"You took them, didn't you?" The young princess asked.

She's been sitting next to the window of her room, silent and immobile since one of the advisors of her father appeared, half-scared, to inform her of the death of her parents. He had told her (threatened her?) that the council was meeting to discuss the fate of their kingdom now that her parents were dead, leaving her as their heir.

The princess didn't care about taking the throne, however. Not on that moment, not when her parents were dead and there wasn't even a body that they could burry. Lost at sea. Died in a shipwreck.

Elsa cried. Cried for a countless time in a fetal position, ignoring the apparition in his room trying to comfort her. Her only friend in all her years of isolation. A traitor.

"Why did you do this?" She said again, without raising her gaze. "I thought we were friends!"

As always, the apparition made no immediate mention of answering her, but Elsa did not care much; at that moment, she didn't feel much curiosity about the strange black haired woman who always visited her. She sighed, resigned, and began getting up when finally a soft but husky voice echoed through the room.

"Not even I can postpone the real moment of one's death," said the woman, her brown eyes glowing due the tears.

Elsa looked at her in amazement for long seconds. She had heard that voice only once during all her life: the day she met her, a few years earlier. When her existence had become an overly heavy burden and death seemed inviting, Elsa jumped from his bedroom window, waiting for a crash that would never happen.

It was then, when time suddenly stopped, that the woman appeared in front of her for the first time: her husky but sweet voice asking her if that was indeed the desire of her heart. Elsa looked into the red glowing eyes of the older woman and, for a inexplicable reason, couldn't say she wanted to die.

Since then, the woman had come to visit her almost every day, and usually Elsa was happy to have her around, even though she had never spoken to her.

After some thought, during the next years, Elsa had decided that the woman was Death. She didn't know why did she think that, but she knew, somehow, she was correct, even though she had never called the Death woman. After all, they were never introduced.

"I'm sorry, Elsa," said the woman, approaching her. For the first time, Elsa noticed how short she was.

"Now they will kill me, because I'm a monster and a monster can't be queen." She said, more resigned than panicked.

The strange apparition stared at her for a moment and tilted her head, looking at Elsa with a curious gaze. She raised her eyebrows and knelt beside the Elsa, stroking her hair gently.

For a moment, Elsa was shocked by the woman's advances. It has been many years since anyone had touched her.

"W— who are you?" The young princess asked after almost a minute of silence, and the other smiled in response.

Before it passed even one second, Elsa suddenly realized that the woman's lips were over hers. It was just a gentle brush of lips, but it made the heart of the young princess started pounding strongly and quickly in an eerily pleasant way.

"You can call me Laura," she answered, smiling sweetly at Elsa, when she pulled away slightly. "I am Death and I will tell you only once: you are not a monster."

When that strange woman who had become Elsa's only friend during all the years of isolation pointed her finger smiling sweetly at her. At the moment when the young princess looked at her, torn between confusion and a deep feeling in her heart that she could not yet name. At this point, for the first time in many years, she believed.