Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anna shivered as she stared up at the bed's canopy above her, trying not to panic. Her trembling limbs were feeling less pleasant by the minute, as was the sensation coming from between her legs.

Everything had started off just grand, but now she felt utterly helpless as her insides prickled and tingled painfully against the offending item. She turned her head, watching the machine as its dials gleamed.

She bit her lip and covered her face with shaking hands. And to think she'd thought this would turn out well.

It had certainly seemed that way, at the start…

The princess, alone in the dining room, poked the hard-boiled egg with her spoon. It jiggled a little in its tiny cup. The sight was nauseating.

She didn't like eggs. Elsa liked eggs, be they fried or scrambled or hard boiled, and had used to tease Anna for sticking her tongue out at them every morning. That was years upon years ago, back when it was Anna who was the picky eater and Elsa who, as the grown-up big sister, had diligently cleaned her plate while Anna prodded at her own dinner, scowling. She often refused to eat a single mouthful unless it came from Elsa's portion, dangled enticingly in front of her nose while her sister hid a smile behind her hand. Often Anna was too bored to sit still throughout the eternity of a meal, even if Elsa was there at her elbow, her sister shushing her every time Anna whined and begged her to just play with her already, but always with a wink.

One night when their parents had been wrapped up in some particularly engaging conversation, Anna had slipped under the table and yanked her sister down too. They had had an impromptu fight consisting of silverware and plates as weapons and bad one-liners they'd stolen from books as whispered, giggled banter as the pair of them crawled around on their hands and knees around table and parent legs. Elsa had dubbed herself "the Mirror Maiden", for she was holding a small plate in place of a shield, while Anna was the dreaded "Forkfist", thanks to the tined instrument she was wielding with such dexterity that the carpet and table had had a lot more holes in them by the time their "fight" came to a screeching halt. Literally.

Their father had, while rubbing his knee and grimacing, lectured them for a good half-hour on the importance of safety, and watching out for one another, and the responsibility of royalty. While Anna had nodded while holding back yawns, Elsa had been totally silent, and one glance at her had revealed that she was trembling, from her small, folded hands up to her pouting lower lip. Father's talk had ended abruptly when a suddenly distraught Anna had latched onto her older sister and started bawling, managing to gasp out "don't cry Elsa, please," while blubbering into Elsa's dress. "I'm sorry," Elsa had said in a rough voice, looking up at her father as she stroked her sister's hair, "it won't happen again. I promise."

It hadn't, either. For some reason, not long after Anna dreamed of being kissed by a troll and bore the white streak to prove it, Elsa had retreated, turning her head away when Anna tugged at her sleeve, getting up from a couch whenever Anna plopped down upon the far cushion, shutting her door as Anna ran towards her, begging her to leave it open just a crack, just this once. Worst of all, it didn't matter if her older sister was even present physically; she always regarded Anna with this strange, detached look in her eyes, like she was constantly reliving a memory, one more real and important than her own sister, and it was that fact that hurt the most.

Anna glanced at the empty chair at the head of the table as she chewed slowly. Her plate was already empty.

The maid bustled in from the side door and without needing to be told began loading Elsa's half-finished breakfast onto the rolling cart. Her movements were rhythmic, as if she did the same thing day after day. Funny, that.

Anna watched, totally silent, as the woman placed the cup neatly on the cart, followed by the plate, then the mug, and then the still folded napkin. Each piece of cutlery clinked on the cart with a sense of finality.

The spoon. Clack. Elsa has left, again.

The knife. Clack. You are alone, again.

The fork. Clack. Why did you think it would be any different?

Perhaps because today marked, both on the calendar and in the warm air, one of the first days of spring, and the birds had awoken the princess as they bickered and warbled in the sweetest of trills, whistles and cheeps, weaving in and out of the trees in the courtyard like excited children trailing short, colorful flags as they raced one another. It had felt like, well, a new day had dawned, and with it the latest of Anna's plans to change things for the better had sprung into action.

The rumble of the wheels on the cart was muted by the rug as the maid trundled away, pausing just before the door. "Your Highness?" Anna instantly perked up, turning to her with a hopeful smile. "Mr. Folland is waiting for you in the gardens," the maid said. "Should I inform him you will be coming soon?"

Anna's face fell, and she slumped in her chair. "No," she mumbled, "we…I won't be coming. Tell him-" She stopped and looked away. The maid waited patiently, but it was only a few seconds before Anna was setting her shoulders back and returning her gaze with a cheerful, if strained smile, like a fresh coat of paint brushed over rotting wood. "Please tell him," she said, "that while I'm very thankful for him offering his time, Elsa is too…busy to look at the new blooms with him."

It had taken some cajoling on Anna's part to convince Mr. Folland that his garden could use some lilies of the valley, on account of how poisonous they were, but the princess had always found them beautiful, in a sad, drooping way. They reminded her of the large dresses worn by noble ladies in her books on etiquette and the gorgeous paintings she doted upon, and so the pair of them had planted a whole row of bulbs that would bloom into dainty little flowers come spring. Now that they had, Anna had been prepared to argue in favor of a short jaunt in the gardens to her sister in the hopes that Elsa, who had never quite recovered from that terrible shock nearly a year and a half ago, would actually smile. She'd been all ready to make the case that it was an educational venture, something about how a soon-to-be queen needed to understand how crops grew and thrived or something else she'd make up on the spot, but as usual, Elsa had not waited for her to settle in when she arrived at the table, just left soon afterward with a distracted, polite goodbye that was less of an apology and more of a succinct description of their relationship.

"…and too busy to be with me," she added, to her lap, for the maid had already gone.

Elsa would not be going with her to look at a measly row of flowers: she had a coronation to plan. A coronation that was fourteen months away. While Anna was right here, right now, as she had been for years. But a queen does not concern herself with such minor matters.

She was broken out of her thoughts when there came the sound of footsteps at the door, and for a moment her heart quickened: maybe Elsa had changed her mind. Maybe, she would set aside whatever plans and letters of note and royal matters she had been examining, just for today. Maybe, she would return to the dining room, would sit down gracefully and sip coffee like Father used to while Anna tempted her with adventures she had planned for them both, a small, contented smile just barely visible over the edge of the cup.

Maybe, she would even stay.

"…really now, I should think you of all people would have her best interests at heart." The voice, both annoyingly familiar and snide, was just outside the door. Anna slouched further into the cushions. That was a man, and surely not her sister.

"I do, thank you very much, which is precisely why I must object to this." Now that was Kai: more specifically, an indignant, ruffled Kai. Anna frowned and straightened, leaning to the side of her chair as she listened.

"To treatment for her illness? Anyone with eyes can see her condition is and will continue to cause her pain; pain, of course, being the root cause of all of man's ills, and the princess' situation is no exception. Since she is to be crowned soon: her health is of-" Anna gasped, a hand flying to her lips, but the manservant made a shushing sound, and the footsteps continued down the corridor and past the doors.

Quietly, Anna drew her chair back and stood, striding over to the door but halting just before it when Kai made an exasperated noise and the footsteps faded. Her mouth opened into a small "o" of surprise: Kai, one of the older servants, who had bounced the princesses on his knee when they were too much for their father, had a limitless patience born of years of experience dealing with youngsters both rambunctious and morose, and hardly ever expressed any amount of frustration.

Now this was a curious thing indeed. She pushed open the door carefully, for fear it would creak and give her away, popping her head out for a look. The pair of men were turning the corner, but she was able to catch a glimpse of them, quickly identifying the second man as that new doctor - Dr. Westheimer, if she remembered right - who had somehow managed to secure a coveted position that involved tending to the needs of the royal family. The job was only available on account of their previous doctor's death: his insistence upon remaining with the queen to monitor a cough she had developed had proven fatal when he, too, was lost at sea in the same accident that had…happened some time ago, and wasn't important now. Elsa's health, on the other hand, was.

"-have any sense of privacy," Kai growled, one of his hands on the doctor's elbow as he led him away.

"Who would hear? There are hardly any people living in this husk of a castle…" And with that the pair of them were gone.

Anna took a few steps away from the door and paused. A small part of her, that little bit that was clearly inherited from her sister, reminded her that Elsa, for all that her disinterested silence and ever present absence drove Anna crazy, nonetheless deserved peace and quiet and the right to be left alone. If that was what she wanted. Even if Anna refused to believe that anyone truly wanted to be alone. So sneaking after her doctor and Kai while they were having a secret conversation about her sister's health was probably not the best use of her time, nor was it respectful of Elsa's boundaries.

And yet…

Another part of her had latched on to an idea as it slowly coalesced into something real: if Elsa was ill, then she could be cured. Pain could always be treated with the right medicine. Nothing was incurable. And if what the doctor said was right…

The small flicker of hope that she tended to regularly flared up in sudden excitement, and she shut the door, hurrying after the two men.

Well this was turning into a wild goose chase.

Every time she caught a glimpse of Kai's balding head gleaming in the morning light he would take another corner, as though he aimed to confuse her, but she was certain neither of the men were aware of her presence. While hardly outside the norm, it was frustrating to be forever running down the wrong hallways as the surprisingly delicate tread of Kai's footsteps headed in the opposite direction. Stifling a grumble, she jerked to a halt as she nearly ran into a suit of armor, her mind too focused on finding her quarry to pay attention to silly details like large, sharp quantities of metal.

"In here, please." Kai motioned to the open door.

Oh, there they were!

She grinned and made to step around the armor when Kai glared at her, and she halted in her tracks. Her stomach dropped into her shoes at the thought of being caught, but it only took her a second to realize that his eyes were scanning the surroundings with suspicion, much like he had when she had once hidden in her room as a child, refusing to come out until Elsa did, too.

Thankfully this time his gaze slid over her unintentional, yet rather useful hiding spot, and she watched as he nodded, seemingly satisfied, before tugging on the doctor's arm. The younger man took a step back, a sneer making his nose seem even bigger, if that were possible. "You expect me to hold this conversation in a broom closet? I'll have you know that my time is-"

"Your time," Kai said, enunciating clearly through clenched teeth, "which the Crown is paying for, is spent in caring for their Majesties, and that includes their privacy. I refuse to discuss this matter out in public-"

"But a broom closet?" He sounded like a parrot that had been cheated of a cracker.

Anna didn't stick around to hear the way the dispute ended: she was more concerned with finding another way into that closet. She waited until there was a brief lull in the conversation that coincided with both of them placing their hands on their hips, and used that to sneak over to the open doors at the other end of the room. If she went two rooms over, she could cut through the kitchens and wind up behind their current position, using the conference room – a dusty old thing that was hardly ever used anymore – as a backdoor. She allowed herself a mental pat on the back as she jogged toward her destination. Anna was quite good at finding backdoors: she'd been searching for them all her life.

She slipped inside the conference room and crept up to the closet door, holding her breath every time she set her foot down. The terrain here was treacherous: one wrong move and the floor would creak and the game would be up. Taking an exaggerated step to avoid a particularly dangerous section, she sucked in a sharp breath when her foot lost traction on the polished wood, throwing her arms out for balance, but the damage was done.

"Ah!" Anna toppled to the floor, or would have if she hadn't been too close to the panel that served as a door. Her bodyweight slammed it open and she landed half inside the closet and half out. She tensed, biting her lip as she stared at the door to the hallway, but the sound of conversation continued. Whew. She may be a bumbling fool, but at least she wasn't an unlucky one.

She had just managed to hide herself under a pile of linens when hinges creaked and two sets of footsteps entered: one hard and stomping, the other light, considering their maker was a big man.

"I don't see the need for such precautions, Mr. Baardsen."

"Because you are new to this household, Dr. Westheimer, I will allow you your share of mistakes, but I believe it was made clear when you were hired that your discretion is second only to your professionalism."

"Again with the paranoia! Is everyone in this place so frightened at the thought of medical treatment? I can't even examine her!"

"And that is exactly what I wish to discuss: your treatment cannot involve touching her Majesty. She would never allow it. Especially there."

"But how am I supposed to help her, then?"

"I don't know: I believe you were the one who was adamant that, of the two of us, you were the doctor." Anna crushed a hand over her mouth, her sides quivering. Trust an unhappy Kai to be as disrespectful as his good breeding and manners would allow.

"This would not have been a problem if those useless fools hadn't dropped my luggage. I told them over and over again just how important, how fragile many of my things were, but did they listen? Of course not! I had a hand-made Galville device, top quality, the kind that only the wealthiest could afford-" Anna resisted the urge to yawn. If the way the floor creaked when Kai shifted was any indication, she wasn't the only one who didn't care about how expensive this thing was. Whatever it was.

"Unfortunately, accidents happen. The important thing is to be able to move on. Was there anything else you could do?"

"There's nothing that I can do: I don't know how to fix it myself, and I have been unable to find someone capable of repairing it."

"Someone up to your standards." Kai's deadpan was so much funnier when it was directed at someone else.

"Precisely," the doctor said, the sarcasm flying directly over his head. "Why do you think I've ordered another one? Of course now it will take weeks to get here, and in the meantime her Majesty will suffer."

"Yes, that's just how it is, isn't it?" Anna frowned. There was something in Kai's voice that bothered her, like he was talking about someone who had died. He took in a deep breath and Anna risked a look, disappointed to find her entire view obscured by his large back. "Well. So long as you understand, Dr. Westheimer, that her Majesty strongly prefers to attend to her own health needs herself…?"

"Yes, yes, yes. Are we done here, then?" Kai must have nodded, because the doorknob rattled and then there came the creak of the door opening.

"What did you want to be done with the broken machine?" he asked as he stepped through the door.

"Throw it out with the rest of the trash, I suppose it…" Their voices faded away.

Anna waited until she heard the door close behind them. She stood up, dropping towels in her wake, staring at the door as she mulled over the snippet of conversation she'd just heard, thinking hard. What little she saw of Elsa consisted of clipped dialogue that was more nervous, babbling monologue on Anna's part while Elsa remained quiet and demure, her elegant gloves laid upon her lap whenever she was not eating or drinking. The vast majority of her time spent outside her rooms was at meals or meetings. Anna was constantly and unhappily amazed to find just how many things could be done within one's rooms, if one didn't mind being stir crazy. But perhaps this wasn't true: of late, Elsa had become, if possible, quieter, reaching more often for her glass than her silverware, leaving more and more food behind when she decided it was time to go, and Anna had watched helplessly as her older sister's dresses hung looser on her, her thin, always covered fingers stroking her temples as she grimaced at the food.

Or maybe at the sight of her dinner companion. It was hard to tell.

It had never occurred to her before to put down Elsa's avoidance of her, and of everything else that was happy and fun for that matter, to an illness, partly because Elsa was never sick, partly because she had never heard of illnesses that could last for years, even decades, and yet not kill their victim, and partly because a small part of her believed that their separation was, in some ways, her fault, and could not bear to attribute it to Elsa alone. But at the same time her previous hope returned: if Elsa was sick, and that sickness manifested as her current…condition, then surely a cure would make things better. It might even solve things.

Anna came out of the closet. She had work to do.

…this was supposed to make Elsa better?

She had imagined something like…well, to be entirely truthful, she hadn't really imagined anything like a device at all, regardless of what the doctor had said, because medicine usually came in small bottles or bandages, not in suitcases that weighed about a million pounds. No wonder it hadn't been taken away with the trash: the poor boy who had to haul it out every day probably strained his back when lifting it.

Anna staggered into her room and kicked the door shut before hurrying over to the bed, using the last of her energy to heave the suitcase on top of the bed before collapsing there herself. She panted for several long moments as the suitcase sank slowly into place, sitting there innocently when she glared at it.

When she had regained her lost breath she sat up and examined the item. It didn't look that damaged, just a small dent in one of the corners. That was fixable, right?

She popped open the lid and looked inside.

The top half of the suitcase had a few items within it, one of which was a pamphlet, another of which was a coil of wire, and the final one was a strange item that looked more like a gun to her untrained eyes than anything related to medicine. These three were all neatly arranged behind a small set of strings set across the length of the top that held them in place.

The bottom half was clearly where all the weight came from. It was much deeper than the top half and consisted of a slanted shiny, metal surface into which three dials had been set. Each had a small nameplate beneath them. She squinted, bringing her face close to one of them, and gasped at what she read: "Electrical Stimulation". Her gaze shot to the dial's immediate partner; this one was marked "Vibration".

The device was electrical!

"Oh, wow," Anna breathed, as she looked between the two dials, stunned. She knew about electricity, of course, having received a modern education that involved current scientific affairs, but she'd never actually held or touched an electrical item before. It felt incredibly precious, and her disbelief over its ability to aid her sister was immediately set to flight; there had been serious discussion in the scientific community about the effects of electricity upon dead tissue, with some even suggesting it could restore life. Surely anything powerful enough to make learned men consider resurrection possible was more than capable of turning a droll older sister into someone much more lively and friendly.

Feeling more than a little invigorated, she twisted one of the dials, breathless with anticipation.

Nothing happened.

She turned the other dial.

Once more, nothing happened.

She then set to turning the dials into various arrangements, even twisting the third dial, which was marked "Shutoff" and that, upon her turning it, automatically set the other two dials to their zero points. That was the extent of what the device did.

She sat back and thought, puzzling over the box. The surface of the bottom half was clearly fastened by several screws lining the sides, so she couldn't take it off, and she dreaded what she'd find beneath. Her hope of fixing something that was electrical was a tiny one indeed; she had neither the tools nor the knowledge to fix something so complicated. But what about the top half…?

She looked over the top half again. There again was the pamphlet, which read "Instruction Manual".

"Aha!" Bless her lucky stars. She snatched it up and opened it.

"Instructions on Correct Operation of Granville Device…" she muttered to herself, eyes skimming over the first paragraph quickly. It talked about setting "the wires" up so that they entered "the holes" to the upper right of the metal plate; she glanced up and was rewarded by the sight of them and their little nameplates that matched those of the first two dials. She looked back at the instructions as she pondered over what wires the manual meant, looked back up at the top half and at the coiled wire, and called herself an idiot in her head.

She took the wire and uncoiled it. It was actually four sets of wire, cleverly wrapped around itself, and much thinner than she had originally thought. Each one was of equal length, about half as long as she was tall, and either end was a slightly different color than the middle. She reread the paragraph, took up the wires, and inserted a pair into the holes marked "Electrical Stimulation". Holding her breath and the other ends of the wires in her hand, she turned the knob.

The result was instantaneous.

"Holy Moses!"

Anna dropped the wires.

Normann Orsted was in the process of sweeping his forge when the Princess of Arendelle walked in.

Well, not so much walked in as fell forward with each step, her upper body hunched in a strained attempt to keep what was apparently an extremely heavy box from hitting the ground, and in the process practically waddling through the open doorway.

"Your Highness, do you need-" he tried to offer...something, what little help he could, but she was too concerned with the box.

"CAN I PLEASE PUT THIS DOWN SOMEWHERE?" she said in one explosive breath.

"Yes yes, of course, I-right here." He shoved his tools over the side of a long wooden table to clatter on the floor and the princess dropped the box on the tabletop. It made the whole thing shudder.

"Whew! That...that is really heavy," she said, leaning against the table and giving him a sloppy, sweaty smile. It was how he always recognized her, be she covered in mud or sweat or pond scum, at any age or time of day. Any girl could be beautiful, but only Princess Anna had that certain awkward but sincere charm about her. It was refreshingly honest, given her title. And, of course, the general secrecy of the royal family, besides.

The blacksmith eyed the box. "You're not smuggling bars of gold now, are you? Ma'am," he said, but the princess waved him off as usual. She'd never get him to call her by her name, regardless of how hard she tried, because his father raised him right, but he knew by now that the princess found the room too small for formalities. It was barely big enough to contain her personality as is.

"Why would I do that? We have plenty of gold," she said. This wasn't entirely true; Arendellan custom preferred to illustrate wealth through wonderful tapestries and intricate designs as opposed to jewelry or statues; but it was probably true that what she meant was that there was more than enough gold around for her needs and therefore 'they' didn't need any more. And Princess Elsa had never requested anything, either. "No, no gold, because everyone's got gold, but not everyone has…." She paused for effect, gripping both sides of the box and grinning with delight. "...a Granville device!"

He looked down at the box. It looked like a suitcase. He looked back at her. Her smile had fallen somewhat.

"You...don't know what that is," she said, the excitement fading from her face.

Normann shrugged. "Sorry, never heard of it. Is it in the box?"

"Actually..." The princess flipped the top of the suitcase up, revealing a bunch of knobs and two sets of paired wires inserted into paired holes. Normann blinked, scratching his head as he looked down at the item. Metal, probably something mechanical if it was so heavy, but nothing like he'd ever seen before. He was used to spears and crossbow bolts and belt buckles, something one could hold and work and manipulate, not sleek and contained machinery. But if his eyes weren't deceiving him, there were some screws in place, which meant the plate could be removed.

"I think….well, the manual here," she slipped it free from the top of the case, "says that the entire thing is a Granville device, and that this is the control box...part...thing. But it's broken."

He nodded. "All right. So how's it broken?" He still wasn't sure what it did.

"It's the...hammer thing," she said.

"The what?"

She lifted another item from the top of the suitcase, this being what looked like a very fat, stubby handgun to him, and showed him the large crack running down the length of it. It looked like someone hadn't handled it carefully: he raised his eyebrow at her, but she returned his look with one of utter innocence. He snorted. The princess was a terrible liar; she wasn't guilty of hurting it, that was certain.

"I don't think it's supposed to be there," she said, giving it to him when he motioned. He turned it over in his big hands, hands that dwarfed the thing, which had suited the princess' hand perfectly. The crack was long and ran from end to end, and when he pushed but a little he could see a little ways into the guts of it.

The princess was flipping through the manual. "There weren't many pictures, but I did see one, and I think that the wires are supposed to feed into it."

"All of them?" he said, squinting into it. He turned the "hammer" over and noticed the small hole at the base; the wires would fit in there, but for what purpose he didn't know. "What do they do?"

"Oh, right." Her usual cheer had returned. "It's electrical," she announced proudly.

"Whoa, really?" He whistled, giving the device a closer look, now intrigued. He'd seen an electrical device once before when out on a rare venture with his father before both were employed at the palace. A man had been touring the land, showing paying and eager crowds the effects of electricity upon dead muscles. He'd invited a few onlookers to touch the frog he was displaying to show it was well and truly dead, and then when they had decided it was so, had stabbed the frog with wires and sent the mystical electricity down them. The result had been amazing: the frog jolted as if alive again, and a young Normann had been utterly fascinated.

Well. Younger Normann.

"Yeah!" She hopped up on the table. "Isn't it grand?"

"So what does it do?"

"I...I don't know, actually. Well, if you use it wrong…" She showed him her hand, revealing a pair of scorch marks on her palm; he hissed in sympathy. "So I thought maybe you might know how to use it safely? Or if you could get it to work I could test it out before I gi-before uh, before I give it back to the doctor. It's supposed to be a medicinal device. I think," she added, gaze darting away. "I mean, that's what the manual says. Is how I know." This time she didn't meet his eyes when he peered at her, but he didn't ask about it.

"Did the 'manual' say anything about how it's used?" Normann asked, poking the hammer. The tip of it was also severely cracked, and probably beyond repair. It was attached to a rod that…

Was that a small motor? It was! Damn. Now he wanted one of these things.

"...no," the princess admitted. "So...could you get it to work?"

"I...I don't know? I'd need to know what it does, first," he said, setting the hammer down.

The princess sighed. "Yeah, I worried about that."

"Would the manual say what it's for?"

She offered it to him, but he chuckled and shook his head. "I'm sorry, I…" He brought his big hands together, looking down at them, heavy and callused from years of working with metals, the hairs on his broad forearms nearly burned off from spills and standing too close to the fire. "I can't read, your Highness."

"Oh," she said, bringing the paper back, startled. She looked down at the paper, flushing. "Is that, is that comm-um. Well." She hurriedly flipped through the manual, her cheeks colored red, and definitely not from the fire. "There's cleaning it, uh, setting it up, and...oh-! Usage, perfect."

She cleared her throat. "'This device is to be used for the treatment of feminine hysteria through electrical and vibrational stimulation; all other uses are considered outside the bounds of this equipment and therefore unauthorized usage of it.'"

She set the paper down and looked back at him.

"What's feminine hysteria?" he asked.

"Beats me," she said, shrugging.

They parted, each with their own assignments; Mr. Orsted to tinkering with the device, to see what it needed in order to be fixed, and Anna to the library to figure out what "feminine hysteria" was.

The librarian gave her an extremely nasty look that was entirely uncalled for before pointing her out to the historical shelves, which was a bit odd, since she'd think that the information she was seeking would be in the medical section. Maybe he thought she wasn't smart enough to understand the thick rows of medical journals. A likely notion, she thought glumly as she trudged over to the history section. That, and her years of boredom had lead to her once reading all the titles of all the books in the library, and she'd noticed that while there was a good deal of information on common ailments, nasty plagues and head injuries, there wasn't so much on medical history.

At least there were plenty of books on myths and legends and magic. But she'd read them all several times years ago.

She skimmed the shelves, looking for the book the librarian had reluctantly described to her. Her gaze slid past the tomes detailing Roman emperors and their lives, something about Greek heritage in Roman times, Greek philosophers and their lives, and-

There it was; a slim, green book that looked entirely out of place, nestled amongst much fatter volumes. She pulled it down from the shelf and read the title: Ailments Afflicting the Fairer Sex: From Miscarriage to Hysteria, Diseases of the Female Mind and Body as Described by Classical Philosophers and Modern Physicians.

Perfect.

It might not fit its fellows at all - and Anna was starting to suspect that the huffy librarian had just shoved it there to keep it away from prying eyes - but it suited her needs exactly.

Anna could barely believe what the book was telling her.

Female hysteria, according to Galen, was an affliction that struck young, unmarried women.

It had a great many symptoms, but first and foremost it was characterized by distraction, depression, insomnia, nervousness, and a lack of appetite.

The description fit Elsa so perfectly Anna was surprised there wasn't a drawing of her sister as a depiction of the average sufferer.

She closed the book with a snap, unaware that she was grinning like a maniac. She'd done it. She'd cracked Elsa's code! She wasn't avoidant, or cold, or disinterested in her sister: she was sick. And now, Anna knew what the problem was, which wasn't her, either. All thanks to modern medicine and one now very special book. She was feeling less and less bad by the second about having listened in on that conversation. If a little bit of bit of sleuthing on her part was necessary to get her sister back, so be it.

Best of all, the book was up to date on the most recent means of curing hysteria, which included devices that sounded just like the one she had. She'd been too excited by the description of the symptoms and the mention of electrical and vibrational stimulation as the means to curing the disease to do more than glance at that paragraph, but who could blame her?

She popped up, leaving the book on the table. She needed to tell Mr. Orsted to hurry up and fix the hammer already; she couldn't wait to see Elsa healthy and happy again.

The princess slammed open the door not a few hours later. "Mr. Orsted! Oh you won't believe what I found!"

He was chuckling as he got up from his table, reaching for his cane with one strong hand. "I'm guessing you got your part, your Majesty?"

"I did!" She was so excited she could hardly keep still, hopping up onto her toes and bouncing, her smile broad and filled to the brim with brilliant joy that made her eyes sparkle with light. "I know what female hysteria is now, and that device can cure it, and I can have my sister back and we'll be together again and-!"

She froze midword, her eyes wide.

"I...I don't mean that...it's for me, the hammer it's...it's for me." She bit her lip, gripping her arms, as though cold, but surely she wasn't, not in his forge.

"I don't mean...Elsa's not sick. It's me that's sick. She's...she's fine. I-" She stopped when he limped over, his cane thumping on the hard floor before he brought a hand under her chin.

"It's all right, ma'am," he said. "Do you think I mind?" She gave him an apologetic smile that turned into a happy one when he chucked her under the chin like she was seven all over again and stumbling into places she shouldn't out of mind-numbing boredom.

"No, I guess not," she said. She sighed, tucking a bit of hair behind her ear. "But still. It's...privacy, yeah, so…" She scuffed the floor with one foot. "I don't… want to say more. Sorry. I've already said too much, like usual," she mumbled.

"Well if you can't say more then I certainly can." He led her over to his table, where he'd set up the machine to fiddle with it while she was gone. "I think I've figured out how it works, though I'm not the person to ask."

Her open expression indicated her complete faith in him, so he took a deep breath and kept going.

"The wires feed into the base, where two of them power the motor that's in there and-no, don't worry, the motor's fine." If it wasn't he wasn't sure how he'd fix it, but thankfully it was fine. "The motor makes this part move, see?" He lifted the hammer and showed her the small, thin rod that went through the center of it. He turned the second dial and the rod began to vibrate, slowly at first, then faster as he turned the dial more. He shut it off.

"Is it supposed to look like that?" She was staring at the sharp edge of the rod.

"No, the end broke off; it's supposed to be smoother." At least, according to the one picture he'd found. "Problem is, the wires that support the stimulation would attach to the tip, but it's gone."

"Can you put something on the end?"

"It'd have to be metal; I may not know much about electricity, but I do know it has to be metal. And preferably hollow, to put the wires inside." She began nodding in time as he explained how he would solder the wires to the inside, how they'd be perfectly inert if they were detached, how he would glue the device back together. At some point her eyes, which had been bright and interested, had glazed over, but she perked up at what he said next.

He explained how it might be possible to create an exact replica of the picture, but he'd need to cast a mold, and that'd require some time for him to create it. Her incomprehension became disappointment at that.

"Are you sure you couldn't speed it up a bit?"

He spread his hands. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I really am, but I don't have anything like what I'd need."

There was something like mischief in her eyes as she asked, "but you do have a hammer and chisel, right?"

Anna had been so focused on her task that she almost ran right into her sister in the hallway.

Elsa jerked back a step, raising her nose in the air, as though the mere sight of her sister repulsed her and to be touched by her would be the final straw. Anna could read the tension in the set of her shoulders and the way she instantly brought her gloved hands together - cleanliness; another aspect of neuroticism, how had she never noticed? - but now she understood why, and for a moment she said nothing, just looked over her sister. Yes, it was all there; her thinness, her paleness, her tendency to stay indoors, her eyes which so rarely met Anna's own...the symptoms were just so obvious, now that she knew what to look for.

Her sister cleared her throat. "Anna?"

Anna looked up at her face. "Oh. Sorry for...sorry. I almost ran into you because-sorry." She would have fiddled with her hands but they were hidden behind her back. She shrugged one shoulder, resisting the urge to smooth her hair back. "So uh, where're you off to?"

Elsa gave her a confused look. "To the dining hall, where you ought to be as well," she said, eyes narrowed.

Anna glanced quickly at the windows lining the hallway, surprised to see the deep shadows marking the setting sun stretch from the houses and trees in the distance. Oh...oh dear. Her time in the library and with Mr. Orsted had gone on longer than she'd thought, and she had almost missed one of the few times she got to see her sister. The thought should have been, and would have been distressing, if she didn't currently want Elsa occupied for some time. And alone.

An odd departure from what her usual preference was concerning her sister's company, but…

"Oh actually I'm not really hungry," she said, "so I thought I'd just go...go see Mr. Orsted."

"The smith?" Elsa asked after a pause. There was the distraction, the mental slowness.

"Yeah, I was uh, I needed his help on something."

Please oh please don't ask what…

Elsa frowned and Anna flinched.

"You must be a little distracted, because his forge is in the exact opposite direction."

Anna brightened immediately, making a show of turning her head to look at the hallway from which she'd come. "Oh, really? Drat, that's right! Sorry," she said, grinning, "just getting a little confused." She chuckled and tapped her head with one hand, keeping the other behind her. "Not too much going on up here, huh?"

Elsa's expression, which had been open her customary fraction of an inch, slammed shut with a slight wince.

"You can stop by the kitchens if you feel hungry later," she said as she walked past Anna, who turned as she went to watch her. Elsa always walked as if someone was trailing behind her, tallying up any points for missteps or trips; she had the grace of a woman twice her age and experience but the weariness of a woman far older than that.

Anna's hand clutched the hammer and chisel tighter. and now she knew why, and could fix that.

With a little...symbolism, too.

An hour later, a very pleased with herself princess was back with a small item.

When pressed, she admitted that it was, indeed, the end of a doorknob and that no, it wasn't hers, but it wasn't like the owner was going to need it, anyways.

"Not since this is going to work perfectly," she said, triumph written into every word.

Normann groaned. He liked adding things to his skillset, but encouraging juvenile delinquency was not something he enjoyed being a part of. The princess, however, seemed adamant that there was no reason to be alarmed, and that if anyone were to ask she had been with him the entire day. He was certain that one or both of them would wind up in trouble, but her enthusiasm for the whole venture was too catching to resist.

She watched him as he bored a deeper hole into the middle of the doorknob, wincing at first when the metal squealed but still taking in the whole sight with some fascination. She stayed well back when he brought a hot rod to the ends of the wires, sealing them to the inside of the doorknob. She held the cup of glue as he brushed the edges of the crack, helping him wrap the pieced-together hammer in a layer of cloth before putting it in a vise to rest. The princess grew more than a little impatient and upset when informed that it would have to stay this way for the rest of the night and possibly a good portion of the morning. Her innocent, begging eyes made Normann amend that prediction to just the rest of the night, with a severe promise to release it to her charge come the next morning.

He'd sleep in the forge tonight. She'd probably come barging in early tomorrow; might as well be ready for her.

Anna lugged the newly repaired device to her room and set it upon the bed again. It dutifully tried to bury itself in her blankets, and she did the same with her precious book, cracking it open and flipping to the page she'd left off at. She was missing breakfast for this but she hardly cared; this was far, far more important than boring old eggs and a constant side-view of a woman whom she knew by sight but by little else.

Well, now she knew a little more. A great deal more, actually.

She had her patient, her diagnosis, her medicine: now all she needed to do was read up on how to cure this feminine hysteria.

Let an angry but trying to hide it Elsa inquire about the servants and vandalism; she'd get over it soon, and her doorknob was soon to be used for more important things than closing Anna off from her sister. For once, that blasted piece of metal wasn't going to be keeping them apart, but rather bringing them together. There was a delightful poetry to the whole thing.

Admittedly she wasn't very good at poetry, but that didn't matter when she had science at her side.

She settled in to read, laying one hand over the precious suitcase as she did so, eyes focused on the text before her.

It was dinnertime. The food smelled wonderful. She hadn't the faintest clue what it was.

Anna had spent the morning reading her...her book. And then the rest of the day in between bouts of stunned silence as she stared at the book in acute distress.

The book that she'd thought was the answer to all her needs, to Elsa's needs. The one that had described the exact problem Elsa was having, that prevented her from being with Anna. The one that she had read with ever widening eyes.

Feminine hysteria was, in its earlier days, treated with manual stimulation. as this grew tiresome when the number of patients needing treatment grew, doctors turned towards other means of producing paroxysms.

"Huh, paroxysms? Wonder what those are."

A typical treatment involved the patient lying on a bed after first removing her undergarments.

"...what?"

From there, the doctor would instruct the patient to spread her legs so that he may insert the vibrating device (often called a "vibrator") between them.

"What?"

The vibrator would be used upon the upper portion of the patient's labia and clitoris (see Diagram A. on the next page)-

"WHAT?"

-and, using a combination of electrical and vibrational stimulation, the doctor would produce a paroxysm, which would result in relief of symptoms and a general feeling of pleasantness typically referred to as an "afterglow". The patient would then be cleaned and don her undergarments.

She'd pored over the book, desperate to find something else, some other means of curing hysteria, ANY other means, but the book seemed to be of the opinion that it was perfectly normal to be invading a woman's most private area, the area from which babies came and should only be seen by one's husband; her mother had taught her that much, at least; all for the purpose of medical treatment. By a man.

Worse, the book had gone on to outline how the symptoms of feminine hysteria grew worse and more insidious as time went by, how it moved from depression and mental distraction to irritability, a predilection for mischief, restlessness...the symptoms went on and on, each one the straw that would break her sister's back if they continued without treatment.

But how could she honestly expect Elsa to be treated with...with this?

Her mind whirled, thinking back to that whispered conversation.

"She would never allow it...especially there."

Good God, what on Earth did she think she was doing? No wonder Kai had argued fiercely against it. Elsa wouldn't even take her gloves off in the presence of others, who in their right mind would think that she would take off her undergarments, spread her long legs, look up at the doctor as he brought his hands and his tools to her most sacred place and ask-

"Is it hot?"

Anna snapped her head up. "What?"

Elsa gestured with her fork at Anna's plate. "The pasta," she said carefully, one eyebrow inching towards her hairline, "is it too hot?"

Anna looked down at her food. The long noodles, arranged in an artsy spiral, sat in the creamy white sauce, still completely untouched. Now she remembered; the cooks had been experimenting with different dishes recently. Apparently she'd missed roasted duck served in the French style last night, and cold duck for breakfast, but who was counting?

Her sister's portion of spaghetti was significantly smaller than her own. Elsa set her fork down upon the napkin and lifted her glass, taking a short sip before setting it down again, glancing briefly at Anna before looking away. Anna blinked. Her glass was almost empty, but Elsa was still here.

"Uh, I know it's not our usual dinner, but…" Anna chuckled and tucked invisible strands of hair behind her ear, trying not to squirm under Elsa's direct gaze. "It's not hot at all. A little warm, maybe. You don't eat pasta hot, Elsa." Not that she would know how warm it was, but really. Who served spaghetti too hot to eat?

Her sister frowned, and her head dipped when she looked back to her own meal. It was something that had always puzzled Anna, how Elsa had no sense of temperature, appearing equally happy to wear thick, heavy clothing that covered her from head to toe and shoulder to fingertip in both summer and winter. And fall and spring. Basically whenever.

"I just thought it had to be," her sister mumbled. When her next surreptitious glance revealed Anna's confused expression to her, Elsa tapped her own cheek. "You're red."

Anna snatched up her fork and dug in to the meal before her. "Oh, you know," she said, "I'm just so happy to have this, um, this food, because I know that we don't get to try new food often, so I'm glad I get to try it. We get to try it. I'm not implying that you're not eating, because obviously you are. It's good. You should do it more often."

"…you're red because you're happy?" Elsa's fork remained suspended in midair as she gave her sister a look. It was a cross between confusion and tentative curiosity, and almost, if she wasn't just imagining things, something akin to amusement. She was probably imagining things.

"Of course!" She laughed to show that she was entirely serious, and Elsa's expression immediately grew concerned. Anna was spinning the fork through the pasta so quickly the metal was a blur. "You don't get red when you're happy? I do all the time. That's why I've got red hair: I'm always happy!" Anna dropped her fork, spilling her spaghetti. "Oops."

Elsa glanced between her and the flecks of sauce dotting the tablecloth, napkin, and Anna's dress, and then she set her fork down on the side of her dish, leaving the handle posed outward. Anna sighed and looked down at her plate, waiting for the scrape of the chair against the carpet.

There was a soft thump. Anna lifted her head. Elsa let go of the small decanter of water and took up her glass, sipping from it once before setting it down. Anna watched, afraid to blink, as Elsa settled more deeply into her seat and lifted her fork again. She took a small bite and set it down. Her hands went to her lap.

"I don't see why we're eating this if the Italian court isn't going to send a guest. The cook doesn't need to practice making anything if they're not going to show, right?" Anna said, her tongue almost tripping over the words as they tumbled out her mouth. This time she felt her face growing hot and clapped her hands over her cheeks to cool them.

Her sister shrugged. There was a tiny smile on her lips. "I thought you just said that you were happy to be eating something new."

Anna stared at her. "…what?"

"Didn't you just say that?" Elsa's voice trailed off at the end, as though unsure herself.

"But…" Anna was confused. Usually what happened was that Elsa would say something, Anna would make a fool of herself while unsubtly hinting at being lonely, Elsa would give her a pained look and the conversation would die within the space of a few awkward moments. And yet for the first time in a long time, Anna had said something and Elsa had responded. Multiple times, even. It was surreal.

And too good to be true, because like always, Anna then made a stupid comment about having been born with a faulty memory and Elsa flinched, looking away from her and retreating within because it wasn't possible to talk to Elsa without hurting her, somehow.

It wasn't possible to do anything with Elsa, because she was sick, and the treatment was...

Well, so what if the treatment was a little...odd? Should it matter? Anna had always thought that she would be willing to do anything to get her beloved sister back, be it head to the ends of the Earth or stay stuck to her side like a little burr, and was this really any different? It was just a medical problem, solved via an interesting means but...it was one practiced for centuries, by intelligent men with fancy degrees and many years of schooling under their belts.

Did it really matter if the means to treatment involved touching her sister?

No. No, it would be...Elsa touching herself. With the device Anna had repaired. It wouldn't be the doctor instructing her to lay on the bed, to spread her legs and position herself. No, it would be Elsa treating her own needs.

Anna sucked in a deep breath. For some reason that thought was a lot easier to imagine and yet at the same time made her skin tingle. She shook her head and grabbed her fork again, stuffing some of the pasta into her mouth and chewing quickly, intent on finishing dinner rapidly so she could return to her room and think.

Think about Elsa touching herself.

Elsa twirled her fork, the metal gleaming in the fading light of sunset through the thin windows and brought the perfectly arranged, bite-size amount of spaghetti to her mouth, slipping it inside and chewing, her tongue darting out briefly to catch a small drop of liquid that had escaped. She swallowed, her delicate, long neck flexing with the movement, Anna's eyes trailing over her skin, for the first time wanting to do more than just that. Elsa's lips glistening with wetness, plump and inviting, begging to be kissed and suckled as Anna's hands stroked her alabaster flesh, lighting up every nerve and setting her skin to tingling with pleasure, as…

Other symptoms include invasive and inappropriate erotic fantasies.

Anna choked.

Anna shivered as she stared up at the bed's canopy above her, trying not to panic. If she took deep enough breaths she would get through this.

Her trembling limbs were feeling less pleasant by the minute, as was the sensation coming from between her legs. Earlier it had been so good she'd felt like she'd been blown out of her body and gently placed back in again. That wasn't the case now.

Everything had started off just grand, but now she felt utterly helpless as her insides prickled and tingled painfully against the offending item. She turned her head, watching the machine as its dials gleamed.

She bit her lip and covered her face with shaking hands. And to think she'd thought this would turn out well.

Idiot. Idiot!

One day with the machine, and she'd already broken it. Of course she had: she broke everything she touched, didn't she? So much for her test. So much for curing Elsa. So much for being useful in any way at all.

Worse, her numb fingers were only so long but her insides so deep and the doorknob planted well outside her grasp. As bad as breaking the hammer was, this was the more pressing issue.

Literally.

She'd turned the dial to zero, but it still sent shocks running through her. She couldn't tell if they were phantom tremors or if she'd truly mucked things up beyond all repair.

She'd thought of pulling it out by the wires, but was so seized with terror at the thought of subjecting her most private area to possible discharge of powerful electricity – her palm a constant warning – that she didn't dare harm the delicate wires. The ones Mr. Orsted had sealed to the inside of the doorknob, and then said…something about them, but she hadn't been paying attention because of course she hadn't! And she couldn't take the wires out from the machine, either; he had screwed a safety plate over the holes as an afterthought.

For her safety. She hated herself.

What was she going to do? Sit and wait for it to fall out? Would it fall out? She couldn't exactly get up and jump around right now, her limbs feeling as limp as the overcooked noodles last night.

Think, think think she had to think there had to be some way out of this it couldn't possibly be hopeless.

Oh God it was hopeless and she was going to be stuck with a doorknob inside of her until the end of time. 'Here lies Anna, dearly departed, and her trusty sidekick suitcase.'

She was going to wind up in some awful story about how one should never touch oneself. At least if it were released to the masses Elsa wouldn't read it.

Oh God and all the angels in Heaven what if Elsa found out oh saints she was going to be in so much more trouble than she was now…

She was startled out of her thoughts by a knock at the door.

"GAAAHHHWHAT?" She shot up, scrambling frantically for her skirts, trying to make herself appear presentable, covering the wires. The doorknob shifted inside of her as if the metal was possessed by some evil spirit that was gleefully reminding her at every opportunity that she was well and truly fucked.

"Your Highness…? It's, well it's dinnertime," Kai said through the thick wood. He was unusually hesitant. Probably because she'd just screamed at him.

"…oh, well, that's…um. I'm not really hungry right now, thanks and no really I'm perfectly fine!" Her voice rose in terror as she realized she hadn't locked her door. "Just not hungry, no problem, uh, good night."

Any second now he was going to open the door and see her and she would never recover and neither would he and…

"As you wish," he said, his soft step heading away.

Dead but for the grace of God. Someday she was going to figure out just how she'd been born under both lucky and unlucky stars at the same time.

Damnit! She hadn't locked the door of course she hadn't locked the door that would have been the intelligent thing to do but no, she was Anna, and the average bumblebee was smarter than her and more importantly it didn't have a doorknob stuck inside its vagina what was wrong with her didn't she ever think?

Maybe if she just…found something to dig it out with…

She gagged at the very thought. No, she had learned her lesson in the worst way possible: never, ever stick anything inside of her that she could not pull out.

And she'd forced Mr. Orsted to release the hammer early and there hadn't been anything in the instruction manual about sticking it inside her of course it had broken because some people were allergic to pollen and Anna was allergic to common sense and planning and a general sense of decency…

There came another knock.

"Aaaahhh! Don't come in!"

"Um…your Highness?" It was Kai again. He sounded like someone was holding a gun to his back. "Perhaps you'd like to have some dinner now?"

It couldn't have been two minutes since he'd last asked why was he back? Had he even left the hallway?

"No, I'd really rather not, thank you!" She had done a much better job at keeping the strain out of her voice this time. Now she only sounded agitated instead of deranged.

"If…if that's what you want." His footsteps left once more, leaving Anna behind.

She wished so desperately that she could join him, but she was currently tethered because if people's brains were houses with tidy rooms filled with beautifully carved furniture then Anna's was a broken down shack with a two-legged stool inside.

Which she probably would try putting inside her at some point because that's what idiots like her did!

Breathe breathe breathe you need to breathe to live.

Not the best argument to make right now, considering how desperately she wanted to just lay back and die.

She couldn't reach the doorknob with her fingers, as a second hasty exploration found, and clenching down only seemed to move it farther back. She withdrew her fingers from between her legs, wincing. Unlike her "treatment" which had made her wet and loose, she was now so dry and tight that it felt like her body was punishing her for that one bout too many.

She nearly pulled her hair out when the knocking started again.

"Kai, I'm really not feeling hungry right now!" she cried. "Please just leave me alone!"

There was a long pause, and for a moment she thought he had left. She let out a sigh of relief, glad that she would probably not be disturbed again. She'd make it up to Kai tomorrow, somehow.

Assuming she ever got out of this horrible bind. God why was she always such an idio-

"I'm not Kai," a woman said quietly.

Anna's jaw went slack as she stared at the door. In that single instant she forgot everything that had happened; the device, the treatment, the doorknob fading away in time, each as a distant memory, much like the one that called to her from the door. Her mind could barely comprehend what was happening, hardly daring to believe what her ears had just heard. The voice coming from behind the door was familiar, but its placement was entirely foreign to her. It didn't fit right; there was something off about it. The echoes were wrong, the doorknob was on the wrong side, it wasn't Anna's voice. It wasn't right.

She came to a startled conclusion, sucking in a quick breath.

Elsa had knocked at her door.

No, not her door; their door, because Anna had stayed and Elsa had left, but now she'd returned.

"Anna?" Her sister asked, once. She would not ask a second time.

"Please, come in," Anna said without thinking, and instantly balked at what she'd done. She leapt up, froze as the wires grew taut. She hurriedly pulled the suitcase to the edge of the bed and began searching the room with wild, terrified eyes for something close enough to grab. She just barely managed to reach the dress stand, yanking the dress off and throwing it over the device before seating herself right next to it, heart hammering as she posed herself as innocently as possible on the bed, the wires hidden by folds in the covers.

The knob on her door turned in time to Anna's stomach while she sat and watched it move, as if captured by some strange, supernatural power, but the door opened to reveal only her sister, which was its own form of magic. The sight of her in the doorway was strange in a jarring, unsettling way, and Anna couldn't understand why. Elsa looked no different than she always did; how could her person be wrong on such a fundamental level that left Anna wracked with confusion? Then it hit her.

The last time she'd seen Elsa standing in that doorway, her head had barely been at the level of the doorknob. Now it was at the level of her hips as she turned and shut the door behind her.

They looked at each other, Anna in complete perplexity, Elsa in her usual tight pensiveness as she folded her hands over each other in front of her dress. She was wearing her hair back in a severe bun that matched her features, a floor-length dress that suited her figure well, and eyes that were watching Anna warily, as though she expected her to leap up and attack her. But Anna was struck dumb and motionless, so Elsa examined her sister briefly before moving on, as if she couldn't help but look around what had once been their bedroom.

Elsa's gaze took in the room, moving from Anna on the bed to the wardrobe filled with a woman's clothes that had long since supplanted Elsa's bed, to the corner where the writing desk had replaced the toy chest, to the window where Anna had left some books she had been working on. Anna suddenly remembered Elsa giggling into her hand as Anna used her steamy breath against the panes to draw silly pictures of animals and people. The image was so vivid she could remember the exact color of the headband Elsa had been wearing, the flower designs on her dress that shuddered as her sister's giggles raced over her body, the fact that she had been barefoot.

Her sister clearing her throat wrenched her back to the present.

"Anna," she said, but before she could continue Anna beat her to it.

"What are you doing here?" Her voice sounded strangled, fighting out the words that had been lingering on her tongue, on her mind, for too long, had never been spoken before and felt oddly hostile in the open air.

Elsa's flinch was understandable, but Anna hadn't meant it like that, like she wanted her sister to leave, but for her to explain herself.

Why was she here, of all places? And now? What had Anna done to prompt this? Could she do it in the future, too?

"I just…I'm not saying you're not welcome," Anna continued, the words flying out of her mouth, "just that I'm surprised to…you know. See you…here. Because you're never her-because you should be at dinner and I'm fine and…why are you here?"

Elsa, though more than a year from the throne, had embodied what it meant to be queen since her youth. She stood as tall and straight as an oak, weathering Anna's questions and half-formed accusations with that quiet civility that masked her inner turmoil.

She tried again, because Elsa wasn't talking and the silence was so loud it beat against her already sensitive skin and she couldn't wait that long. "It's great to see you." She grinned weakly, but Elsa didn't return the gesture. Elsa never returned anything, be they smiles or notes slipped under her door or the love of a sister freely given.

But now she herself had returned and Anna was still struggling to understand that.

"It's…why are you here, Elsa?"

Elsa folded her arms over her chest. "You're not coming to dinner."

Anna winced when she shifted and was reminded of the secret she was hiding in plain sight. Yes, she was definitely not coming to dinner.

"No I…I'm not hungry." It was easier to lie when she was telling the truth. She couldn't feel hungry at a time like this. Her stomach was twisted up on account of Elsa's presence, not dinner's absence.

"Nor have you been hungry for the past few days," Elsa continued. Her words were factual and concise at a moment when Anna was still reeling from the shock of seeing her sister in her room. It wasn't right and it wasn't wrong all at once.

"And you have been fleeing me at every opportunity." Elsa's eyebrows lifted in accusation, but that wasn't fair. It was true, but it wasn't fair to level that charge at Anna, of all people, because she had always been there for Elsa who had never been willing to stay.

"And you have been unhappy," she concluded. "It's not you, Anna."

Anna's words took a while to surface, weighed down by a swirling concoction of fear and confusion and anger and surprise. "How do you even know me?" she asked, because Elsa spent the majority of her time, of her life, far from Anna's sight.

The side of Elsa's mouth turned up at that. It wasn't a smile, merely the shadow of one. "I live with you," she said, as if it were that simple, as if years of turning away was the same thing as close kinship. "I have eyes and can see, and you…" She sighed, looking weary, and Anna immediately felt terrible for asking the question. "You are acting completely out of character. Is there something wrong?"

There was something wrong. It was called "constant and eternal rejection despite over a decade of devotion".

No, that wasn't the actual concern right now, it had to do with the metal beside and inside her, but that was a secret. Not something she wanted Elsa to know about.

God, how do you even keep a secret from your own sister? She was trying not to sweat and give up the game and it'd only been a few minutes at most.

How could she get Elsa to leave?

How could she get her to stay?

Elsa came around to the side of the bed, Anna's head turning slowly to track her movement. She looked down at her sister, her concerned examination of Anna's person now apparent. She was close enough to touch but Anna didn't dare to, afraid to disturb whatever spell had been woven in place that had tricked her sister into coming here.

"Anna?" she asked, tilting her head. "Is there something wrong?"

Elsa was worried about her. She could see it in her face. It made Anna want to shoot to her feet and hug her and tell her she needn't worry at all, but that wasn't true.

It was just so odd to see Elsa herself here, not when she had others to do her bidding. She hadn't sent for the doctor, or for Kai – but no, Anna realized, she had, for Kai had always respected her decisions in the past. Elsa had been so concerned at Anna's change in character over the last several days that she had interrupted her own schedule to see what was wrong.

Once again she thought that this was profoundly unfair. Anna's concern for her sister's change in personality had been blunted against the wall their parents had made. Her power to investigate years of unhappiness was nothing compared to Elsa's freedom to investigate mere days of secrecy on her part.

"Anna?"

"Y-yes," Anna admitted, because she couldn't bear the weight of Elsa's fear any longer. "I've um…I've kind of…hurt myself."

That was delicate enough, right? Elsa would call for the doctor, Anna would tell hi-would request that he proscribe her several days bedrest on account of something vague like "nerves", and she'd have more time to figure out how to deal with this whole nasty affair.

"And how have you done that?"

She was asking questions? Now? She was interested enough to ask questions now, of all times?

"I um…well, it's kind of…" She coughed instead of choking on her words. The action made the doorknob rub against her. "It's kind of hard to describe…um." That was one way of putting it. "I…don't know if you'd understand it." That was another way, and probably the wrong one, because both of Elsa's eyebrows lifted in intrigue.

Why now. Why now?

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Elsa said, sounding almost amused by how coy Anna was being. She actually chuckled, eyes flicking up to Anna's, her laughter waning when Anna's distressed expression didn't waver.

"Would…you like to talk about it?" she asked. "It doesn't have to leave this room. It can just be between us."

At any other time she would have cried upon hearing those words. She was pretty close to screeching now.

"Well, no, I think I'm just-"

Anna had only a second to recognize the danger before Elsa thoughtlessly brushed the dress aside and sat down without looking.

"What the-?" Elsa cried, standing quickly, but the damage was done.

"Aaaaaaahhhhhh turn it off turn it off turn it off!" Anna shrieked as the doorknob began crackling inside her. She motioned frantically at the machine and a startled Elsa hastened to obey, gloved hands twisting the second dial to the left but that was the wrong one. "No, not that one, the other one!"

Elsa turned the "Shutoff" dial and Anna instantly slumped back, leaning against the bedpost when the sensation halted immediately, leaving only lingering echoes. "Thank…thank you," she managed between huge breaths.

"What…what is this?" Elsa asked, looking down at the machine. "'Electrical Stimulation?' 'Vibration?' Anna…what IS this?"

"It's how I got hurt. I used it," Anna said, "and-wait, no, it's…it's medicine, it's okay, I can deal with it and you don't have to worry ab-"

"Wait…is this a Granville device?" Elsa asked.

Oh God she knew. Of course she knew. It made sense that she knew. Her doctor had prescribed it for her; of course she would know what it was and Anna couldn't possibly lie her way out of this, she had to admit that she had been touching herself, without having been diagnosed by a doctor, so she was just abusing herself, not actually treating herself, and she couldn't explain that she had done it all for Elsa's benefit because that was stupid as she realized now, and Elsa wasn't talking and why wasn't she talking if this grew any more tense Anna would puke.

"How did you get one?" Elsa didn't seem angry, just surprised. That made no sense whatsoever.

"I found it and repaired it because it was broken but I guess I didn't really repair it because the tip broke off and now it's-"

She clapped her hands over her face to stop the babbling before she let the secret out. Elsa, meanwhile, didn't say a word as she sat down, the mattress dipping a little to the side.

Anna peeked out from between her fingers. Elsa was examining the wires. Her eyes were slowly following the trail, which led from the machine, across the bed, lingering on the halved vibrator, over the now disturbed covers, underneath one of Anna's legs and under her dress.

Oh…oh no.

"Anna…why is…?" She stared for a moment at the spot on Anna's dress where her hips were before directing her eyes away quickly.

"It's, um…" Anna clamped her legs together and Elsa stared as the wires stretched taut in response. Anna quickly spread her legs again, holding her dress down with sweaty palms. "It's…well, it's…the tip is um…"

"The tip of…it…the…the metal tip…" Elsa looked lost and confused and very, very scared, eyes darting between the broken hammer lying on the covers and the wires and where they led.

"It broke off inside-" Anna bit her tongue before she could plunge headlong into insanity and start giving her sister details.

"It…it broke off…it's…it's inside you?" Elsa was repeating her words slowly, as if she needed that extra pause before she could comprehend them. Her head hung lower with every terrible realization written in thick lines under her eyes. She couldn't even look her sister in the eye, which was the only good thing Anna could be thankful for right now.

"So…" she looked like she was choking on something huge.

Anna knew the feeling all too well.

"So…so you…you put the metal tip inside you?"

And then, because Anna's mouth was entirely unconnected to her brain, she then heard it say, "actually it's a doorknob."

What followed was the longest moment in Anna's life. It stretched into infinity and back again while the silence between them howled and Anna wondered why it was she was still capable of speech if she had her foot so firmly planted in her mouth.

If Elsa was planning on disowning her she'd better start now before Anna threw herself out the window. If she was lucky she'd hit the water and sink below the waves and no one would ever see her stupid, thoughtless head again.

Elsa slowly raised her head. Stunned realization crept across her face with all the speed of a glacier, sinking into her usually pristine features one by one as her unfocused eyes stared out the window. Anna cringed back farther and farther as her sister's expression settled upon wide-eyed apprehension and an almost childlike fear.

"Anna," she said, not looking at her, not looking like she could even turn her head at all, "is it…my doorknob?"

"…yes," Anna admitted, helpless to resist.

Elsa was a pale woman but Anna could still see the blood drain from her face in seconds. It matched the feeling of blinding terror in Anna's gut perfectly.

"I know this really sounds bad," she said frantically, forcing the words out and shattering the undeclared silence between them, "but hang on, before you get angry – please don't get angry – I have to tell you that it actually all makes sense, no, really. It all started about a week ago, when I was-"

"What?" Elsa gasped.

"-alone and then I heard Kai and-"

"There is a story behind this?" Elsa fairly choked on the words. Oh God she wasn't listening. This was bad, this was beyond bad. Anna sped up, desperate to make her understand.

"-doctor's conversation and I'm sorry, but I had to and then I found this device and thought-"

Elsa looked like she was watching someone die right in front of her. It wasn't half-wrong. "Are you actually trying to suggest that, that there is a, a…a logical progression from not having a doorknob inside of you, to having a doorknob in your vagina?"

She turned to Anna, eyes and empty hands begging in silent bewilderment. "And it's MY doorknob?!"

"I was just thinking about you the entire time!" Anna blurted out.

If not for the fact that every muscle in her body had immediately tensed she would have punched herself in the face. Anna could practically see the mental gears shudder to a stop and emit smoke as Elsa's face lost what color it had left. Neither of them moved an inch. Elsa didn't say anything, which was good, because Anna was too busy screaming internally to hear a single word.

Her sister's mouth flopped open and moved up and down in a crude imitation of speech. No sound came out. Anna's chest was too tight to manage more than shallow, gasping breaths as the two of them stared at each other in wordless horror. Anna had learned not to believe in the power of prayer long ago, but that didn't stop her from silently begging God to strike her dead on the spot. Preferably with an actual lightning bolt. At least if she was just a darkened smear on the bed Elsa wouldn't have to put up with her anymore.

"…Anna?" Elsa's voice cracked on the high note. She lifted her hands and stopped, falling limp again, like a puppet with her strings cut. She brought her hands up, clutching uselessly at empty air, stricken. She took a deep breath and dropped her face into her hands, which had begun to tremble. "Anna," she mumbled, her voice muffled by her palms, "please…please tell me you weren't thinking about me when you were…abusing yourself."

"But I wasn't abusing myself!" If she was going to Hell, she wasn't going to do it with her sister disgusted in her. There was punishment and then there was eternal damnation. "I was testing out the hammer – they call it a vibrator, I think – to see if it was safe and worked better than just manual stimulation and would give someone, meaning you, a paroxysm, and hey, wow, let me tell you that i-and that it would then cure you of your illness and then we could be friends again." If she said it all in one breath it had to be true, right? Oh please let it be right.

"…that…" Elsa scrubbed her face with her palms. "But that…that almost makes sens-" She dropped her hands and looked at Anna. "What are you talking about?"

Anna searched her face, but for once Elsa's was wide open and filled to the brim with honest confusion. "You have, um, an illness. That requires curing." Shouldn't she already know that?

Anna suddenly realized she'd never found out if the doctor had told her sister about his diagnosis. That kind of made things worse in an impossible way, because things were already pretty bad. As in infinitely bad.

Elsa swallowed. There was an emotion covering her face that Anna had never seen before. It looked almost like guilt, tinged with a strange sense of regret that made no sense to her. How could she be feeling guilty when it was Anna who was currently wishing she could crawl into the deepest, darkest hole that had ever been made and never see the light of day again?

"And just what illness is that?" Elsa asked, her voice rough. She cleared her throat, looking down at her hands.

"Feminine hysteria. You know, your…your illness."

"Feminine what?" Elsa asked, perplexed.

Oh God so the doctor hadn't even told her. And now Anna had to explain what it meant. She had to explain, to her older sister, who was definitely of marrying age, what it was like to…to…

"It's…it's an illness," she said. She was not thinking about those diagrams. She was not thinking about Elsa touching herself. She was not thinking about what she had just done. She had all the knowledge and know-how to explain things calmly and clearly. She was going to describe it in the most clinical, most neutral way possible.

"It's an illness where you have to touch yourself between the legs to get better."

…damnit.

Elsa's eyes were as big as saucers. "That's…wait, what?"

"Your doctor ordered you a Granville device for it. That's…that's how you know about it, right?"

Elsa stared at her. "You mean my hand massager?"

Anna actually felt a part of herself shrivel up and die.

Elsa kept talking while Anna strangled on thin air, wracked in agony just feet from her. "I just…I had thought maybe if I tried something ne-…" She stopped abruptly and glanced at Anna out of the corner of her eye. "I had complained to the doctor," she said, enunciating each word with care, "of a…pain in my hand, and he thought it might be tendonitis brought on from excessive writing, and suggested that massaging my hand would help. I rejected that because…well, what I mean to say is, I didn't believe that that would be enough, or I would have been fine already because I can certainly massage my own hands, so recently he suggested that I try a Granville device."

"…as a hand massager?" Anna croaked.

Her sister's hands were always covered in those damn gloves. She never let anyone near them.

"She would never allow it…especially there."

Just…just why…

"Wait…" Elsa paused. "Feminine hysteria…that's…I've heard of that. Our old doctor discussed it with me, once, because I'd read…well, I'd read something, and thought that maybe, well…"

Maybe there was a glimmer of hope.

"He said it wasn't a real illness because it was far too vague a collection of symptoms, and that time would prove him right."

Maybe there was no hope for her at all.

"Anna, did you…did you think it was real?"

"I thought a lot of things," Anna said weakly. She stared down at her useless hands in her lap. "I thought…I thought if you had it then…then it'd explain why you never wanted to be with me."

Elsa stilled. She didn't speak.

"And I thought that…if I repaired the machine then…you could be treated and it'd make things better. But I wasn't sure if it'd work. So I just…I tested it on myself so I could see if it would. On you. So you'd get better."

Anna's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry I'm such an idiot."

"Anna…" Elsa said, drawing in a deep breath.

Anna tensed, waiting for the lecture which she surely deserved.

"…that is the most perverse, kindest thing anyone has ever done for me."

Anna stared at her sister, who sent her a shaky, hesitant smile. She couldn't help it: she started to smile too, until the both of them were grinning, albeit self-consciously, at one another. She couldn't remember the last time they'd done that. It felt too good to be real. "You're…you're not mad at me?"

"How could I be?" Elsa asked, shrugging. "You just…you were doing it for me, right?"

"Yeah but…" Anna decided that if she wasn't going to pick the best time to shut up she'd at least pick this time.

They were quiet for a time, Anna leaning against her bedpost, Elsa sitting beside the machine, neither saying anything as they thought. For once the silence was companionable, not awkward. Well, it was still tinged with awkwardness, but in a good way, in a way that meant that Elsa wasn't mad at her for being a dunce.

Elsa's long fingers tapped against her bicep. "So…so it's stuck inside you?" she asked, glancing at the wires.

"Yeah," Anna mumbled. She knew the moment wouldn't last.

"Could you pull it out by the wires?"

"No, because it'd…it'd probably just rip the wires off, and they're kind of sharp, so…" Anna said. The other woman instantly flinched, pressing her legs together tightly.

"Okay," she said. "So, that's…that's not going to work. Um. Have you tried, uh, your…your fingers?"

Anna nodded miserably.

"And that didn't work?"

"It's too deep."

Elsa's eyes grew round. "Oh…it's that…oh dear."

Anna nodded again.

Elsa was looking at the floor.

The only solution remained unspoken, but neither of them were brave enough to mention it yet.

"You're…have you tried um…using something else…to get it out?"

Anna tried not to shudder. "Like what?" She couldn't imagine what and was quite glad for that.

Elsa winced. "Ah, I guess…no, that wouldn't work either."

The silence returned, thicker this time, heavier on their shoulders. At least they'd both had years to grow accustomed to the burden.

Elsa finally voiced what both of them had been thinking: "I think…I think you need someone else to ah, pull it out."

"Or I could just leave it in there," Anna said immediately. That was a better option. Anything was a better option. Maybe she'd give birth to a nice, healthy door in nine months.

"No, you can't just give up-okay, but…you must understand, Anna. This isn't something that we can let too many people know about," Elsa said, entirely unnecessarily. Even if the servants were generally discreet, as queen-to-be she had to think about her reputation. A mishap like this could be blown entirely out of proportion, turned from an innocent misunderstanding into something far cruder. "No one, actually," she decided as Anna's stomach dropped out of her. "So. Who else knows about this?"

"About the machine?" Anna said, her voice very small. She could still hold onto hope that had Elsa meant that. "I mean, there's the doctor and Ka-"

"No, Anna, I mean-" Elsa waved a hand in her general direction. "About this."

Anna looked at her. And kept looking.

Elsa's face dropped into that terrified, broken look again. "Oh…oh no."

Elsa had insisted upon locking the door. She had to be convinced by her sister that no, she couldn't drag the wardrobe in front of it, either. She probably didn't have the strength for it, and Anna was currently deposed.

Elsa turned away from the door, breathing hard and leaning against it as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Okay." She hugged herself briefly and let go. "Okay."

Anna stopped herself before she could ask if they were really going to do this. She'd asked it often enough earlier while Elsa stared off into space, practically radiating embarrassment and terror.

"I just…" Elsa drew a hand over her mouth. "Okay, we'll, don't worry, we'll get through this, we'll…we'll be fine, so long as you don't panic," she said.

"Um." Anna looked between herself and the suitcase. She looked back at her sister. "I'm not panicking." Not anymore, at least. The worst thing that could possibly happen had already happened, so she wasn't panicking. Scared out of her wits, sure, but…

"I wasn't talking to you," Elsa snapped testily before making an apologetic gesture and blowing out a huge breath. She resembled a criminal being lead to the gallows; anxious and flighty but desperate to pull herself together and see this to the end.

She came back to the bed and sat down, her hands scrunching up her dress and marring the fabric.

"How…how are we going to do this?"

"Um, well, I could-" Anna decided her mouth had done enough damage for today and just spoke with her actions, starting to pull her dress up.

Elsa's hand shot to hers, covering it. "No. No. Just…" She released Anna's hand, which felt strangely cold at the loss. "I couldn't-I'd really rather not look."

"Well how else are you going to do it?" If she couldn't see what she was doing…?

"I don't…I guess somehow use gravity to help…somehow…?" Elsa floundered, unable to turn the idea into a reality.

Using gravity…

Well, there was one way she could do it.

Anna looked down into Elsa's startled eyes as she slung one leg over her, losing her balance and grabbing for Elsa's shoulder. Thankfully, her sister understood what she was trying to do, and shifted back on the bed, pulling Anna closer until she was settled on Elsa's lap, her arms hanging over her shoulders.

Anna tried not to squirm, even though her insides were crawling already. This was actually happening. "Would this work?"

Elsa wasn't looking at her when she nodded. There was a muscle going in her cheek that made Anna acutely conscious of their situation. She was very glad for the locked door, now. If anyone saw them like this they might assume things. Certain very wrong things.

Elsa's hand moved beneath her skirts and Anna braced herself, but it was Elsa who jumped at the first touch.

"Oh, you're…you're not wearing any…" she said. Her glove felt sinfully soft against the inside of Anna's thigh.

"Well, yeah…?" That's what the book had said. The book that was wrong, as wrong as Elsa's touch. But while she could curse the former she certainly wasn't rejecting the latter. "I had to take them off for earlier."

"So all this time you've been…"

"Y-yeah."

Elsa's eyes shot to hers for a split second before jumping away again.

"Okay just…"

Elsa's finger brushed the wires, making Anna's stomach flip in anticipation. She should be scared; what if this didn't work? Instead she found herself oddly excited.

She definitely couldn't tell Elsa that. What would she think of Anna then?

At the first touch of her sister's fingers against her outer lips Anna tensed.

"Am I hurting you?" Elsa asked instantly. Her voice was thick, like she was speaking through a fog. She was not looking at Anna but rather at the dip in her collarbone as Anna swallowed and shivered. The touch was hesitant and slow. Unfortunately for her that was what Anna apparently preferred.

That explained why she could already feel herself growing wet.

"No, I just…oh that…it actually feels…it actually feels pretty good." Elsa's exploration mimicked her earlier movements; nervous, gentle, and surprisingly cold. She sucked in a breath and held it when the first finger entered her.

"It…it feels good?" Elsa's voice didn't sound like her own. It was detached from her, like someone else was speaking, someone Anna had never known before.

"Yeah just…I don't know what you're doing but…sorry, I'm making this more awkward."

There was a silence as Elsa pushed her finger up inside of her and Anna's hands clutched hard at her sister's shoulders.

A second finger joined the first, slipping easily through the dampness.

"Tell me how it feels," Elsa rasped.

"What-?" Of all the questions to ask, why would she…? "I, but-"

"Tell me," Elsa said, through gritted teeth, "how it feels. I need-" She cut herself off. "I need to know if I've got it or not."

That made sense. It was perfectly logical. It was Anna who was interpreting it wrong; Elsa hadn't meant it like that.

"Ah, no, you haven't yet. Um, maybe a little deeper…?"

"Deeper," Elsa repeated. She sounded drunk. She tilted her head back, but her eyes were shut so tightly Anna wasn't sure she could ever open them again. The same muscle in her cheek was flexing again.

Anna bit her tongue against a groan when Elsa moved deeper inside of her. For someone who had never done this before Elsa was pretty consistently hitting spots that made her want to push her hips down, seeking out more of the pleasure that accompanied her touch.

The edge of Elsa's palm grazed the sensitive bud just above her entrance and Anna bucked instantly, gasping.

"Tell me how it feels," Elsa whispered.

"That didn't hurt, don't worry about i-"

"How does it feel?" Elsa hissed. Her eyes were still closed.

"It feels good," Anna said, giving in to her demand and answering truthfully. "It…it feels…oh please, I-I'm sorry, it just, it makes me feel like begging…"

"Begging," Elsa whined. "Oh, it…" Her fingers didn't stop moving, inching forward, deeper inside. This time it was her thumb that accidentally stroked her and Anna gasped, unable to stop herself from shoving her hips forward, forcing Elsa's fingers deep inside.

"I've got it," Elsa choked out. She was right: Anna could feel the metal being nudged. Every time Elsa flexed her fingers to try and draw the doorknob closer Anna had to bite back another breathy plea.

Elsa did…something…with her fingers that made Anna's hands bear down on her shoulders even harder. She tried to let go because surely she was hurting her sister, but she couldn't release her, not when Elsa was doing that.

"Does that hurt?"

"No-o-!" She couldn't stop. "It's good, so good, I-"

Anna struggled to clamp down on the rising tide of heat, forcing it aside to concentrate on the sensations and not the pleasure they produced. Elsa was counting on her to describe how things were progressing, not to lose herself in the feelings. Elsa was, for the first time, completely focused upon her sister, and Anna couldn't just ignore that because it felt too good.

Elsa was…

Elsa was trembling.

It had started so slowly that Anna hadn't even been aware of it, but the harder she gripped her shoulders the more she felt it. Her shoulders were shaking, her other hand at Anna's back jittering over her dress. Only her touch inside of her was steady and sure.

She stared down at Elsa's face, drawn as tight as a bowstring, her eyes still closed in adamant refusal to look at her sister.

She was disgusted by this. She was disgusted by the whole ordeal, by her sister, by the touch, and Anna had forced her to do this out of a sense of duty that beat inside Elsa's chest like a second heart, reminding the heir to the throne of her responsibilities. This was a horrible idea, a horrible idea that was the culmination of other horrible ideas.

Elsa shook beneath her and Anna, distraught, tried to pull away. Her selfish needs weren't worth this.

The hand at her back tightened suddenly, forcing her forward, the arm drawing her close up against Elsa's chest, locking her in a cage so strong Anna was left gasping in shock. She staggered forward, trying to maintain her balance, her knees shaking as her hands clutched at Elsa's neck, desperate for purchase.

Elsa's fingers twisted, and Anna made a high-pitched noise as the pleasure swamped her. Elsa moved her fingers again, mercilessly, the metal twisting in response, and Anna's fingernails bit into her sister's cheeks when her thumb grazed that spot and then quite deliberately pressed down.

Her chest heaved and spasmed as she fought to breathe without giving up any more needy, breathy sounds.

"Elsa, oh-what are-"

Elsa opened her eyes, and Anna was nearly overcome with awe.

In the depths of her sister's sky blue eyes was a darkness that howled.

It was a maelstrom locked up in a cage that strained to hold it, a soundless roar of sheer power imprisoned, a god chained to a rock, writhing in agony, a falling star tempered with denial and rejection into a white-hot mass that rolled in a boiling sea that screamed against the bars. It was like she had opened a window into Elsa's cracked and trembling soul, and only Anna was there to bear witness to it in all its glory.

It was the most beautiful, most terrifying thing she'd ever seen.

She couldn't see anything else besides those eyes, those eyes which held her, locked in their spell as Elsa worked her magic with her hands, making Anna move with her, closer, their lips inches away as they panted.

They were close enough to kiss. It was a delirious notion, brought on by her sister's actions and her unwilling, her willing responses. It was utterly mad, sick, and twisted.

She had never craved anything so badly in her life as Elsa's kiss.

Suddenly she realized something.

Elsa had let go of her back.

She kept her eyes on her younger sister as her hand settled upon the first dial.

And twisted it savagely to the right.

Anna let out a cry and jerked as the electricity shot through the wires, through the metal, through her body and sending shocks of pleasure rolling up her body. The respite had turned the previously irritating stimulation into something that was so intense she could barely breathe.

Elsa was panting now, her throat shuddering as she gasped for air while Anna clutched at her face, needing to hold something, needing to hold her, needing needing needing and Elsa was right there, her hand supporting Anna again as she stroked the doorknob against that one spot inside of her that made her feel like her body couldn't contain all this feeling, would bleed out at the seams as she died over and over again.

There was a spring inside of her that was twisting and twisting, the coiled energy hissing with a promise that Elsa delivered with each sure, practiced stroke of the metal against her inside until she could take no more.

Anna sobbed as her second paroxysm ripped through her, tearing her to pieces.

But for once, Elsa was there, holding her close, stroking her hair and whispering something that Anna couldn't hear but could feel against her ear as she pressed herself into Elsa's neck and wailed until she ran out of breath, until she was spent and limp.

Their bodies fit together in a way that their persons never had, not for a very long time, but Anna could be glad to have this one moment where she could be weak and Elsa would hold her and keep her from breaking. The exhaustion that hung from her bones was a reminder of how tiring it was to be without that gentle but sure embrace, and for what felt like hours Anna couldn't move and Elsa wouldn't give her up, so they stayed together, their breath merging and blending in the quiet.

Elsa shifted, and Anna sighed; it had to end. It always did. It always ended with Elsa walking away, the shape of her proud, straight back, a queen before her time, more familiar than her face. She braced herself as best she could for the inevitable.

Anna made a small noise of surprise when Elsa's hand settled upon her back again and she felt herself being tipped gracefully, as though they were dancing, onto the bed. Elsa looked down at her, Anna looked up, and there was…there was a smile on Elsa's face. A real, honest to God smile. She lifted her hand: she was holding the glistening doorknob.

"Why did you…" Anna was utterly stunned. That had been beyond amazing but had Elsa actually intended…?

"Stimulation produces wetness, which made it easier to pull it out," Elsa informed her as she tossed the doorknob to the side.

That sort of made sense. Once again, Elsa was being logical while Anna was just being dirty.

"Feeling better?" her sister asked.

Anna giggled, tilting her head back against the bedsheets. She hummed in satisfaction, stretching out, her eyes sinking closed as her body sang in tired bliss. "So much better," she drawled, turning her head to see Elsa's smile grow wider as she lay beside her sister, her reflection from across the bed.

Anna grabbed Elsa's hand without thinking, wanting to hold onto this moment in any way she could, starting a little upon finding the glove damp. She sniggered as she realized why Elsa's glove was wet; she didn't usually think of hand-holding as lewd, but this certainly counted.

Elsa held her back. Anna beamed brighter than the Sun.

"I'm glad," Elsa said quietly. She had not lost her smile. It made her look younger by a whole lifetime.

This was the closest they'd ever been in years, so close that Anna could hold her hand, could look in her eyes, could share something special with her sister that no one else in the world could. This was the most the palace, this room, had ever felt like a true home.

So of course Anna then did something that was very stupid.

"You want to know something funny?" she asked, biting her lip.

Elsa brought herself closer, smiling mischievously, the look of a sister who was about to be let in on a close secret. "Oh?" If not for what had just transpired Anna would believe they were girls again, giggling as they recounted their pranks of the past day before planning more for the next to the future woe of their parents.

Anna grinned, leaning her head against the sheets, eyes falling half shut in warm, fuzzy pleasure. She stroked a thumb over Elsa's gloved hand. "If I had known this was what it took to get you here…" She chuckled. "I'd have gotten hurt years ago."

Elsa's smile died so quickly it was if Anna had shot her in the heart.

She sat up without a word and Anna tried to do the same, her arms weak from passion, from regret, the shock of loss staining what had been a happy moment. "Wait, Elsa-!" She barely made it to one elbow when Elsa stood, her back as straight as a pole. Anna clutched at her but Elsa drew her hand away with such ferocity it felt like a blow.

She saw now, the shiver in Elsa's shoulders that spoke of a heavy strain, one that she could not alleviate or soothe or even understand, try as she might. She was only human, only Anna.

Her sister was a shattered statue that stooped to pick up its pieces, staggering on broken legs to the door. Her flight took years. It had lasted more.

She stopped at the door, laying a hand on the knob. She unlocked it with a sharp, jerky motion.

"I'm glad you're feeling better." Anna recoiled; Elsa's clipped, soulless words, directed not at her but at the door struck her that much harder, spoken as they were by the same woman who had been, for the smallest moment, there for her. "I suggest you refrain from using that device in the future."

"Elsa, please…" She was struggling not to cry, the devastation rattling around in her chest. "Don't go, I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I…"

It didn't matter. Nothing ever did.

Elsa pulled open the door, just like she had so many years ago.

She had looked back, then.

She did not look back now.

The door closed behind her with a gentle click that echoed and rebounded with a ringing finality, the brief connection between them severed so neatly it was as if it hadn't ever been there at all.

Anna sank back into the cold sheets, trembling, fighting back tears.

This time there was no afterglow.