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"I'm never going back! The past is in the past!"
History
Elsa was born not just a princess of Arendelle but as someone with a rather intriguing power. She could create ice and snow with magic, a gift that was more often seen as a curse. As she grew, so did her powers. In her younger years, she used them primarily for play with her younger sister Anna despite warnings from their parents.
That all changed one night when she and Anna snuck into the ballroom to play when Elsa was eight and her sister five. At first, everything was fine. Elsa conjured piles of snow for them to build snowmen along with freezing the floor so they could skate. However, things got out of hand when during a game of jumping from snow pile to snow pile, Anna started going too fast for Elsa to keep up with. As Elsa struggled to summon new piles of soft snow for Anna to land on, she slipped on her own ice. The icy blast of magic missed her intended target, instead striking Anna squarely in the forehead, knocking her unconscious and turning a lock of her hair white.
Panicked, Elsa called for their mother and father who took them to see the trolls in the mountain. Their leader, Pabbie, was able to remove the ice but had to also take away Anna's memories of Elsa's magic, altering them into normal winter scenes so that the fun of them was left in tact. He then warned Elsa that while her powers were beautiful, they were very dangerous and that fear would be her enemy. He demonstrated this by showing an illusion of Elsa being attacked by an angry mob.
For the safety of their daughters, the king and queen shut the palace gates and reduced the staff. The castle was completely closed down to outsiders, and Elsa's things were moved to a room separate from Anna's so that Elsa wouldn't hurt anyone by accident while she tried to gain control. This led to Elsa staying shut up in her room as she fought her powers, forcing herself to ignore her sister's cajoling to come out and play. Predictably, this caused a rift between the two sisters, Anna believing that Elsa had come to despise her when, in reality, Elsa was just trying to protect her.
This continued for years, Elsa's powers growing ever-stronger despite her and her parents' attempts to get them under control. During this time, she was given a pair of gloves so that her touch wouldn't freeze anything (though whether this was because of her belief that it would work or not is up for debate) but she refused to allow her own parents to hug her for fear that she'd freeze them by accident. The instructions her father gave her during this time would echo through her mind and help set the pattern of her behavior for years to come: "Don't let them in; don't let them see. Be the good girl you have to be. Conceal, don't feel. Don't let them know."
Ten years after the accident with Anna, the king and queen left for an intended two-week trip. However, the ship they rode on sank in a storm, leaving their two princesses parentless. Elsa didn't attend their funeral, staying shut up in her room as her powers raged out of control in her grief, freezing over the entire bedroom.
Though she took over ruling the kingdom, Elsa wouldn't be crowned queen until three years later when she came of age. For her coronation, she agreed to open the gates for a party, inviting representatives of their allies as well to meet her. However, it was to be only for a single day, not daring to leave the gates open for longer out of fear of her powers being discovered. She was nearly discovered during the official ceremony when her bare-handed touch started frosting over the scepter and orb.
At the party, she spent a little time with Anna, even managing to have a little fun in the festivities by deflecting the Duke of Weselton's offer to dance to her sister. She even managed to spend a little time with Anna but had to tell her sister that it wouldn't be a regular occurrence in the future to Anna's disappointment. She spent the rest of the evening at the party, talking with her guests, while Anna spent that time talking with Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. When Anna returned with the prince, Elsa was confused and a bit overwhelmed by Anna and Hans asking her to bless their engagement…after they'd only known each other a few hours. Elsa, however, refused on the grounds that it couldn't be true love as Anna claimed.
Rejecting the pair's pleas, Elsa ordered the party was over and the gates would be shut. She was getting upset due to arguing with her sister, and she didn't want to lose control. However, Anna wouldn't let her leave, grabbing one of her gloves and pulling it off. Elsa continued to try and go but Anna refused to be shut out, claiming that she couldn't keep living as they had all those years and not everyone wanted to be alone like Elsa. As Elsa turned to tell her sister that enough was enough, her powers sprang forth, creating a row of icy spikes to block the partygoers and Anna from getting any closer to the newly-crowned queen.
Panicking, Elsa fled, heading into the crowded courtyard in an attempt to escape. However, her concerned subjects cornered her by unintentionally herding her back against one of the fountains. As her bare hand touched it, the fountain froze, the flowing water turning to ice. She also froze the stairs leading into the party by accident, causing the Duke of Weselton to slip and fall even as he declared her to be a monster. Her subjects backed away in fear, giving her space to run away from them even as Anna called for her to wait.
She hesitated for a moment when reaching the banks of the fjord, the large expanse of water blocking further escape. However, her powers came to her aid, freezing the water as she stepped on it and allowing her to run across the fjord to the mountains. Unknown to her, the ice spread to freeze over all of Arendelle, plunging it into an eternal winter.
She only stopped running when she reached the isolated top of the North Mountain where she decided she would stay. Though she'd given up being around those she cared for, she quickly realized she'd gained something else in return: freedom. Without the fear of hurting others accidentally with her powers, she was free to explore and experiment with them. For the first time in a long time, she could be herself, a fact she reveled in. Without her constant fear holding her back, she started to play with her abilities, even managing the control that had eluded her for so long. She built herself an entire palace made of ice along with conjuring a new dress to wear as she literally let her hair down and vowed to let her fears go.
As she was settling into her new life, Nautilus called her to Wake.
Personality
As royalty raised to rule in her own right rather than as a consort, Elsa often acts calm and poised. Though young, she understands the need for diplomacy even if it means doing something she'd rather not such as having a very public coronation where one misstep could mean revealing her powers and possibly injuring someone by accident. When in her "queen mode", she tends to be very reserved to keep people from getting too close. She does, however, have flashes of mischief such as when she subtly tricked Anna into dancing with the Duke of Weselton in her stead.
Underneath the regal demeanor, however, is a young woman who's lived in fear for most of her life. As much as she wanted to open the door and let Anna in, the memory of striking her sister with her powers held her back. However, as permanent control eluded her, she grew more afraid of harming others because of it, doubting her ability to keep the storm inside herself under control. Justified fear but still fear that was her master for a decade rather than the other way around.
However, this has begun to change. Casting off the shackles of her fear as she threw away her crown, Elsa feels more liberated and confident in her abilities. Without the constant worrying of someone else suffering from her losing control, she's begun to experiment and play again like when she was a child. Allowing her powers and, in essence, herself to run wild has lifted her spirits significantly, allowing for her more fun-loving side to shine through.
Regardless of whatever mode she's in, Elsa remains caring towards her family and her subjects in the best ways she knows how. After all, she's willing to isolate herself for the protection of others despite how such actions might appear to those same people. When she learns that she has plunged Arendelle into an eternal winter, she's honestly horrified and distressed at what she's unleashed on the people she'd tried to save from herself.
Abilities
Elsa is the Snow Queen of Arendelle. Ever since she was born, she had the ability to conjure ice and snow using only magic. She can also directly channel this power through her hands and feet to create things such as a snow flurry with a wave of her hand or freeze the ground beneath her with a stamp of her foot. Though for much of her life she wore gloves, covering her hands doesn't actually stop her powers since after being captured and returned to Arendelle, she is able to break free of the manacles covering her hands using her ice powers. However, it's possible that her strong enough belief in it was why she was able to keep from freezing everything she touched when she was wearing gloves.
She can create living snowmen to do her bidding (or, in Olaf's case, to wander around as is his want). She also was able to create an entire castle made of ice and change her own wardrobe without seeming to get even slightly fatigued. Ice sculptures are easy for her to grow as decorations as well.
In combat, she can create shields with her ice such as blocking an arrow bolt shot at her. She also can move her ice creations to push around her opponents, controlling how they approach her. Offensively, she's made a barrier with icicles for spikes to pin an opponent to a wall. Since she can conjure and hurl snowballs with ease, it's possible that she might be able to do similar things with icicles.
Of course, such awesome power comes with a very strong weakness.
Elsa's magic seems to be largely psychosomatic, very likely the result of years trying to suppress her powers rather than embrace them and allow them to become an extension of herself. When she's happy, her powers are playful and whimsical. When angered, they take forms more suited to combat. In cases like these, she has the greatest amount of control. However, in situations where she is sad or afraid, her magic will follow its own will, even warping the creations she'd made herself when she'd been in control. Such is the case when she tried to escape back to the North Mountain after being captured, her fear generating a great blizzard and that same blizzard freezing when she seemed to have killed her own sister.
At the moment, Elsa believes that while she has the power to freeze things, unfreezing them is impossible for her. What she doesn't realize at the moment of Waking is just how much her emotions play into her powers: She does have the ability to thaw ice and snow just as much as generate it as long as she uses her powers with love in her heart.
Relationships
Loki Laufeyson - Her teacher in helping her control her powers properly. She knows and respects him as the Loki of her people's legends.
Five - A former assassin mercenary who has started to become Elsa's best friend despite their differences. She reminds Elsa a lot of her sister Anna.
