#ataoai

           She wasn’t trying to stare at his chest, but her eyes refused to stay on his face. She blamed the water dripping from his hair and down his skin. She followed a drip from his cheek, to his neck, to his chest, to his waistband. She knew that the intimidating height and expression she was trying to maintain, holding her body high and her face fierce, was negated by her inability to maintain eye contact with him.

           “What did you do?” she asked, her voice far meeker than she willed it to be. She didn’t know why she had come to see him, he was undoubtedly stronger than her, and from his expression, he wasn’t pleased. She had expected as much, but she had come anyway. She had questions that she couldn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to answer them either, but if anyone could it was him.

           He laughed, his tone harsh, “What did I do? Nothing. I haven’t done a damn thing since I got here.” He shook his head and walked towards her, “I walked through a door, had my life threatened and got chained up like a dog. That’s what I did.”

           He was only a few feet away from her when she stepped back, nearly stumbling over her own feet, her back hitting the door she had just shut.

           “What did you do?” he asked, frowning and stepping back after watching her fall over.

           She sucked in a steadying breath, realizing that he was backing off, reading her fear and responding to it respectfully. He was a mystery to her. He was visibly angry, and even though they both knew he could easily toss her out of the way to escape, he respected her space and allowed her to keep him trapped in the room. He could have left her on the cold floor two weeks earlier. He had known the way out, and she had no doubt that he could have located his reindeer and sled without her help. He clearly wanted to be free, but he seemed unwilling to hurt her to get it. The thought made her bold.

           “I told my sister not to kill a trespasser and allowed him into my home, fed him from my table and kept him warm and safe.”

           She wouldn’t back down from him, her hands shaking, because while her mind was certain he wouldn’t hurt her, her body didn’t seem to have come to the same consensus. He was glaring at her, and she tried to make her expression similar enough to stand against him.

           “If you’re really suffering as much as you say, toss me aside and leave this place,” her eyes went to his chest again, to the muscle of his arms that had been plenty strong enough to carry her before, “We both know that even if I fought you I would lose. If you moved quick enough Elsa wouldn’t see you. You could be halfway to wherever it is you call home by the time she realizes what has happened.”

           He looked to the door and to her face. For a moment, she thought he might take the opportunity, determination mixed with the anger on his face, but he simple stared at her.

           “I’m a man of my word. I pledged that I would stay here and so I will until I’m told otherwise by the one I swore it to.”

           His words came through gritted teeth and seemed to exhaust him to even speak, but they were said nevertheless and they shocked her. Of course, he seemed like a good man to her but, as she was constantly reminded by her sister, her judgement wasn’t always spot on. However, he had yet to give her a reason to doubt him and knowing that she truly had next to nothing left to lose she was willing to risk taking him upon his word.

           She sighed and, with still shaking hands, made measured steps towards him. If Elsa found out she had come to visit him again, she imagined she would either take back her copy of the key to his room, or that she would simply lock her away as well. With those options on the horizon, he seemed a lot less terrifying than what was possibly waiting for her outside.

           “I’m sorry.”

           He looked at her as if confused for a moment, but then looked away, walking away from her and across the room to the armoire where his clothes, which weren’t really his clothes at all, were kept.

           She watched as he opened the doors and removed a white long sleeve shirt from within. He pulled it on and Anna wondered if he had only just realized that being partially unclothed in front of her was improper.

           He didn’t seem like the type of man to care about such things, and while she may have once, propriety was too low on her list of priorities to mark any true merit. Her sister would still carry different opinions on the matter, but she wouldn’t even want Anna there, so what she thought about the situation was of little concern to Anna.

           “It’s not your fault. Or at least I don’t think it is. Unless you lured me here, but I think it had more to do with the wolves.”

           She wanted to ask about what exactly he meant by wolves luring him to her home, but she had more pressing questions on her mind. Seeing that he was acting a bit less combative she thought it best to introduce the more important issues first, and if his demeanor maintained some warmth afterwards, she would move into her more trivial questions.

           “When I asked you what you did I didn’t mean to sound so harsh,” she said honestly, happy to look him in the eye again without the edge of antagonism in either of their stances. “I just meant… well it sounds crazy.”

           He smirked, and she knew that he was probably thinking of some clever comment involving her sister, but he didn’t say it if he had.

           “Try me.”

           She couldn’t help but to smile at his words. She supposed that given his circumstances he couldn’t imagine anything stranger than what he was already experiencing. She felt as though she may prove him sadly mistaken as she walked until she stood a foot or less from him.

           “My leg,” she said, pulling up her skirt and sticking it out, “what did you do to it before?”

           She hadn’t bothered to wear stockings, and her bare leg was again less than flesh in appearance. From the top of her slipper to the highest section of her thigh unhidden by fabric, her leg was the soft blue-white translucence of ice.

           He looked at it and took a deep breath in, looking from it to her face and sighing, “Evidently not what I thought if it looks like that again.”

           She quirked a brow at him, undeterred by the shock on his face. He had seen it before, and she didn’t even need his comments to be certain. The ice had come back within the span of two weeks. It crept up her body as it always did, but it moved much quicker in the places he had touched and somehow reverted to skin. As soon as the previously ice space returned to its frozen quality once again, it had started to creep along at its normal slow pace again, her hair going white at 7:00pm each night as it always did as more of her skin was consumed in frost. Of course she knew that it would continue at the rate until it consumed her completely and left her dead, and that was why the return of flesh, presumably relating to him, interested her more than all else.

           “So you did make it change then? Like from ice to skin?” she asked, “How did you do it?”

           He closed his eyes, “I don’t know.”

           “What do you mean you don’t know?”

           He sighed, and opened his eyes again, “I mean I don’t know. After you fell I touched your leg to make sure it wasn’t broken and it just sort of happened. I thought I was finally losing it, so I brought you upstairs and your sister found me and almost killed me, except I told her you fell and she had me bring you to your room and then locked me back in mine under the threat of me becoming an ice sculpture.”

           Anna shivered at the mention of human ice sculptures, but recovered quickly. She dropped her skirt so that her legs were covered again, and wandered across the room to where the table and chair sat. She settled herself in his chair and fought her skirts up her thighs again, slipping off her slippers on both feet revealing that the entire leg up to the thigh on one side was ice, and just the foot on the other.

           She breathed in deep and let it out slow, conscious of how wary his eyes were, as if he wasn’t seeing her, but rather like he was staring his own death in the face. Of course, given the way he had been treated by her sister she couldn’t blame him, particularly with what she was about to ask, not that it was anything that he had to guess. It was obvious what she wanted.  

           “Would you mind trying?”

           She couldn’t say anything else. She knew that it was silly to even try. After all he would have had to do something more than to touch her to negate the effects of her curse, even if it was just for a short while. Maybe it was something he said or something about the basement floor, and yet she had tried everything else, so if he were willing, she wanted him to touch her legs, even if just for a fleeting moment.

           He paused, staring at her. His eyes asking if she were serious, and hers responding that she was more serious than he could ever imagine.

           He didn’t speak, but instead approached her slowly. When he was close to her side, he kneeled on one knee and allowed a cautious hand to reach out and touch her foot’s icy surface.

           His fingers were warm against it, not unlike when her own fingers touched her icy flesh, but it was only a fraction of a moment before there was something else there as well. Warmth bloomed from his touch, shaking away the cold that had so long been in her bones. The ice slowly melted away from the point where he touched her, replacing it with pale, but warm, flesh.

                                                            ***

           He was frightened by the change. Whereas before he had allowed himself to think of the change as a hallucination due to stress as he ran his hand over her leg to check for broken bones, now he could not deny it was real.

           He also couldn’t deny the intimacy of it. While he was only touching her foot, there was a warmth that ran from her skin to his, up his arms and into his chest. It made his whole body feel like it was being pulled at like a leaf caught in the current of a stream. Whatever was passing between them was a force that caused him to feel warmth, peace, and euphoria the likes of which he hadn’t ever experienced.

           He remembered feeling similarly when she had touched his chest when he had first woken up. He pulled his hand away from her skin, and nearly fell over in the process. She was blushing, but looked as in awe as he felt. None of it made any sense.

           “How are you doing that?” she asked, breathless.

           He shook his head, confused and in shock. “I told you before I don’t know. It just happens.”

           She didn’t say anything, but closed her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. He thought that maybe she was thinking about what was going on because of course that was the only thing on his mind.

           He wasn’t sure what brought him to touch her other leg, the one still solid ice, but he felt the same hum of warmth and comfort cocooning him as he did so. Ice was replaced by flesh as he let his hand move from her knee down to her ankle slowly.

           She opened her eyes to watch him, first looking frightened at his sudden touch, but her face slowly changing to something more blissful. A soft sound escaped her lips as her skin returned completely to a soft, pale, and cool but not cold flesh.

           The sound made him pull back, and she looked almost as embarrassed as he felt.

           “Sorry, I─”

           “Don’t,” she said, her face and chest going red with a blush.

           There was an expectant pause between them, the tension and questions almost tangible to him. He was the one to break it, and with great caution.

           “So you, uh─ you feel it too?”

           She looked at him as he spoke, but paused and stared at the floor when she responded, “I─I think so. Is it warm, and um, I don’t know…”

           “Soothing?” he offered, trying to look anywhere but where he had touched her.

           “Yeah,” she said, still not looking at him.

           “So, did your sister?” he asked, not sure how to phrase the question that had been begging to be asked since the moment he realized that he hadn’t been imagining the ice. Despite her violence towards him, she didn’t seem to express the same towards her sister.

           “Oh, no,” she said, her voice shaking.

           “No! It’s not like that,” she added a bit more firmly, finally looking back up to him again, “It’s a long story.”

           “I have an eternity,” he replied.

           As soon as the words passed his lips, she jumped a little bit, her face changing, her embarrassment changing to sadness.

           “No, you don’t.”

           He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, she tossed her skirt back down and stood from the chair, heading for the door.

           “I’ll tell you, just not today.”

           She shook her head and turned the knob, but paused before exiting to look at him. She gave him a sad smile that made his chest ache.

           “Thank you, for this,” she said looking down at her legs, “I have to lock the door again, but I promise I’ll be back again… if that’s what you want.”

           He gave her an affirmative nod, but he wished that he could stop her from leaving. He had so many questions for her, and he didn’t want to be alone again, but as soon as she registered the motion of his head, she was out the door and he heard the lock click.

He had never felt so alone before. It ate away at him in the pit of his gut. It was too quiet in his room, too still, like the air was growing stagnant and he was collecting dust. Normally it wouldn’t bother him, he had been alone all his life for the most part, but it had never made him feel so angry and abandoned. He assumed it was due to Sven’s absence. He still hadn’t seen him, but he took Anna at her word that he was alright. Of course, he didn’t trust her completely, but they had no reason to hurt a reindeer and even less of a reason to lie to him about it, so he took her word at face value.

Realistically speaking he knew that some of his loneliness could be related to the fact that he hadn’t seen her in two weeks, or at least what he assumed was two weeks. At the very least he was sure that it was less than a month. He had kept track of the passing days and nights only by the way light, or the lack thereof, had presented itself through his small frost covered window. He couldn’t say that he hadn’t gotten confused at some point or slept through the better part of one day and thought that it was another. After all he felt like he was going mad.

Nothing ever changed much in his small room, and even though his strength had returned to him in full, he was profoundly struck by the sense that it was inescapable. It was a fine room always stocked with the things that he needed, but its richness didn’t stop it from being a cage. He thought for a moment about caged birds at a street market, but realized that even they had the company of others and the entertainment of the passing humans. He was more like a dying rabbit forgotten in a neck snare. No one was looking for him, and he wondered if he would die if he struggled, tightening the noose tighter and tighter around his own neck as he flailed.

It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined something so grim, but he wouldn’t allow himself to be consumed by the thought. He still had the will to live. It had been less than a month. He told himself he would find a way to escape.

He paced around the room. It was too small to exercise properly, and while his energy was returned to him by the meals he was eating, he knew that his muscles would waste away if he didn’t use them. So he paced until his legs ached, the hours passing and his mind razor focused on counting each step he took. When he no longer had the will to keep stepping back and forth across the wooden floor, his eyes aching from the sight of the wallpapered stone and plaster walls, he dropped to the floor to attempt a series of pushups. Somedays he lifted the heavy kettle in which he boiled water for his bath, but he found it easier to strengthen his arms using only his own weight. It was less dangerous, and he could push himself longer. The burn of his muscles kept his mind from attacking itself with darker thoughts and images.

When he was satisfied with his work, or rather when he was too tired and hot to continue, he sat up and put his back against the legs and footboard of the bed. He wiped a few errant beads of sweat from his forehead and allowed himself a moments rest. When he closed his eyes, he was haunted by the same image as always, Anna’s hair going white, her body going cold in his arms.

He hadn’t seen her or anyone else since the day he had set her into her bed and was unceremoniously led back to his chambers by the harsh blonde that wanted him dead. He wanted to see Anna again, but there was an anger that rose within him each time she pictured her face. She had been kind to him, but she was also his captor. He couldn’t wrap his head around her, not only in the sense that she seemed to be a part of the supernatural happenings within the castle, but also that she had done something to him no one else had been able to before. She made him care. He had the sneaking suspicion that she had made him care even before he entered the castle. After seeing her fall, he had some assurance that she was the woman in the window he had doomed himself for. He wanted to hate her for helping to keep him locked away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. She had fought for his life, she had been the only one to treat him with kindness, and he had no doubt in his mind that she was the reason he was given food to eat each day.  

Every morning when he awoke, three square meals sat on the table by the fire, a pitcher of water was placed by a basin atop a vanity with a standing mirror, and other necessities were scattered about. Despite this constantly appearing, he had yet to see anyone enter or leave the room to cause the appearance of such things, nor did he see anyone take away the plates from the day before, but they were never left behind come morning. It made him suspicious of what he was given, but his options were to eat or to starve, as the frightening blonde had reminded him upon leaving with the begrudging promise, likely originating from her sister, that he would be taken care of, but without any implication that she cared whether he survived or not.

He had tried staying up all day and night to see who it was who came, if only to rid himself of concerns that it was somehow supernatural in nature, but he always managed to fall asleep or look away from the door for a good ten minutes each time he attempted. Though he never pretended to be anything more or less than a mortal man, he felt as though his willpower was strong enough to at least stay awake and alert for 24 hours, and so missing the deliverer each day only worked to confirm to him that there was something paranormal about the occurrences. He recalled stories of the fair folk of the forest and how eating their food and accepting their gifts gave them a claim on you, made you theirs.

He tried to shake the thought from his mind as he removed his shirt and walked his aching legs to the vanity. He frowned at his reflection, his hair and beard had gotten too long. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much, his appearances never had before. Something twisted in his stomach and he knew what it was trying to say You want to look nice for her. He tried to chase away the feeling with the thought that he had always preferred to be clean shaven and keep his hair short for his work, but logic did little to stop the way his heart skipped when he thought of her liking his appearance.

Grumbling to himself he tossed his wadded-up shirt down to his feet. He took a clean cloth from the surface and tossed it into the empty basin, pouring fresh water overtop it. He would bathe later, for now he simply wanted to be free of the sweat and dust that clung to him. He liked to feel clean when he could, and that, at least, was one advantage to living in a castle.

He wrung out the cloth using both hands until it no longer dripped, and used it to wipe away at his face. There was soap in a small adjoining bath, but he didn’t care enough to fetch it, frowning at the way the cloth came away from his skin dingier than he thought it would. He resoaked the cloth with clean water as he went, scrubbing his face, neck, chest and arms with the linen until he felt satisfied that he was mostly clean. He splashed a little water into his hand and worked it through his beard. He’d had longer, but he still wasn’t fond of the rough hairs, particularly on his upper lip.

He ran his hands through his hair, it was longer yet to the point where he had tied it back with a piece of ribbon he had found in the drawers of the vanity. This had been a woman’s room before his arrival, of that much he was sure. Throughout the weeks things had come and gone to make the room his own, too loose or too tight clothes had been deposited in a nearby armoire that previously held gowns, and while he hoped that a razor or scissors might come soon, he didn’t hold his breath.

He settled his head over the bowl and dumped the remaining water through his hair, making it feel only marginally cleaner in the process. When he looked up again, the man staring back at him still looked strange. Water from his hair flowed over his back and torso, as he did his best to wring it out into the bowl. Combing it again with his fingers, he tied it back away from his face and turned away, unwilling to stare at himself any longer.

He heard the door open and was startled by it. He froze in place, knowing that no matter who it was there was little he could do to stop them from entering.

She was there, he saw her. She was beautiful, but her face was strange. She looked as lost and angry as he felt, but her voice was strong and clear.

“We need to talk.”

         She ignored the stiffness in her leg. She had been walking around too much and needed a rest, but she couldn’t help but to bring him to see his friend. She couldn’t remember what it was like to have a real attachment to another living thing beyond her sister. She knew what it was to be lonely and what it was to worry about another.

           She didn’t comment on how odd it was to have a reindeer as a best friend, not only because it would be rude, but also because it would truly be like the pot calling the kettle black. He had one oddity from what she knew, but she had several, her sister being one of them. She didn’t want to focus on Elsa so much as she brought Kristoff through the corridors she had roamed since childhood.

           She knew what her sister would say about the entire adventure. The first comment would almost certainly be “what were you thinking” with a combination of reasons why she shouldn’t trust Kristoff, and ultimately a reminder of what happened the last time she trusted a man against the “better” judgement of her sister.

           Instead she allowed her body to go on autopilot through the halls, thinking instead about the way she had felt hot when his fingers had brushed against her skin when they walked out the door. She blushed, and she hoped he couldn’t tell. He had already thanked her profusely and since then conversation had fallen flat.

           She wasn’t certain of what he would do once they were outside in the open air. She had no means of controlling him or making him come back into the castle once he had seen that his reindeer was indeed safe and sound. She just felt something in her heart that told her that he was a man of his word. He wouldn’t hurt her.

           Or maybe he would. She didn’t need her sister to remind her of her own awful track record when it came to trusting others. However, she still had a tiny seed of optimism hidden somewhere within her gut that hold her to trust him. The worst that could happen would be that he ran away and damned her, but she was already damned.

                                                      ***

           He followed behind her closely. She seemed to know exactly where she was going through the twisting and turning of dark hallways and staircases. His mind was desperately trying to keep up, to create some semblance of a map in his head and to make sense of the maze before him, He didn’t know when he would have a chance to use the information he was trying to collect, but if he was ever given the opportunity, he knew that remembering his surroundings would be imperative to finding a way to escape from the castle he had somehow become trapped in.

           While he remembered enough to make sense of why he was there in the first place, it didn’t feel real. A massive castle in the middle of the woods he had just missed for years even though he had traversed the area since he was a child? A woman who could control ice? It seemed like fiction, something that could never actually happen, but he remembered it so vividly that he couldn’t discount it as much as he wished to. Even Anna was questionable. The girl walking before him seemed kindly, but he knew next to nothing about her. He wondered if she was the same woman he had seen in the window that made him enter the castle in the first place or if the castle had more inhabitants than just the two women he had met. He wondered if he had even seen a woman in the window in the first place. It just felt surreal to him. He knew that there must be something more going on, but he couldn’t put his finger on it, and he couldn’t help but fear the unknown. Darkness and not knowing had never worried him so much before. Even now he wasn’t sure if he was truly being led to Sven or if he was being led down a path that would lead to his own death.

           By the third turn and the second staircase Kristoff knew that it was in vain to try and remember anything. Everything around him looked practically the same, stone walls, painted wooden doors, dust, and white sheets over furniture, and cobwebs. He normally prided himself on his sense of direction, but the woods were far different than the cold dark walls of the castle. In the woods the stones had a variety and the cobwebs had inhabitants, here everything was hauntingly repetitive and eerily dead.

           “Shhh─” she warned suddenly, sticking her hand out behind her to stop him in his tracks. He didn’t think that he had been making any sound, but chalked it up to her reaction, so hearing it he froze in place, waiting for further instruction.

           It felt like hours passing instead of moments when he heard the click of shoe heels striking stone get closer and closer. He stopped breathing, even though his rational mind told him that no one would be able to hear him breathe through a wall. There was nothing rational about the situation he was in, and when the sound seemed to retreat to a distance beyond his hearing, he finally allowed himself to let a breath out and take a deep one in.

           “Follow me,” she whispered after an additional moment of stillness, “She’s in the entry hall, we’ll have to cut through the root cellar.”

           He nodded at her words and followed her again without speaking any of his own. She led him to the other side of the room and through a door carefully hidden away in the room’s darkest corner. When he stepped through the doorway, she was quick to seal it behind them. She sighed and he supposed that it was a sign that they were at least somewhat home free.

           He felt somewhat relieved when he looked around the room to see that it looked at least somewhat more lived in than the other spaces of the castle he had seen so far. A warm, soft light passed through a few small windows high on the wall, and he was given a sense that beyond the frost covered glass, he was finally close to the earth again. Whatever room they had kept him in had felt like it was in a tower. He had been unable to truly see through the icy glass, but he had known that he wasn’t near the ground, ruining his thoughts of escaping.

           He shooed the thought away and looked around the warm room. There was a small fire in an open hearth along the far wall, the heat pouring from it made the space feel cozy. Otherwise there was a wooden table with a few chairs in varying stages of being pushed in. On the tabletop, there was a scattering of odds and ends atop a tablecloth. The items were nothing of importance, half darned stockings, silver and polishing rags, and scraps of paper. In a bowl, there were a few slightly blemished apples, the sort of thing he would buy for himself at fruit stands in the open markets of the villages he had visited. He was grateful that his stomach no longer ached with hunger, and yet he eyed the apples with thoughts of whether he should shove one into his pocket for later, or whether Anna would be offended by it. She seemed a nice enough person so far, and he supposed he had no reason to be distrustful of her. She had brought him food before, she was apparently bringing him to see Sven, she had been kind to him even when he had been rude to her, but he wasn’t a trustful person. If he could help it he didn’t even like to be around others. The idea of continuing to rely on her made him uncomfortable.

           “Where are we?” he asked quietly, hearing her sigh and taking it as a sign that it was once again safe to speak.

           “Servant’s quarters,” she replied simply, sitting down into the chair with a practiced ease.

           “You spend a lot of time here?” he asked, unable to help himself but to speak after so much silence. He knew it was a dumb question. The castle was presumably her home, and the comfort with which she collapsed into the chair showed a familiarity that he recognized. He collapsed into chairs in his cabin much in the same way.

           Thinking about his cabin made his heart ache. He would give anything to be there again, and his mind was once again on escape.

           She looked at him for a moment as if she were confused, and then she glanced down at her own feet, “I didn’t before, but since no one comes around anymore I do a lot. The others are nice.”

           “Others?” he asked. Of course, he had assumed that there were other residents of the castle. Although much of it looked untouched, his room had been neat and clean, as was the room where they were sitting and presumably other rooms were lived in as well. He also had a vague memory of hearing voices when he entered the castle. He wasn’t sure whether or not he could trust any of his memories, but the memory seemed to point to more people present than two women and himself. He still hadn’t seen anyone else though, so he couldn’t be certain.

           She didn’t respond, looking back up at him as she stood from the chair. He noticed that she looked tired, her face was pale and she wobbled a little on her feet when she stood.

           He stepped forward to offer her his hand for balance, but he retracted it quickly. He didn’t know how to react around her, and she didn’t seem to notice his actions. She was already walking off towards a door on the wall opposite the one they had entered through.

           “Let’s get going, I told Elsa I wouldn’t join her for dinner tonight, but that doesn’t mean she won’t look for me if we’re out too long.”

           He nodded and walked through the door after her. He recognized it as the kitchen from his first night there, but it felt different now. At the very least there was more light and it helped it to feel less ominous. He couldn’t help but relax as he smelled the spice of dried herbs mingling with the recognizable scent of a hearty meat stew. He looked over to see a stove topped with a still steaming pot, the contents of which he derived from the scent. It brought him some small comfort. At the very least the food was familiar.

           She looked over at the pot herself and smiled for a moment. It was a ghost of a smile, he barely caught it before she spoke, “We can grab lunch on our way back through.”

           He nodded, though he wanted desperately to say something more. Although he was not usually a conversationalist, he ached to fill the quiet between them. There was something below her silence that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but by the time he thought of something to add, she was already walking along and he could only bring himself to follow her across the room to another door.

           He took in this room as well. Like the servant’s quarters it was simple. The walls were plastered and painted white. The absence of color somehow felt dingier than it would have if the room had been brown. There were counters against the walls that appeared fairly clean and cupboards hung on the wall above them. He assumed they were filled with crockery, utensils, and other dinnerware. To his left there was a set of wooden double doors that he assumed led into the pantry.

           When they reached the door it was already opened slightly, as if someone had started to shut it but hadn’t made it all the way through the action. He remembered emerging from it sometime before, he presumed the day before, but he still wasn’t sure how long he had slept.

           Walking a path he had some familiarity with was comforting, and yet it was jarring to walk the same steps upon which he had damned himself. He hated to remember it because he so badly longed to tell himself that it wasn’t real. Of course he wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny what had happened. His mind was at war with itself, trying to remember, and trying to forget, trying to rationalize while simultaneously coming to the understanding that nothing would ever be rational again.

           She pulled the door open the rest of the way, and he felt an updraft of cool air come from below as she doubled back to grab a lantern. The light from the room around them did not penetrate more than a few feet beyond the door. He could see a few of the wooden steps and then nothing but pitch black darkness.

           Anna stepped past him with the lantern and a few more steps revealed themselves in the light. He wasn’t a superstitious man, but everything he had seen so far was making him one. So when he was struck by the thought that the cellar looked more like a hell pit, he nearly forgot that he had been through it before.

           She walked ahead, no longer instructing him to follow. As she entered the darkness the lantern kept it from swallowing her whole. Though he felt like there was something about her that repelled the shadows even without the light of the lantern. There was a radiance in the way she was, and although he noticed that there was something off, a sort of exhaustion that reminded him more of a clockwork ballerina who needed to be wound up again rather than a simple organic tiredness. She had a sort of beauty about her, even when he noted her steps becoming more lethargic. There was some kind of stiffness, something that made her seem as though she were a caricature of herself. He knew that she assumed that he would follow, but he couldn’t help but to pause.

           “Why are you doing this?” he asked, still standing in the kitchen while she was halfway down the stairs.

           She turned around and looked up at him. She stared at him for a long moment, her face pale and tired, eyes full of what seemed to him, from the distance, to be confusion. There was a twinge of hurt of her face that he could see for just a moment before she turned away again and continued down the stairs, calling to him, “Because you wanted to see your friend.”

           He started down behind her when the light from her lantern started to fade from his sight. Her answer wasn’t satisfying and he got the sense that she knew that it wasn’t. For all her kindness, she seemed somewhat withdrawn. He wasn’t sure why, but he sensed that something was wrong. It was as if there were a storm brewing inside her, one that she wasn’t talking about. He couldn’t help but to wonder whether it had anything to do with the way she seemed to be falling ill rapidly before his very eyes.

           He wanted to address it. His lips parted and his mouth opened, but he shut it before any words could come out. He wanted to let it go, but when she reached the bottom stair only to stumble and fall from it he wished that he would have said something. He was too far off to catch her, and watched from too far away as she collapsed onto the floor below.

           “Anna!” he said, surging forward to where she had fallen. She was already trying to pull herself back up by the time he reached her.

           He wasn’t sure whether it was a trick of the lamp light that was making her so pale or whether she was injured at it was pain causing blood to drain from her face. He swore he saw a bit of her hair go white, but he paid it little mind considering the obvious fact that she was on the floor hurt. Still the snow-white strand made his heart leap. He had thought that something was strange with her demeanor, and so long as he assumed that it was not a mere trick of his imagination, there was something going on that was beyond his understanding.

           “I’m okay!” she said as she finally managed to lift herself up so that she was sitting on the dusty stone floor. He righted the toppled lantern beside her leg as her face went from shock to pain. She reached down, touched her left leg, and grimaced.

           “No, no you’re not.”

           He tried to hide the shock on his own face as he looked down at her. He couldn’t help but to stare at the white strand in her hair. He couldn’t remember it being there before, and as much as he tried to rationalize it, he couldn’t come up with a justification that made any sense to him. He couldn’t not look at it, as hard as he tried, and for a moment he thought that he might be losing his mind.

           As he crouched down beside her the only thing that was running through his mind was a single word. Curse. He knew about curses. He barely remembered his parents, but they used to tell him stories about them when he was young. He’d seen country witches offer to bestow them or remove them for a prince. He’d heard tales of them, and it was the only solution his brain could create for the presence of white in her hair, her sudden illness, and the powers of her sister. Maybe she had cursed her. Maybe it was his fault for allowing her to lead him out of the castle. He didn’t want to think about it.

           Thinking about curses as something more than superstition, smoke and mirrors, and children’s tales was what made a man mad. He had met eccentrics in the streets. The ones that weren’t mad enough to be sent to an asylum, but were crazy enough to be left in the streets to beg or die. While he had great sympathy for them, offering them a coin when he could, he did not wish to become one.

           His attentions, although deviated for a moment, were returned to the task at hand soon after the realization. He carefully moved to kneel close beside her.

           “Let me see.”

           Terror flashed across her face and she recoiled away from him. Her leg didn’t move with her body when she shifted, and he felt a crushing weight on his chest. If she couldn’t move it, it was broken. Whatever was happening to her, he was certain was his fault.

           He touched the fabric across the knee of the immobile leg. He didn’t apply much pressure, trying to calm her down and see if that was where she was hurt.

           “I broke my arm once. I know it hurts, but if I can see what happened I can get you somewhere to get you some help.”

           “It’s not broken,” she responded quickly, her eyes filling up with tears.

           “Can you move it?”

           She shook her head no, eyes releasing their wetness, droplets cascading down her cheeks. He was sure that she was in pain, why else would she be crying. She had to understand that he wouldn’t hurt her.

           Of course, he had given her no reason to believe that he would hurt her, but he realized that she had no hard evidence that he wouldn’t either. They barely knew one another, and he wasn’t sure what her impression of him was. It had to be good enough that she would lead him away by herself, but even that much trust confused him. After all, he understood that he was particularly terrible with communicating to others, so if she was afraid to let him look at her leg, especially in a state of pain, he supposed that he could understand her situation.

           “Then it’s broken,” he said, voice soft but authoritative as he pressed softly down her leg to see where her pain was coming from.

           She was blushing, tears running off her face as he touched her leg, and when she didn’t portray any additional pain when he touched her ankle he began to roll up her pant leg. He moved quickly while she remained deathly still, as if she were too lost in her own head to react.

           She continued to cry softly and for reasons he could not explain to himself, his heart broke a little with every sob. He wasn’t sure why he felt so attached to her, why he was so concerned for her wellbeing. He tried to tell himself that it was the fact that she was so kind to him, arguably even saving his life if he remembered correctly, but there was something more to it. Something that he had never felt before, let alone for someone he had known for only 24 or so hours. She had enchanted him.

           When her pant leg was rolled up to the top of her knee, he removed her boot carefully, and tugged at her stocking. As they grey wool slipped away from her skin, she cried out and Kristoff himself had to contain the urge to scream.

           Glimmering in the light of the lantern, her leg from the knee down was almost entirely transparent. There was a cool tinge to it, and the light passed from one side to another between it. He reached out to touch it, then moved his hand back, thinking better of it.

           He knew he was losing his mind as he looked from her leg to her eyes.

“Ice?”

                                                    ***

           The last thing Anna remembered was Kristoff looking at her leg in the chill of the cellar. She had no concept of how she made it into her bed with her stocking replaced, pantleg rolled down, and blankets atop her. She could only assume, however, that it was him. Elsa couldn’t carry her certainly, and she knew that none of the staff would be able to bring her there either.

Returning from the darkness of sleep she looked around her own room. A fire had been lit in the fireplace some ways away from her bed. In a nearby chair a silhouette of a person sat, making Anna wish that she would have stayed asleep even longer in the heat of the room.

“What were you thinking?” Elsa called to her sister the moment she realized she was awake, “He could have killed you, or hurt you, or ran off and told people about us.”

The tall waiflike blonde walked to her sister’s bedside, face full of anxiety. Anna hated making her like that, but she couldn’t find a way to put her feelings of Kristoff’s kindness and innocence into words.

“Where is he?” she asked, voice as demanding as she could make it given her state and her elder sister’s glare.

“Back under lock and key where he should have been the whole time!” Elsa chided, “Though he’s lucky I didn’t tie a rock to his chest and toss him in the Fjord.”

Anna sighed in relief. At least her stupidity wasn’t enough to get him killed. Elsa was by no means a bloodthirsty person, but her anxiety frequently clouded her judgement, particularly when it came to defending their home. She was just happy that he was safe in his room instead of buried in the backyard.

“Really Anna, how could you be so reckless?”

Anna shook her head, “I wasn’t. Elsa, he’s a good person. He doesn’t mean us any harm, surely you have to see that now.”

“All I see is a trespasser,” she replied firmly. When she looked upon her sister there was a wetness in her eyes, “Anna, you remember what happened last time we let a stranger into our lives.”

“You don’t have to remind me!” Anna said, cheeks hot and voice full of fury, “But Kristoff is kind. We can’t lock him up in that room until he dies.”

Elsa gave her sister a piercing look and walked away, “We’re not discussing this right now Anna. Go to sleep, and stay away from him! You’re not thinking straight.”

Anna opened her mouth to respond, but the door was already slamming shut.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been out for, but when she looked to the side she saw no light coming from the window. She pressed herself up and out of bed, tossing back the covers and walking towards her closet. One of the castle staff had already cleaned up her clothing and jewelry from earlier, and she chided herself for causing trouble for them. They were already enduring enough without her making more messes.

She pulled the armoire doors open and pulled a cotton nightgown from one of the shelves. She stripped without much difficulty, standing nude in her room. The air of the chamber had not yet been completely warmed by the fire, but she did not shy away from the feeling of the cool air on her skin. Cold was all she knew.

She quickly released her hair from the pins that held it tight, and delighted in the feeling of freedom she felt as it cascaded down her bare shoulders and back. Her fingers went up to massage her scalp as she sat in her vanity chair. She frowned at her reflection in the mirror. She was too pale, too angular. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt beautiful.

But then she realized that she could. Despite their misadventure, she had remembered what it was like when Kristoff had looked at her. The way his eyes had wandered, almost appreciatively over her hips. She felt awful for never actually bringing him to see his friend, but she supposed that so long as he lived, there would be plenty of opportunities.

She thought of him in her chamber, setting her down on her mattress while she was unconscious. She knew that she should feel wrong, it was improper. But impropriety was damnable when you hadn’t met a single person in almost twenty-five years. She sighed and wondered whether he would be so kind when he realized what was going on around him. She wondered if he already knew.

She decided not to bother with the night dress, liking the way it felt to be naked in one of the only spaces she felt at home in. Leaning over she peeled off her stockings, and nearly fell onto the floor.

“Oh my Gods,” she said, hand flying up over her mouth.

Both of her legs were completely normal. Pale white, flesh and blood. She didn’t know what to think. She reached down to touch her left leg, and was shocked when her fingertips met warm, soft flesh. She couldn’t find a thought in her head for why her body had been restored after so very long.