Recap: With the aid of Olaf, Anna ventures through the maze of Elsa's heart, searching for a way to break the Mirror's spell. Ada's warning rings true: an impossible choice must be made.

Chapter 35- the choice

The key turned in well oiled springs with a satisfying click, and with a guttural rumble the double doors began to open.

Inside lay the inner sanctum of her sister's heart: the familiar rosemaling and tapestries of Arendelle castle.

Anna had expected no less.

As she took a step forward, Olaf's twiggy hand twitched at hers.

"What is it, Olaf?"

"Well. It's." He shuffled his snowy feet.

"We can go no further," said Elsie, from the conch.

Elsa had ever let few inside her heart. Anna's hand closed painfully on the key she'd found inside her pocket. It had to mean something, didn't it?

"Will Elsa be in there? The real Elsa?" she asked.

"Yes," said Elsie. "Though you may find it difficult to get her to listen to you."

Anna couldn't help but smile ruefully. "Well, I've got very good at trying, haven't I? It's gotta work one day."

She pressed a kiss on the conch. "That you for your help, Elsie. And you too, Olaf." The snowman puffed up to attention. "You've been an excellent tour guide."

"Aw, shucks," he said, waving her away.

She bent down for a hug. True to his motto, despite being made of snow, Olaf's hugs were never anything but warm.

"I'll see you in Arendelle, as soon as I get Elsa back. And then we'll all go home together, okay?"

"Okay!"

Anna stepped through the door. When she turned back to wave goodbye, they were gone. The heartdoor was gone too, replaced with Arendelle castle's drafty west wing, as if it was never there.

"Okay, well" said Anna. "Guess I'm not going back that way."

She spoke aloud to blanket over her loneliness. She'd chased Elsa across the ocean, and now at last to her own heart.

Here, at least, Elsa could not run from her.

All the shutters in the castle were barred. The air felt dry, old, shut up. It drew Anna back to an unhappy adolescence, cooped up in the castle. She could hear the low groan of wind, felt the draft that had snuck its way through old shutters and keyholes. She pulled her cloak closer about herself. It seemed the storm ever raged inside Elsa's heart.

Although Olaf was gone, she still held onto the bag of Elsa's stolen memories. When she found Elsa, she'd return them to her.

"Morning, Princess Anna!"

Gerda breezed past with a pile of laundry and a bright smile— or she would have, had not Anna tackled her into a hug so warm it would have given Olaf a run for his money.

"Gerda! It's you! I'm so happy to see you!"

Flushed and pleased, Gerda laughed. "As am I, Princess. But I only saw you last at breakfast. I didn't realise I must have been neglecting you so."

"Oh." Anna pulled away, patting Gerda on the arm. "Right. Breakfast, of course. Must have slipped my mind. Say, have you seen my sister?"

"I believe she was going up to the north tower again," Gerda said.

"Okay, great. It's really good to see you, Gerda!"

"Well, I shall be in the kitchens, if the desire strikes you again, Princess."

Gerda carried on with the laundry, and Anna went on, beaming.

The other servants were all hard at work. Anna called out to them as she made her way to the tower. How she'd missed Arendelle, on her long journey across the ocean.

It was with a kind of trepidation that she began to climb.

The doors to the balcony were flung wide open. Elsa stood by the balustrade in a dark blue dress, hair covered by a fur mantle. Anna's chest tightened, but her eye was drawn by Elsa's— down below, to the writhing curl of clouds surrounding the castle.

Somehow, the two of them stood above the storm. Here, the air was eerily still. The winter sun shined, low and bright on the horizon. The sky, frighteningly blue.

"Somehow, I can't stop looking at it," Elsa said, before she turned, inclining her head, face poking out from the furry mantle. Her nose is pinkened from the cold. "Is it lunch time already, Anna?"

"Uh, I— no." Anna put her hands on the balustrade to steady herself.

"No?" There was a teasing note to Elsa's voice. "Just missed me, then?"

Anna swallowed. "Yeah. I guess I did."

Elsa smiled in reply, looping her arm around Anna's. "Oh? How did I end up deserving of such a sweet sister?"

It was a huge relief that Elsa recognised her. She'd be tempted to think they might even be back in the real Arendelle, if it wasn't for, well— that.

The two of them stand at the very centre of storm.

"Anna. You seem quiet," Elsa said. She bumped against Anna's shoulder with her own. "What's up?"

"Well," Anna said. How to put this delicately? "Is this, ah, normal?" She nudged her head to the sky.

"The Everstorm? You know as well as I do. It's always been there." There was a quirk of laughter to Elsa's voice, as though Anna was playing with her.

"And, ah, why is it there, exactly?"

"Well, to protect us, of course."

"Oh, right. Naturally."

Well, that wasn't alarming in the slightest.

Anna kept her voice as measured as she could, as though this was a joke both of them were playing with: "To protect us from what, exactly?"

"Everyone who's not us, of course," Elsa said, slipping her arm from Anna's to head off the balcony inside.

"OK. Well, that's weird," Anna muttered to herself, before she followed her in.

The room at the top of tower was hexagonal shaped, with broad windows and window seats on each side, providing a wonderful view that looked out over all of Arendelle. Now, they looked out over the clouds.

"Here's a good question for you, Els': you don't have power over ice and snow… do you?"

"Now I know you're teasing me Anna," Elsa said, pushing back her fur hood, pulling free from her cloak her long braid. "What do you think I am, some jötunn from our childhood fairy tales?"

Anna could hear it calling to her as though through her blood: this was Elsa, and no doppleganger.

And yet, something here was clearly wrong.

As her sister fetched something she'd left resting on the window seat, Anna began to understand.

"I wanted to ask you something, Anna. I found this in the parlor room earlier, but I couldn't place it. Is it yours?"

It was a snowglobe.

The same snowglobe Elsa had made for her tenth birthday: a tiny miniature construction of Arendelle castle, surrounded by a miniature snowstorm. The same snowglobe Anna had callously smashed in a temper tantrum. Yet here it was again, perfect, unbroken.

"Oh," said Anna.

She had never left the Mirror World. Eternity, Ada had called it. Elsa's perfect world, as immaculate and unbroken as the universe inside the snowglobe.

Silently, Anna set down the bag of stolen memories and found what she was looking for. "I need to show you this, Elsa."

The surface of the bronze door name plate transmuted like mercury to become a tiny moving picture. Silently, the two watched the scenario within unfold.

It hurt to watch. Once again, Elsa presented her with her birthday present. Once again, she threw it in her sister's face.

Anna, I don't understand—

Twelve year old Anna's face was flushed red with rage. Her eyes shining, she'd practically screamed the words at her sister: Of course you don't understand. You've never tried!

The crystalline snowglobe, shattering to pieces. Other things had been broken that day, too.

The old shame made it hard to lift her eyes, but she forced them up, to meet Elsa's wavering gaze.

"Anna— what is this?"

"A memory. Your memory." She pushed out the words.

"I think— I think I would remember something like that—" Elsa said, jagged laughter punctuated by an edge of something.

"How about this one, then? Or this?

The day of the Winter Banquet. The ill-fated meeting with Elsa's suitor. How Anna had cupped Elsa's face in the maze, leaning in to kiss her.

"Oh," said Elsa. She sank down into the cushioned window seat. "All magic works the same, I suppose. Memories can be forgotten. Feelings? Those aren't so easy to forget." She closed her eyes, pressing her hand to her mouth. "Everyone told me it was a bad dream. I didn't believe it, but I wanted to. I wanted to believe it so badly."

Anna took a seat beside her sister, attempting a gentle touch at Elsa's elbow. Encouragingly, she didn't attempt to move away.

When Elsa opened her eyes, they were very blue. Very clear. She touched a hand over Anna's.

"Please, Anna. Tell me where we are and what's happening. From the beginning."

"Well," said Anna. "It's just as well we're sat down."

In all honesty, it had seemed too good to be true.

But the more hours Elsa had spent in the world where the Everstorm raged, the more Elsa had been disinclined to mind. Anna was here, her parents were here. They were protected by blackmailers and would-be-seers and all kinds of villains. Most of all, they were safe from Elsa herself: in this world, she had no powers to hurt anyone with.

Even if, in retrospect, losing her powers seemed now to Elsa like losing a limb, unappreciated till it was gone. Even now, she dug inside her for the warm well-spring of her magic, and felt nothing but a dried-up channel.

Anna explained to her about Ada and the Mirror, and how they were both one and the same. She told her, too, about the glass in her heart; the contract she'd made with the Mirror, from when she was too young to remember.

Or so she'd thought.

"I had a dream, as a child."

The two of them stood side by side, out on the balcony. Elsa leant over the balustrade. "It was of a terrifying blackness. A nothingness. No light; no sound. I couldn't even scream—"

And then: she'd awoken. Heart hammering in her chest, clutching at her blankets. But the night had creaked on, unbroken. In her crib, her baby sister had slept peacefully. And she'd padded to the window to see the night rain down with stars.

People had spoken of the meteor shower that night for years to come.

Anna told her, too, how the shards in her heart had been removed from her and the other sorcerers, how the Mirror had been put back together.

Even if she and Anna escaped this place, Elsa's powers were gone.

Elsa never expected to feel grief. But as she opened and closed her hand, again searching for the magic that filled her veins, she felt cold.

"We have to break the Mirror, Elsa," her sister said. "We have to end all of this." Elsa opened and closed her hand, again. Nothing. "Elsa?" Anna placed a hand over hers. The old reflex was to pull away. She didn't. Instead, she breathed deeply, squeezing.

"You came straight here, didn't you?" Elsa said. "I'm guessing, you didn't run into our parents."

Anna's eyes were wide. "They're… they're really here?"

Tightly, Elsa nodded. "The storm protects us," she repeated.

Brokenly, Anna laughed. "So that was what she meant."

"She?"

"Ada. She told me I wouldn't want to leave the Mirror World."

Once the seed took root, it was impossible to stop it spreading. Elsa took Anna's other hand. They stood together, a breath apart.

"No one can hurt us here. I can't hurt you here. Mama and Papa are alive. We'll never be apart again." Elsa spoke the words in a hurried murmur, soft and urgent. She reached up to cradle Anna's neck, thumb brushing the underside of her jaw. She saw the seed rooting in Anna's eyes, bright, blown wide in the winter sun. Anna leaned into Elsa's touch like a long stemmed flower bending to the sun. They were less than a breath apart: it was no hardship at all to close that distance. There was no magic in her fingertips, but as she kissed Anna, Elsa could still taste the storm. There was lightning in Anna's trembling fingertips as she traced Elsa's jaw. It blew through Elsa: the force of the blizzard that left her aching. She pulled Anna tighter to her; she didn't want to let her go.

And then Anna placed a hand on Elsa's chest, and gently pushed her back.

She was shaking, a tremor rumbling through her as though she too felt the storm.

"No," Anna said.

Before Elsa's could feel the sting of rejection, Anna wound her hand tightly around her sister's.

"I'm tired of make-believe and illusions. I want you, Elsa. I want to go home. To our home."

Elsa felt like glass. As if Anna wasn't holding her hand so tightly, with such fierceness, she might shatter to pieces. Bitterly, she said, "Back to the place that tried to tear us apart? We'll never be able to be together there, Anna. Not properly, not…"

They'd never discussed us before, Elsa's tongue catching thickly around the words. Her love for her sister had seemed ever abhorrent. But Anna's love could never be anything but pure, good. If Anna felt the same way, then perhaps this love wasn't something as wicked as she'd imagined.

"No one would understand, Anna. If it was talk about me, then that would be one thing, but you…" No. Elsa couldn't allow anyone to speak badly of Anna.

"Elsa." Anna clapped her hands around Elsa's face. It gave her a shock; it wasn't gentle.

"You keep worrying about how I feel, but have ever even thought to ask?"

Anna's brows were drawn together, her jaw tight; she'd had the same expression since she was a small child. Stubborn and willful, Anna had ever refused to give up. Her lips were pink from kissing, and drawn into a cross frown.

"But," started Elsa.

Anna held her fast. "You big idiot, Elsa! I know that it's going to be hard. But that doesn't mean that we can't try. Honestly! You're a real pain sometimes, you know?"

Anna exhaled a huge huff, letting her hands drop. Elsa felt as though she'd been struck. "Anna, I…"

"I can't force you," Anna said, abruptly. "I chased you to the Spring City, and then all the way here, wherever this is. I can't keep chasing you, Elsa. You can't keep running. We're going to have to meet halfway, or else…" Anna trailed away with a dejected wave of her hand, gesturing towards the storm. She turned away, her shoulders slumped. "Or this is the end, I guess."

Anna leaned heavily against the balustrade. The two sisters stood together, but apart. Elsa looked out into the clouds, a cold chill overtaking her.

The storm wasn't to protect them, but to hide them; from the whole world, from herself. Little by little in this place she felt her memories fading. Just as Queen Matilda had overridden her sense of self. She was able to be with Anna; without guilt, without fear.

But who was I? Was Elsa Augustenborg me? Without our memories, who are we?

She wasn't the girl she once was. Grief had tempered her, experience had quenched her. To throw away her memories was to toss it all aside. Again and again, she'd made the same mistakes. She'd learned nothing. The Mirror World promised softness, security; nothing to run from, but nothing to run to. Eternity promised a gentle prison inside her own heart.

I want to meet you, Anna had said, gossamer and lace, once upon a time in Arendelle. But she never had, not really, because Elsa had never allowed it. It was never the world that tore the two of them apart. Elsa had done that herself.

Anna stared out into the storm, hands gripping the balustrade so tightly her knuckles gleamed white.

"Anna."

"I know— I know it will be hard, Elsa." She kept her back to her sister, as though afraid that if she turned about, she'd lose her resolve. "But that's why we have to do it. No more what ifs. Just—"

Elsa wrapped her arms around her sister's waist, and Anna stopped dead.

What she thought was: I want to meet you, too.

What she said was: "Let's go home, Anna."

A splinter. A fracture. Ada had told her: look for something out of place, something that shouldn't be there.

"I think I know what it is," Elsa said. She was gone but briefly, and returned silently with a glass globe cupped in her hands. She cleared her throat. "As soon as I found this, I knew something about it was wrong."

It was Anna's ill-fated snowglobe, all in one piece.

She shuffled uncomfortably. "Perhaps in this world, I just didn't break it?"

Elsa shook her head. "That's not it. Here."

She placed Anna's hand on the globe, and she immediately recoiled. "Cold! — oh."

Elsa nodded. "As far as the rules of this universe go, this shouldn't exist here."

The tiny crystalline Arendelle was made not of glass, but solid ice.

Anna pulled a face, rolling her weight onto the other foot. "Typical. I regretted breaking that thing the first time around."

"Then we'll do it together," Elsa replied. She wrapped her hand around Anna's. It made her feel a little stronger.

But there was one final test of their hearts left to throw at them.

"Here the two of you are. Kai was looking everywhere for you. It's lunch time, girls."

The Queen of Arendelle stood at the top of the stairwell, catching her breath, and peering curiously at the snowglobe the two of them held between them. "What are the two of you up to, anyway?" she asked in a playful voice, as though she'd caught them in some mischief.

How strange, how her mother walked back into her life as though she'd never left it: slotting back into the space in Anna's heart she'd never managed to fill.

She looked exactly as she remembered. At her neck she wore the butterfly choker, the one Anna had thumbed a dozen times, sat on Mama's laps as she explored all her little treasures.

If Elsa didn't have a hand on it, the snowglobe might have fallen and shattered on the ground, irregardless.

Anna crossed the space between and embraced her mother as hard as she could. The Queen, if taken aback, did not object. "Now this is a nice surprise," she said, laughing, although the laughter quietened when Anna did not let go. Her arms came up around her daughter, stroking the back of her hair.

"Is everything alright, sweetheart?"

Anna shook her head against her mother's shoulder. Her throat constricted so tightly that it hurt to speak.

"Mama, I need to ask you something."

"Of course." She stroked her fingers through Anna's hair. The feeling of comfort and safety it brought back made her a child again. How she'd longed for this comfort: a desire that had sent her catapulting towards Hans, and then Kristoff.

"How do you know if the decisions you're making are the right ones?" Anna asked.

"Oh, Anna." She felt the murmur of laughter rumble through her. "Do any of us ever? When I was a little girl, I remember thinking the world must be simple as a adult. That I'd be like my parents, who seemed to know everything." She drew back to look at her daughter's face, her smile sad. "You're old enough to know this; we really don't. We do our best. Sometimes, we make mistakes."

She'd always wanted to go back. To ask her parents: why did you do it? Why did you separate us?

"But what do you do then? When you make a mistake?"

"That's part of growing up, too. Then, you deal with it. Fix it, if you can. Or live with it. It helps to have someone to confide in, as I have with your father. To share that burden with." Her mother pressed a kiss to the top of her daughter's head. "Does that help?"

Her throat thick, Anna swallowed down the words. "Yeah. Yeah, it does."

She reached a hand toward Elsa, who stood with her hands around the tiny Arendelle, watching with heavy eyes.

"Are you sure?" Elsa asked. Her own words came thickly.

"Yeah. I'm ready."

Probably, they were fools, to throw all of this away.

"Are you?" she asked.

Elsa hugged their mother goodbye, for one final time. "I love you, Mama," she said, and then, "I'm ready."

She took her sister's hands once more, and then, together, they let the snowglobe fall.

The world trembled, not just the castle foundations but the foundation of the universe itself.

The sky shattered like splinters of ice, the floor dropped out from beneath them, and the sisters fell.

Darkness.

Impenetrable; immaculate; endless.

Elsa had been here before, more than half a lifetime ago.

In between the curtains of the void, someone was crying. Elsa parted them, stepping through the dark.

A little girl was curled up by herself, her soft cries echoing through the fabric of the universe that was being unmade around them.

Elsa knew her. She was a friend.

She sat down beside the girl, crossing her legs like a child: she was a child again, tucking her thumbs under her knees.

"Elsinore, what's wrong?" Elsa asked the girl.

Slowly, Elsa raised her head to look at her. Her bronze hair, pinned back by her circlet, spilled over her tear-stained face.

"I… told a fib, to Anna," she whispered. "When she asked what would happen to me when you broke the Mirror. I said it would be fine, but that was a lie."

"Elsinore—"

Even before Elsa's eyes, she saw how Elsinore fade. Little by little, before her eyes, her friend started to disappear.

"You can't!" she said, as she gripped her by the arm. "You can't vanish."

Elsa's hand went straight through her. As soon as the universe finished remaking itself, there would be nothing left to her.

"It's OK. I was never supposed to exist. I'm not supposed to feel. So why…" Elsinore's teeth began to chatter. "I wonder why I'm so afraid."

"We can do something. We'll find a way to save you," Elsa insisted.

"It's better this way. I'm cursed, Elsa. I've brought nothing but sadness to the people I've touched. To you."

"No." Elsa tried again; this time, her hand caught hers. How insubstantial she felt. "You saved me, Elsinore." She remembered it all. All the things she'd let herself forget, locked away like a voice in a seashell. How she'd died, but Elsinore had brought her back. And Elsinore had come with her. "I always thought I was alone, but it wasn't true. You were always there with me, even though I never realised it."

Elsinore peeked out from her hair, her face wet. Elsa squeezed; willed her to stay.

"So let me save you. Come with me again, be a part of my heart."

"You don't owe me anything, Elsa—"

"Not for a debt. Because I'm your friend, and you're mine," said Elsa.

The darkness infringed upon them. They had little time left.

"Elsa…" Elsinore spoke with a deep gravity. "You have to understand what you're offering. You'll be cursed again. You'll have your powers back."

But Elsa smiled. She shook her head.

"My powers aren't a curse," she said. "They're who I am." For so many years, she'd despised them, but to be alone had not unburdened her— it had instead been a loss of self.

For she'd never been alone. Not truly. Not until her powers had been torn from her.

She wouldn't give up her memories. Not a single one. And not her powers, either.

"If you don't believe me, I'll show you." Elsa said, with a huge smile. She stood, and offered her hand. "Come with me, and see the world from my eyes. I'll show you everything I can."

Elsinore had stopped crying. Wiping her arms with her forearm, she stood.

"OK. I'll go with you, Elsa."

As she stood, Elsinore transformed into light, as blinding as a fallen star. Cupping that light between her hands, Elsa smiled, and took the blazing light inside of herself.

To be continued...