Chapter 1: Wicker Basket
The night over the kingdom of Arendelle was still. The castle was silent as most of the servants either slept or had returned to their homes for the night. Queen Elsa was sequestered away in her study, burning the midnight oil - in perhaps the most literal sense of the phrase, the wax on her candle's wick was dripping, and the flame was almost out. The monarch still had treaties to look over, military commissions to sign. Elsa always got into a zone when she was working. A zone so encompassing, that she managed to tune most everything else out.
Like now, when she didn't hear the door to her study open and shut. Nor did she hear footsteps approaching her desk, but even when she wasn't engrossed in work, Elsa marveled at how he had such a soft tread. All that told the Queen that she was no longer alone was that she sensed a presence just off of and circling her desk. She glanced up, quill in hand, but no one was there. "Who's there?"
"It's me," a soft voice replied. Then, strong, calloused hands began massaging her shoulders. Gentle lips dipped a kiss into her neck. Her eyes fluttering shut, Elsa leaned back into the touch, letting out a soft moan.
"Enough for one day," her husband, Robert, enticed. "Annabelle's in her crib, asleep. Come to bed."
As intoxicating as his touch was, Elsa was not quite ready to go to bed just yet. Spinning away from his embrace, she rested her hands gently on his chest. "At least let me take a stroll around the courtyard first. The grounds are so pretty at night."
Robert kissed her lips gently, agreeing to the compromise. "But hurry straight to bed after."
Elsa smiled softly. "I love you." She pecked his lips in return and rose from her chairs. "See you in a bit."
Elsa liked strolling around the palace grounds at night. Behind the gates, closed each night, the palace was very safe, and the sights were beautiful, such as the gardens. The quiet and solitude, broken by nothing but the crickets, was soothing to someone who had once exiled herself to her ice palace and not found true love until well into her thirties. And though Elsa was very much a family woman, as a mother for the past year and a doting aunt for close to two decades, she had never lost her taste for a little alone time once in a while.
13 years of isolation had accustomed her far too well to the instinct.
Exiting the gardens, Elsa turned back into the front courtyard as she turned for the palace doors and home and her warm bed filled with her loving husband. The door was slightly ajar, letting a sliver of inviting light cast onto the stones.
And also a very interesting, shadowed object on the front stoop. An object which, as Elsa approached, let out a plaintive cry.
Elsa froze, biting her lip and her eyes wide. She knew the cries of a baby well, from the past year of intimately learning the wails of her baby daughter. And also the years upon years before that of comforting or singing to her niece and nephew. Warily, Elsa approached the object, coming into the light from the doorway. Upon first inspection, it appeared to be an ordinary wicker basket, the kind she might have seen in the villages and amongst the common people. The top of the basket was covered by a pink baby blanket. Reaching out a hand, Elsa pulled back the flap of the blanket to find...
A tiny baby girl, face scrunched up in tears as she squirmed in apparent discomfort. Elsa's face melted as her heart broke. "Ohhh..." she sighed with love, gingerly lifting the baby from its cradle. Elsa had become very adept at comforting babies, especially with her own child. Glancing quickly about, the Queen fretted. How long had this child been out here in the chilly night air? And where was its mother? Had anyone seen someone leave a basket in the castle courtyard? Digging through the wicker basket, these questions swirling in her mind, Elsa stole quickly and quietly back into the castle. Racing up to the royals' quarters, the baby was still crying... enough for a bleary-eyed Robert to stumble out of the Queen's private residence.
"That doesn't sound like Annabelle." Finally shaking himself fully awake, he glanced down at the bundle in his wife's arms. "I don't remember us having another child."
At any other time, Elsa would have laughed at her husband's humor; it was one of the many things that made her fall in love with him. But right now, she half-heartedly glared at him. "Get Anna and Kristoff."
Robert stared. "They're asleep! As we should be!"
"Just... get them, please, honey," Elsa was too tired to fight. "Tell them it's an emergency; they'll understand."
Robert nodded and padded down the hall to the Princess's private residence. Elsa, meanwhile, retreated to the sitting room - the very room where Hans had betrayed Anna long ago - to sit down by the warm fireplace and bounce the baby gently. After a few moments, the door handle jiggled and her husband, sister, and brother-in-law came in. Anna stared at the baby in just as much shock as Robert did. Yet in the next moment, her face settled sympathetically. Elsa didn't need to explain.
"Where did you find her?"
"On our front stoop," Elsa gulped. "The mother, whoever she was, is long gone."
"Why, it must have been abandoned!" Robert marveled.
"But... how do you know she was abandoned?" Kristoff frowned.
In answer, Elsa procured a piece of parchment from the wicker basket. "The mother left a note behind: 'Please, Your Kind Majesties, give my child the home that I cannot. She will be exceptional if only given the love she needs.'"
Robert raised an eyebrow, but the smile was clearly trying to force its way onto his face. "Well, then, let's keep her!"
Elsa gaped at her lover. "You're not serious."
"But I am. Completely. Elsa," and he knelt by her side, eyeing her encouragingly. "You said so yourself once that you always wanted a second child. Sure, the trolls said it was too dangerous for you to have another baby, but this..."
Elsa gazed at him sadly. "It's not the same."
"I know it's not the same," Robert rumbled soothingly.
Kristoff frowned. "The Council might not go for it," he reasoned warningly. "They have very specific views about royalty and blood."
"You and I are here, aren't we?" Robert countered, pointing between himself and his brother-in-law. He and Kristoff were both born commoners before falling in love with and marrying the Arendelle royal sisters. "Hell, we bred into the royal bloodline. And what do we care about bloodlines anyway? This family has all it needs: love. We have more than enough. And if anybody knows how to love, it's this family!"
"Hear, hear!" Anna cheered. "Love will thaw!"
"That's right!" Robert beamed, turning back to his wife. "This is an innocent little baby who's fallen into our laps, and this baby will have all the love we can give it. Besides, I think this could be good for you," he stroked Elsa's arm soothingly.
Elsa gazed at him, her heart overflowing with love for this man and wondering how she had ever lived without him. "You'll stick with me?"
Robert kissed her gently. "Forever," he promised. "Besides, this castle needs another lady in the house."
Kristoff stared. "Robert, you traitor! You, Christian and I are outnumbered as it is!"
Robert laughed. Then Anna joined in. Pretty soon, Kristoff and Elsa were chuckling right along with them.
Smiling, and confident for the first time since finding the baby, Elsa bounced the infant in her arms with love in her eyes, and a new resolve in her head and her heart. She would raise this child as her own, and no one could stop her.
