Author Note: This "Postscript" story is an epilogue to "In Arendelle's Fair Kingdom," and picks up one year after that story ends. I don't summarize prior events, so new readers may want to read the other stories first. Click into my profile for a chronological list of all the stories in this "Queen Elsa's Councilor" series.
For my readers: This is just a lengthy epilogue. There is no real plot; it's character development and family scenes. Lots of fluff. I won't be updating it regularly. Maybe a chapter every few months as I get time to write.
Chapter One
The four columns of numbers blurred and then became eight columns before blending back into the original four columns, but now so smudged he couldn't tell an eight from a five. Bern blinked, rubbed his eyes, cleaned the spectacles he'd borrowed from Harold, Councilor over Tax and Revenue, and tried again. He couldn't tell the sevens from the fours and ones anymore either. The dull ache that frequently took up residence at the back of his head sent a few sharp stabs up into his eyes, warning him off from further effort.
Bern left the spectacles on top of the pile of ledgers on the desk and retreated to the window seat, leaning his head against the cool glass of the windowpane. The guards and servants in the castle courtyard were blurred too, but that was because the glass was warped. He looked back at his desk. In addition to the ledgers, he needed to read the report Harold had compiled about how the windfall of metals from their enemy's weapons was affecting tax revenue. While no one suggested it had been a bad thing, there had been a significant impact on the Castle Treasury to have so much metal come into Arendelle without import fees and then be given away free of charge to the blacksmiths to shape into plows and tools because Elsa felt their farmers deserved some assistance after the trauma of living in an occupied country during most of the growing season. All of that had happened a year ago, and it was time to sift through the reports of the effects. Reading Harold's report had been his first effort that morning, actually; he'd thought the numbers in the ledgers might be easier to see so he'd set the report aside.
A year. The castle physician, Milgard, had promised his vision would stabilize in a year, and the more he rested the better the outcome. Elsa brought over medical experts from England and the Continent for him, but after they agreed that they needed to drill a hole in his skull to reduce the pressure causing the headaches, Elsa stopped importing foreign medical advice and supported Milgard's prescription of rest. He'd cooperated. As humiliating as it was to have to rest every afternoon and go to bed directly after dinner like a child, he'd done it.
And he still couldn't read. The double vision had gone away. He could see anything across the room with clarity. His headaches didn't come as frequently. But there the improvement ended. His near vision had blurred permanently, and not even Harold's spectacles could help. He could puzzle out a sentence or two, but then the pains started stabbing from the back of his head and into his eyes, and if he persisted, he would have a blinding headache by lunchtime. He knew that, because he'd done it yesterday, and the day before that as well.
For the past year, he'd hobbled along as Councilor over Economic Affairs, asking Anna to read him letters, suggesting meeting with people instead of exchanging reports and letters, and quizzing Elsa about things he already should have known. They'd all put up with him in the hopes that this was temporary. Perhaps it was time to admit that this wasn't temporary.
He'd prayed about it; Bern was acquainted with miracles, and knew that Christ had made rather a hobby out of healing the blind during His ministry on earth. Bern wasn't even completely blind, and thought that a small miracle wouldn't be much trouble, but his prayers hadn't produced the miracle he'd wanted. Last week he'd sought out Bishop Saholt, and explained the problem and what he'd already done. Bishop Saholt nodded, looked pensive, and then said, "It's possible that healing is not the Lord's will for you, your Highness."
That wasn't what he'd wanted to hear; he'd hoped to hear that he'd been praying with the wrong words, or that he needed to give more to the poor, or that there was some other task he could accomplish in exchange for his miracle.
"All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called, according to His purpose," Bishop Saholt had read to him from Romans, chapter 8, verse 28.
"I can't read or write anymore, Bishop, how can that be good?" Bern had asked.
"It may not be good for your purposes, your Highness, but if you agree to love God anyway, He will turn it to your good for His purposes," Bishop Saholt replied. Bern had gone away from that conversation wondering how anyone could possibly say that seeing well enough to read was out of step with God's purposes.
Bern heaved a huge sign and looked out the warped windowpanes again, thinking that it would be easier to love God if He gave him what he wanted. Still, Bern had never been one to hold a grudge, even against God.
All right then, show me what You think is good about not being able to read, Bern prayed ungraciously.
Lost in his thoughts, he startled at the firm knock at the door, then called "come in."
It was Kristoff. "Hey, they're asking me if the trolls can level out the slope just below Tunnel Hollow so we can use it for farming. Councilor Marda thinks it's a great idea. You got an opinion? I'm not sure we ought to be changing the mountains that much."
"Have you looked out the window? Losing one slope will hardly turn Arendelle into flatlands." Bern could hear his voice was morose with self-pity, and he didn't care.
"What's your problem?" Kristoff asked.
Bern shrugged, and considered a series of polite lies, but really, there wasn't anyone in the castle more likely to understand his problem than Kristoff. "I can't read," Bern said. "I still can't see the words."
"What about the spectacles?"
"They don't help. The blurring doesn't go away, and if I try too hard to focus, it sets off a headache."
"Aren't you just supposed to rest more?"
"They said a year. It's been a year, or almost."
"What were you trying to read?"
"The report from Harold about tax revenue," Bern gestured to the pile on his desk, "and the ledgers showing the actual numbers. I've also received the report from my former steward about the sale of my estate, but I can't read that either. I don't even know if I can pay off all my mother's debts from my private fortune without going bankrupt. I've got a pile of letters from merchants all asking me various questions, or perhaps they're making suggestions, I wouldn't know what the letters say. Anna helps me when she can, but she's so tired now."
Kristoff grinned at the comment about Anna's exhaustion. She nibbled crackers to keep the nausea at bay, and everyone in the castle was thrilled that Anna kept vomiting and had to take naps.
"Gustav keeps telling me to practice reading more, but I'd rather watch the grass grow than sit in a room and read by myself. I'll read it to you as long as you don't walk out and tell me you'll check back later and see how I'm doing." Kristoff picked up Harold's report from the desk and sat down in Bern's chair.
Kristoff read slowly, and he only read the words on the page, which was a welcome change from Anna. Anna flitted along in a document and added in comments and opinions until Bern couldn't distinguish between what the author said and what Anna thought about it. When Elsa read to him, she skipped sentences that contained information she already knew, leaving Bern with questions and gaps.
Kristoff paused after a paragraph. "Hey, Bern? What does he mean when he says this is an unfortunate precedent?"
"People react better to consistency than to windfalls and then a return to the status quo. There may be some discontent because the farmers who have to buy a new plow this summer will have to pay enough to cover the import fees, the cost of the metal, and the blacksmith who forged the plow. Last summer, farmers only had to pay for the blacksmith's time and skill. Harold expects we'll have complaints from farmers who wanted 'free metal' to be permanent."
"That's weird. I mean, everyone knew it was a one-off," Kristoff said.
"The theory behind the rule of law is that one-offs are a bad idea," Bern said absently.
Kristoff plied him with questions, and Bern ended up explaining the difference between the rule of law and an absolute monarchy, a little surprised that Kristoff had never heard of these concepts before.
After reading the next paragraph, Kristoff had questions about the policy reasons for import and export duties, which led into a discussion about how much control a government should maintain over markets and the chaotic American experiment with capitalism.
By the end of Harold's report, Bern knew how the free metal had affected Arendelle's economy, and where some of the gaps in Kristoff's education were.
"Do you want me to come back later and read you the rest of this stuff?" Kristoff asked.
"Yes, thank you."
Towards the end of the week, Bern went to talk to Gustav about Kristoff's education.
"We should have hired a tutor for him," Gustav said with a sigh. "Instead, we've all been chipping in bits and pieces of what we know, and you're right about it being haphazard. The trouble is that he's so headstrong and active. If something doesn't interest him, he doesn't want to learn it, even if it forms the foundation for a more interesting theory later on. None of us have been able to sit Kristoff down and insist he understand certain concepts."
"Gustav, I'm going to need more help than I have now," Bern admitted. He already had a valet, a prim man in his fifties named Holmes. He'd occasionally borrowed Finn, the castle page, to scribe for him. Bern kept trying to get by with stopgap measures, but it was time to accept his limitations and make his own accommodations instead of expecting the others to keep working around him. "I'd like to take Kristoff on as an assistant to read for me, and so I can fill in the gaps in his education. He won't be bored if he's learning things in the process of helping me."
Gustav leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Anna has been easy to teach, but I admit I butt heads with Kristoff."
Bern had noticed that. "I don't want to use him as a scribe though." He'd seen what Kristoff called handwriting.
"I'd suggest Alan's third son, Don. He writes a neat hand," Gustav said.
Over the next month, Bern gathered a staff, and took over Kristoff's education, which allowed him to avoid some of Elsa's planning for their anniversary celebration. Eventually, Kristoff rather smugly told Bern that thanks to their discussions, he could surprise Anna by knowing more about certain foreign issues than she did. He wasn't so smug when Gustav started handing him actual assignments and expected him to write the next letter, but after arguing over an issue with Bern for an hour or two, Kristoff could produce a letter that Don would copy more legibly, and then Anna would sign it and send it out.
Bern had complete control over Kristoff's education, to the extent Kristoff would cooperate with him, until Vilrun found out that Bern was teaching Kristoff accounting.
"I won't let you ruin a fine mind with accounting!" Vilrun insisted, and set Kristoff to geometry instead, which Kristoff took to like a fish to water.
"Hey, Bern, want to figure hypotenuses today?"
Bern, who had hated geometry as a child, found that he still hated geometry.
"Guess what? I learned how to calculate the volume of a cube, so I can determine the volume of an ice block, when multiplied by the rough number of ice blocks we harvest in a winter could actually help us estimate the amount of spring run-off that ends up in our ice lakes, Bern!"
"That's relevant . . . why?"
"It's just fun to know," Kristoff said with a shrug.
~###~
Usually, Elsa stayed away from Bern's dressing room because she still thought the idea of a valet was strange. Bern refused to let her help him with buttons and cufflinks and other details though, he'd said his dignity wouldn't allow it. He'd taken on a valet a year ago – Holmes, a cheerless middle-aged man who did his job with a minimum of fuss and called Bern 'your Highness' and was very concerned with silver polish and snagged threads.
But the night of their first anniversary, Elsa was so miserable she knew she would cry if she spent a moment alone, so she trailed after Bern when they finally left their ball. Holmes had waited up for them into the wee hours of the morning. There was no way Bern could get himself out of that jacket she'd concocted for him without help, not with the decorative clasps, the sash, vest, cravat, and the aiguillette that looped under his left arm. Bern had refused the second row of gold braid though.
"I just want everyone in Arendelle to see how wonderful you are, Bern," Elsa had said to justify the jacket that Bern referred to as a costume.
"How about we let my personality shine through?" Bern had suggested.
"You're too modest," Elsa shot back, and had the tailors add yet another ribbon and medal to commemorate Bern's role in disarming three armies the previous summer.
Bern humored her on everything else. After renewing their wedding vows in the chapel, and hosting a formal dinner, he and Elsa had opened the ball with a waltz, carefully choreographed so Elsa could count out the turns and not miss any steps. He even agreed to play a violin solo when the dance musicians took a recess during the ball. It should have been one of the best days of Elsa's life, and instead she had needed to revert to her old tactics of concealing and not feeling just to get through the evening.
Anna had inadvertently upstaged them both, just by showing up. Her darling sister Anna, who loved her so much that she had actually apologized for being pregnant. Elsa had assured her she wasn't a bit bothered, which wasn't true at all, but there was nothing else to say. Everything was easy for Anna, even conceiving a child. Every time someone commented on Anna's expanding waistline or admired the way Anna could still dance despite her condition, Elsa added in another compliment to Anna. And when they followed it up with unspeakably personal advice for her, Elsa smiled and thanked them, and wished they hadn't been invited.
Holmes started unbuttoning the hidden buttons that kept Bern's sash in place while Elsa smoothed the narrow waist on her dress and thought perhaps she should have worn a gown with an empire waist, which might have at least started rumors that she was expecting a baby, even if they weren't true. Holmes kept giving her nervous glances, and Elsa suddenly wondered if he thought she wanted help with her buttons too. The thought was enough to send her dashing out of Bern's dressing room to her own. She could handle her own buttons just fine, even if she couldn't see them because the tears were leaking out. She draped her floor-length gown of cream silk over the rod where the maid would find it in the morning and got out a long blue cotton nightgown with elbow sleeves and a collar.
"You are not wearing that tonight," Bern said from the door.
Elsa had time to wipe her eyes on the nightgown and clutch it between them before Bern shut the door and pinned her against him. "Aren't you tired?"
"What do you think?" Bern said, between kisses.
"Maybe I'm tired," Elsa protested.
"It's our anniversary, and you've only got one other option if you don't want to make love tonight."
"Which is?"
"Tell me what's bothering you so much." Bern stopped kissing her, but he was holding her close, and she was filling up with butterflies because he smelled so good and she'd already spent hours dancing with him, and then wishing that every other man she had to dance with that night was him too.
"Nothing's bothering me," Elsa said. There was a certain safety in being able to conceal and not feel, and sometimes she resented Bern for being close enough to see through her façade.
He was hovering next to her lips, so close that if she turned her head, she could kiss him, and instead he kept talking. "I'd call you a liar and insist you tell me, but I don't want to talk right now either. I've spent the day listening to you talk about how much you love me, swearing to love you forever all over again, dancing with you wearing a gown that's as silky as your bare skin, pretending I didn't mind when other men danced with you, remembering what we were doing a year ago as the sun was setting on that beach . . ."
It was at that point that Elsa turned her head to kiss him and stop the flow of words. Bern pulled that blue nightgown out from between them.
"The bed, Bern, not right here," she finally insisted.
~###~
"Now will you tell me what's bothering you?"
Elsa was drifting halfway to sleep with her head pillowed on Bern's bare shoulder, all her defenses and subterfuges dissolved and gone. "I'm a terrible sister."
Bern kept tracing her chin and cheek with his fingers. "More information, please."
Hesitantly at first, and then in a rush of relief to admit the truth, Elsa poured out her conflicted feelings about Anna's coming motherhood. "I know I'm being terrible, Bern, to be jealous of Anna, but I want a baby so much too. It doesn't seem fair that she'll have a baby by Christmas and we won't," Elsa concluded.
"Mm-hmm."
"What does that mean?" Elsa said, propping her chin up on her fist. There was no moonlight from the window; only the faintest dusting of light from the stars outlined Bern's head against the pillow. She fluffed his curls.
"I agree with you. You're being a terrible sister."
"Bern!"
"Elsa, you know we're going to have a daughter at some point. Do you doubt that at all?"
"No, I just wish she was already on her way."
Bern pulled her fingers out of his hair. "You know that I've taken over Kristoff's education and gotten him to cooperate with learning lots of things he has no interest in, but he's doing it now so he can read for me. Did I ever tell you what happened right before he came in?"
"You said you couldn't read, not even with the spectacles."
"I'd talked to Bishop Saholt about the fact that I don't get the miracle I wanted; I don't get to see well enough to read. He said if I agreed to love God anyway, God would turn this problem to good for His purposes, not mine. So I asked God what could be good about not being able to read. That's when Kristoff knocked on the door and started reading for me and I realized," Bern interrupted himself to yawn, "that my problem is good for Kristoff's education."
Elsa understood what Bern was trying to tell her. "Bern? I'm sorry about the jacket."
He mumbled something incoherent as he faded into sleep, but she assumed he wouldn't hold it against her. That overly ornamented jacket was her attempt to make Bern look as good on the outside as he was on the inside. But that was a vain hope.
~###~
The next morning, during her daily devotional, Elsa asked God what good purpose He had in letting Anna have a baby while she had to wait. Even before she said 'amen,' she was reminded that she'd never even held a baby. Suddenly, she was flooded with relief and gratitude that she would be able to practice holding and caring for Anna's baby before she had her own. Without this chance to be an Auntie, she might be so nervous about her own baby that she would turn her over to the nurse and nanny and miss out on mothering her. Anna would dive into motherhood with the same confidence and cheer that she typically applied to new experiences, and teach her cautious sister everything she needed to know.
Elsa made ten thousand resolutions, but had to put them all on hold for the morning, because she was sure Anna wouldn't be up for visitors before afternoon.
After lunch, Elsa tapped on the door to Anna's bedroom.
"Oh! I didn't know it was you!" Anna apologized, trying to flatten down her hair and prop herself up against the pillows at the same time. She was still in a nightgown, and there was a tray of crackers and juice on the bedside table.
"Don't fuss. After that late night we all had last night, I wasn't expecting you to be up, even if you were feeling well," Elsa replied. She moved a pile of blue yarn off the chair closest to the bed and sat down, then looked at the yarn she was holding. There were knitting needles stuck in it.
"Marda is teaching me to knit," Anna said.
Elsa recognized baby booties. "Blue?"
"Kristoff is sure it's a boy."
Elsa nodded and searched for more words. "You danced last night. I keep hearing from other people how you're feeling, so I don't think to come ask you personally. How are you feeling?"
"Morning sickness has the wrong name. It lasts all day, but I was so glad I felt well enough to come last night! I wouldn't have missed your anniversary party for anything," Anna assured her.
Elsa put her fingertips inside the blue bootie and marveled that a human being would have a foot small enough to fit inside. Tears pricked her eyes.
"Elsa, I'm sorry, I know it's hard for you to see me like this," Anna said, alarmed. "You want a baby too."
Honesty, not concealment, Elsa reminded herself. "I've been a fool to let it bother me, Anna. Forgive me for being jealous. I'm over it now. I want to know every detail about babies that you can tell me so I'll be ready for my own."
Anna relaxed, but her words were still hesitant until Elsa plied her with questions and convinced her that she really did want to know all the details. Anna chattered about everything the midwife, Maisy, had said, and explained which foods kept the nausea at bay.
"Sometimes it isn't the nausea. Some days I don't want to get out of bed because it makes my feet swell so much. I kept my feet up all day yesterday until the ball so I could dance. Look, Elsa, I've barely got ankles this morning." Anna pointed at her bare feet and swollen ankles.
Elsa dredged up one of the only details about pregnancy she knew. "I thought ankles didn't swell until the last couple months. You've got four months left."
"Maisy says it's the heat," Anna said apologetically.
For the first time, Elsa processed the fact that Anna was waving a hand fan at her face every few minutes. "Is it hot?" she asked. The only heat she ever felt came from Bern.
"It's summer," Anna said.
Elsa nodded, concentrated for a few minutes, then stopped. "Did that help? I didn't want to pull so much heat out of the air that I made the glass frost over. I can't tell how cool it is, though."
"Ever so much better!" Anna said. "Do it again!"
Elsa pulled more heat out of the air.
Anna sprawled back on the pillow in blessed relief.
"I can cool the council room for meetings too," Elsa offered, "and change our meeting time to the afternoon when you've got a chance of feeling well enough to come."
"Would you? I'd love that! Gustav and I are working on re-opening contact with Weselton, and he drops by to keep me updated, but I'm dying to hear the full report in a council meeting. Plus there are all these issues with the new university, and I feel so out of the loop!" Anna said.
Elsa almost asked why Anna hadn't requested they change the meeting time, and then realized it was because Anna didn't want to do anything that sounded like she was flaunting her condition and risk hurting her sister's feelings. Well, her sister wasn't going to have hurt feelings anymore. She made a mental note to ask Kristoff what else she could do to help Anna while they talked over Vilrun's proposal to establish a university in Arendelle, in between random comments about babies, and blankets with ducks on them.
~###~
Elsa eventually asked Marda to teach her to knit too, since that seemed to be something women were supposed to do when they wanted a baby. After several frustrating days, Marda suggested she learn to crochet instead, since that involved only one needle, and that she make a cap for the baby instead of trying something shaped like booties or a sweater. Elsa learned to chain stitch in endless circles, and occasionally gave it back to Marda to fix so it would become smaller as the cap reached the peak instead of remaining a blue column.
She felt both accomplished and feminine while she sat with Anna and talked about babies, universities, and trade policies and crocheted a second cap. This one was yellow, because while Kristoff was assuming a son was on the way, they may as well be prepared for either sex. Anna had long-since finished the booties and was knitting tiny sweaters. They were in the small council room because Anna was tired of her bedroom. Actually, since Elsa started cooling rooms for her, Anna had a tendency to find Elsa wherever she was and stay with her. They spent hours of every day together, with Elsa periodically pulling more heat out of the air. Kristoff had taken to wearing a sweater inside the castle. They ignored his grumbling about the winter weather in August.
"If we do found a university, we need to consider which councilor would have jurisdiction over it," Elsa said.
"It's all been Vilrun's idea. Would you give it to him?" Anna replied.
"A university seems a strange thing to combine with public order and law enforcement," Elsa said.
"Those philosophical discussions can get out of hand," Anna said.
Elsa gave her a sideways glance and decided she was teasing. "I think Vilrun is worried he's going to get bored now that we know Arendelle can't be attacked."
"We have the biggest armory in the Coalition of Shoreline Kingdoms, a new navy, and Vilrun thinks he's going to get bored?"
"It's all for show, isn't it? No one is going to try and conquer Arendelle again. That's why he proposed a university in the first place – we have a chance of attracting talent because we can guarantee they won't be interrupted by a decade of war. He wants something more important to do than drill Castle Guards for attacks that won't come."
"Appoint Vilrun as President of the University, then find a Councilor of Public Order who is still interested in the job. The fact that Bern makes it impossible for anyone with evil intentions against you to hold a weapon within our borders doesn't mean we're safe from every threat in the world, Elsa. We need someone paranoid, not someone who is bored by the idea of protecting our kingdom and rulers," Anna said.
"Admiral Theron wants Bern to inspect our ships this week. I'll talk to them about it. You have a good point," Elsa said. She stopped talking to count stitches and skip. Her goal with this cap was to turn it into a cap without extra help from Marda. Perhaps the baby would have a long and pointed head, then the cap would fit better.
Anna held up the tiny sweater that still lacked a sleeve. "Can you believe my baby will be this small?"
"That part is believable. The strange thought is that someone can start out that small and end up Kristoff's size," Elsa said.
At the mention of Kristoff, Anna rolled her eyes. "I'm sending him off to set the freeze lines in the ice lakes as soon as the weather turns. He is so irritating when he needs time away. Tell Bern to give him a few days off, would you? He should have left a week ago, but he doesn't know how Bern can manage without him so he stays here and drives me crazy."
"You're trying to get rid of him?" Elsa asked lightly. She couldn't imagine a day without Bern.
"When Kristoff needs to get away from people, he needs to get away from people. I'm as crabby as he is right now. We'll both be a lot happier if he leaves for a couple of weeks," Anna said. "Maybe he'll stay gone long enough for me to miss him."
~###~
The weeks passed and summer eased into fall. Anna perked up further as the weather cooled, and regained most of her energy, returning to Council meetings with a stack of research and ideas. Kristoff was attending Council meetings now too, as Bern's assistant, and after listening to Kristoff bicker with Gustav, Elsa could see why Anna thought he needed a few weeks in the mountains.
Elsa was reading summaries of the scholars Vilrun wanted to interview about university positions when Kristoff's firm knock sounded at her study door and he came in without waiting for an answer.
"Hey, Elsa."
"Good morning, Kristoff."
"So I'm leaving next week for the ice lakes."
"So Anna tells me. Have a nice time."
"Yeah." He fidgeted with the tassel on a chair, rubbed his hair, then blurted it out. "I want to take Bern, but he won't come unless you tell him to."
"Did you already ask him?" Elsa limited her surprise to raised eyebrows.
"No. I want you to agree first. Isn't this how politics works? You find out who really makes the decisions and get them on board before you talk to anyone else."
Kristoff had a disconcerting way of looking at her more directly than anyone else. Elsa was the queen, and she was used to being treated as the queen by people who had grown up knowing how to treat a queen. The whole idea of rank was foreign to Kristoff, and while they'd laid the forms of protocol over his behavior, his attitudes never changed. To Kristoff, she was just another person and his opinions mattered as much as hers.
"Bern can make his own decisions."
"He won't leave if he thinks you want him to stay."
"Of course I want him to stay!" Elsa said, then bit her lip because Anna didn't want Kristoff to stay. But Bern never got so irritable that she wanted him to leave.
"Send him with me anyway. Half the ice harvesters can't read, so it won't matter at the ice lakes."
Elsa gave Kristoff a puzzled glance, wondering where that comment came from.
"It bothers him that he can't read, Elsa. He doesn't say much about it anymore, but I want to get him out where no one cares that he can't read. He did great at the lakes a couple years ago. The guys like him, even if he is a bit of a dandy."
Elsa bristled at the criticism.
"I won't let him drown if he falls in a lake. Come on, he's been stuck in this castle for more than a year. Are you ever going to let him out of your sight?"
"It isn't an option for the two of us to get very far apart," Elsa said. They'd talked about this. The earth fire in Bern's soul was sent as her guardian and protector. When they were separated, he felt the heat of its worry. As long as they were both in the castle together, they didn't have to stay in the same room, but neither one of them suggested seeing how Bern would do if all Arendelle lay between them.
"Then how about you come too?"
"Me?!"
At that moment, Kai interrupted them to say that Rodmund and Gustav were ready to discuss the envoy to France. That was much more important than a trip to the ice lakes, and not nearly as disturbing to think about, so Elsa ended the conversation with Kristoff without giving him an answer.
~###~
"Don't go. You'll hate it," Anna said. "And it will be awkward for them too. Ice harvesting is a guy thing. Remember that one time I went? They were all so polite, but wow, I can tell you how it feels to be a butterfly at a crow convention."
"I don't know if Bern can get that far away from me," Elsa said.
"He got pretty far away from you when he came to challenge Dominic to that duel while you were off with your mother-in-law," Anna said.
Elsa 'mmmed' thoughtfully, because that brought up all the delicate politics of ending the embargo against Weselton. The two city-states were still in the letter-writing stage of negotiations, but eventually there would have to be a state visit. What if the Duke of Weselton came to Arendelle with Lady Nadja and they all had to pretend they were family? Elsa repressed a shudder.
"See if the protection works long distance," Anna went on. "Sure, Bern gets nervous if you're not around, but how much of that is earth-fire and how much of that is Bern's nervous personality? If he doesn't do more than get nervous, you can both live with that, right?"
"I suppose," Elsa said slowly. She'd wanted Anna's support to keep Bern home, but she wasn't going to get it. Suddenly, she wondered if Kristoff had talked to Anna before he'd come to see her. "I'll miss him, though. I need him."
"You never wanted to trap him," Anna reminded her.
Defeated, Elsa nodded. She would tell Bern to go to the ice lakes with Kristoff. Perhaps he would be noble and refuse to leave her.
~###~
"What are you doing in here?" Anna barged into Elsa's private office without knocking, startling her sister who was gazing out the window, trying to pick out tiny forms moving up the mountainside.
"I work here," Elsa said with as much dignity as she could muster. She would not cry.
Anna studied her for a long minute, one hand absently caressing her belly. "Let's go get some chocolate."
Elsa nodded, and stopped staring out the window.
"They'll only be gone two or three weeks," Anna said.
Elsa nodded again. And then a few tears did leak out.
Anna pulled her into a hug and patted her back.
~###~
When the men returned, Bern was energetic instead of exhausted. Bemused, Elsa watched him pace between Kristoff's sled and the tack house, carrying items that looked completely random to Elsa, but that Kristoff and Bern seemed to think were important, while regaling her with the details of everything he'd done over the past three weeks.
Elsa kept nodding, interrupting only to send a message to Holmes to get a bath ready as quickly as possible. Neither Bern nor Kristoff had fallen into a lake, which meant they hadn't bathed in three weeks. Anna had cheerfully greeted her husband in the castle courtyard, then dodged a kiss and ran off, holding her nose.
"That's not such a great welcome, Anna!" Kristoff hollered after her.
"I'm pregnant and you stink!" Anna shouted back, continuing her retreat.
"Are you going to run off too?" Bern had asked her.
"No," Elsa said, staying upwind from him but unwilling to miss a word of what he was saying.
Bern smelled awful, and his left side was caked with frozen mud. Bits of dirty ice clung to his ice harvester gear, and his beard was gray with dirt. He was telling her how to cube an ice block, and describing a swing saw, and how it had been rebuilt after a brief period as a catapult. Sven was snuffling around Kristoff's sled, searching for a carrot, while Olaf moved blankets and tools and kept up a running commentary on how many carrots Sven had already eaten. Kristoff scolded Olaf for messing up the sled, which almost made Elsa laugh.
"Were you all right? With me so far away, I mean," Elsa finally interrupted him to ask. Of course he was, or he would have come home, but Elsa wanted to hear what he had to say.
Kristoff looked up at the question.
"I missed you, but I knew you were safe," Bern said.
"I haven't trapped you," Elsa said, and she was relieved that she'd urged him to go on this trip.
"I've said that a few million times now," Bern said.
He came towards her and Elsa realized he wanted to kiss her. She tried to stand still, she really did, but then she pinched her nose shut and ran off.
"I've got a trap you can use on Elsa if you need it, Bern," she heard Kristoff offer as she disappeared into the castle.