Chapter Text
Elsa may not have had a nose like her family’s, but even to her poor one, nothing smelled right. Gone was the subtle bite of cold that flowed through the air. Instead, she smelled the leaves. It wasn’t as if there were none on her mountain, but these filled the air far more than home’s did.
Her fingers gripped Marrow’s fur even tighter. His ear twitched. “You will be fine,” he said, his voice pitches as soft as he could possibly make it.
It was a wolf thing. Their mouths and throats weren’t built for it the way a human’s was.
Runvir nudged her hand with his snout. “We can help you find shelter before we go,” he offered.
Elsa wanted to say yes, desperately. Here she was, miles and miles from home, and once her brothers left, she would be alone for the first time in years. Her ice thrummed beneath her fingertips, but she shoved it down. She was too close to humans to risk them finding out.
Elsa is younger. Maybe twelve, maybe not. All she knows is that her body has started changing and that if she saw her reflection, she’d surely resemble her mother more than the child she’d been.
Being out here, a leg dangling off the rock by their den, was freeing in a way her old life had never been. The old Elsa was bound by rules and expectations. Now, those did not apply to her. Anna, as soon as she’d been old enough to understand, had swooned at the thought of princes and romance. Elsa would wrinkle her nose in response. A prince only had a place in her life because she was a princess. No way did she ever want to kiss one, though she’d have to at their wedding.
Princes had no place among wolves.
Mother chuckled whenever she gushed about this new fact of life. Tonight, a new amusement danced in her yellow eyes. “You protest so much for one with no experience. Perhaps one day you will take a mate, perhaps not.”
Elsa’s stomach churned. Surrounded by wild animals had given her a new understanding of the facts of life, and Mother had filled in the rest. “It need not be a prince,” she’d told Elsa.
“Princes, knights, court...people…” Elsa shrugged, “I don’t need a boy.”
The amusement grew. “Whoever said it needed to be a boy?” She stretched out, her nails scraping against the stone. Settling down, she continued. “I just don’t want you to lose sight of what you could be. I don’t want you to deny yourself out of fear.”
In the distance, Marrow and Runvir howled. Elsa and Mother howled back.
Elsa trusted Mother, but she never wanted to put those words to the test.
The air grew heavier, thicker, the closer they got to the edge of the territory. You can do this , Elsa told herself, it is your purpose.
Runvir whimpered. "This is wear we leave you. Unless…"
Elsa sighed. “No, I have to do this alone.”
“We will be near if you need us,” Marrow said. “Call for us, and we will come.”
Elsa placed a kiss on each of their snouts, took a deep breath, and entered the Northuldra territory.