sure of what to say in order to lift it. And whenever she wasn't sure what to say, she usually did something else, instead.

"I'm…I'm not good with words, like you're good with words," she said, twisting her hands together, noting the way the pen shivered in Elsa's tight grip, "so I don't really know how to say this…"

"…but I have hands, too." She looked down at them and, carefully, set them down over Elsa's free hand. She could feel the other woman's flinch in her bones, the shock of the moment of yearning turning into reality, and she threaded her fingers through Elsa's, and the queen's eyes roamed over their knuckles, her breath starting and stopping, as though she wasn't sure whether to breathe in or out.

"…and they fit in yours," Anna whispered. There was something shimmering in Elsa's eyes, or maybe it was in her own, or both of them were crying and they could share one more thing together. She liked that. She blew out a long breath and went for broke.

"Which is a really good thing, because otherwise this gesture wouldn't be poetic at all," she finished, and Elsa snorted and brought her other hand to her lips as she laughed. It sounded like tinkling bells rung for some long-awaited holiday, and Anna's smile was so painfully large she couldn't imagine it any other way.

Elsa shook her head and looked down at the desk. Her laughter dried up, and she sighed. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I should have just told you, but I…I didn't, because…I was afraid…"

Anna lifted their hands to her lips and kissed them. Elsa's eyes glittered like gems as she raised them up. Her chest expanded forcefully, desperately, as she stared at her sister, her expression lined with a small, budding hope.

Anna laughed. "Why?"