Fanfiction: "Elsa of Corona" : Chapter 35 Part 1

[butterflydreaming]

For part 4 my current multi-chapter fic, I'm going to be posting in-progress updates to this journal. The chapters will go up on Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net after completion.

Instead of being sequestered in her room, Elsa is sent by her parents to her Uncle and Aunt, the King and Queen of Corona. King Thomas and Queen Primrose are thunderstruck at the idea of caring for the girl, since their own daughter, Rapunzel, was kidnapped as a baby and is still missing.

Elsa and Anna write letters to each other while Elsa grows up in Corona and Anna grows up in a castle full of people and life. Away from the anxiety exacerbated by her parents, Elsa has more control of her secret ice powers.

Elsa's fate to become the Snow Queen, however, is not so easily escaped.

Full work through Chapter 34

Elsa put on a calm demeanor. She made herself smile. She pushed the inner voice shouting self-recrimination away from the her toner of her speaking voice. She kept up her side the conversation with an occasional word in response to Rapunzel's merry chatter. 
 

Rapunzel exclaimed over the royal bath, as much over the generous size of the tub as over the pump system that brought the water in and heated it for bathing. She pelted Elsa with questions while the big, deep tub filled. Elsa answered them as thoroughly as she was able, though her mind still tumbled over the near disaster.
 

"You can bathe first," Elsa urged. She had been too selfish already. If she hadn't put her desire to train first, she could have chosen a safe kind of exercise inclusive of Rapunzel. If Elsa hadn't been so self-absorbed, she chided herself, she would have seen Rapunzel mirroring her sword moves sooner.
 

The ice sword had seemed to be such a good solution as a way to focus and control her magic, but it was dangerous. Of course it was dangerous: she was dangerous. A sword was always a weapon, regardless of its precision, and she was always a monster, regardless of her control. She had been fooling herself because the lie got her through the days.
 

Rapunzel escaped the borrowed exercise clothes and slithered under the hot water and bubbles shoulder deep. On the previous evening, her bath had been a large metal tub brought in to the room. Elsa, though she had rushed to clean up, dress, and return to the newly found princess, had made use of the royal bath without thinking to offer it to Rapunzel.
 

"This is the best!" Rapunzel sighed. She lifted her hair mostly up and out of the way while she stretched under the water. "If I had one of these, I would stay in it all day. Get in." She motioned for Elsa to join her. "There's lots of room. We'll both fit!"
 

Elsa demured. "I can wait." She picked up Rapunzel's discarded clothes, tidied them, and set them aside. 
 

Rapunzel made a stern face. "I can hear your tummy growling from here. Let's get washed up fast so we can have breakfast."
 

"I don't mind waiting, really."
 

"Then I'll hurry," Rapunzel said. She began vigorously scrubbing with a washcloth.
 

Expressing a small sigh, Elsa undressed, put her clothes with the ones from Rapunzel, and carried two large towels closer to the tub. She hadn't bathed with anyone since she and Anna had both been very young. She hadn't needed to undress in front of anyone else since leaving Arendelle. 
 

She eased into the water, keeping to an end not to crowd Rapunzel. She began her scrubbing her arms and neck with efficiency. "You do have one of these," she said. "This one. This is all yours, Rapunzel."
 

"I keep forgetting," Rapunzel answered. She closed her eyes, leaning back until her neck rested against the rim. "This is yours, too. You can stretch out." Without opening her eyes, she smiled. She stretched further and poked her big toe into the side of one of Elsa's feet. 
 

Elsa jolted. She stared at Rapunzel, unable to hide her shock at the contact.
 

"Sorry," Rapunzel said quickly, her playful smile vanishing. She pulled her legs in, bending her knees.
 

"I don't like being touched," Elsa said. She rinsed herself off in the flow of fresh water and removed herself from the bathtub; she had made good use of the time and was satisfactorily washed. She wrapped herself in a towel. She used one end of the towel to dry off her face and arms. She could feel Rapunzel watching her. "You don't need to apologize," she told Rapunzel. "I know it was harmless." She glanced behind and saw that Rapunzel leaned her arms across the edge of the tub, with her cheek rested against her arm. Rapunzel observed her as if Elsa were a cloud or a sunrise.

Rapunzel said, in soft voice, "Mother has rule about being dressed all the time. She yells at me if I don't have clothes on, even if I'm wrapped in a sheet or towel. I have to wash clothes when Mother isn't home. At home, we don't have a clever system for water like the one." She swished a hand through the bubble foam. "I came up with a way to collect rainwater, but most of the water for cooking and washing has to come up with Mother by bucket."
 

She rose out of the bath and dried her body with a towel. She didn't bother to cover her body for modesty while she dried. "I'm not going to miss that," she said, a note of iron in her voice.

ooo