Author's Note:

A thousand apologies for going AWOL on you, dear reader! I had university finals and then some holiday craziness to get through, but we're back on schedule now! Union will wrap up next Monday, on Christmas Eve, for those of you who celebrate, and then we'll be back on track with Immortal. Thanks for sticking with the story.

Also, I noticed that I'd labeled this story Romance/Humor, and in hindsight that seems like an odd arrangement, so I've re-sorted it to Romance/Hurt-Comfort. I think that makes more sense.

xxx

Chapter Two

Gustav Johannessen's shop,

Arendelle

December 25th, 1843

More than eight months had passed since that night in April when Odette had given herself to Elsa, but she found herself thinking about it again as the portly tailor tapped on her arms to get her to raise them again. He was a caricature of a man, fifty years old and disarmingly charismatic, prone to wearing powdered wigs although they had not been the style among anyone save the judiciary for decades, now. Gustav Johannessen was constantly in motion, making small tsk noises to himself as he inspected the seams on the dress that Odette wore. Somewhere in the distance, a bell began to toll the hour. It was ten in the morning.

Odette looked at her reflection in the floor-length mirror in front of her. Her hair was tied back in a bun – she was to see the hairdresser in an hour when Gustav was done with her – and her face was devoid of makeup, a comparatively plain topper to the brilliant dress that she wore.

Is it in good taste for this dress to be white? She thought to herself. It's not like anyone would know, although anyone who lived in the imperial palace with them knew that she and Elsa shared a room.

"You may lower your arms now, dear," Gustav said, and she dropped them. The man then moved behind her and sniffed. "Lower the blouse."

Odette tried to smother her embarrassment as she slid her arms out of the filmy, gossamer sleeves and exposed her chest. After all, she was wearing a corset that covered practically her entire torso, anyway. But she was shy. She always envied the way that other women like Kariena Tae could be so comfortable in their own skin. No matter how many times Elsa told Odette that she was beautiful, it didn't change the way Odette's cheeks got hot when she could feel people's eyes on her figure.

Gustav tugged at one of the laces of the corset, then tsk-ed to himself, then pulled at another. Odette glanced up towards the ceiling and tried to occupy her mind elsewhere, but then another person walked into the room. It was a teenage girl that Odette knew to be Gustav's apprentice. The girl had the decency to blush when she saw that Odette was indecent, but she walked over to her employer nonetheless.

"Master Johannessen?" she said to him. Her voice had a demure cast, the kind that ladies in service often had. It reminded Odette of her mother's voice, she realized.

"Yes?" Gustav said, without turning. "What is it, Peonie?"

"There is a man here to speak to the client," she said in a whisper.

Odette forgot her embarrassment and started to worry. A man? Here to see her? What had happened? She could never be too far from fear, in these dangerous days. Had someone been killed? Even worse, what if London or Corona had been attacked? Was Arendelle prepared to defend?

Gustav sighed dramatically. "Well, I vastly prefer to work with my clients when they are undistracted, but I can appreciate that our dear Odette is required to remain on the clock at all times. Show him in, Peonie."

The girl scurried out.

"You brave people and your heroics," Gustav said to her. "Never taking the time to sit down and have yourself a glass of wine. This corset, it is terrible craftsmanship."

Odette frowned. "All respect, Gustav, but I think that you're the one who made it."

"Of course I did! A man who cannot be critical of his own workmanship is a man who is delusional about his craft. I refuse to let you wear it to your own wedding."

"I mean, if it's underneath the dress I think that it won't be –"

"Of course it will be a big deal!" Gustav cut her off. "I could tell that the laces weren't aligned correctly underneath the dress! You must take it off."

Odette blushed again. "Here?"

Gustav motioned towards a dressing screen. "Please. Disgrace yourself no longer. Luckily, when I took your measurements Peonie and I had three of each of your garments made. I suspected that this might be an issue. You must have ended up with one of the backup corsets by mistake. I will go fetch you the most beautiful one."

Odette bit her lip, but she stepped off of the little futon before the mirror and behind the screen, and she began to do as she was told. A moment later, she heard footsteps, and then Peonie's voice.

"Yes, sir they're right in here – hmm. At least, they were in here a second ago."

"I still am," Odette said from behind the screen, fumbling with the laces at the back of her corset and trying to fight down her embarrassment. No one could see her back here. "Who is it with you?"

"It's me," said Hans.

"Oh, hi, Hans," Odette said, managing to work herself out of the fabric. She heard more footsteps, and Gustav came back into the room.

"Oh, hello, you handsome young man. I expect that you are here to tell me that Odette must be spirited away to save the world before she gets married in three hours?"
Gustav's hand passed around the edge of the screen, and Odette snatched the corset from him. She was surprised to find that it indeed was more ornate than the one before, because even that one had seemed unnecessarily ostentatious. Odette had grown up poor, and to her all this lace and silk still seemed alien. She quickly shoved her arms through their proper holes and reached around her back to start tying herself back in.

Hans chuckled. "Oh, no, nothing quite so serious, though I must admit that I'm here for business, not pleasure. Call me Hans, by the way."

"As it always is with men like you," Gustav said, though his voice was devoid of malice. "I know your type."

Hans chuckled again. "Odette?"

"I'm here," she said, fumbling with the laces. Why did they make these things so damned hard to get into? "What is it, Hans?"

"Well, that's the thing," he said. She could picture him scratching at his auburn beard. "I wouldn't have believed it myself, if I hadn't spoken to the messenger. But it seems that word of England's recent entrance into our empire has spread among the rest of Europe."

Odette started working the dress itself back on. Her mind whirled. Of course the information would spread like wildfire, but Odette had been hoping that they would at least have time to head off the speculation with an official statement from the Unified Empire, drafted together with Anna and Sir Robert Peel's hands. It would have been a show of unity, and it would have helped to dissuade fears of a new Napoleonic force sweeping through the west.

"Alright, give me the worst of it," Odette said, finally putting her glasses back on and stepping out from behind the dressing screen. Hans looked at her, and his eyes widened slightly. He whistled.

"Very fine work you've done, Mr. Johannessen."

Odette blushed again and glanced down at her arms, clad in sparkly, insubstantial silk.

"Thank you, Hans. The dress is one of my finest creations, though I humbly submit that it would not look half as radiant without such a woman to fill it as our lovely Odette."

Odette cleared her throat. "The, um, the bad news, Hans."

She hadn't stuttered when she was speaking for a long time – at least since she'd started to gain confidence with her powers. She couldn't quite put on a finger on why she'd been so consistently embarrassed today, though it probably had something to do with the way that she wilted under the center of attention.

"Oh, there's no bad news," Hans said, sounding somewhat surprised. "No, it's actually very good news. We received a delegation from France late last night, and another from Austria just this morning. Both of them are asking us to establish portals in their countries. They want in."

Odette blinked. She certainly hadn't expected that, but even now it was starting to make sense to her. England was probably the most powerful country in the world. Its empire was expansive, its naval fleet was powerful, and its currency was honored everywhere under the sun. If they had agreed to enter the Unified Empire, it would suddenly seem to a great many nations in Europe and around the world that it was perhaps wise to follow suit. After all, this is why they had sent Hans to London in the first place, a month ago. They'd set their sights high because they knew it was a shot worth taking.

"That's… that's good," she said, aware that her response sounded weak, but not really knowing what else to say. "That's very good."

She wanted to sink down into a chair and rub her face. Their plan was finally starting to come together. For the first time since that horrible night in New York City last summer when all hope had seemed lost, it felt like they were finally starting to get things under control. They had their feet underneath them again.

Hans smiled and walked across the room, clasping her shoulder. "Anyway. That's all I wanted to let you know. You've got a big day today, and far be it from me to keep you longer."

He was casting a sidelong glance at Gustav as he spoke, who was beginning – despite his good humor – to grow impatient to move on with his ministrations over Odette's dress.

"Yes, yes, we'll all have time to celebrate the new members of our growing family in time," Gustav said, nodding to Hans and beginning to usher him towards the door, "but you'll forgive me if I have something more important to worry about for the time being. There is art in progress here."

Hans smirked, shot a last glance at Odette, and swept out of the room, leaving her to be fretted over by the tailor some more.

xxx

Elsa and her sister stood on a snowy hillock not far from the city. It was a solemn place, with a grey sky overhead and gentle drifts of powder around them. Little headstones yearned towards the sky, placed in orderly rings that moved down the slope into the rest of the cemetery. Nearby, there was an entrance into the hill itself, which served as an underground tomb for most of Anna and Elsa's ancestors. At least, it had – during the revolution, Namar Sadden had exhumed their ancestors in an attempt to find trace magic in the bones of Elsa's forebears.

Of course, there hadn't been any. The young women stood before a larger stone, a black monolith inscribed with Latin words. Elsa couldn't read Latin, but she knew that the obelisk identified her mother and father as having passed in the year 1836, lost at sea with no earthly remains. They were succeeded by their two daughters, Princess Anna and the heir incumbent, Princess Elsa. It quoted a favorite bible verse of their father's, although Elsa could no longer remember which one. She supposed that if she wanted to, she'd be able to figure it out from the numbers on the stone.

A few feet away from their parents' memorial was a smaller headstone, the grave planted with flowers that had been destroyed by the snow. It was Kristoff's resting place, newer than the other stones around it, not yet weathered by winters of exposure. The sisters each wore a black band around their arms.

"You know," Anna said softly, "If I haven't looked at a painting of her recently, I can't call mom's face to mind, anymore. It's easier with dad, because of the moustache, but… I don't know."

Elsa glanced at her sister and wrapped an arm around her, letting Anna lean into her side.

"I just… I don't really want them to be gone," Anna said. "But I hardly even feel anything anymore, you know? It doesn't hurt the way that it used to. I mostly think that when I think about them these days, I feel guilty that I don't mourn them anymore."

"It's okay, Anna," Elsa said. "It's been more than seven years now. These things happen, with time."

Anna's voice choked. "I'm scared that it's going to happen with Kristoff, too."

Elsa felt a gnawing pit in her stomach, the same as she always did when she thought about the man her sister had loved and lost. Elsa was consumed with guilt, that she should be so blessed with love, even as her sister mourned the father of her unborn child. What made fate such a cruel mistress?

"No," Elsa said softly. "No, it's not going to happen. Because you'll have the baby. No matter what they look like, you're going to be able to see part of him in them. The child will always carry their father with them, and you'll love them not only as a mother does, but as a person holding on to what their lover left behind."

Elsa glanced down and noticed that silent tear-tracks had begun down Anna's face. Elsa fought back her own tears. Seeing Anna cry always made her hurt. She should have been able to protect Anna from this. She'd been worlds away when Kristoff died, and sometimes she found that she blamed herself for his death. Maybe if she'd been there, she could have done her duty and Protected him, the way she did all the others. If she'd been a bit faster, defeating their enemies at the Worldgate –

Anna wiped at her face, and then looked up at Elsa with glistening eyes. "I'm happy for you," she said, and Elsa could tell that she meant it. "I'm so, so happy for you. Before Odette, I sometimes wondered to myself if you'd ever find someone who was really right for you. You know what I mean."

Elsa smiled. She, too, had once thought that she'd be alone forever. She hadn't really feared the thought, but it had been melancholy, nonetheless. Suddenly, Elsa realized that the same fate was now destined for Anna, and she felt another pang of empathetic sorrow.

"I could tell," she whispered, smiling softly to herself. "Probably before you even wanted to admit to yourself that you wanted her, I could tell. I could see the way that you looked at her, and whenever we talked about work, you always seemed to find a way to bring her up."

Elsa laughed, now. "Are you serious? Oh, no, I hadn't realized that I was such a starry-eyed girl about it."

Anna laughed, now, too, and it was a blessed sound, warming Elsa to the core. "Oh, you were bad, she said. Worse than a teenager, in some ways. But I'm so happy that it worked out. You're both good for each other. Really good. You're a strong pair."

Elsa smiled. "Thank you, Anna. And I'm sorry."

Anna's smile faded, ever so slightly. "I think this is going to help me to heal," she said. "Seeing the love that you two share. Don't ever think that I'm jealous of what you have."

They stood in amicable silence for a minute, maybe two. Finally, Elsa spoke.

"Hello mother, and father. It's…" she rubbed at her arm, feeling shame rising in her neck. "It's been a few months. Since the anniversary, I think."

Anna squeezed her arm, encouraging her to go on.

"I'm… well, I'm getting married," she said, laughing nervously. "Finally. I know that if you two were alive, you probably would have tried to get me wedded off for political expediency years ago."

She realized that this wasn't the tone that she wanted to take with them, and she forced the bitterness out of her voice. Elsa had a complicated relationship with her parents, or rather the memory of them. She could remember the gentle moments, and the love, but it was so hard to outweigh the cold of closed doors. They'd made her a prisoner in their home and they'd forced her to suppress the storm inside of her. So much of her imprisonment had made her into the woman that she'd become, and not in a way that she was proud of. Elsa felt less guilty when she told herself that the Great Frost had been Agnarr's fault, not hers.

But of course, the past wasn't fit to be painted in black and white, and Anna was often shocked by the way that Elsa remembered their parents. Anna still mourned them, still brought flowers to their gravesite every month. She spent even more time out here, now that her husband was laid to rest not fifteen feet from them. So Elsa took a deep breath, and started again.

"I know that, if you were here, you'd be happy," she said. "I remember, mother, that you once told me that you would make sure I had a wedding like something out of an old knight's tale. We aren't having the biggest celebration, but I'll do my best to make some memories that will last, anyway."

They couldn't have a massive celebration of the wedding, not really. In fact, Elsa and Odette were still hiding their relationship, to some extent. The kingdoms of Europe lining up to become part of the Unified Empire might reconsider their decision if they learned that the Empress's sister and probably its most important spellcaster were living in sin together. Even if Anna took the steps to change the law and make the union legal, like Elsa had fought to do when she'd been Queen of Arendelle, she and Odette would still be wed in contempt of the church, which was an enemy they could not afford to make while they brought Europe underneath their banner.

So it was a going to be a private party, and a small one.

"I… I know that sometimes, it might seem like I only remember the bad things," Elsa said. "And for that, I'm sorry. I really do miss you both. Mother, there are days when it would be… nice, to have you there to tell me that things are going to be all right. And father, I know that I might have ruled in a different way than you did, but not a day passes where I don't wish I had your guidance."

Elsa looked up for a moment before continuing. The sun was just beginning to peek its way out from behind the clouds.

"I used to think that there wasn't anything after this," Elsa said. "I used to think that the idea that you'd be up there watching me was ridiculous. But… but, well, I've seen some things over the last year that make me wonder how sure I should be about that. Maybe you guys really are up there, keeping an eye out for me. I… I take comfort in that, actually."

Elsa lapsed into silence again. She glanced down at Anna and spoke softly. "Do you have anything to add?"

She smiled. "Nothing at all. Now come on. You've got a wedding to get to."