Chapter Text
It came on suddenly, around the time of the first big rainstorm of the winter. Elsa huddled in the tent that Honeymaren generously shared with her - just until she had finished making her own - and it wracked her like a cough, this whole-body thing she had no name for.
Maren just sighed and poked the fire, drawing her own blanket closely around her shoulders. Elsa's blue dress was a nightmare to keep clean in the woods, but she rode often and whenever she dismounted from Nokk, Elsa's dress was clean. She wore it now, before bed - she'd change out of it soon.
"You don't want a blanket," Maren repeated for perhaps the fourth time.
"I am not cold," Elsa told her, but the cough-feeling came again and she shook with it. Maren cared if Elsa was cold. She let her stay here. She showed her the world outside of Arendelle, happily, and Elsa followed her with wonder and delight every step of the way.
What an odd thing, this cough. It was a deep pressure in her chest, unname-able. Elsa scooted closer to Maren, and Maren put her arm with the blanket around Elsa's narrow shoulders. Elsa leaned into the hug, and the cough feeling faded into a happy bliss.
The next morning, Elsa woke up and thought for a long time that she'd forgotten something. It was something she wanted to say to Maren, but if she couldn't remember what it was, there wasn't much point in seeking Maren out to tell her, was there? So why did she feel the need to find Maren?
She ignored it, making the most of the morning routine. The elements often met in the morningtime, and had begun meeting at the pond nearest the human camp. Elsa followed Gale there, luxuriating in the feeling of running. Her body often felt like an afterthought to her magic, but this morning it felt so good to breathe, to run, to see and feel the crisp air after the storm.
When she returned to camp, Maren was looking at a bow with her intended, and Elsa bowed at the waist and threw up in bushes a short distance from camp. She thought nobody saw it, although she didn't know why she hoped that - was she embarrassed? What was there to be embarrassed about? It was lucky that Elsa couldn't remember that thing she wanted to tell Maren. Maren couldn't be bothered with it, whatever it was. Elsa had the feeling that Maren would laugh at her, not the friendly laugh of Maren while first teaching Elsa to stitch leather, but an unfriendly laugh that Elsa had never seen from her before.
When Maren laughed, her eyes sparkled and Elsa's heart stopped beating. Her hands became numb. Elsa wondered sometimes whether some part of her was still frozen, and that was why such an innocent thing might seem to break her.
Elsa wiped the vomit from her lips and went back to camp, and Maren had finished talking with her intended and came over to her, a brace of rabbits over her shoulder. "Ready to learn how to skin and dress a rabbit?" she asked Elsa, eyes sparkling brightly. She radiated a heat that filled Elsa's chest with fire. Elsa dipped her head and said, "Yes."
Maren held Elsa's hand firmly over the knife. Elsa's heart beat out of her chest and she forgot everything about the poor rabbit, although its little body was still warm. She forgot each step of cleaning and dressing Maren showed her. She forgot the elements, the season which was turning to winter, her sister and Arendelle and even that thing that she wanted to tell Maren this morning. Maren devoted her attention to Elsa, and Elsa was a poor but enthusiastic student.
Anna visited that afternoon, coming in to the campsite right at the tail end of the failed lesson. Elsa washed her hands and greeted her sister with a hug, and Anna gave Maren a strange look and towed Elsa away.
She didn't have much to talk about, just a small factual question about the sea trade, and Elsa wondered why Anna didn't just write. "You're acting strange again," Anna said to her suspiciously. "And now we live in different places, so I can't be absolutely certain that you are not going to go gallivanting off without me." Anna put her hands on her hips, cross, and Elsa looked over her shoulder to see Maren looking at them.
She smiled fondly, and Anna turned around and followed her look to Maren. She huffed and turned back to Elsa. "Well?"
"I promise I'd tell you, Anna. But this time I don't hear a voice." Elsa's hand settled on her stomach, which had been tumbling since she threw up that afternoon. "I think I am sick."
"Sick?" Anna was flummoxed. "You have never gotten a cold, Elsa."
"I think that's what happened. I'm sick."
Anna scoffed and let her hands drop from her hips. "All right. Whatever, Elsa." She turned back around to see Maren still observing them, and huffed. "You're still happy here?"
"I am," Elsa confirmed. "But I'll visit the castle tomorrow. How is that?"
"Fine."
"Why are you so cross?" Elsa asked her. She took her sister's hands in her own and squeezed them. "I wish you would be happy for me."
Anna softened. "I am. I just miss having you around. And I'm learning a lot about running a kingdom, which is very boring and does not suit me."
"You have always learned quickly and well, if you put your mind to it," Elsa reminded her.
Maren's tent was warm that night, and she held Elsa's shoulders with her arm and the blanket and told Elsa she had given back the bracelet her intended gave her.
"What does that mean?" Elsa asked her sleepily.
"It means the engagement is broken."
The news broke like a soft wave over Elsa, and Elsa shook with it. Maren pulled her closer, and Elsa drowned in her scent. That night, Maren pulled Elsa with her onto her cot and settled the blanket over both of them. Elsa slept with her head pillowed on Maren's chest. It was more comfortable than anything Elsa had ever imagined before that moment.
That day, Elsa's sickness was at its peak. She was dizzy with it. It was not an unpleasant feeling, to be sick, she decided. Her body blossomed happily. Her heart beat, and her stomach was warm and felt electric. Maren was out all morning hunting, and Elsa wove a basket and watched fish on the fire and remembered last night, star-crossed, delirious with sickness.
That night in the castle, Elsa thought of one hundred facts about Maren, which she imparted to Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf with the feeling that they probably were grateful to her for knowing all the most important things about Maren. Of course they weren't, but halfway through dinner Anna seemed to shift. Rather than asking Elsa to shut up about it, already, she began paying very close attention to Elsa's words. Elsa took happy advantage of that to fill the room with Maren, although Maren was not even there that day and Elsa stayed the night in the castle.
The next morning, Anna walked with her up to the camp and sought out Maren. Elsa watched them from afar, talking. Anna was stern, but not angry, and Maren nodded a lot.
That night at the fire, cuddled close together, Maren asked Elsa whether she remembered that thing she said she'd forgotten, and whether it was time to tell her. Elsa shook her head and asked Maren what Anna had said to her.
"She asked me what my intentions are with you."
Elsa's breath stopped, and it was a long moment before she could say anything. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Maren laughed and placed a soft kiss on Elsa's head. "Breathe, my queen of ice. I told her that I would follow your lead."
"My lead?" Elsa squeaked out.
"She said you thought you had a cold." Maren giggled, and Elsa buried her face in Maren's stomach, shy. She thought suddenly that perhaps Maren did know, after all, what it was that she wanted to tell Maren. And if Elsa ever found the words, she thought that Maren might not laugh at her, after all - or if she did, it would be her happy giggle.
That would be for another time. Elsa settled her head in Maren's lap, and Maren unbraided her hair and rubbed her head. Elsa fell asleep like that, utterly content.