Anna wasn't blind. She could see the sadness, see the loneliness, and she could see that being in Arendelle was killing Elsa. Anna had never felt freer, but she was coming to realize that her freedom came at the cost of another's. Her sister was fading. Her eyes were lined red with old tears, her eyes fell to the ground each time she had to present herself in front of the court, and her hands shook with grief each time the towns people shied away from her touch.

"Elsa."

Anna feared it with every fiber of her being, so she ignored it as much as she could. She dragged her sister along to dances, beamed up at her during her speeches and spent hours talking with her well into the night, but she still saw it. Heard the cries when her sister thought she'd left to go back to her room for the night, saw the ice that frosted small details of everything Elsa touched when she thought no one was looking. Anna could feel her sister slipping away from her with each second, and as the summer faded, she began to panic as Elsa spent more time at the window. She closed the shades in Elsa's room, and had every fireplace roaring to warm the castle and keep away the frost. Hoping in vain that her sister would forget the mountain, forget the snow.

"Elsa, please, don't."

It had been when Elsa began to journey out more of her own volition that Anna could feel the panic choking her. She'd seen Elsa in the snow, late at night when everyone else had returned to their homes to warm themselves for the next day. Anna had trudged into the dark cold and watched her sister let the snow fall on her and stare into the sky, unaffected by the cold. She'd called to her then, and when Elsa had smiled, truly smiled for the first time in a whole year, Anna had cried.

"We've just started to be sisters again!"

Anna was sobbing as she ran after her sister. Elsa was leaving, Elsa was leaving, Elsa was leaving. "Elsa!" She could feel the hysteria as her sister continued on. Anna stumbled, reaching out for her last living family as the snow froze her skin. "Don't go, please!" She almost fell again as she hurried to her feet, gathering snow in her hands in an attempt to catch her sisters attention. "Do…do you want to build a snowman?" The familiar words of desperation coming out in gasp as she tried to catch her breath. Her sight blurred with tears and she could no longer tell where Elsa was in the chaos of the snow.

Hiccupped sobs broke into a surprised 'oh' when she felt a hand, cold as ice, on her cheek and a kiss on her forehead.

"Goodbye, Anna."

Anna was not blind. She could see the snow, she could see her tears fall, and she could see the happiness on her sister's face as she stood in the cold. In her first natural winter outside the gates of Arendelle, Anna cried over a sister she never had time to get to know, and she never would.