Frozen Beyond [gxg]

Hourglass

The sun filtered into the front flap of teepee and Elsa moved against the pillow. Usually, she was up as soon as the sun crested the sky. But she had stayed up late with Keahi, hoping to make her feel better.

She didn't realize how much guilt Keahi had carried with her these past few months and it made Elsa feel like she wasn't being as emotionally available as she should be.

She had to be sure to work on that.

Elsa reached over and kissed Ki on the cheek, the woman stirred and peeled her eyes open before scrubbing a hand down her face.

Elsa smiled and started to get dressed. "Let's get ready and head to Ahtohallen." She stood up hurriedly and got out of reach of Ki's hands. If Ki got ahold of her, she'd never want to get out of bed.

Once she got ready, Elsa stretched her arms over her head as she made her way across camp to get Nokk ready for his ride across the dark sea.

Nokk materialized from the stream and Elsa gave him a pat on the snout. "You ready for a long ride today?" She asked, her fingertips glowing as Nokk shivered and turned solid.

She leapt on Nokk just as Keahi came down the hill. She held out her hand to help Keahi up and waited for the other woman to adjust before they rushed off to Ahtohallen.

The soft pratting of Nokks hooves against the water was a lullaby of its own. Even as Ahtohallen came into view, Elsa glanced behind her and gave the hands clasped around her waist a squeeze.

She was never the best with words. She always over thought them. Thankfully, what little words she conveyed Anna had always understood. And now, she hoped Ki understood them just as well.

When they got to the frozen shores, Elsa leapt off Nokk and Keahi followed her lead.

She turned to Keahi, chewing on her lower lip. "Anna is always so good at comforting people. I've never been the best at communication and I'm sorry if that makes me difficult to connect with." She'd finally got comfortable with who she was after years of fearing herself but for once, she wished she had a little of Anna's outgoing charisma.

Keahi only smiled, brushing a strand of blonde hair from her face. "You don't have to be anything more than you are. That's all I need."

Elsa watched her, staring at the features and contours of Keahi's face. A small burn was on Ki's lower right jawline. Had she ever noticed that before? How was she still finding out these small details? Every morning she woke up happy and every morning she woke up finding more things to love about the woman in front of her.

It had a habit of being overwhelming.

She took Keahi's hand in her own and led her into the icy walls of Ahtohallen. With every breath Keahi expelled, icy clouds of mist formed and her body let off little rivulets of steam.

The further they went in, the colder it got. When they made it to the room where memories awoke, Keahi walked around the room, stopping at a few of Elsa's memories that now contained Keahi.

Elsa cleared her throat, glancing around the room and hoping nothing inappropriate would pop up.

Ki chuckled towards the front of the room and when Elsa followed the sound of her snickering, she stiffened and pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand and waved her other to make the memory of ice crumble.

Keahi hitched a thumb with a predatory smirk, "Glad to know you think of that night as much as I did. That was the morning after you and Anna got wine drunk, wasn't it?"

"Please don't remind me." She paused, correcting herself, "Of the wine, I mean." She would love to remember the morning that followed her drunken escapade with Anna forever.

Shaking her head, she took the time to walk around. Most of the memories were of Anna, Kristoff, Sven, and Olaf. But in the center, statues of her mother and father stood. Reenacting the last time she saw them before they boarded the boat.

Her eyes glistened with tears and she quickly swept them away. Behind her, she could feel Keahi's presence. "They tried their best, but they didn't understand me or the power I held at all. In their need to understand me, they died."

Keahi reached out to touch her shoulder.

Elsa took a deep breath and turned on her heels. "But the past is the past, there's nothing I can do but go forward. I'm tired of dwelling on it." She concluded, nodding her head as if to confirm it to herself before reaching out to take Keahi's hand and lead her down the throng of frozen statues.

She waved her hand in front of her and a door against the outer wall opened. The hall was dark and foreboding as they traveled down it. She could remember the first time she stumbled after her grandfather here. Then again, when she followed Crow.

She just hoped she wouldn't have to come down here again after this.

The vast darkness sat heavy below as they looked out past the overhang. "Crow fell from this ledge. But it's too cold down there, even for me. I froze there, the only way I survived was Anna." She hated to admit at one time, she enjoyed the idea of a frozen Crow statue down there in the abyss. Now, it was just pain. She saw the pain of what happened and how it affected Keahi every day. Saw the nightmares that woke Keahi in the night and how she had to hold her to quell them.

She just wished she could have saved Crow from his own self-inflicted curse, for Ki's sake.

They both stood there for a while, and the longer she stood, the more the fine hairs on her arm rose.

"We need to leave." Elsa ushered, fear prickled at her senses. When she looked to Keahi, she could see Ki could feel it too.

An ominous wind bellowed through the open abyss, causing the ice to groan and whistle against it.

Keahi pulled Elsa in close as they tried to make sense of what was happening.

The surrounding walls exploded crimson, shadows playing dark memories as screams and cries rattled and bounced over the walls and into the bowels of Ahtohallen.

A scantily dressed woman rose from billowing shadows, eyes glowing crimson as ratty wings as dark as night unfurled behind her. In her hand she clasped an hourglass, slamming it onto the ground in front of her.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The red liquid in the hourglass slowly filled the bottom.

Then the memory exploded, causing shards of ice to expel outwards and that same stagnant wind billowed around and moved the shadows.

Elsa lifted her hands to create an ice barrier to keep them from the onslaught of ice shards that stuck into the walls as sharp as glass.

Keahi crouched over her, shielding her from anything that may pierce the barrier, and Elsa wrapped her arms around Keahi tight until the whirl of ice shards stopped.

When the dust settled, the barrier turned into a flurry of snow and small pieces of ice, falling onto the ground in a hailstorm of rattles.

Elsa held onto Keahi, looking at the destruction in horror as Ahtohallen started to crumble.

"Let's go!" Keahi grabbed her hand and pulled at it, both running along the shattering paths as the ice caved in on itself.

They both leapt past the entrance and out onto the shore just as it crumbled.

The entire island shook violently has hundreds of thousands of pounds of ice doubled in on itself.

Elsa watched in horror as the very place that helped her discover who she was falling apart right in front of her.

Keahi broke her from her trance when she helped her up by her elbow. Fear rocked her body and a violent shiver ran through her.

"Elsa," Keahi's gentle voice broke through her sea of fog that her head was swimming in. "We need to go see Anna." Keahi's voice was dire. She had never heard the fear that wavered there from Keahi before.

She numbly nodded, finally gathering her wits and whistling for Nokk.

They rode hard and fast towards Arendelle.