It had been Anna's idea to visit Ingrid's family farm and meet the rest of the Andersens in the first place. It would get Elsa out of the castle and into the fresh air, and give Elsa and Ingrid an excuse for more time together. Anna had pushed Elsa and Ingrid together, and she was happy it worked. She wanted her sister to have a chance at fun, and even if their relationship was, well, different, they made each other happy. If Anna just happened to satisfy her curiosity about Ingrid and her background, so much the better.

What she wasn't counting on was spending hours in a carriage with Elsa and Ingrid.

Elsa, Anna, and Ingrid entered the plain carriage just outside the royal stables in Arendelle. Anna gave her hand to Elsa to help her up. Elsa said, "Thank you, Anna," and gave her hand a subtle squeeze. As Anna was about to climb in, Ingrid offered her hand to Anna. She looked at it for a moment, then took it and stepped up into the carriage. Ingrid followed, carrying a basket, and sat next to Elsa on the bench facing Anna.

It wasn't the royal carriage, just a regular household one, and the driver wasn't wearing the royal livery. The trip was a break from the formality of court, so they didn't want to attract attention. Still, the carriage seemed comfortable enough.

As they left the city limits, Elsa reached over to pat Anna's knee. "You're looking lovely as ever, Anna."

Anna chuckled, shrugged. "Tell me again when we get off this carriage in half an hour. See if I look so fresh then."

"Yes, it would be a good idea to stop for a rest halfway there. Remind me, Ingrid."

Ingrid smiled up at the attention. "Of course."

"Wait, what?" blurted Anna. "Halfway?"

Elsa smiled indulgently. "It's over an hour to Lillefjord from here. I thought you knew." She leaned back, her smile turning a bit wicked, her arm draped over Ingrid who was snuggled next to her. "Hours enclosed together with nothing but privacy? Are you sure this was your idea?"

"Elsa…" said Anna, and raised her eyebrows in a warning.

Elsa's face was suddenly serious. "I'm sorry. Too far?"

Anna grimaced, and nodded towards Ingrid. "No, not that, I mean, you know…"

"Oh." Elsa kissed Ingrid on the temple. "Ingrid doesn't get jealous."

Ingrid nodded. "Please. Don't mind me." She patted the basket. "There's books and refreshments if you get bored later."

As they rode on, Anna felt off-balance. When Anna had a piece of pastry from the basket, Elsa moistened her fingertip and wiped the icing from the corner of Anna's mouth, then licked the icing from her own finger. It was the sort of flirtatious teasing Anna had come to accept from Elsa, but in the next moment Elsa was nuzzling and holding hands with Ingrid as if it hadn't happened. A moment later Elsa asked Ingrid for a book, and as she read Ingrid sat demurely like a perfect servant.

Elsa seemed happy. Ingrid seemed happy. But Anna felt like she was reading a book printed on flimsy paper, with three sets of words showing through. Everything was jumbled up.

When they finally arrived at the Andersen's farm, Anna climbed eagerly out of the carriage, stretching her aching back every which way and pacing stiff-legged up and down the gravel driveway. It had been a long and uncomfortable ride to the Andersen's farm, and not just because she'd been sitting for over an hour. Behind her Elsa descended gracefully, and Ingrid followed her like an echo.

Elsa told the driver to wait for them at the inn in Lillefjord and return that evening, and had Ingrid give him some money for dinner.. When she was done, Ingrid brushed herself off and said, "If I may, I'll go in ahead and prepare everyone for your arrival, if it's all right with you. I'm afraid it'll mean waiting out here for a minute."

Elsa smiled graciously and nodded. "We're here for the fresh air," she said, tipping her head towards Anna. "It'd be a shame not to breathe it for a minute before we go inside." Ingrid curtseyed and dashed ahead to a side door.

Elsa walked slowly back and forth, admiring the farmhouse. It was a U-shaped building open towards them, with off-white walls and a mossy thatched roof. The left and centre sections were the house proper, and the right arm was the barn. "It's lovely. I'm glad you thought of this, Anna. I'm feeling more relaxed already."

Anna continued to massage her own lower back. "Really? I am so stiff. How are you not stiff? Did you get the good bench? Is there a good bench? Wanna trade on the way back?"

"It was your idea to not take the royal carriage, so that no one would make a fuss. Also," and Elsa mock-scowled at her, "not slouching helps."

Anna rolled her eyes, then bumped sideways against Elsa. They laughed softly for a moment. Then Anna looked thoughtful. "Ingrid's taking a while. Think there's a problem?"

Before she finished her question, Ingrid opened the heavy door nearest them in the left part of the house, curtseyed, and swung the door open wide. Elsa strode forward and Anna followed, gravel crunching under their feet.

They entered and saw a long room with walls the same off-white as the outside, a table running down the centre, wood stove in a corner, and every remaining square foot filled by people. At least that's how it felt to Elsa. Ingrid was at the front of the crowd, next to a heavy-set man with a round face and a prominent widow's peak, and a matronly woman with long straight salt-and-pepper hair. "Your Majesty, Your Highness, may I present my parents, Thorsten and Klara Andersen. Mama, Papa, Queen Elsa and Princess Anna." Thorsten bowed, giving them a good view of how far back his slicked-down hair had receded.

Klara curtseyed and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness," facing Elsa, "and you, Your Majesty," facing Anna. Ingrid gave her a dismayed look and a quick head-shake, then moved on to the next couple.

"Your Majesty, Your Highness, may I present my eldest brother Ernst, and his wife Tanja."

Ernst, the image of his father but with more hair and less stomach, bowed sarcastically low to Elsa as he doffed an imaginary hat. "Your Righteous Majesty." He did the same for Anna. "Your Gracious Highness." As he did this, his pretty wife curtseyed with a half-smile and a skeptical look, as if to say that she disapproved of his behaviour but didn't disagree with his attitude.

Out of the side of her mouth Elsa whispered to Anna, "What's their issue?" Anna replied with a tiny shrug.

With a nervous grin, Ingrid continued. "May I present my eldest sister Astrid, her husband Mathias Albrecktsen, and their children Hallvard and Elsanna." As they bowed and curtseyed Mathias and Astrid's expressions were neutrally pleasant, Hallvard's sombre, and Elsanna's ecstatic.o

Anna bent down to ruffle the girl's hair. "Elsanna. That's a pretty name."

Astrid explained, "We named her Elsa Anna, after the queen and – I mean, after the two of you. But when Hallvard was little all he could manage was 'Elsanna,' and that's what we call her."

"Mo-om!" said Hallvard, mortified.

"What do you think of it?" Anna asked Elsa.

"I definitely approve of 'Elsanna'. I like it."

"Me too," said Anna.

Little Elsanna took a step towards Elsa and said, in her outside voice, "I believe in you!"

Baffled, Elsa smiled politely and said, "Thank you. I believe in you, too."

By then the restless muttering and milling around that had started at the far end of the room had reached the queen and princess, and the party had returned to its original disorder. Before Ingrid could introduce them properly, another of her brothers stepped forward. "Pleasure to meet you 'Queen Elsa', 'Princess Anna'. I'm Truls, this is my wife Merete, and the kids are…" He looked at her.

"Around here somewhere. You'll meet them soon enough." She put out a hand to shake.

Ingrid hissed frantically, "You don't just shake hands with the queen, you wait for her to offer. It's not done." She looked back and forth, her arms pulled in, looking for some way to make the chaos go away.

"It's fine," said Elsa as she took Merete's hand.

"Yeah, it's okay" said Anna. "We came here to get a break from protocol. And to meet your family, of course."

"You did your best. We'll…circulate and introduce ourselves. It'll be all right." Elsa didn't care about being disrespected, but she couldn't stand to see the disappointment on Ingrid's face.

Before Elsa could comfort her, Klara put an arm around Ingrid's shoulders and pulled her away to help with the food. "Come along, dear. I've missed having you in the kitchen." She gave her daughter a squeeze as they threaded through the crowd.

"Am I missing something?" Elsa asked Anna.

"I don't know," said Anna, scanning the room. She looked at Elsa again and put a hand on her arm. "Listen, are you okay? Do you want me to stick around?"

"No. But thanks." Elsa straightened her already-straight shoulders. "Well, let's make an appearance."

"That's the spirit," said Anna flatly, and gave Elsa a wry smile and a shrug of apology before they split up to mingle.

Elsa knew that Ingrid had six brothers and sisters, but she had failed to take into account that they would have spouses and children, plus their own friends, friends of the family, and neighbours. As she chatted, concentrating on names and relationships, she realized how much she relied on briefings, guest lists, and protocol to smooth her way at functions. Everyone she met there was friendly, but she had the feeling she was missing an inside joke, and that it was at her expense.

She literally bumped into Ernst again. "Oops. Sorry, queen." He put up his hands in mock-fear. "Don't have me beheaded."

"Don't worry. We haven't had a hanging in nearly eighty years. I'm seriously considering taking capital punishment off the books entirely."

"Right, right. Listen, Ingrid's not around, you can drop the act."

"The act? What act?"

"Come on. Ingrid told a bunch of wild stories about being friends with the queen, so she gets you and the redhead to pretend to be royalty to 'prove' she's not making it up."

"I am the queen, and she is my friend. My dear friend."

"Don't get me wrong. I'm glad you're trying to stand up for her. But it's unbelievable enough that she has two friends at all, let alone that they're royalty."

"You don't like your sister?"

"I like her just fine, but she is, you know, not…typical."

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "Neither am I."

Ernst stood a little too close. She could smell the beer on his breath. "I wish you were the queen. I've got a few things I'd like to say to her."

"To me."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. To you."

"Do tell."

He ignored her dangerously raised eyebrow. "For starters, 'you' completely mishandled the whole Weselton thing."

"Did I?"

"A trade embargo? With Weselton? We need Weselton as a trading partner. And the Southern Isles, too. We need the money from Weselton to buy the food from the Southern Isles. Now, no food and no money. That's just shortsighted. Stupid. And it's not like the Duke did anything."

"Besides trying to have me killed."

"But not personally. That was his soldiers. And there's another thing." Ernst gestured with his non-beer-holding hand as he warmed to his subject. "Prince Hans? Sent back home without so much as a slap on the wrist? He should've been executed. At least."

"At least? What comes after 'executed'?"

"You need to make an example. Show people that we mean business, that you can't push Arendelle around. If someone gets out of line, come down on them hard. Send those people a message."

Elsa raised her head, fixing him with her gaze. "Let me see if I understand you correctly. My very first act after taking the throne should be to kill foreign royalty and plunge our country into a bloody war with a more powerful nation, but I should let a man who ordered my death go scot-free because it'd be good for business." Despite their nearness to the wood stove, it grew chilly in that corner of the room. "And that's the message you would send to 'those people': the Queen of Arendelle is bloodthirsty but mercenary. Good thinking."

"Now wait a minute – "

"As for showing people I mean business, I suppose I could start domestically. With someone who's been publicly criticizing the queen, for instance. Do you know what the penalties are for seditious slander?" She smiled sharply. "I do."

Ernst gripped his beer tightly. But before he could respond, his wife Tanja took him by the elbow. "Ernst, I told you not to talk politics. Honestly, people will think you're one of those anti-Skadists." She smiled a half-hearted apology at Elsa. "Now leave Ingrid's friend in peace and come say hi to your cousin Rickard, he came all the way from Steintøyholm," she said, dragging him away.

Farther down the room, sitting in front of a half-circle of listeners, Ingrid's brother-in-law Jakob Niequist warmed up by strumming a few chords on the mandolin in his lap. "In honour of our guests, 'The Queen's True Love', everyone," he announced. Then he began playing a catchy tune and sang. "Arendelle, sweet Arendelle, Queen Elsa's passions – "

The instrument was yanked from his grasp. He looked up to see Ingrid holding it, her white-knuckled fist wrapped around its neck as if she was trying to strangle the voice out of it. "Her Majesty doesn't want to hear that song."

A grin parted his ginger beard. "It's all right. There was a court case and everything. It's not illegal or whatever."

Her voice as tight as her fist, Ingrid repeated, "Her Majesty does not want to hear that song."

His wife, Ingrid's sister Sonja, came to her side. She put one hand on Ingrid's shoulder, the other on the mandolin. "Of course not, Ingrid," she said softly. "He'll play something else. Won't you, dear?"

"But I was – "

"Won't you, dear."

He nodded once, slowly. "Sure, of course."

She gently increased the pressure on the instrument. "Now give him back the mandolin and he'll play something nice. How about 'The Thirsty Farmer'? Everybody likes that one. Okay?"

"I'm sorry," said Ingrid, as her grip on the mandolin loosened enough for Sonja to take it from her. "I'll go help Mama some more."

"Sonja, what was that about?' asked Jakob after Ingrid had walked away. "I thought you said she was…well, not like that."

"She isn't. She's the sweetest, most gentle soul you'd ever meet. Most of the time. You didn't see her at Anders' funeral, did you."

"No. Why?"

She shook her head. "Never mind." She handed him the mandolin. "Now, 'There was a thirsty farmer,' right?"

He shrugged and resumed playing.