Cold
Whumptober prompt 9: Shackled
This is almost just basically from Frozen where Elsa is locked into a cell, and that was the thing I thought of when I saw the prompt. I realise now I’ll probably have to classify this as Frozen fanfiction and that...doesn’t sound too good. Oh gosh. I think I’ve drifted off from the prompt and it isn’t really whump i guess...but anyway..
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She opens her eyes, the place is familiar. The hard stone floor doesn’t surprise her, and neither does the weight of the metal shackles that cover her hands, or the sharp yank of the chains attached that keeps her from moving too far.
She’s been here before, locked herself in for a week to see how well it’d hold. She had a purpose in mind when designing it, protect others from herself.
She can barely see through the window, it’s frosted over in white, the outside stark, bright blue that hurts her eyes and leave flashes behind her eyelids. She walks toward the window, and the furthest she can get is still twelve steps from the wall, and the cup-like metal that covers her hands are still as tight as before. Everything is the same, she lets herself breathe a little. She feels better, somehow. Nothing’s changed. So this cell still can contain her.
It has to contain her, that was the whole purpose of the cell. It had to hold her away when nothing else could, or she’d bring nothing but danger to everyone. The week she spent in here left her more assured. Shaking, aching, but assured. Because she knew then, that if she was too weak, if she was one day to become precisely what she feared, then this cell could protect everyone from her.
Something is different now though, because she can’t remember why she is here. She didn’t lock herself up, and if she didn’t…then it meant someone had. And if someone had, her chests tightens, it means she posed a threat. Her mind is reeling as she drags herself to a corner, where she slumps against. So it had come then. The time that she’d become that person, that witch. Someone called it sorcery not two days ago, and she can hear what will happen if she wasn’t locked up: their queen would be a witch. She’s a danger now, even more so that before
That week told her the cell could hold her. How she knew was because not once did her hands start freezing, nor did a single drop of water turn into ice. The people were safe. She’d found a way to contain the monster inside.
Her arms ached, her shoulders screaming from the weight of her shackles. When she removed them her fingers were cramped, red patches around the pale skin where they pressed too tight against each other, against the insides, which she never bothered to get it smoothened. Why bother? Someone—no, something like her didn’t need to be comfortable. Her wrists were chaffed, the skin red and raw and peeling back in ugly strips. She feels her breath become shallow at it, the red suddenly brighter, redder, sharper, the pain intensifies and suddenly she thinks: I never asked for this.
She can remember that time, when she winced with every movement, delicate wrists rubbing against blunt metal for hours on end. She can remember how her breath quickened, how her thoughts spiralled, how the metal seemed like it was burning into her hands and into her bones and melting her skin off— and she’d find herself in a pool of blood, spilling out from her hands like the ice would, staining the stone floor and because it was her, she was dangerous and she was a monster, it would melt the walls of the cell and she’d hurt people and she’d be forever a disappointment and too weak and still controlled by that cursed ice that leaks from her, and there was nothing she could do.
And for a moment she can see it happening now, just woken up in the cell, with no idea of why she was here except that she must have been hurting people and someone had to lock her up to control her because couldn’t even do it herself.
Her mind keeps going back to that week, that terrible, terrible week. A hundred and sixty-eight hours spent in there, arms heavy but her heart heavier as she was left alone with her thoughts, the room too small to allow for any freedom from her own head. It was suffocating, and it’s choking her now, and when she looks down at her hands, are they turning blue? Or was it herself playing tricks on herself again? But then it grows, flowers of ice bloom brighter and brighter and she hears creaking, cracking, that sound before everything blows to pieces when she is still too weak and lets the curse take over as the ice now covers the entire length of the chain, up the walls, the stone that she painstaking accessed a long time ago. In the white blue shards of ice she sees red spilling out, the cold ice is suddenly cold blood, because she’s a monster. She can only watch as the ice keeps creeping up the walls and around the window, the hairline cracks on the glass just before it shatters and she thinks no no no no no no and tears of frustration are running down her face, she is still useless. She tries to hold it in, to keep it all in but she can’t move her hands and she’s struggling desperately, please don’t. But then the shackles burst open and the chain drops to her feet, her hands are the same as that time, but redder and more tender and raw, her fingers still jammed into position, the skin on the back of her hands and rubbed raw till the skin practically comes off in long ribbons and she wants to scream, to cry, because what can she do? She’s powerless to this curse, she always has been, and always will be.
