Sorry for taking forever to get this up! A lot's been going on in my life, including a computer crash that erased part of the writing I was working on. I'm still going to update this, but I really burned myself up with my initial writing so I'm going to try to take things slow and steady rather than have that happen again.
I really felt that I needed to tie this story together better, as it started more as vignettes than a unified plot, so that's why this update is a prologue rather than a continuation. I also tweaked the timeline of the story a bit.
"AUGUST 21, 2007
ARENDELLE CHOSEN TO HOST 2014 WINTER OLYMPICS
Kaminaljuyu, Cuatemallan - The 119th IOC Session announced today that it has selected Arendelle as the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympics. The selection was regarded as unusual in light of the strong bids from Pyeongchang and Sochi…"
Karl put down the paper, trying to let the words slide out of sight and out of mind. It did no good.
The grandfather clock struck eleven. He still didn't understand how his great-grandfather had gotten ice to sound so clean and crisp when struck, but the man had been a mechanical genius.
"If only he'd been so good at ruling, I'd be a king." Karl laughed. He'd be a terrible king, too.
He knew he was avoiding thinking about it, but he wasn't sure why. Why did the prospect of the Olympics here unnerve him?
He hoisted himself out of his favorite reading chair and headed down to his study. Whatever was bothering him, if Karl thought about it there he would be able to deal with it.
The study was a dark, almost oppressive room, all in woods ranging from dark brown to almost black. When the light shone through the few windows, the beams seemed to cut the space like knives.
It had to be that way. Paintings don't do well in direct sunlight.
The portrait was at the far end of the room, facing the desk, far out of the reach of any light but that of the lamp beneath it.
"Hello, Your Majesty."
There she was, standing like a king.
Elsa I, he knew, had carefully cultivated her image. To her subjects, she had been the kind queen of their little nation, creating ice rinks for children to play on in summer even as she protected their country from the hulking mass of Greater Scandinavia. To the people of the world, she had been a small rock weathering the stormy ocean of Europe, a monarch who did not bend to the whims of greater nations, much less smaller ones. Even though Arendelle was a tiny, almost powerless nation with just wood and ice as its exports, no one had dared to try to exploit it.
The Elsa before him was the latter, depicted five years into her reign. She stood slightly contrapposto, wearing an ornate dark brocade of velvet intertwined with dark blue ice of her own creation and a huge white cape dotted with more dark blue ice crystals. On her left hand she held the royal scepter, the end of which was set against a table with a globus cruciger (without cross, somehow) and a beautiful crown. The crown, he remembered, was newly made for the queen, as her advisors had felt her humble tiara did not exude the requisite majesty. It was made with a deep blue velvet, with a brilliant diamond set atop it like a drop of seawater suspended in time.
He had loved this painting as a child, sitting atop his great-grandfather's lap. There he heard stories of great kings and queens, of patient and wise rulers who knew just what to do. Elsa made Arendelle into a nation that would not bend, Akthar formed great ships of ice and steel to trade and protect, and Hege gave her people education and electricity and health.
Thus, when he had been ushered into his great-grandfather's room so long ago, he had expected some extra-interesting tales.
Instead a frail dying man had gripped his hand with as much force as his old body could muster, mumbling incoherently. Yet sometimes there arose a word or two, bitter and spiteful.
"Fool…"
Karl had held back his tears. He had heard that grown men don't cry, no matter what hurtful things are said to them.
When his great-grandfather's hand had finally let go, he was ushered out of the room just as quickly as he had been ushered in. He wandered before he found himself before the painting, crying not just because of the words, but because something was wrong and he didn't know what.
There he had seen the kind Elsa, looking down upon him as he gazed up from his seat on the floor. He suddenly could notice the slight smile, the care wrought in her brows, the worry that she had to stand tall to protect her people.
So, kings and queens were people, too.
Later, when the crying was done, his father came. It was the first time he learned his great-grandfather had been king, and why he was king no longer.
Now, Karl looked up. The angle wasn't as steep as when he was young, but he could see that Elsa again.
"It's happening, and we had nothing to do with it. That's what's wrong. Arendelle always seemed like ours, you know, like no matter what happened, the family would still be involved. And now the Olympics is coming here, and I learn about it from the paper. Dad got calls from the PM about stuff like this, but I don't even get a word."
Karl blinked and remembered his great-grandfather's mumbling.
"We're becoming irrelevant."
His voice was firm. The truth was the truth, and both he and Elsa knew it.
Karl nodded and turned away. There was still the rest of the paper to read.
It took almost 5 years before he got the phone call that proved him wrong.
