Frozen Beyond [gxg]

The Snowflake and The Hearth

Keahi absorbed most of the shock, but Elsa's ears still rang painfully. She reached up to touch the liquid that spilled down her cheek. When she brought her hand back to inspect it, she realized it was blood.

Her ribs throbbed and her hand flew to put pressure to her chest, where her fingers slid against the tacky feel of blood.

Through her blurred vision, she could see Crow holding his waist and gimping across the room to the small hallway that led deeper into the chambers of memories within Ahtohallen.

Elsas brows dipped forward, a hard edge to her eyes as she leaned over to brush her hand across an unconscious Keahi before following him.

This time, his steps sounded pitiful and scared.

Hers echoed down the hallway with no hesitation; her strides determined and unwavering even through her pain.

The room with sculptures of memories both long ago and recent opened wide as Elsa stopped to observe the quiet chill in the air.

Crow was hiding, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse this room on him.

She passed a newer memory, one of her and Keahi singing together in the ballroom. She brushed her hand along the sculpture of Keahi. "You took what little time I had with her and scarred it. I don't think I can forgive you for what you took." She could scarcely recognize her own voice. It was bitter and hard as her hand fell from the iced memory.

Across the room, another small hallway led to the further reaches of memory archives. Where she had froze solid and barely made it out alive.

She watched Crow, sweaty and bloody, scramble through it.

She'd be lying if she didn't open that door and hope he'd go down it. She followed the sound of his labored breathing into the darkness that ate at the interior of Ahtohallen.

Crow stood on the thin path that overlooked the looming abyss below. He leaned over and sought what to do next.

Elsa stopped at the end of the hall, watching as the cold veil wrapped around them both. An ominous gust of wind came from nowhere, sweeping loose ice particles and snow across the void.

Crow scrambled, turning around to face her. He looked weak and pathetic now, a man desperate for his life. How could Keahi and Crow be related?

"Please, wait just a minute." He pleaded.

Keahi would never beg like that. Pride swelled in her chest when she realized the gravity of what Keahi gave up without acting so desperate and scared.

"I wanted to help you, but you just had to let hatred, power, and fear get the better of you. The same happened to my grandfather. And he died holding onto things that didn't matter." To her horror, emotion rose so heavy, "I only just found Keahi, and you forced her to choose. But she is kind, bold, and courageous. Nothing like you." Her voice broke with the weight of emotion her words carried.

"You won't kill me." He taunted.

"No. You did that yourself." She whispered, just as the edge of the shelf broke.

Crow attempted to struggle past the crumbling shelf but it buckled under his weight and it sent him down into the frosted abyss below. Nothing left but a screech of hatred and repulsion.

Elsa peered over the edge into the darkness. The curse wouldn't even be able to take him before the cold did.

Some bleak part of her was glad there would be a frozen statue of Crow at the bottom of that pit for all eternity.

She swallowed hard and ran back to where she had left Keahi. Practically sliding on the ice as she got to her and rolled Keahi over so she wasn't face down on the ice. Putting her head on her lap, she frantically swiped the hair at Keahi's forehead, her own hands shaking. "Wake up." She pleaded quietly, leaning down to brush a kiss on her forehead.

Keahi's eyes fluttered open, and she groggily looked up at Elsa.

She let out a relieved breath, but it was short lived.

Keahi cringed and the veins along her arm started to illuminate under her skin. Glowing a heated red and traveling throughout her body.

"No no no," Elsa began to panic, waving her hand over Keahi's arms to freeze the heat that simmered below her skin.

"Elsa, it's okay."

"No, it's not. I've only just found you." She choked out a sob, pressing her forehead to the warmth of Keahi's. "The curse should've broken. You chose. You chose right."

The veins beneath Keahi's skin started to make her skin crack, like lava flowing under heated rock. "Maybe I'm just not a good enough person. Maybe, it was just too late." Keahi wheezed, her voice grovel and dry.

"You are. You are good. I've seen it." She felt a tear side down her cheek, turning to ice just before it fell onto Keahi, where it all but evaporated.

"I cheated."

"What?" Elsa sniffed, lifting her head just enough so she could gaze into Keahi's eyes.

"When we were playing charades. It wasn't a tree. But the fact you guessed something made me want to give it to you."

Elsa paused. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry over that confession. She let out a choked laugh that ended in a whimper. "What am I supposed to do now?" Elsa murmured, swiping a tear from her eye.

"You're strong, you'll keep moving... forward..." Keahi's voice faded just as her skin started to turn darker and began to flake into black ash.

"No no no," Elsa begged, leaning down to kiss her on the lips. Just as she did, a flash of red light and a crackling of flames wisped across Keahi's body before it erupted into ash.

Gale frited along the room, trying to keep the thin pieces of ash from scattering, but they started to dissolve into embers that burned like a hailstorm of stars.

Elsa sat, wide-eyed, clutching air before doubling over and letting out a raucous sob.

She didn't even have the chance to tell Keahi how much she loved her.