A/N: 2nd Chapter (I probably won't be able to update this frequently after this week since it's midterms - yay and I don't have any midterms until Thursday/Friday but I'll try and get a few chapters off while I have a ton of time)

Also: Sorry that this chapter ended up taking so long to make I kinda accidentally forgot to save it when I left home this afternoon and lost a good thousand words of work...this isn't as good as what I had earlier but I hope it's good enough

Chapter 2: The Winter Festival

Elsa stood before the massive double doors that led to the small hallway, which in turn led to the castle balcony. Hundreds of royals and dignitaries stood outside the castle gates, coming from Corona to Gaul to Britain. She saw her cousin (A/N: Yes, I made them cousins), Crown Princess Rapunzel of Corona, Prince George of Wales, and many unfamiliar faces. MANY of them. In a way, Elsa almost considered it a bit lucky that her parents had died much younger than they should have, for now she had the chance to pick a husband who she truly loved instead of just someone who would benefit Arendelle for political alliances. On the other hand, she had to pick from 36 dashing young men vying for her hand with- what did Anna say...two weeks?

"Deja vu," she thought, thinking back to her coronation, where she felt similarly nervous (although for totally different reasons) while standing there.

"Your majesty?" Henrik, a graying man in his forties who had knew her parents for over two decades, asked her. "Not to pester you, but they're expecting you out soon. It's nearly noon."

Elsa nodded. "Um..thank you, Henrik. Could you please tell them to be read for my command?"

Henrik nodded, bowed quickly, and left.

She took a deep breath, composing herself. Under her breath, she murmured:

But it's only for two weeks...
It'll be a long two weeks...
It's agony to wait...
Can't avoid a fate...

"Tell the guards to open up...the Gates!" she announced, opening her interior doors. She heard the guards quickly start pulling and giving orders to those in the courtyard to open the massive gates of the Arendelle Castle.

Elsa strode down the deep purple carpet in the hallway between the two doors, walking past two rows of six guards each. She tried to maintain her composure and seem regal, putting on a fake appearance of confidence. However, upon reaching the massive, decorated wooden doors to the royal balcony, she sighed and dipped her head slightly, trying to focus.

This earned the attention of one of the younger servant girls, Christine (who was 18 and good friends with Princess Anna). "Milady, are you all right?" she asked, handing Elsa a glass of water that the queen quickly drank.

"Please call me Elsa, Christine," Elsa said, forcing a weak smile. Since the Great Thaw, she had tried to foster personal relationships with the castle staff, and tried to get them to call her by her name instead of a royal title or formal greeting. However, for all of the staff, this went against the first thing they had learned in their training to become part of the castle staff: to always refer to the royal family and Arendelle's high-ranking officials by either title or respectful salutation. This primarily became sort of a minor issue for Elsa's more experienced staff, who insisted to Elsa that it was not proper for them and continued to respectfully call her "Queen Elsa", though they respected her efforts to try and get the other staff to do so. She didn't have much luck with the younger staff, since they were also used to using "Your Majesty" and "Your Highness" with Elsa (and for some, even her father). "But, I do feel a bit uneasy with all of this...I'm still kind of new to this," Elsa admitted.

"You'll be fine, your maj-I mean, Elsa, don't worry about it!" Christine reassured cheerfully.

Elsa smiled, then walked up to the wooden doors. Taking a deep breath, she placed her small hands on the handles and forced the doors apart, letting sunlight stream in on the hallway.

Kai, the head of the castle staff, announced, "May I present to you all: Queen Elsa II of Arendelle, regnant monarch of Arendelle." Elsa walked outside as the people in the courtyard- a combination of her citizens and royals/dignitaries from other nations- cheered for her, which drew a smile from the nervous young queen and acted as a slight confidence-booster. She greeted the various royal families and representatives from the other nations, and gave a brief overview of the many events that would take place in Arendelle over the course of the massive Winter Festival (the sheer amount of activity planned for the event was impressive, especially considering that Anna and Olaf planned it). Elsa blushed slightly at the words "suitor's ball", but added that it wasn't only for suitors, and, as such, invited the common people to the ball and dinner as well.

When she had finished, she turned and re-entered the castle with Kai behind her, sighing in relief after the guards had closed the balcony doors. Now for that ball she thought.

The dinner was incredible. All sorts of food had been brought in as gifts by the visiting nations, and the royal chefs had prepared many elegant courses that royals and commoners alike enjoyed. However, all that Princess Anna ate was from the extravagant display of chocolates from Switzerland. Elsa, trying to maintain her regality, only ate a few...or at least the guests only saw the queen eat a few.

Afterwards, many moved into the ballroom (Anna remained in the dining hall, and requested Kristoff to do similarly, as she and her cousin, Princess Rapunzel of Corona, enjoyed the final treat which had been a bit late in its arrival: chocolate-dipped strawberries from France, while their fiancee/husbands talked and laughed about how both were commoners who married into (or about to marry into, as in Kristoff's case) the royal family.

Meanwhile, Elsa stood nervously in the ballroom. At least, she did first. Although she had sharply increased her amount of human contact after re-opening the gates, and was relatively comfortable with it, she was a bit nervous this night about accidentally freezing a suitor's hand or something. However, after the first two suitors, who were both attractive and charming (although Elsa didn't take a particular liking to either), Elsa significantly loosened up and was able to talk more and be a lot to other royals and the suitors.

Nevertheless, as comfortable as she was becoming with talking to people now (she had even taken off the gloves!), the nearly endless line of suitors was taking its toll on her. Elsa's jaw hurt from saying the same courteous things a million times to different people, faking smiles, and all. Suitor 11- or was it 12?- approached her, kissing the back of her hand as Elsa let out a small giggle. She glanced around the room, and there were a good hundred people either dancing or looking down from the balcony booths (located on the upper floor, with the dining hall A/N: Yes, I know that doesn't exist in the castle in the movie). Yellow, red, white, blue, and black-tuxedo-wearing men and ballgown-donned women danced around the room, enjoying themselves and conversing casually.

"Er-Queen Elsa?" the suitor asked.

"Oh, um, I'm sorry, I was a bit...distracted," she replied, embarrassed at the crestfallen look that the young man, probably 25 or 26, had.

"Well, as I was saying, I'm Prince George of Wales," he continued, "and I'm very honored to meet you. Would you allow me to dance with you, milady?"

"Certainly, Prince George. And call me Elsa," she said, smiling and letting him take her hand as they began waltzing to the tune of Finn-Jenta, a traditional Norwegian ballad.

They made some small talk- like what had happened with the first 10 or so suitors- and smiled, laughed at each others' bad jokes, but when the dance ended, he bid her farewell and it was like nothing had happened.

Elsa danced with several more suitors, including Prince Charles of Sweden, but their dance was cut short when many guests heard a strange commotion and noise, followed by a man suddenly bursting in through the doors ahead of the guards.

"WHERE IS THE QUEEN?" he demanded, and a few pointed to Elsa.

"Do you need anything, sir?" Elsa politely asked, confusion hiding her suspicions. He did not reply.

The guards burst in as he started making his way to her, but could not shoot for fear of hitting either Elsa or any of the other guests.

"YOU ARE A WITCH AND A MONSTER!" he exclaimed, brown eyes burning like suns. His harsh words caused many to suddenly part and back away in fear, giving him a direct line to the Queen. Guards, surprised by the sudden commotion, stumbled awkwardly in their attempts to prepare to protect their queen. Elsa turned around, shocked and trying to look for the source of the voice, as Prince Charles slipped in surprise and ended on the ground two feet away from her, when the man continued.

"I WILL END ALL OF THIS SORCERY!" the man shouted, drawing a crossbow and firing a single shot at the Queen.

Elsa shrieked in surprised, attempting to will her ice powers to protect her, but she could not as she was completely taken off guard. The palace guards and guests looked on in horror as the metal bolt flew at Queen Elsa's chest, before anyone could move a hand to try and prevent it.

Elsa tried to back up when she heard the shot, but slipped and wasn't able to get out of the path of the bolt. She shrieked, put up her hands, and closed her eyes, bracing herself for incredible pain.

Fshink!

Silence.

Cold air on her face.

Is this what being dead feels like? I thought I'd feel pain Elsa thought, only to realize that she hadn't been struck. She realized with a feel of her hand that she had backed up into the throne in the ballroom. Opening her eyes, she gasped. The assassin, Prince George, Prince Charles, the guests, guards, Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and the castle staff also gasped in surprise.

The arrow was stuck in a floating circular piece about a half-foot in radius of ice just two inches from her nose. Did I...I didn't. What happened?! Elsa wondered, astounded.

A pale hand smacked the piece of ice away, and then offered itself to Elsa. She accepted, as this hand pulled her up to her feet. Everyone in the room was shocked and silent, except for the owner of this hand.

"Are you all right, your majesty?"

"Um, yes I'm fine...did you make that ice?" Elsa asked, only to realize how weird her question must've sounded, as she was the only one she knew of who could make ice.

"Actually, I did," the voice answered. Elsa, bewildered, looked up to see a young man with a handsome face with brown hair and eyes, dressed in a elegant blue-and-white tuxedo with white pants. "King John of the Northern Isles, at your service."

Elsa's response was a shocked silence.

A/N: Really long chapter, since 1) had a lot of stuff and 2) I didn't want to split this into 2 since I felt guilty about not finishing until this late (11 EST) due to accidental not-saving and all that's my fault.

Kind of a cliff-hanger...will post the update later this week! :)