Set in the far future from the film, Fireside Tale
is a Frozen oneshot by Silencia del Umbrae where a person tells their friends about the long-lost kingdom of Arendelle.
A long time ago, there lived two siblings: Queen Elsa and her younger sister Princess Anna. Elsa accidentally created a strong, eternally lasting blizzard with her ice powers, however she was murdered before she can stop it. With the only person who could stop the persistent snowfall dead, Arendelle became uninhabitable. Everyone ends up leaving, everyone except the queen. Anna refused to leave Arendelle. She stayed, still mourning Elsa, until she died.
Now, Arendelle is just an old legend talked about around fires. No one even knows where it is. The snow is too strong for anyone to look for it.
Fireside Tale provides examples of:
- Alternate Universe Fic: Fireside Tales is one of the more popular Frozen AUs where either Elsa or Anna are killed by Hans at the end of the film. Anna went and kissed Kristoff, leaving Elsa open to Hans' attack.
- Dark Fic: Fireside Tale is an AU fic where Arendelle is a long-forgotten kingdom. Legends tell of the young queen being murdered days after her coronation, her sister never getting over her death, and the land never recovering from the blizzard.
- Death Fic: Elsa is killed by Hans, leaving Anna to grieve. As Arendelle becomes uninhabitable because of the Endless Winter, she stays in the castle and mourns until she dies, too.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Used platonically between Elsa and Anna. Elsa's last words to her sister are "Anna... love you, Anna".
- Endless Winter: Like in canon, Elsa accidentally sets off winter in all of Arendelle. Unlike in canon, Hans murders her, and the winter doesn't end with her death. They could never stop it, so everyone had to leave the kingdom, and Arendelle become nothing but an old legend.
- Five Stages of Grief: Subverted. Anna stops at the first stage: "Denial". She grieves, denies Elsa's death, grieves some more, and goes back into denial. Her denial is so persistent that she's soon deemed insane.
- Ontological Inertia: Nope, the winter doesn't end with Elsa's death. If anything, it becomes truly endless.
- Please Wake Up: Anna initially goes into denial over Elsa's death and tries to pretend she's just asleep.When the sled arrived for them, with Kristoff and Sven trailing behind, Anna wouldn't let the soldiers take Elsa from her—she climbed into the sled herself, half-carrying and half-dragging her sister. For someone so slight, Elsa was heavy. She'd have to tell Elsa that when she woke up, tease her a little the way younger sisters were supposed to do. She'd stay until then—she had to stay with her sister, had to be there when Elsa opened her eyes. She had to make sure that Elsa knew she wasn't alone, not now, not ever again. She'd be there for her big sister no matter what.
- Sanity Slippage: Anna grieved over Elsa for the rest of her life. She was considered "mad". Even when Arendelle became uninhabitable and everyone else left, Anna stayed.
- Say My Name: The narrator says when the wind is howling, you can hear the sisters crying and calling each other.
