Chapter fifteen

A one-room castle

Just how long could an immortal being sulk, anyway?

Anna lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking. On her bedside table sat her latest finished book, the eighth she had completed since they last spoke. In half an hour, Oliver would come by with lunch, and she would ask him to bring her a new one. Until then, it was just her and her thoughts. The door wasn't locked, but save for an occasional jog to maintain her health, what was the point? No lessons were waiting for her out there.

She had not seen Elsa since that night. Any message Elsa might have for her was conveyed through Oliver, and it had been made clear that this was strictly one-way. It was impossible to know for sure, since she still had no idea where Elsa resided within this massive castle, but Anna suspected she was rarely leaving her room, either. The rest of the castle might as well not even exist to either of them. She had considered going on another raid just to let off some steam, but she wasn't really that mad, anyway. Hurt, maybe. Confused, definitely.

It was still so surreal. Elsa, an elder vampire, had fallen for her. But instead of saying so, she had decided to keep it to herself, before lashing out at her in a fit of impotent jealousy, then running and hiding away. In all the stories she had heard of vampires, from the church or otherwise, nothing like this had ever happened. How could she have known any of this would happen, and how was she supposed to go forward from this?

Yes, Elsa had been flirtatious and playful, but that had started the moment she'd walked in the door. Of course she was going to toy with a human that didn't want to kill her, she had every reason to. And she had grown markedly kinder since then, but that wasn't necessarily romantic in nature – hell, she wouldn't have even started this venture if she thought it would be impossible to befriend her. Elsa played with her cards close to her chest, that was just the way she had learned to live. There was no reason to suspect her budding attraction to her.

I've said that to myself every single day, for three weeks straight. Obviously, I'm not going to convince myself of it.

There must have been some clues she could've picked up on. Some indication that things were changing between them. It had been no trouble at all to sense it with Kristoff, and yet this had totally blindsided her. Granted, Elsa took more effort to hide her emotions, but the signs must've been there. She had carried her up to her room twice, for god's sake!

I was unconscious one of those times and woozy the other. Yes, I felt happy in her warm embrace, but that doesn't tell me what she was thinking.

Elsa guarded her emotions at all times, as if she wore a mask made of solid stone. This was no doubt due to centuries of mistreatment by other humans, so it was not unreasonable. She also liked to be in power, in a position of dominance. Maybe she felt that admitting feelings for her would lower her somehow, as if being the first to speak would be an inherently subservient gesture. But what, then? Was she just supposed to guess what Elsa was thinking? To assume that her feelings were-

Wait, warm embrace?

Elsa's skin was cold to the touch. She had discovered as much when she carried Elsa earlier that night. She had no blood to warm her body, so how could she have felt warm that night? She must've been remembering this wrong.

…Unless Elsa had cast a warming haze. Diminished as she had been, it would be no trouble at all to cast that weak fire spell in such a small vicinity around herself. But vampires didn't crave heat like humans. The only reason to do that would be to make the person she was carrying feel more comfortable…

Anna put a hand to her head and groaned.

So there were signs. I've just been too oblivious to notice them.

She was still walking in circles on this. She could spend weeks poring over her memories, trying to determine just how clueless she had been in the past, but it wouldn't help her take a single step forward.

Now that I know about her feelings for me, how do I go forward from here?

Well, the answer to that depended on a lot of factors. Many related to Elsa's actions, which had so far been rather discouraging. But the one she should be able to answer herself was perhaps the most important one.

Do I feel the same way about Elsa?

And there she went, off from one spiraling unanswerable question to another. Accepting Elsa's flaws enough to live with and learn from her was one thing, but to pursue…this…would require much more stringent standards. Could she learn to love someone who killed people on a weekly basis, even if she had good cause in her own mind? Someone who viewed her own humanity as a weakness and walled it away? Someone who had insulted and demeaned her for the crime of sleeping with someone who wasn't her? Someone who now hid away in the recesses of her castle out of shame and jealousy?

Then she thought of Elsa delicately carrying her to bed, choosing to warm her body purely for comfort. She thought of the fiery woman fighting by her side, protecting her from injuries she feigned ambivalence to. She thought of her gracious host, smirking at her quest but indulging it anyway, to her own detriment. She thought of guarded smiles and glimpses of admiration, difficult to coax out but a great pleasure to see. Of brief glimpses of her heart, hints at trauma she felt compelled to soothe. Of slow progress, but a timeless being who seemed, despite everything, to want to change, after all was said and done. Of barbed words that had gradually softened and turned to honey. Of a woman she respected, even admired in some ways.

Anna glanced in her mirror, and was only a little surprised to see the resolve in her face.

Well, whether I could fall for her is moot. It seems I already have.

This rush of clarity spurred her into action. She swung her feet to the side, then stepped out of bed. Knowledge of what she had to do filled her with vigor where she had before been paralyzed by confusion and inaction.

It seems my questions are resolved. Now it's up to her actions to determine what happens next.

Elsa was still secluded in her own room, likely drowning herself in disappointment and self-loathing. Held hostage by her own stubbornness, needing to be saved from herself. Well, she'd saved people from vampires before.

The question was, how to get to her? She had precisely one link to Elsa, and it was a soulless thrall. A simple creature with simple orders was one of the most unmovable objects in the world. He couldn't possibly be reasoned with.

But maybe he could be outwitted.

xxxxxxx

knock knock

"Coming, coming," Anna said, trying to make her voice sound natural. She knew any kind of subterfuge would be impossible for Oliver to detect, but her nerves would not be quelled so easily. She was, by all accounts, a terrible liar.

She opened the door to reveal Oliver carrying a tray of fruits and meats. Despite the other changes, the quality of meals had not gone down in these past weeks.

"Your meal, miss Anna," he said, passing it into her hands.

"Thank you, Oliver," Anna said, placing it on her end table. She was careful to move in such a way that he wouldn't notice that she was wearing her pack. "How is Elsa doing?"

"She is fine," he responded, the same answer he gave every time she asked.

"Yes, yes, that's good to hear," Anna said. "Has she been feeding lately?"

Oliver tilted his head to the side. "Feeding?"

"Yes, traveling to the nearby village to feed," Anna said. "I haven't seen her disembarking to do so all week, and I worry she may have forgotten."

Oliver paused. He appeared to be struggling with deciding how much information he was allowed to give her. "It is…possible she is traveling by other means."

"It's possible?" Anna repeated, hands on her hips. "You mean you don't know?"

"I do not need to know, miss Anna," Oliver said.

"You're supposed to serve her, to protect her if needs be," Anna said. "Those are your orders, correct?"

"That is correct," he said.

"Then if she's forgotten to feed, it is your obligation to remind her, isn't it? To keep her healthy?" Anna demanded.

She had been kind to Oliver in all of their previous engagements, but now she tried to assume the forceful tone Elsa often commanded her thralls with. Though without soul, their brains still had to function to let them move without Elsa directly controlling them. Thus, they could think, and thus they could be confused, as Oliver certainly was now.

"I…suppose," he said after some time.

"Well, you'd better go and ask her, hadn't you?" Anna said.

"Miss Anna, Elsa has forbidden me from carrying messages from you to her," the thrall protested.

"This isn't a message from me to her, it's me reminding you of something you should've already been doing," Anna said. "You don't need to tell me the answer, but you do need to ask, or else you've neglected your duty."

Oliver contemplated this further. Anna worried she might've laid it on a bit thick. He was still sworn to follow her orders as long as they didn't conflict with Elsa's, and that was really all she needed to convince him of. But it was done now. All that was left to do was wait while second after agonizing second ticked by.

"Very well," he finally said. "I will ask."

Anna concealed the relief from her face. "Get to it, then. Chop chop." She closed the door, then quickly pressed her ear to it. The thrall was not light of foot, so it was easy to tell when he began to walk away a few seconds later.

Now we count to twenty.

She counted off twenty seconds – fifty heartbeats – before quietly easing the door open. Oliver was halfway down the hall to her right, moving slowly and steadily.

All right, just like I've practiced.

Anna crouched down, feeling conspicuous in the center of the hallway but knowing that Oliver wouldn't turn around unless he heard something loud. Like her missing this jump, for instance. She sprung off the floor, into the darkness of the rafters above.

She landed on the small metal platform feet first, though she planted a hand on it to stabilize herself anyway. The next platform was just barely visible in the gloom, but she made the well-practiced jump easily. Before long, she was easily keeping pace with Oliver below her, hopping along the precarious high path.

Her curiosity about how Elsa had followed her on her first venture into the castle's halls had born fruit a few weeks earlier. Surely, she hadn't crawled on the ceiling like a spider, and she had hung down from something. Indeed, this was her secret – a series of platforms hanging from the ceiling, suspended high enough to be enshrouded by darkness. Most of the halls were lit by candles halfway up the wall, likely for this reason. It must've been something she'd installed for the purpose of following intruders, leaping above their heads unseen and tormenting them without being given away by a telltale wing flap. Anna couldn't resist trying to learn how to walk upon them as Elsa had, and after a few falls, she'd gotten quite good at it.

In this manner, she now stalked Oliver, following him down hallways she'd never been through. The monsters along the way paid no mind to either him on the ground or her high above. The two of them progressed deeper and deeper into the castle, Oliver and his unseen chaperone. Closer and closer to Elsa.

I'm coming, Elsa, she thought. Whether you want me to or not.