Summary: (Post Movie) Kai is happy that laughter has returned to the castle.
It was such a lovely sound.
One that the castle hadn't heard in years, was surely missing itself.
Too long. It filled the cavernous rooms, winding halls, and spacious courtyard. Even when the girls weren't there, their laughter remained.
As Kai walked past a window, he glanced out to the courtyard below and could almost visualize the Queen and Princess as the older of the two attempted to teach the younger one how to ice skate. Again.
The Queen would isolate a section of the courtyard and cover the cobblestone with ice with just the stomp of her heeled foot. She would transform the Princess' boots into ice skates and take the younger girl's hands in hers.
They would go a full five minutes without incident before—
Princess Anna would scream. And tumble, face first, into a swiftly made pile of snow. She would sit up, and shake her head, a grin on her face because that snowman would come out of nowhere and would blindside the Queen, making her lose her grip on her sister, who would proceed to lose her balance and slip.
Queen Elsa would collapse beside the Princess, giggles flowing from their mouths. They would reach out for the twig arms of the snowman, and pull him in between them. And just lie there.
Kai chuckled to himself, carrying on with his prescribed duties. A ball was being held, though Kai wasn't able to catch the reason why. He just grabbed an empty tray, making his way out of the ballroom to head to the kitchen for replacement refreshments, but not before trying to locate the Queen and the Princess. He saw neither and chalked it up to the fact that there were numerous people obstructing his view of the throne at the front of the room.
He paused on his journey to the kitchen at the beginning of a hallway, one where he'd witnessed a most peculiar sight only days ago.
"Anna, this is not a good idea," the Queen said, arms tucked around her stomach.
"Sure it is." The Princess batted her hand. "I've done it plenty of times."
Neither of them were wearing shoes. Instead the accessories were by the entrance of the hallway; leather ones tossed haphazardly, ice ones placed neatly.
"And how many of those incidents resulted in a trip to the infirmary?"
The Princess rolled her eyes. "That's neither here nor there. Now come on. Trust me?"
Those must have been the magic words because the Queen shook her head, but uncurled her arms from her waist and let the Princess take ahold of her hands.
They were both sporting socks.
"Okay, it's not that hard," the Princess assured. "In fact, it's just like ice-skating and you're a natural at that—"
"Just do it before I talk myself out of this."
"Okay, okay. Ready?"
Kai didn't notice the bank of snow at the end of the hall until the Queen crashed into it after she and the Princess slid down the hall. The Princess had managed to stop, but her sister hadn't been so lucky. She surfaced from the snow, glaring at the Princess before they both dissolved into a fit of laughter.
"Let's go again!"
Sock sliding. The Princess finally had someone worthy to sock slide with.
Kai had been walking back toward the ballroom with little bowls of ice cream—momentarily wondering how they would keep the dessert from melting before remembering that the Queen certainly wouldn't let that happen—when he heard it. Coming from the portrait room.
Soft, sweet, caught behind a hand. Boisterous, delightful, pent up and let out after years of holding it in. Kai stopped before the two grand doors and chanced a glance inside. He saw the Queen and Princess settled on the sofa beneath the Joan of Arc portrait, skipping out on the ball. Surely at the older one's insistence.
"That did not happen," the Queen said, disbelief set in her tone.
"No, n-no, I'm serious," the Princess supplied dramatically. "Joan can back me up." They both looked up at the painting then. "See?"
"What?" The Queen looked back at her sister and arched an eyebrow. "She didn't say anything."
"She totally did."
As Kai let the door slip closed behind him, heading back to the kitchen for more ice cream, their laughter floated through the air in melodious waves—light and carefree. It was a sound he would even allow himself to admit that he had missed.
"Ooh! Ice cream!"
Aaaand... I got sucked back in.
So this will be a set of one-shots. Or two-shots. Who knows? They may relate to one another, maybe not. Basically, this will just be a breeding ground for whatever comes to my mind that I feel is good enough to write and release.
Oh well, here's to trying something new with hopefully improved writing skills.
Until next time…