Frozen: The Spirit and the Drage

Chapter Fifteen

"How are you feeling?" Her soft voice opened Ryu's eyes to see Elsa sitting by her bedside. She didn't know when but at some point they had moved her from the infirmary wing of the castle and while at first alarming she could only hope she hadn't evicted anyone from their own room.

The dusky sun pooled past the curtains crowning Elsa's head with a gleaming halo. Sitting up, Ryu's head tilted, sighing at how the spirit looked, it was a sight that comforted her.

Her lack of reply must have worried Elsa even more, beneath her large eyes was darkening perhaps from lack of sleep or stress, and her lips were set in a small frown.

Ryu wanted nothing more in the moment than to see her smile again.

"Well..." She began murmuring in a sleepy torpor. "Call me a baby cause I have been de-livered." It took six moments before Elsa's mouth quivered in all directions, her hand reached up to cover her sputters.

"Oh no-" she giggled. "You still have your liver." Her hand reached out for Ryu's. It felt like she hadn't felt this cool delicate touch in hundreds of years. A bit a dramatic but she'd stand by the sentiment.

Elsa's other hand wasn't necessarily demanding her other but she'd seen the slight twitch it had as if restraining itself from jumping to grab her left. So she gave it.

After sitting in quiet allowing Elsa to rub her hands nearly lulling her back to sleep inhaling Elsa's smell. It was the first tell of her presence.

She cracked open one eye- Elsa was watching her never ceasing the encircling of her thumbs.

                        ❄️❄️❄️

"I'd like food, I'm really running on an empty stomach." Elsa hummed shaking her head. She had heard about the fuss the dragon caused when they moved her rooms or refused medicine not liking the sedative effects and promised the doctor she'd keep Ryu on track.

"I hardly think now's the time for jokes."

Ryu's brows furrowed. "What? Oh! Oooh. Hai, that's funny. But I wasn't joking." The Spirit's expression changed from soft chastisement to sympathy. "You can't eat yet I'm afraid."

"Oh, Kuso." She didn't need the translation to know the tone of a curse when she heard it.

Her corneas stung from tears she thought were already long since shed over the past two days but no her body apparently had much more to give. The lump in her throat went down painfully, and when she tried to turn away Ryu clasped her wrists pulling her more onto the bed.

She didn't allow Elsa to ease her back to recline and instead leaned forward whispering.

"Hey- hey? It's alright Erusa."

Elsa sniffled, turning she was surprised to see how close Ryu scooted. She shook her head. "No it's not, what if he had aimed higher into your chest and got to your heart or lung?" Her eyes flicked over the areas she mentioned. Ryu's followed, glancing down at herself. When she looked back up a single corner of her mouth was raised.

"But he didn't, this-" she gestured to her bandage stomach, finger plying underneath the wrappings feeling the foreign smooth skin of where her scales used to be. "-was just a gib in the plan ya-"

"This was more than a gib. You got stab!"

Ryu nodded stilling grinning. "I was there I know. But I would have done it all over again if I had to-"

"But why?"

Why?

"Why?" Ryu mumbles to herself as if asking the same question, and chuckles madly once finding the answer. "Cause I like you." Elsa finds it in herself to laugh weakly as well.