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*
At sun's rising, the guards demand the name and intentions of who brazenly enters the castle-gates. Their weapons raised.
"My queen, she has been escorted to the throne-room as ordered," Gerda informs her, fussing over Anna's unpinned and sleep-mussed hair.
Letting out a huff, Anna frowns. "Who is this? Who could possibly be upsetting everyone so?"
A soft, worrying tut.
"The queen's... sister... is what she told the guards," Gerda admits, unmoved by Anna's sudden, incredulously harsh laugh.
*
Every Arendellian knows of the Two Tragedies.
One, being of Anna's predecessors... her parents, King Agnarr and Queen Iduna... and their deaths on a ship in the midst of a sea-storm when Anna turned fifteen and making her the succession. And the other... their heir, their firstborn daughter dying so young. Anna's older sister.
Before Anna can hope to demand an answer, one of the guards curses. And lunges.
Ice forms, preventing an attack.
"Enough!" Anna orders, hurrying past and approaching the solid, silvery barrier around the woman before pausing. With a confident finger-flick, melting a hole, Anna's stranger beckons Anna inside. "You have magic..." Anna breathes, wonderstruck. "Do you come from Ahtohallan?"
"I was abandoned within the Enchanted Forest for harming you when we were children. Mother's people, Northuldrans, raised me."
Anna's eyes narrow, going wet. "That can't be true..."
She hiccups as Anna's stranger smiles benevolently and presents Queen Iduna's scarf. The one Anna remembers her sister wearing. The one missing. Queen Iduna never sang again after Elsa... Anna stares, stunned, as fingers stroke Anna's hair-streak matching Elsa's own hair.
They embrace. What feels like ice-flecks fall, warming against Anna's tear-stained cheek.
Rosy-pale lips touch against her jaw.
"Oh, Elsa..."
*