The coach drunkenly bobbed up and down on its pencil-thin, white frame. It looked more like a gaudy knickknack than anything that someone of import would consider a suitable vehicle. The marble blue surface of the sphere was strangled by a twisting pattern of white snakes, and every one had been crafted with an unsettling attention to detail. Nothing about the whimsical coach could make a pedestrian comfortable with living under their unholy glares and gaping mouths, and the unfortunate driver of the monstrosity was not immune. Indeed, had his passenger not been so prestigious, albeit eccentric, it was very likely that she would have to drive the damned thing around herself. His unfortunate position was not made more bearable by the fact that other drivers either leered at him as they passed in their depressingly normal carriages, or avoided interaction altogether to avoid drawing the ire of his client.
He gave a dejected sigh, asking himself what in the rich and chivalrous bloodline of Arendelle could possibly have produced a witch.
Within the carriage, the tall, slender frame of the kingdom's royal knight reclined on the plush and velvet cushions of her seat with a sigh. Olaf had supervised her construction of the enchanted contraption, a sort of project for her admission into the Academy, and had so wonderfully recommended the perfect finishing touches. Pleasantly glowing lanterns watched over the deep red seats, filling the interior with unnatural warmth that beat the early winter cold back behind the shrouded windows.
"Oh yes, Olaf's tribute is most acceptable," she purred to herself as she kicked her polished, black boots up. The kingdom had never had a princess who insisted on breeches and boots. It also never had one volunteer to become the personal knight of the crown heir, like her uncle, father, and every other "spare prince" had done for the eldest of their respective broods. Needless to say, Maria had to suffer the constant badgering of the Bishop over the affront to tradition.
"What exactly is traditional about a late king not leaving behind any thrice-damned men?" Her sister had asked the old man, and the memory of someone who wasn't her getting a slight glance of the Queen's unholy temper brought a quirk to her lips. Even Olaf didn't believe her horror stories about Maria's reign of terror within the castle for the first two years of her instruction under him.
When he did find out, it led to an unfortunate series of events….for Maria, not Olaf. The mage was too valuable, and entrenched in their father's past, to simply toss out on the princess's whim, regardless of how badly he had "maimed" her.
Even now, almost a decade later, her sister's choice in wording tickled Elsa. The mage lost some irreplaceable heirloom to her majesty's tantrum, but Maria's irrevocably spiked, coal-colored hair, once a mane of gorgeous platinum, had driven the poor girl into her room for almost a month. Though their furious father had insisted that Olaf make amends, and Elsa had noted long ago that his form of "insisting" usually included his sabre, Olaf's guilt over her grief was more than enough to undo his anger.
If her father was furious at Olaf for "cursing" her in the first place, he was positively livid at her for refusing to let him undo it. It had grown on her, in spite of all of her sulking. Eventually, a compromise was reached, and Olaf's love of producing trivial, magical baubles resulted in a very convincing illusory wig.
No, the biggest loss for Maria that came from that ordeal was easily Elsa coming up with a bit of much-needed leverage in their name-calling games. "Pigeon butt," an apt description of her head's new shape, was a tragically endearing nickname, and worse-still, the king couldn't have agreed more. Though the tale was strictly behind the family's doors, this also included uncle Kai's own brood in the south. As merciless as Elsa had been with the nickname, the red bearded giant and his freckle-faced daughter's torment had been the worst form of punishment that Maria had ever been subjected to.
She gave up on the notion of any form of productivity at the simple thought of Anna. She had to think of suggestions for how they would "pay their respects" to their favorite queen, when Maria followed Elsa to Orkdalen in the spring. The warm memories and anticipation of seeing her accomplice for the first time since her father's funeral almost drove the urgent tone of Kai's note from her mind entirely.
"I need a mage, and that wrinkled old snowman of yours can't be arsed to help!" He had written, invoking Olaf's moniker from some misadventure in his travels with Kai and her father. She wasn't sure what he had been expecting from the old man, who was every bit the lazy grandfather, but it must have been urgent for him to even try to get Olaf's professional help in the first place, let alone ask him to make the lengthy trek to the neighbor kingdom. She had the sinking impression that she was the next best thing, and sorely underqualified for any job that required Olaf's touch. Her status as a proper mage was not even remotely close to being official.
The sounds of loud, barking orders being passed between men outside of her marble bubble jarred her thoughts. She pulled the heavy curtain from her window, watching as a band of armed hoodlums charged over the frost-covered expanse on horseback. Elsa's shoulders slumped a little, and she let the curtain fall back into place with a huff. She had planned to impress Anna with her "baby," and had even opted for some nice white horses to tow it.
It seemed, however, that she was going to show up with the strangling scent of fresh blood marring the occasion.
The driver heard the ruffians well before Elsa was able to from within her infernal coach, and he immediately tried to warn them off, brandishing a bright red flag as they approached. He had seen the carriage's magic at work twice already, and didn't think his nerves could stand to go through this again. It was well too late though. Just as they had done the last two times that the carriage had been waylaid, the horses slowed to a complete stop, and no amount of urging could force them to carry on. The monstrous thing had decided that it was time to eat.
His jaw went slack as he heard the collective hissing behind him.
The five bandits casually lowered their weapons, when the strange carriage slowed to a stop, more than happy to politely take any valuables and women through the fine art of intimidation. One of them ribbed his compatriot with a yellow grin at the sight of the pale and stricken driver, experiencing what was very well the last pleasant emotion in his life. "Run, you stupid bastards! RUN! It's witchcraft!" he shouted, much to the amusement of the oblivious highwaymen.
Then they were close enough to hear the hissing; a chilling and damning dirge.
What looked like a simple vine pattern from their distance began to writhe and twist with life. The ivory vines leapt from the chariot, orbiting around it and separating into individual entities of squirming motion. The distant line segments then became little more than dots as they turned downwards to point directly at the horsemen. Each passing heartbeat caused the dots to elongate as they approached.
One of the bandits' horses went into frenzy, flinging his rider wildly to and fro before darting off in a direction parallel to the road. The serpents, now close enough to be clearly identified as such, writhed through the air with such speed, their first victim barely had time to see what they were before the sharp fangs of a terrible maw dug into his eyeball. He howled in agony, a second one joining the first in its ravenous feast as his gang joined him in horrid agony. A third tackled into him and knocked him squarely off of his horse. He was conscious for long enough after his head struck the ground to feel the ruined eyeball being sucked from his skull.
The driver massaged his brow in absolute misery. The tortured cries of the coach's meal resounded in his ears, bouncing through his skull, until he was able to picture every torn artery and every swallowed tongue. His wife had been so thrilled with the idea of him receiving "the honor" of being the personal carriage driver of Princess Elsa. It was beyond her how he could show up looking like he had been wrung dry every night.
He was told up front what this thing did, and how it would never turn on him, so long as he never meant harm towards the princess. Oh sure, self-defense was well and good, and the vagrants had probably earned this fate several times over.
That didn't make it any less diabolical. Something that was not alive was EATING. The very notion was enough for his stomach to flip over.
As if to accentuate the point, a very content-looking snake wriggled past his face, proudly bearing a lovely green eyeball between its fangs. It was just close enough as it flitted by for him to passively examine the stringy gore at the back of the eyeball.
Elsa watched impassively as the driver collapsed to his knees at the side of the road and deposited that morning's breakfast in a ditch. She debated trying to comfort him, remembering her first trips to the Academy's dissection lab, but she knew that he was more unsettled by her than anything. Most people were, and it made her damn happy that she wasn't the eldest sibling.
She told herself that, anyway. In reality, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of bitterness as she curled up on her seat. Even Maria wasn't entirely comfortable with magic, notwithstanding her hair. If she had simply taken a sword to one of the bastards, that'd be recognized valor. She knew it was childish to expect people to be comfortable with the variety of unpleasant ways a mage could kill someone, and the only mage besides her who even lived within a twenty mile radius of the castle was Olaf.
She grimaced. Olaf was pleasant and childlike, and the citizenry was obsessed with his magical inventions and party favors. Her magic couldn't be the only reason people shifted uncomfortably around her. Anna had always teased her about how unfriendly she looked, whenever she was focusing on something.
And she had been very busy with her studies.
Was she really just not smiling enough?
Her introspection finally gave way to excitement as her thoughts turned towards Anna again. If Olaf had his village and most of Arendelle to admire his work, Elsa had Anna. Even her more destructive spells had never ceased to amaze Anna, and she was already taking mental stock of the tomes in her luggage. Anna wouldn't let her out of her sight, until she showed her at least one new spell, and she had more than a few in mind.
She drifted off as the carriage began to rock again, almost reluctant to surrender the treasured memories and excitement to unconsciousness.
Her arrival in Orkdalen lacked any proper fanfare, aside from the scampering children who had gathered to watch the over-decorated carriage bob its way across the cobblestones, speculating over what sort of lunatic was being transported with it.
The castle was a foreboding thing, composed of soaring towers and five stories, a much more vertical and compact design than Arendelle's own castle. The ancient stone of the castle's soaring walls were a contradictory mix of somber and spiritual to Elsa; its brutalist design was enough to fool anyone into mistaking it for a prison. However, the black smoke, belching from some stack within the walls to mingle with the pinks and oranges of the evening horizon, was a clear reminder of the industrious and warm nature of its rightful king. When they finally arrived at the gates of the stronghold, Elsa was surprised to find them sealed and guarded.
This was quite unlike the king. Kai had always been one to boast of his talent with weapons, whether he was making or using them, and would scoff at the mere suggestion of securing the castle gates. It was hard to mind the threat of an assassin's dagger, when you stood at 7 feet and could snap most men in half on your knee, but Kai could be considered cocky by the standards of someone his own size.
The guards had obviously been expecting her. They scrambled from their posts and shouted to the guards within the towers that framed the massive double doors.
She was unsettled by the fact that she was summoned to deal with something that could force him to recognize his own mortality. As her carriage neared a small, empty lot near the stables, she dreaded having to face the reluctant driver. She recalled the results of her introspection from the voyage.
A bit of experimentation was in order.
The driver felt guilty about how he had treated her highness. Royalty or not, mage or not, she was just a young woman! She was much too young to have some old coot acting like she was a leper. After all, Olaf had worked on this thing, hadn't he? Surely there was a charming lady under that cold exterior, if Olaf was so fond of her. She didn't show much emotion, to be sure, but that wasn't all that uncommon, when it came to his employers.
As he prepared to open the door and assist her descent, he resolved to be a proper gentleman and show her due respect.
He eagerly opened the door to be greeted by that piercing stare and…..a very unsettling display of teeth, wide and ominous.
His skin blanched as he offered her a shaky hand, the princess keeping her eyes locked with his, unblinking and indifferent, and definitely not mirroring the emotion that was in her ferocious smile, whatever that may have been. A million explanations raced through his mind.
"She went insane in the carriage."
"She was possessed."
"She'll have me executed and then feast on my innards."
When the queen touched down, he quickly withdrew his hand and escaped into the stables, pointedly avoiding eye contact.
Elsa's face seemed to deflate out of her forced smile as she turned towards the entrance hall. For all of her effort to seem approachable, the driver didn't even say a word to her.
"That's not the problem," she decided.
Kai loved the fire and smoke that came with his trade. Smithing ran through the Orkla family as far back as anyone had bothered to record, but Kai could be considered particularly obsessive. It was a drug that drove all things unpleasant from his mind, and much to the chagrin of his advisors, he wasn't ashamed of delegating responsibilities in order to partake.
He brought the hammer down on the glowing blade with a lifeless "CLANK," Did he have a fight with Anna? He could mend some armor!
CLANK. A diplomat slighted him? Smack him around a bit and then make a weapon!
CLANK. The safety of his own damn house was violated by that smug bitch from hell?
The hammer came back over his head, but he let it fall slowly to his side. His eyes, teary from the smoke, studied the white-hot metal. The king sent his hammer flying across the room to obliterate a cabinet and most of its contents. He dumped the damned sword into the water and stormed out of the soot-choked room.
He shouldn't medicate today, except for a sneaky mug of ale. The harlot would pay.
His apprentices scrambled in behind him to deal with the mess, avoiding any eye contact with their rampaging instructor. When one of his servants brought him news of Elsa's arrival, he was almost able to forget the hot coal that burned in his chest. He dunked his head into a nearby basin, a servant bringing him his burgundy tunic. He took the stairs to his throne four at a time, still smelling very much like a blacksmith, but looking passable, from a distance.
Kai was greeted by the sight of the most dead-serious nobleman that he had seen since Agdar died. His white uniform was barely distinguishable from his porcelain skin, almost to the point where he would appear naked, if not for the turquoise tassels and trim. Two tasseled epaulettes highlighted a thin set of shoulders, and the slight creature's long legs almost made their accompanying rapier seem out of place.
He wondered why such a polished, young man needed it. Nothing about him screamed "warrior," not his plump thighs, or his elegantly folded hands, and especially not the curves of his ches-wait a minute…
When he finally locked eyes with Elsa, that stone visage broke out in a much too familiar and much too troublesome grin, and he couldn't help but return it as she rushed up to tackle the giant in a hug.
"You're still trying to make your mother roll over in her grave, I see." He said as he returned the hug. He tried to keep the edge of pain out of his voice after the collision. His knees were certainly not what they used to be, and the cuts didn't help.
"And Anna still has to chase you through the castle to get you to bathe, I see." She replied.
"I've knocked some sense into less impudent young men." he pulled back from her, easing himself into the throne with a grunt that Elsa didn't have the heart to rib him over.
She winked ominously. "Most young men don't have an….understanding with your daughter."
"Hopefully he's here to negotiate with her and not court her," and at that, Elsa reached the end of her tolerance for this game. Her cheeks turned a bright pink.
"You really are a bitter old geezer." She said indignantly, and had she been younger, this is the point where he would just tousle her hair mercilessly.
Kai's infectious laugh would have to do.
"I take it that you don't want to hear the details of this nasty business just now, do you?" He rubbed his eyes as they watered up. "It's just from the damn fire," he thought to himself.
"I suspected that you wanted to tell me in private." Her tone was warm, but her posture was as alert and regal as any snooty noble.
"Just like Agdar," he thought, even though everything else about her screamed "Idun." He couldn't quite figure out where that hair had come from. "It'd be ideal, to be sure. After dinner then?"
"As you wish, my lord," Elsa gave a swooping bow, and Kai reconsidered whether or not she was really too old for him to punish her insolence. Hopefully Anna would carry on the good fight against Arendelle's tyrants.
"Keep your hands to yourself, young man!" he called in mock concern as she started towards the stairs. She glared at him over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out, before she turned onto the sweeping staircase.
He couldn't hold his tears back this time. Emotion wrenched his gut. His children had grown, his friends had died, and the only person from his early years who was still alive and on speaking terms with him was thrice-blasted Olaf.
He had never felt older.
Elsa felt like she was coming home, when she entered the royal family's quarters. The crimson carpet of the staircase gave way to a marble dining room, which was surrounded entirely by matching columns. The fading sunlight flitted through the glass panes of the ceiling, gracing the rose-filled flower boxes that rested between each column. The room was populated by a few ambling servants, and the kitchen was not filled with the usual clamor. Tonight's dinner would have few guests.
Elsa let her sweet memories guide her to the ballroom, the last room before Anna's quarters. Though the outward-facing wall was almost entirely glass panes on white wood, it was maliciously choked with the recent addition of a series of iron bars. The small staircase to Anna's quarters was carpeted in plush, white carpet, deep enough to sleep on.
The two guards, one was perched at the top of the stairs with a loaded crossbow, and another with a halberd, who stood at the bottom, killed any warmth that the orange-tinged room might have held for the weary princess.
Without even acknowledging her, the bowman knocked on the door and muttered something to the servants inside. She took that as an invitation to wait until Anna saw fit to make an appearance.
Her eyes wandered to the far end of the ballroom. The regal grand piano that sat in the far-flung corner took the breath from her. It was all she could do to not break into a sprint as she approached it.
Music was a popular pastime at the Academy. Most of the students were nobles, and it was not uncommon for particularly generous graduates to donate an instrument or two. Her peers had insisted that she learn an instrument, and Maria's own specialty seemed like a reasonable enough choice.
She was nowhere near as good of a player as Maria, but she doubted that there was anyone in the world who was as talented as the fiery queen. Maria insisted that she keep her gift a strict secret, but reluctantly allowed Elsa to be the sole audience member of her practice sessions.
Almost by instinct, a tune that her sister was fond of danced off of Elsa's fingers. It was a simple song, very obviously meant to accompany some set of vaguely remembered lyrics.
Anna was hard to entertain.
She didn't bother with the musty library, the servants were much too professional and distant towards her, and she had already read every smutty romance that she had "borrowed" from the libraries of various petty nobles. Her guilt and shame over her raids had quickly faded as she actually read them. They weren't nearly as interesting as their titles had suggested.
No, all of the excitement and fun in her life was suddenly locked on the other side of the castle gates. No visiting the market, no harassing stuffy guards or strolling through the city's lovely gardens, and certainly no alone time outside of her own quarters.
They had fought that night, after whatever had intimidated her father had happened, and she could tell from his unusually explosive reaction to her pleading that the gates were not opening any time soon.
She groaned sleepily as someone knocked at her door, and the offending servant had cheekily taken that as permission to enter. There was no point in getting out of bed these days, so when she sat up, she was still in her pink nightgown, and her hair was an unruly tangle that leapt a few inches off of her head in some places. The undergarment had sheer cups, courtesy of a blushing seamstress that Anna had encountered during one of her countless raids on an unsuspecting Orkdalen.
Needless to say, the servants knew better than to send a male to rouse her from her sleep.
"Princess Elsa is waiting for you." The older woman scowled at the immodest dress, but knew better than to say anything about the unforgivable amount of pale, supple skin that it showed off. The princess's breasts had been spared the freckles that adorned the rest of her body. There were probably other, more private, areas of her fair skin that were also flawless, but she didn't much care to explore that idea.
Anna came to life and tried to scramble out of bed. Her half-lidded eyes snapped wide as she put her weight on a piece of bed that simply did not exist, and she collapsed onto the floor in a pile of long, lightly freckled legs and blankets.
The servant exerted every bit of willpower she had to keep her face solemn, but the princess was so frantic, she doubted that she would even notice any drop in her façade.
"No,no,no,no!" Anna darted towards her vanity, tearing a drawer open and flipping most of its contents onto the floor as she pulled her brush from it. "Tell her I'll be out right away, like now, but not RIGHT now," she said as she attacked the monster on her head. The servant couldn't help but roll her eyes. She knew that Anna wasn't so much as asking her to do something as she was prattling on out of embarrassment.
Almost a half hour later, Anna burst out of her room and charged through the sitting room, almost catching a prized vase with the folds of her billowing, green dress. She stopped as she grabbed the doorknob, frowning at the muffled sound of music in the next room. Someone was playing the piano.
She let the door open slowly, quirking an eyebrow at the mystery performer.
She couldn't see much from this distance, so she slipped down the stairs and quietly made her way towards the source of the lively music. The only thing she could see from this angle was the man's back.
But good god, if it wasn't a handsome back. Her heart lurched as she let her eyes roam over his slender frame. Even under the baggy uniform, she could practically see every graceful movement, every twitch of alabaster skin.
Slim, but completely poised. He could probably use the rapier as more than just decoration.
And that gorgeous braid! There was no way for his face to not be as elegant as the rest of him. Her dirty novels did nothing for her, mostly due to the fact that she found the thought of bulky, undefined muscle dull, an unfortunate condition, given the kingdom's hefty population of bulking warriors and smiths. They had no sense of flair; no appreciation for subtlety.
Then, this marble statute was crafted into her world to play the most amazing music she had ever heard.
At least, she assumed that it was amazing. She knew little about music, but if anyone was good at it, it would be him. It didn't make sense for him to be bad at it, and the song was certainly catchy.
She folded her hands in front of her, chewing on her lip. She would wait for him to finish, then grab him by his braid and drag him back to her quarters.
Her resolve regarding that thought crumbled when he actually finished. The best she could do was let out a gratingly squeaky "Hi."
Then her prince whirled around to face her. She was practically compelled to make eye contact.
She dumbly observed that they were gray blue, then wondered why this man was still not naked and in her bed.
"Hello, Anna." He said in a voice that was distinctly female.
Anna crashed back to earth and looked her stranger over, from the impressive bust all the way up to her familiar face.
"Oh."
"'Oh'? Am I truly such a disappointment?" She asked as she slid across the piano bench and faced her.
Anna's face burned, her head jumbled with attempts to banish all of the heathen thoughts that she had been entertaining mere seconds before." No , no! You're fine! Great actually! This is terrible…but not terrible as in 'you're terrible.' You're gorgeous-wait, what?"
"Nice to see you too?" Elsa noted the stray hairs in Anna's hastily tied braids. Anna was prone to sleeping in, but it was almost time for dinner.
"Oh just…"Anna brought her hands up bashfully to her flushed face and plopped onto the piano bench. When she finally composed herself, she pulled her hands from her pouted lips, "It's been ages since I've seen you." She finally said. If she was going to be embarrassed, so was the lithe knight next to her.
Lord's mercy, she wanted to feel a lot dirtier about her lurid plans than she really did.
Elsa looked properly repentant. "I'm sorry. I'm a knight, a student, and Maria's caretaker. I can't just take a spontaneous holiday."
"You could probably manage, without that last obligation." Anna wriggled her brows and they shared a grin.
"Alas, Arendelle would fall to ruin, if I neglected that one."
"Oh? That sounds suspiciously treasonous for a loyal vassal." Anna said as she rested her head on her hand, letting herself admire the perfectly white uniform.
"And a princess who's still in bed this late is downright scandalous." Elsa gasped in mock horror. "Whatever would your father think?"
"Let the smelly bastard think what he wants." She snapped, before she could even think about it. When she saw the tinge in Elsa's cheeks, she buried her face in her hands again, offering a muffled apology.
Elsa never minded the younger woman's tongue, both of them having spent an unfortunate amount of time under Kai's tutelage in the art of colorful expressions, but the hurt in Anna's tone was obvious.
"I take it that you don't know why he has allowed these peons in the royal quarters either?" She asked just loudly enough for the snooty guards to hear her, smiling smugly when one of them coughed.
"My first guess was that he's just a big, fat idiot," she said miserably," but when I found him at his forge the next day, his back and legs were wrapped in gauze. "
"Your father loves you, Anna." Elsa said sternly, "He wouldn't keep you locked up, if he didn't think it was for your own good."
At that, Anna took her hands in hers. "Elsa, please try to talk some sense into him. I can't live like this." Her voice choked a bit, "I feel like I'm never going to leave the castle again."
Elsa kneaded the pale knuckles in her hands comfortingly. She hadn't seen her friend in years, but it was impossible to ignore her distress over Anna's torment. "I promise I'll talk to him."
"Swear it?" Anna looked like she was about to cry.
"I swear it." She rolled her eyes in exasperation as Anna wiped at her own and sniffed, trying to regain some composure.
"Thank you, Elsa," She pulled her hands back to clench at her dress, and then a sudden realization drove the glum from her voice. "By the way, since when did you wear breeches?"
Elsa's brow furrowed as she studied her own clothes. "Are they so off-putting? Your father has given me nothing but grief about them in his letters," she gave Anna a helpless shrug," but a knight has to keep up appearances, even when she's really just a mage with a metal stick."
At the word "mage," Anna perked up in excitement, but Elsa put a preemptive hand up. "Tomorrow, I promise," she said, and Anna's wounded look was almost enough to make her change her mind.
"Yes, well, I am sure Lord Elsa will make it worth the crown princess's while" Anna drawled in a regal tone, sticking her nose ludicrously into the air. Elsa couldn't help but giggle.
Anna chatted idly with the knight, until Elsa was finally summoned to dine with the king. Anna had been taking her meals in the privacy of her own quarters, and the sensitive negotiations between Elsa and her father over opening the gates would likely not be helped by another fight. Anna caught herself watching the controlled sway of Elsa's hips as she left.
No, that was most unacceptable, no matter how perfectly the white leather breeches and high black boots hugged Elsa's luscious legs.
Her meal was as forgettable as every other one since the gates had closed, but at least she was entertained, in a sense. The food turned to ash in her mouth, but she found that she was her own most challenging adversary. Every time she smacked down a memory of leather breeches, or a thought of how well a long, platinum-colored braid would serve as a handle, her mischievous imagination would conjure another pair of freezing blue eyes to chill her.
She finally slid her plate away and called for a hot bath. She followed a wide-set maid into the brown tiled bathing room and slipped behind the screen. The maid poured a kettle of scalding water into a claw-foot tub at the center.
Her nude form waited for the maid to mix in a moderating amount of cool water from another kettle, and her bones ached for the warm water. When the room was empty, she stepped out from behind the screen uninhibited.
Bare feet padded across the hard tile to ease a timid toe into the water. It was hot, VERY hot, but not unbearably so. Her pert, pink nipples and gooseflesh made anything that didn't scald her seem inviting.
She stepped into the cast iron tub from the rear, her pale buttocks resting on the gleaming metal. The sun-starved swath of skin from her breasts all the way down to her inner thighs was a creamy white. Everything about the virgin skin begged to be touched, and she couldn't help but let her hands explore her unflawed breasts.
She gasped quietly. She had only grazed one of the sensitive peaks, and a shock had danced down her spine, forcing her to withdraw her hands.
She huffed, slipping into the pleasant, stinging embrace of the bathwater with an exaggerated sigh, the lovely floral soap soothing any thoughts of handsome princesses and oafish kings out of her mind.
That is, for a very brief moment. She realized that something was definitely different about tonight as she lathered her herself with the lilac soap. Her body arched and tensed into her hands, and those hands seemed to take on a mind of their own as they teased it relentlessly. She let a soapy leg emerge from the water to rest atop her other knee, admiring herself as she flexed her toes.
She drew a shaky breath as her fingers trailed up her stomach, her whole midsection convulsing.
She closed her eyes, letting the pleasant sensations play out across her nubile flesh, and her mind almost immediately tried to attach an identity to the hands that molested her. She could practically see the elegant, pale hands that treasured every inch of her, sending great bolts of warmth shooting down into her stomach. She could imagine a pale set of legs under hers, enveloping her and teasing her feet.
She could imagine the perfectly white breasts that her back would be pressed against.
Her eyes flew open and she withdrew her hands, taking the very plain-feeling wash rag and scrubbing down the areas she had just been tantalizing, her face a bright crimson.
"Nope. No. Stop that. She was just dressed like that for her station," she said to herself. She hesitated as the rag approached her perfectly shaved pubic bone, gritting her teeth.
She washed herself hastily from head to toe, before exiting the bath in a huff and wrapping her aggravated body in a towel. She poked her head out the door to make sure that no one was in the hallway, before darting into her room and slamming the door shut.
Anna lay in bed helplessly, watching the old grandfather clock tick the hours of the night away. She was used to having such urges, sure, but the princess's picky tastes made them irregular and few in number.
When she did have them, they were hungry and demanding things that kept her awake well into the morning hours.
Her hand drifted up her side, dragging the hem of her skimpy nightgown with it. Maybe just letting it happen would make the idea seem less appealing to her.
She let her lust-addled mind drift into fantasy.
She watched her knight stride through her open door, about facing at the foot of her bed with that cocksure, crooked grin.
"Your father simply won't listen to reason," she said as Anna wondered how much her memory had exaggerated those tight, white breeches.
She had only blinked, and Elsa was prowling up her bed on her hands and knees, completely naked, a lily white predator stalking her, until the only thing in her field of vision was an inviting set of breasts.
"So I guess I'll just have to steal you," her lover rasped, a demanding hand trailing up her stomach to come to rest on her bust. An insisting squeeze had Anna's back arching into the possessive embrace.
"Do I get a say in this?" She managed to whisper. Fantasy or not, the answer to this question was too delicious to not hear.
A firm finger tilted her chin up to face her would-be kidnapper. She bit her lip as the hand claiming her breast traveled downwards to languidly circle around her clit.
"Of course not," and Anna's hips bucked sharply.
Anna's breath was ragged as she lifted her bared bottom from the sheets. She kicked the blankets away from herself, the heat of her own body was almost suffocating, and the slip of a nightgown soon joined them on the ground.
She let out an shuddering moan as the first finger slipped between her wet lips, then another, timidly exploring her quivering body. The hand that cupped her breast squeezed tightly as she began to slowly pump them in, all the way to the knuckles.
Beads of sweat trickled down every curve, her mouth open in inaudible pleasure as she bounced her hips into her own grasp.
She hooked her fingers inward, almost on an instinct, and then she was far from inaudible.
She kept her fingers right there, her other hand moving to tend to her aching clit as her cries filled the room. She rubbed at the exposed nub urgently.
She couldn't tease herself anymore, when she found that spot, and her fingers, slick with her arousal, attacked it desperately. The squelching noises they made as she took herself were almost as loud as her sobbing cries.
"El…"Her eyes scrunched as her rear lifted high off of the bed, dripping onto the sheets below. "Oh God, ELSAAA!"
She screamed her name as she pulled her knees back and kicked out involuntarily, her walls spasming and locking around her fingers. Her back arched her chest high into the air as her knees locked together, the imbalance forcing her to roll onto her side. Her toes curled as she squirmed in ecstasy.
She rode her orgasm, whimpering the woman's name, until hot tears were trailing down her face. Her fingers pulled out of her slightly. The wet noise that her folds made as they surrendered them made her wince, but the slight taste of sensation had her pushing back into them with urgent need.
Any thoughts of shame died as her second orgasm was building.
Hours later, she all but collapsed into unconsciousness with a satisfied smile; naked, pleased, and haunted by the icy stare that had driven her to this.