Maybe it was the hot water, maybe it was whatever part of her subconscious that tormented her in her sleep, but Elsa dreamt of fire. As soon as her eyes slid shut and the dreams came, she knew herself to be asleep and dreaming, because she always recognized the odd sharpness of her own dreams. There was always that same indistinct landscape in the background, but this time the world was mostly fire. Gasping, whirling around to try and see if she was surrounded by it, Elsa felt her heart speed up, tendrils of panic sliding seductively up her legs, wrapping around her as close as a lover. She found no exit, she was completely surrounded by the fire and it's crackling warmth.
"So what brings you to Redcliffe?" A sweet, youthful voice asked her, and a lithe shape took form, stepping out of the fire. It was Roran Aghas, but her eyes were blazing as Elsa had not seen them when awake. "It's a pleasure to meet you." The voice said again, it's youthfulness now more menacing paired with the burning eyes. Elsa stared at it, unable to escape but also unable to move, she was waiting for the girl to burst into flame, it seemed like it could happen at any moment. Maybe then she could flee. "It'll take a few minutes for this to heat up." A thin hand gestured around them, Elsa staring at it with horror. Her dreams were usually disquieting, but this one was quick proving to be one of the worst she had had in many days. Trying to back away a few steps, to put a little distance between herself and Roran's burning eyes, Elsa could instead feel the heat of fire behind her, the flames reaching hungrily for her.
Then suddenly she started saying things that Elsa had not heart her say when awake, things that chilled her to the bone. "I will never be your friend, not truly. I owe you a debt and I intend to repay it. Now you will never be cold again." And with a forceful shove, she pushed Elsa into the flames.
She found her way to wakefulness like a drowning man finding his way to the surface, one moment surrounded by a burning inferno and in the next sitting in a tub of warm water. She knew at once that she was just as trapped as in the dream, the sturdy wood of the bathing tub all around her, hindering any effective flight. The sense of urgency and panic transplanted itself into that part of her unconscious that protected her even when she had no concious control over what magic she did and did not do. One moment she was looking down at her knees, fair skin reddened from the hot water and cleaner than it had been in a long time, and the next second she was looking down at something quite different.
Lifting a hand, the panic subsiding in the face of this startling development, Elsa stared at the transformation her own skin had gone through. What had once been smooth and fair and human, was now dry and uneven, a grey mottled with brownish flecks, wholly unrecognisable as human at all. Her hand was no heavier to lift than usual, but she could recognize that like this she must be sturdier, less likely to get hurt or killed. It would have been a blazingly wonderful revelation, if it had not been for the horrible dream and the complications that were now sure to follow. As soon as she had thought so, the greyness evaporated, as if disappearing into her skin again, not leaving any mark at all, but a slight shift inside her; new weariness settling lightly onto her shoulders again. Turning her wide eyed faced to Roran, Elsa tried to smile in a calming manner, as if to assure her that nothing odd had happened at all. It was hard to look at the girl and not search for flames burning in her eyes. "Let sleeping mages lie," she said lightly, trying to sit up straighter. "I beg your pardon, I shouldn't have fallen asleep." That at least, was nothing but the truth.