Searching for a Perfect Day

Interlude

AN: Yeah…alright. Rating has changed from T to M. If smut (let’s face it, that’s exactly what it is) isn’t your thing, I completely understand. I miscalculated my ratings for this story and if some people get angry at that, sorry…it wasn’t planned, but it is what it is. I can honestly say though that you won’t miss a lot of the plot (what plot?) so if you decide not to read, it should be fine. Regularly scheduled programing will return next week. For those sticking around to read…umm…enjoy? 

Chapter 11: Interlude

Sleep isn’t forthcoming. 

It’s not that she’s not tired. Her entire body, right down to her bones, feels weary. And of course she would be…After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours how could she not feel the strain of fatigue and sleep? It’s there, just behind her eyelids. Motioning her—beckoning to join her sister in the land of dreams. Right now though, this task is proving to be difficult. 

A half a foot separates her from the slumbering girl, an expanse of a naked back in her field of vision. She’s been staring at this wonderful sight for…possibly an hour—she’s stopped paying attention to the time since the even breathing of a freckled back began. 

The lamplight, turned on its dimmest setting casts a shadowy glow upon the room, dark enough that it allows Anna to keep sleeping without the interruption of a glare of light, but bright enough that Elsa can keep staring at the smatter of freckles showered atop rounded shoulders and cascading even lower to a curved back.

The blonde had always had a strange curiosity for her sister’s pigmented skin. She’s clearly biased because on anyone else, freckles are ugly—a marring of otherwise flawless skin. It doesn’t enhance beauty, but hides it; a discoloration the majority of people attempt to cover instead of present. She’s somewhat glad that hers aren’t very noticeable.

As a child she was never one to play outside, opting for the warmth and relative safety of her parents’ estate. This trend continued even after Anna’s birth and their consequent childhood together regardless of the fact that the smaller girl had been her polar opposite and would always, without hesitancy, drag her out to play. 

As explorative eight and five year olds, their backyard had been capacious then. Imagination only broadened the parameters: an aging oak became a rocket to fly them off the Mars (the greenhouse); rhododendron bushes hid ninja bad guys under the secret hiding spot beneath the roots; the inside of the shed housed some peculiar aliens. Their adventures were limited only to what they couldn’t think of. Their dad, in an effort to keep them occupied at home since he and Helene had been too busy to take them out most of the time, even had a treehouse built for their enjoyment, later proving to be a bad idea because of the rambunctious redhead, who had an affinity of doing everything without supervision. One morning, she had scaled and climbed the treehouse, lost her footing somewhere in the middle and had fallen, breaking her left arm in the process. 

Elsa still remembers the chaos this had wrought on the household, and even though no one really remembers it now, it proves to be one of those memories that stick to her because it becomes one of the first times she had felt the palpable heaviness of responsibility she had never experienced before: what being an older sister really entailed.

That morning, Anna had snuck into her room in her polar bear pajamas, citing adventure even before sunup. Elsa had refused. Her sister, already stubborn as a mule and finding out ways to be even more-so at such an early age, insisted (more than insisted). She had attempted to drag the blonde out of bed at which point the older girl had pushed her off and told her, none too nicely, to get out of the room so she can sleep. The petulant redhead had thrown a small tantrum complete with the small threat of having fun without her. Sleep won in Elsa’s mind so she hadn’t cared. Twenty minutes later, apocalypse had rained down upon the Andersen household.