Show Yourself (An Elsa Fanfiction)

Chapter One: The Second Voice

Elsa sat bolt upright in bed, her glacier-blue eyes permeating the darkness.

She had heard something; something bad and wrong that had no place being heard in the middle of the night in the forest, where there was nothing present except Elsa and the spirits. Despite never feeling the cold, Elsa shivered, and hugged her arms to her chest.

She looked around the little hut the Northuldra craftsmen had built for her. On the pillow, right next to where her head had lain only a few moments before, was Bruni, the fire spirit who took the shape of a blue and purple salamander. He snored in his slumber, and little pink flames sputtered from his nose as he did so.

Odd. If Bruni wasn't awake, that meant that he couldn't have heard what had disturbed Elsa. When the voice from Ahtohallen had called to her a year previously, Bruni had been the only being beside Elsa who could hear it.

So who was it this time?

Elsa blinked. Aside from her and Bruni, the hut – which was one level, and pretty much devoid of any possessions save a trunk full of Arendellian items and a fire pit for the purpose of cooking – was empty, just as it should be. There was no disturbance, except in Elsa's mind.

Quietly, she got up out of bed, and stepped through the open doorway onto the rocky outcrop outside. A small river swept beneath the overhang, and as Elsa crossed her legs to sit down on the stone's surface she had a spanning view of the enchanted forest that stretched all the way to the horizon, the moonlight bathing the trees in liquid silver.

Elsa took a deep breath. Here, she was home. The Northuldra had tried to make her stay with them in their settlements, for they loved her and she loved them. However she gently had to remind them that, at her core, she was the bridge between humans and nature; elements like wind and rain would cause no harm to her. The Northuldra weren't very happy – or more to the point, Yelena and Honeymaren weren't very happy – about her being so far away from human help, but they had built her a home exactly where she wanted, and for that, she'd be forever grateful. She hadn't needed much – she could craft almost anything she needed out of her magic – but her friends had refused to see her without a roof over her head, and a bed at the very least. Besides, even Elsa had had to admit that it would have been ostentatious to build a perfectly-sculpted, crystal-cut ice palace in the gentle rolling hills of the enchanted forest, even by her standards.

As Elsa unfolded her legs to swing them over the edge, she contemplated the voice that had woken her from sleep, as it had done for the past few weeks. Last time, the voice had been a beautiful, if somewhat eerie aria that had sung to her like a siren and lured her into the hidden depths of the far north. This voice, however, was different, because this voice... this voice was screaming.

The scream that it emitted was not a playful squeal however, nor a petrified yell of terror. This scream was complex. It started off slowly, like a growl, before rising to an ear-splitting crescendo that was full of rage, hurt and frustration. Elsa hated it, not necessarily because it was loud or incessant, but because it reminded her of a time long since past.

She had made those screams when she was isolated from her family, shut in her room and trying to come to terms with her increasingly stronger powers. When all she had wanted was to be normal, to explain to her parents how she really felt whilst knowing they could never really truly understand. Yes, Elsa knew those screams all too well.

Almost as if she had thought it into existence, the shriek split the night again, like a banshee with a stake in its heart. Cautiously, Elsa tentatively tried to reach out to it with her magic, as she had done with the aria, but all she was met with was an icy, impenetrable wall. Whoever's voice it was, they weren't letting her in.

The scream sounded again, and something akin to alarm shot through Elsa's chest as she heard the few faint notes of a sob around the edge of the shout. The voice wasn't just yelling, it was crying out too. Maybe, just maybe, it was crying out for help.

A nearby movement made Elsa jump, but when she looked down she saw that it was only Bruni come to join her, his gaze inquisitive. He hopped into her lap and, with a quick twirl of her hand, she made a few snowflakes for him to eat, which he gobbled up in earnest.

"What do you think?" she asked him quietly. "Am I mad?"

The salamander just looked at her.

Elsa sighed. "It sounds so... lost. Alone. Frightened. Whoever it is, maybe I could help them. Maybe I could go to them. Maybe I could..." She paused as her little friend let out a huge yawn. "Go back to bed?"

Bruni looked as if he thought this was a very good idea.

"Okay. But in the morning, we make a plan." decided Elsa finally. 

Then, with one last look over the enchanted forest, she scooped up her companion and headed back inside.