Kingdom of Frozen Hearts

Kingdom of Frozen Hearts 

❅

It was cold.

Elsa hugged herself tightly as she brought her knees to her chest. She shuddered at the sudden wave of warmth that washed over her and coursed through her body, flooding her veins as her knees made brief contact with her freezing fingertips. Her small and wide childish fingers frantically clutched at the cool fabric of her thick comforter as she wrapped herself into the blanket that was nearly five times her size.

The corners of her pale eyelids were squeezed shut, and a ripple of crinkles decorated her skin as she clenched and unclenched her jaw, drowning herself in the cold and impending darkness as violent shivers racketed and ricocheted throughout her small body. She fought herself as her mind unwillingly flashed images of her notorious meeting with the trolls. The images rolled in a sequence through her mind, using the blackness from the tight shut of her eyes as a backdrop for the bright and blinding phantasmagorias. 

She cringed and whimpered beneath her breath, careful to not make any sounds that would echo brilliantly throughout her open room and Anna slept soundly in the next room over. The sound of her mother’s soothing voice sounded in her head, shakily describing Anna’s weak condition before she had carefully put the younger girl to bed. Elsa had watched from the entrance of the door to Anna’s room, not daring to step over into the threshold of her little sister’s residence as her mind chastised her for what she had done. 

Elsa jolted in fear as a freezing cold sensation trundled beneath her eyes. She sat up, her eyes wide and her breathing heavy as she ran the pads of her fingertips across her cheekbones, involuntarily catching her breath within her throat as she studied the watery substance that puddled against the ghostly pale skin of her face and glistened like the twinkle of starts against her fingertips underneath the dark and looming night. 

She sniffled and commenced wiping beneath her eyes with the flowing bell sleeves of her warm cotton nightgown. She fiddled with her fingers, trying her best to ignore her heated exhales that drifted into the frozen air, looking like little clouds of smoke. Her breath unfurled and wafted through the air, visibly expanding into misty and opaque ribbons before enfolding around each other again. 

Her small arms hoisted themselves up and off of the bulky and lonely mattress as she mindlessly hopped off of her bed, allowing her small feet to land unsteadily atop the ground as she wavered over to one side before catching herself. Her bare feet padded across the carpet of her bedroom, and her the soft fabric of the carpet filled the gaps between her toes. Anna’s childish voice resounded through her mind as Elsa remembered at how Anna would waddle and dash across the carpet, relishing the carpet beneath and between her own baby toes, imagining it to be the twinkling and frozen crystal stars of the winter’s first snow.

Elsa placed the palm of her hand flat against the surface of her slightly ajar door, yelping softly as the touch resulted in a tingly glow of blue to erupt dimly from her skin. Her breaths came out shallow and quick, and she willed herself to calm down as she forced herself to drag in elongated exhales that rushed through her lungs like a cool winter blizzard. She huffed out a breath as she pulled her door open, wincing as the old wood creaked and the rusty metal hinges groaned in protest as she held her breath and drew out her actions at an agonizingly slow pace.

She hopped out of her room on the very tips of her toes, occasionally rolling onto the balls of her feet to regain balance. She drew in the bottom corner of her lip, peering to her right and focused at the end of the hall where Anna’s room stood. The door was slightly ajar just as hers was, and she squinted at the indistinct and hazy slivers of light that seeped out in waves from beneath the crack of the door. Elsa’s heart hammered from inside the cages of her chest, and she shakily breathed in and out as she cautiously and carefully drew closer and closer to her younger sister’s bedroom.