Hi! So I promised y'all another chapter! And here it is!
Thank you all soooo much for the love on this story! I got a lot of requests for more, and I hope to have the next chapter up by this weekend or next Monday. I actually wrote this entire chapter in one sitting because I had an idea and went with it! Gosh, it feels so good to write again! I missed it!
I hope you guys enjoy! Let me know if you want more, and if there's anything at all that I should change! I like constructive criticism!
XOXO,
OceansAria :)
There were those days in the castle that were sweet and full of love, and then there was also those days when the exact opposite happened. When the tension in the air was so thick that not even Kristoff's pickaxe could slice through it.
The princess had awoken to her husband's side of the bed cool and empty, as it had been almost every day since they got married. She rarely awoke up to his fireside-like warmth surrounding her. And for some reason, on this particular morning, she really hated his job and hated that he left her so early every day. Pouting, she buried her head in the pillows and slept for another hour before a knock came at her door.
"Milady?" It was Sherman, one of the many servants that had been around as long as Anna could remember. He must be older than dirt, Anna thought as she raised her head.
"Yes?"
"The Queen requests your presence in her room for breakfast, Your Highness."
Anna raised an eyebrow. "Elsa knows I'm not allowed to be up and about much, Sherman."
"Yes, the Queen does know that, milady," Sherman replied primly. "But she talked with the Court Physician and he agreed that since you've been very good and rested aplenty—" (Anna winced. She hadn't been that good. Sometimes, when Mary thought she was napping, she snuck down to the kitchens or the library) "—That you may dine with your sister this morning. Afterwards, you must return to your chambers and follow doctor's orders."
Anna's spirits lifted slightly. Smiling, she rang the bell for Mary. "Please tell Elsa that I'll be there soon, Sherman!"
"Yes, Your Highness." She could practically see the bow through the door as the servant dismissed himself.
A few moments later, Mary arrived and began to help the princess out of bed and into a wheelchair. She brushed Anna's strawberry blond hair and plaited it into neat braids. The princess watched as Mary did so, thinking of the white streak that had disappeared from her mane years before. Sometimes, she missed it.
As soon as Anna was cleaned up, Mary wheeled her out of her room to Elsa's, down the hall. The room, as always, was cooler than any other in the castle. Though the balcony doors were open to the garden below, the summer air made no difference to the room's temperature. Anna shivered but bore it. She hadn't seen her sister in a day or two. Elsa, in all of her icy splendor, sat in a straight-backed chair the furthest away from the fire, with another chair across the table from her closer to the hearth. She wasn't one for cozying up near the fire.
Elsa stood with a cool smile on her red lips. She nodded at Mary, who stopped Anna right beside the chair. "Thank you, Mary. I've got it from here."
Mary curtsied and quietly let herself out. Elsa turned to her younger sister. Anna raised her eyebrows.
"You can't lift me out of this thing by yourself, Elsa," Anna said. "I've gained at least twenty pounds."
Elsa again gave her a sauve smile. "It's okay. Just watch." She gently swirled an icy breeze around and under Anna with just a flex of her slender wrists. The princess gasped in surprise as she was lifted a good six inches into the air and drifted towards the chair by the hearth with ease. When she had been settled comfortably into the chair, her bare feet warming on the grates of the fire, she smiled at her older sister.
"You're amazing, you know that, right?"
Elsa chuckled, tucked her skirts, and sat. "You could mention it more."
Instead of a huge, grand breakfast like usual, there was a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries and strawberries; a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice; a fuzzy peach just picked; and a whole-grain muffin that had a whole load of raisins. Elsa's breakfast was pretty similar, except for the glass of ice water in place of orange juice.
"What? No pancakes? Where's the extra-chocolate hot chocolate? With the whipped cream and peppermint shavings?" Anna complained. She poked at her lumpy oatmeal. She'd been eating huge breakfasts since the beginning of her pregnancy. Unlike other women, she didn't have morning sickness. For some odd reason, she usually got sick around lunch time.
Elsa raised a sharp eyebrow. "You need to eat better, Anna. You're eating for two, remember? You've got to keep that baby—and its mother—healthy and strong." She gestured at Anna's bowl with her spoon before digging into her own breakfast.
Anna deflated. She'd felt a cloud of irritation and anger hanging over her since she had woken up. She had no idea why, but she was absolutely furious—at Kristoff, at her sister, at the Court Physician. She was mad with everyone. They all had been telling her what to do and when to do it since the day she'd found out she was pregnant. She couldn't even make decisions for herself anymore.
Don't eat that, Anna. Stay in bed, Anna. Don't run, Anna. Be careful, Anna. Don't do anything stupid that could hurt the baby, Anna.
The princess stayed silent as she played half-heartedly with her oatmeal, her pale hand resting on her large stomach. She loved this baby more than she ever thought she could love someone she'd never met. But she felt as if she knew this child already. It was her and Kristoff's child—so she, or he (Kristoff really wanted a little boy), would be funny, stubborn, and overdramatic at times. This child would have her fiery personality and Kristoff's sarcastic sense of humor. He would be the perfect mixture of the two of them, swirled into one being.
She would never do anything to hurt her baby. But sometimes . . . and she hated to admit it . . . Anna wished she hadn't gotten pregnant. She had missed out on so much in the past eight months. Her cousin, Princess Rapunzel of Corona, had planned to throw a huge baby shower for her, but she'd missed it because she'd been too sick from the baby. She'd been able to open all the presents in her room the day after, but she didn't get to eat the yummy ten-layer double fudge cake or talk to all of her friends that she hadn't seen since she'd gotten married. She'd been bitter for days over that.
"Anna?"
"Hmm?" The princess had been deep in her turmoiling thoughts. Obviously, from the look her sister was giving her, Elsa had called her more than once.
"Are you going to eat?" Concern glinted in the queen's blue eyes. She had already consumed half of her bowl of porridge in the time Anna had been thinking.
The princess sat back in her chair; her spoon clattered in the bowl. Anna crossed her arms over her stomach, still deep in thought. "No. I'm not really hungry."
Elsa sighed, feeling slightly exasperated. She set down her spoon, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and began: "Anna, you know that you need to—"
"I know!" Anna cried, her voice tight with frustration. "I need to eat to keep the baby healthy! I know, okay?" Her eyes locked onto her sister's for a split second—Elsa saw a storm raging behind those eyes, a storm like the one that had swallowed up their parents years before. "But I don't want to eat right now. I'll eat later."
The queen's forehead wrinkled.
"Is something wrong?"
Anna kept her face directed at the orange and blue flames flickering in the hearth. They reflected in her eyes. Her chin was jutted out stubbornly. "No. Nothing's wrong. Everything's just perfect." She hissed out the words.
"Did you and Kristoff have another fight over what to name the baby?" Elsa sighed.
Anna rolled her eyes harshly. "No."
Her sister wasn't softening. Elsa grew more worried by the second. She folded her hands in her lap and kept up the façade of the serene, strong queen. "Did you and Kristoff have a fight over something else?" Knowing her brother-in-law and her sister, they sometimes fought over the simplest of things. Once, they'd had a knockdown-drag-out over the flavor cake they should have at their wedding reception. The servants had to tiptoe around the couple for days.
"No," Anna huffed. "We haven't fought about anything. We're both perfectly fine."
Confused still, Elsa decided to just let her younger sister stew for a while and then, when the princess was ready, she'd confess. For the next five minutes, the two girls sat in silence until Anna dug a tiny gold bell out of her dress pocket and rung it. Mary, who had been standing right outside of the door, came in.
"You don't have to go back to your room just yet, Anna," Elsa said as Mary gently slid the princess into the wheelchair. It completely slipped the queen's mind to help. "I know that you hate being locked up in there all the time."
Anna turned her back on her sister, her tiny shoulders hunched. "I just want to be alone for a little while." Her voice was as small and meek as a child's. However, fury boiled underneath. "Thanks again for breakfast, Elsa."
Not another word was uttered between the queen and the princess as Anna was wheeled out. Elsa sat there, her hands clenching the arms of her chair. She hated seeing her sister in such a state. She wished she could help somehow. After almost two decades of being kept apart, Elsa never wanted to be cut off from her sister ever again. The breakfast laid out before her began to grow cold as it was forgotten by both women at this point.
A knock on the door suddenly cut off the queen's train of thought.
"Yes?" she answered absentmindedly.
A maid no older than her with dark hair poked her head inside the queen's chambers. "Your meeting with the Prime Minister awaits, milady."
"Ah, yes. The Prime Minister." Elsa stood and brushed the crumbs off her dress. She turned to glance in a mirror. "Tell him I'll be there in a minute."
The door shut softly. She tried to hold it in, but her anxiety got the best of her. Ice trailed from her fingers wherever she touched the tablecloth before her as she recalled what the Prime Minister wished to talk to her about.
An alliance with a distant country.
An alliance through marriage.
With shaky hands, Elsa opened her door and walked, back straight and confident smile plastered on, to the meeting. She'd have to worry about Anna later.
