A Lot To Talk About
Elsa sat there, staring down at her hands. For once, for once it wasn't her fault. And it hurt so much worse. She didn't know why. Wouldn't that have been a relief? To not have fault in this should have been a small weight off her shoulders. But it wasn't guilt that raided her conscience; it was helplessness. It wasn't her fault and she could do anything about it.
She looked up at the knock at her office door.
"You may come in," she spoke softly.
Her advisor opened the door and closed it behind him, but did not step any closer.
"I was summoned, Your Highness?" he asked.
Elsa nodded and took a deep breath, gaining some composure.
"Indeed. I would like the public to know..." Elsa took a deep breath, "I am not applying for another suitor."
Her advisor looked at her with wide eyes.
"But, Your Highness, to remain a maiden it's... it's against the law."
Elsa nodded.
"I am aware. I will not remain unmarried; I will be a widow."
"Your Majesty, you were not to be wed for another moon," her advisor tried.
Elsa looked at him and said with words suddenly becoming very unsteady, "As I am also aware. But you are allowed to marry a husband that is... no longer living if engaged."
"Your Highness, you cannot give birth to an heir if you do not proceed in taking another marriage."
"Anna is five months away from child, not to mention younger than me. If I were to die, she, her husband, and/or her children should take my place."
The advisor shook his head, but said nothing more on the subject. The queen had made up her mind. Not to mention, the room was beginning to become a cold that only her Majesty would conjure.
"I will announce it to the public, Your Highness," the advisor said, bowing and turning to leave.
When her advisor opened the door, Anna came tumbling in onto her knees. Elsa opened her eyes and leapt off of her seat to help her up. The advisor was doing so when she came into close perimeters, but Elsa shook her head.
"I will take it from here. My sister and I seem to have a lot we need to discuss."
The advisor nodded and Anna was on her feet as he left the room.
Elsa looked at her sister and sighed.
"How very graceful of you, Anna. Is the, at least, baby alright?"
Anna smiled and nodded.
"Oh yeah! She's fine." Anna looked down and patted her slightly swollen stomach.
Elsa raised an eyebrow.
"She? I thought you and Kristoff were going to see the trolls next week?"
Anna shrugged unabashedly.
"Well, yeah, but, I can just feel it, you know?"
Elsa agreed wordlessly and sat Anna and herself at her desk across from each other.
Anna shifted in her seat and failed at her attempt to make eye contact with her sister.
"So... you're still getting married to him, huh?"
Elsa nodded. There was a silence between them and Anna looked at the papers on the desk uncomprehend ably.
"You know, everyone thought you were crazy for asking for all the age eligible male peasants to attend to palace as suitors. I didn't. I thought it was amazing and brave and really, really wonderful," Anna went into deeper thought and laughed, "And when you chose him, oh, I thought that the people were going to start an angry mob with pitchforks."
Elsa looked up at Anna and smiled a watery smile.
Anna continued, "They didn't even understand. Why would a sophisticated queen like her want to marry a hooligan peasant like him? But I knew."
Elsa's chest wracked into sobs and she took out her handkerchief.
"Elsa, I'm am awful at giving those heartfelt statements," Anna laughed in the middle of her sentence, "But I'm going to say that, right now, you could go marry a... a... a frog if you said you loved him, and I would be at the wedding throwing those little pink flower petals with the perfume on them and." Anna stopped herself, "Wait. Off topic. Elsa, he-you-I... Just... Elsa, did you love him?"
Elsa was having trouble breathing, and hiccups were contaminating her every breath. Her eyes were red, and Anna was having trouble believing that the servants in the kitchen weren't rushing in with knives in their hands, ready to fight off any intruder.
Anna waited a beat before prompting, "Elsa..."
Elsa threw down her handkerchief and covered her face with her hands.
"Yes! Oh yes, I loved... love him!"
Anna stood up from her seat and comforted her sister in the only way she knew. By hugging her. Elsa's shoulders hit her chest a few times, but it didn't matter. Anna had Kristoff and her baby. Elsa had a letter, crinkled up in her hands. He wasn't very serious, so the letter was silly more than anything else. But Elsa didn't go for the romantic ones (and neither did Anna). Elsa wasn't for the stuck up type, or the arrangement type. Elsa wouldn't say it at first, but, deep down, she wanted to love. And Elsa loved him.
So Elsa could go ahead and be Queen Elsa Overland, wife of the deceased-by-drowning Jackson Overland.
.:.:.
Jack wasn't a huge fan being summoned, even for guardian matters. But duty was duty and he serving as the Guardian of Fun meant going to these things, no matter how much of a pain it could be. He was the last to arrive, despite being the closest to the perimeters. Jack didn't mind. He was usually fashionably late (hey, girls weren't the only ones who could say that).
Just to annoy him, Jack took place next to Bunnymund and poked him with his staff, adding in a blast of cold air for extra measure.
"So, Kangaroo, what's up?"
Bunnymund raised a boomerang to that and growled, but North intervened.
"Jack, look, it's a new guardian."
Jack looked at North in disbelief. Jack was excited, certainly, but a new guardian meant a new enemy. And Pitch's defeat wasn't even a year ago.
"You're kidding, right?" he asked.
"Well, why don't you take a look for yourself, mate?" Bunnymund taunted, pointing to Man in Moon's crystal (that didn't sound right. Jack would have to make up another name).
Jack looked into the crystal and his breathing slowed. If Jack weren't already dead, he would say he could hear his heart beating. Just looking at Her confused and punched him.
"Stop. Stop playing with me! It's not funny!" Jack cried, irrationally slamming down his staff, creating thin ice on the tiled floor.
All of the Guardians looked up at Jack with utter confusion on their faces. Tooth looked like she wanted to say something, Sandy was trying to (unsuccessfully) say something, and Bunnymund was sneering, but North was the only one that actually said something.
"Jack, my boy! This is Guardian business! Only you would play such jokes."
Jack nodded rapidly. Jokes were what he played.
"So, you're trying to get back at me. Is that what this is? How did you know? Tooth?" Jack demanded. He hadn't been this peeved since he had initially been assigned as a Guardian, and those were under completely different circumstances, from when he didn't have any memories.
Tooth shook her head.
"No, Jack. I don't look at the memories," she assured softly.
Baby Tooth tilted her head to the side, trying to figure out what was going on.
Jack looked back at the new Guardian and sat on his staff, closer to the crystal.
"So this is real. It's really her, huh? Can't be. Her last name's— " Jack thought back and widened his eyes, a sad soft smile playing his face "Oh."
He'd forgotten you could marry a dead suitor. But it was usually only because they had another kingdom they needed to merge or had possessions valuable to the family. That wasn't the case.
.:.:.
She had demanded that only peasants from her kingdom attend to be considered as suitors. Of course, Jack's family made sure Jack was to go to try and "give him a chance at a better life".
Jack hadn't liked it, of course, but his sister seemed to adore the idea. She giggled about seeing the castle and meeting the Snow Queen in her sparkly ice dress. Jack figured it was a one in a hundred chance he would be picked.
She merely looked at him as she looked as all the others; not bored, but not exactly interested. It all changed when his sister peeked around his legs to see her. Everyone in the crowd gasped, but Jack merely held her to his chest to make sure she didn't see the crowd watching her and proclaimed:
"This is my sister Pippa, Pippa say hi." Pippa did say hi, but no one in the crowd could hear it, except for the two men next to him and Her, "She will be with me during this, so pretend she is," Jack waved his hands in the air, "Invisible... Your Majesty."
The crowd gasped once again. Jack had thoroughly disrespected her by both mimicking magic and speaking to her so blatantly. She, however, only smiled and nodded.
"Very well."
With that, she moved on.
There was a feast in the hall. Usually, the feast was to allow Her time to consider, but she had told everyone she had made up her mind, and to just eat (and gossip if they wanted to, as she added).
By the time the feast was announced to have ended, She stood up in front of her throne.
"As you all know, I have chosen my suitor," she took a deep breath and looked over at her sister who struggled to keep in her excitement, "Therefore, I proclaim Jackson Overland as my fiancé."
That sparked a riot, but Jack wasn't paying attention. Him? He had done everything wrong, from being a hooligan to being a little too honest when it came to his history. Why would she choose him? It would occur to him later, that the normal events that were to happen during these elections weren't what She wanted.
"Jack! Jack! Did you hear that? You're going to be king!"
Jack looked down at Pippa and offered a small smile. She was happier than he was about the engagement.
It was tradition for Jack to stay at the palace, so, after a tearful good-bye, Jack was left at the bridge of the palace, looking over at the road.
"You'll see them again," she assured.
Jack looked over at her.
"But that's against the rules."
She just shook her head.
"There are no rules against it, it just doesn't usually happen. Besides," she quirked a dainty eyebrow, "I'm getting married to a commoner boy. It seems I can bend some rules."
Jack wasn't at all surprised at her playfulness. No, actually, he was. This was the queen, going against all rules. Why?
Jack spoke his thoughts and She just shrugged. She shrugged.
"To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. I'd say that it has something to do with what happened with my sister, but it doesn't."
She lead them back to the castle, but instead of going in, lead Jack around to the gardens and the forest and whatnot. Jack enjoyed it immensely and wasn't afraid to tell her so. She smiled at it, and the walks became an everyday thing.
It wasn't until he took a walk without her that he realized he missed her presence. It was quiet. No one to be humorous for, and no one to offer laughs, little joyous bells. Jack ended the walk early that day and asked to see Her.
He was refused, being told she was busy, and he fussed about it until he was allowed to see her. When he came into her studies, Jack was sure She would tell him that she couldn't be with him all the time. Instead she said nothing.
Jack looked around the bleak room and sighed.
"This looks really boring."
She looked up at him.
"It is."
There was silence until Jack coughed.
"Will I have to do this?"
"Yes." But before Jack could groan, she added, "But not all the time."
Jack nodded. He never liked the idea of being king, but Jack had come to terms weeks ago with the fact that, at least, She didn't seem like a bad person, let alone wife.
For once, he quietly observed her. There was talk of her in an ice dress, and discussions with her confirmed it, but she stuck with a mostly black and teal dress with some decorative colors and shapes in between. Her hair was up in a bun with a braid in the front (to make it less boring). What was really bothering him were the strands of blonde hair she kept blowing at.
Jack got up and tried to push the strands to the side, lightly in order not to pull her hair. Her cheek was smooth, and reacted with her body as she tensed up.
"Jack, what are you doing?" she asked softly.
Jack swallowed his heart back down to his chest and tried to sound nonchalant.
"Just trying to fix your hair."
She nodded.
"I see. And why don't you believe I can do it myself?"
"Because you weren't," Jack said matter of fact-ly.
She laughed, "Is it better now?"
"Of course. I'm very good at it," Jack teased haughtily.
The idea made Her eyebrows rise.
"You are very good at fixing women's hair?"
Heat rose to Jack's cheeks.
"Well, no. But I do Pippa's hair!" Jack defended.
She laughed.
"I can just see sitting down behind her, braiding her hair," she replied.
There was finally a comfortable silence between the two.
Another few weeks went by before anything else memorable happened. It was soon proclaimed that he would go see his family soon.
"Are you coming with me?" he asked.
Elsa laughed.
"And leave Anna in charge? I think not."
Jack nodded and waited as the days went by before he could see his family. There were often times where Jack would have a swell of panic at the thought of leaving. He was excited to see his family, and he loved them very much, but he just couldn't leave her.
Jack thought over it one night. Sometimes, when he wanted his thoughts to himself, he would talk to himself. He sat there, trying to figure out what to do about it. She had decided that Jack could have his own room until the wedding, and, right then, he was grateful. Because Jack never got the answer on to what he would do about it. Instead he mulled over every thought and anxiety. He felt cold without her presence (ironically), he would miss their walks (as boring as it sounded), he would miss their occasional snow fights (of course She would win), and he would miss the talks in her studies. He would miss Her. And then it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Jack loved her.
Not like he loved his sister. Not like he loved his mother or his father. Or his grandparents while they were still alive. Loved her like the ways he used to squeal about as a child and hated in the story of Romeo and Juliet (he still hated that.)
Jack could go home and try telling her this, but he had a night and no courage to do so what so ever. Jack found a pen and paper in the drawers. He wasn't much for writing, but this would have to do.
So, I am writing. I have a feeling you didn't know I could. But I can. And I am. You are probably wondering why I just don't tell you this, and that's because I can't. It's not like I have some spell on me, but, it's the next thing to it. At least, I think. You or your sister (or more like the trolls) would know better than me.
You know me too well to believe I like all the mushy stuff that Shakespeare writes (I really do hate those). But I believe in the concept: True love. And I know your sister does. And I hope you do. Because I love you.
Jack stared at what he wrote. It wasn't eloquent by any means, but it said what he wanted it to say, even if looking at it made him realize and feel those bricks all over again.
He continued.
I never thought I'd be saying this (although, in a sense, I'm not). But I do. And when I get back, we'll talk about this more. I have a feeling we have a lot to talk about.
Love,
Jack
Jack got up and went over to Her room. He frowned and subconsciously told himself to tell Elsa to make sure there were guards on duty, because Jack walked through the halls and slipped the letter into her room without detection.
That morning was the morning he was supposed to leave. The servants took his luggage out to the carriages. Jack hadn't seen Her, but he understood. It was moment before he left that Her advisor caught his attention.
"Her Majesty would like to see you in her quarters."
Jack didn't take a lot of time to get there, but he wasn't exactly in a rush. He had no idea what was going to happen. He knocked on Her door and, when given permission, came in.
She wasn't at her desk like she usually was. Instead, she was sitting in a chair in the corner, a note in her lap. His note. She got up and walked towards him.
Jack said weakly, "I was requ— "
And then she kissed him. Jack hadn't really ever been kissed before. Well, maybe by the occasional village girl, but not like this. This was full of meaning and care. It wasn't forced; it wasn't shy. And it took his breath away, in more ways than one.
They came back for air and She smiled and nodded.
"We do have a lot to talk about when you get back."
Jack laughed and, this time, he kissed her. A lot to talk about.
.:.:.
Jack Frost crashed back to reality when he remembered that he never got back. He died before he could. North tapped his shoulder.
"You've been sitting here for at least an hour! Come see the new guardi— "
Jack jumped up from his perch.
"She's here?" He asked. Then he saw her, on the floor and sneering at Bunny. Jack walked over to her slowly. She finally saw him, and it took her a frightening moment to take in the eye and hair color change to realize who he was.
"Jack," she breathed.
Jack smiled and let out a disbelieving laugh as she run to him.
"You're alive!" She exclaimed.
"Nope, not really. But we can't all be alive, can we?" Jack replied.
She laughed, "Well, at least I know this isn't some illusion. We have a lot to talk about... just later."
It was Jack's turn to laugh.
"Speaking of telling things... when were you going to tell me I was married?" Jack teased.
"Just shut up and kiss me," Elsa replied.
He was happy to oblige. They did have a lot to talk about. 300 years worth of catching up, what Anna's child was like, how Jack was going to rage about how early she died... But they could talk later.
They were a little busy right now.
A/N: 3280 WORDS! OMG! I've NEVER had any one chapter that long.
So I'm back in the Jelsa business and with longer chapters (well, in this case). And I've written my very first one-shot for this category. I've never written this much fluff. Ever. Not for ANYTHING.
So, sorry about the very unsatisfactory kiss. I'm pretty much zilch in the category for experience (gimme a break, I'm twelve).
Umm, facts and fakes of the story:
Fact: You actually can marry dead people in some places in France under conditions similar to what I wrote.
Fake: Well, ummm, I'm not quite sure about the Norwegian regions, so, yeah...
So, please review. I might make a multi-chapter extended version of this if it's liked well enough. Or if there's another popular idea you guys review.
I OWN NOTHING!
~ Sam