Lorelei and The Snow Queen

by c'estquatre

After the failure of the subjugation of Louvre, The Dead Apostle of the Lake, Lorelei Barthomeloi is punished. She must rent his former lands for the Magecraft Association from the current occupants. One particular territory whose royal family has been in isolation for the past thirteen years is finally opening it's doors for a coronation. A kingdom called Arendelle.

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Elsa of Arendelle.

Princess of an almost forgotten kingdom in Norway.

A recluse who no one has seen for thirteen years about to succeed her deceased parents, former monarchs of a backwater kingdom map makers don't even consider when printing atlases any more.

Surrounded by a fjord on one side and snowcapped mountains on the other while burdened with an economy that still consists of ice as a primary export there isn't even enough money in the nation's budget to even consider building an airstrip. Needless to say, boats and horses are still the primary mode of transport, after all, there is no way a car could be considered anything but a scrap of metal during an Arrendelle winter.

In the ancient times the fjord was seen as a gift from the gods. The humans lived off the fjord, fishing, sailing, settling, while the trolls lived in their own valley in the mountains doing whatever it is that trolls do. Of course the twenty-first century fjord is nothing more than an inconvenience, interfering with the kingdom's eventual assimilation into global culture. So what was once a boon and the reason for a kingdom now isolates the very thing it was built, rendering itself as one of the wonders of the world that time and most of humanity simply let slip into that abyss known as the fjord.

And right in the center of that fjord, surrounded as if caged, is a castle that when reflected into the fjord by a full summer moon belongs in a fairy-tale or rather the alternate worlds within this one where elementals and the fae still try their best to frolic in this age of man.

An almost magical castle enshrouded by the elements. It can be considered a sanctum from the modern world. Its twisting spires and never-ending halls are illuminated with nothing but the soft shimmering of candlelight. A castle and kingdom cursed or rather protected by its insignificance and former boon. It is arguable whether it is a world that time forgot or a world lost in time itself. Like an out-of-print dime novel. Like a fairy tale. Like the princess doing geometry in its multitude of towers, never seen for thirteen prosperous years, this miniature world is isolation perfected.

Pure.

Clean.

Untouched.

Like the virgin diamond dust that blankets the castle roofs and its courtyards when winter sends her frozen regards. The uncanny pathetic fallacy of the setting, suggests, no, tries to prove this world's uncharacteristic, untouchable common sense.

Then it must be a cosmic joke that tonight is the princess's coronation. Tonight is the first night in thirteen years that the gates will open, yet the princess who has only seen four walls her entire life foolishly still believes her kingdom and her peaceful isolation will be everlasting.

-like a porcelain doll.

But of course who would have thought that tonight "she" of all people would attend?