It was too hot.
It was too hot and she felt like she could hardly breathe, every lungful drawn in only through great effort through the soup in the air. She imagined her organs simply giving up halfway through the day and leaving her gasping and suffocating in the atmosphere. Or she could boil alive. At least that way the suffering would be over.
"Are you okay ma'am?" Kristoff asked from behind her. She turned to look at him. Tall and blonde and imposing, he showed exactly zero signs that the heat and humidity were affecting him.
"I'm fine," she said.
"As you say your majesty," Kristoff said, the way he always did when he didn't believe her.
She looked out, past the terminal and past the tarmac runway, and saw for miles. It was…breath-taking, was the only way she could see to describe it. The land beneath her seemed to go on forever. A few meters past the runway it felt like mankind ceased to exist, and nature re-claimed the land instantly, covering it in an endless carpet of grass so green it took her breath away, and rolling fields of something long and golden (wheat, she remembered from her hastily scribbled notes) that wavered and flowed in the soft wind like a golden sea. It was an illusion of course. The golden fields out there were money to the man she was going to meet, every blade of grass and corn tended year-round. If she squinted she could see the glints of working machinery, also owned by the man. Probably made in his factories too.
In Arendelle the view from the castle went as far as the major town across the mote, and then unceremoniously ended where mountains rose up to block it. And never mind re-claiming it, nature had never let her grip over them waver for a second. The snow covered everything, beautiful and pure but also fierce and unrelenting. Some days Elsa would leave the castle with as small an escort as she could and walk a small ways up the huge mountain closest to the castle, just as far as the forest that ringed it that for centuries had never been cut down. She would stand just inside the dense clusters of oaks and pine, drawing deep breaths of the air and feeling the tiny daggers cleanse her from within. It was her country, and she loved it.
Still, it was nice to get away. If Arendelle was still in some ways an untamed wilderness, Virginia seemed more of a well-tended garden. Elsa loved gardens. She suspected Weselton knew it. When the man had offered the meeting he had spent a good time extolling the place at length, and eventually she had agreed. To stop him talking, if nothing less.
"Are you alright Elsa?" Kristoff asked softly. He only used her name when the two of them were alone. He handed her a handkerchief as she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and brought it away wet. "Do you need anything?"
I need to get off this tarmac. "No, thank you Kristoff." Any longer and she was considering going back into the plane for-
"Sir," Kristoff said, coming to something more like attention as a huge shape in black walked towards them from the airport terminal, resolving itself into her chief of security. He towered over Elsa, and even had a few inches over Kristoff. Unlike most of her detail who all tended to the blonde-haired look, Marshall's was dirtier, brown hairs scattered in his scraggly mop. It made him look like he had a headful of straw, not that anyone would say that to his face. Even at forty he had arms to make younger men shrink away.
"They should have been here before us," he rumbled, in a voice that could have started avalanches. No, wait, it would be more likely to be rock-slides here. The tone in his voice made it clear what he thought though.
"It's not an insult. I asked for the privacy," she replied, tugging at the sleeves of her new and still-scratchy suit's sleeves. She didn't like the colour, but Marshall had insisted if they were going to be travelling light he wanted her in 'camouflage'. It meant off-brand suits in drab colours instead of the light shades she normally liked. It meant a corporate jet borrowed from a northern businessman who owed her a favour. It meant her tiara was safely locked away in a secure box that had arrived ahead of her with a small detail of its own.
The terrible suits she could live with if she really had to. The plane, similar, although the small seats and lack of a way to stretch had her legs feeling cramped. The last one though she had no problems with. She would put up with less-than lavish transportation and clothes that made her itch if it meant she could walk around a free woman without the weight of the thing on her head, at least for a day or two.
"Finally," Marshall said, as the limo drew up, flat black and featureless. The door slid open to let an equally-generic man climb out.
"Apologies for the wait your highness," the nameless functionary said cheerfully. "Duke apologises for not being here to greet you himself, unfortunately vital business elsewhere-"
She let him motor-mouth for a few seconds more before waving a hand. "Perfectly understandable." Please let's just go. She felt a headache coming on from the heat that radiated from the rubbery black runway and she climbed into the interior of the limo as quickly as was proper. Even the leather inside felt stuffy, but at least the sun wasn't beating down on her anymore as Kristoff and Marshall climbed in after her and shut the door against the heat.
"We have some time before the party your majesty," Marshall intoned. "Everything is already at the house, including the rest of your detail. We'll be there in a half-hour."
A second house. What was even the point of owning a second house less than ten minutes' drive away from a huge mansion? Was it for his dog? Did he even own a dog? She thought of her own dog, back in Arendelle, and sighed. "Has there been any news from home?" she asked, hoping for something to distract her as the limo pulled away from the private airstrip and started moving through the endless fields of grass and wheat. It was almost hypnotising.
"Nothing your majesty," Marshall replied. "Everything's working fine. Gerda is on-site with the company and will have the reports for you directly when you return."
"That's good," Kristoff replied.
"Yes, it is." Gerda would make sure nothing untoward happened while she was away. The company had made promises and had come recommended, but she still didn't quite trust them. They were too smooth, their smiles too easy. Maybe a ridiculous reason not to trust somebody, but Elsa had never trusted easily, and so far it had worked out well for her. If it had been up to her she would have tossed them out of the country the moment the crown touched her head, but contracts were contracts.
The crown.
She rubbed her head, and imagined she could feel a ghost there, still pressing down on the top of her forehead. She had never gotten used to it, even after three years.
Had never wanted to.
She looked at herself in the mirror and felt like a fraud. Like a child that had gotten into her mother's wardrobe while she was away and was playing dress-up with the clothes found inside. Like a girl going on a cheap fancy-dress party in a cheap princess costume. The sceptre in her hand felt like plastic and shiny paint and coloured glass beads, even though it was made of finest oak and topped with gold and gemstones. The cross-topped orb of the globus cruciger in the other felt like a painted egg, topped with a wooden cross, wrapped in yellow tin-foil. The crown jewels of Arendelle felt cheap in her hands.
No, she made them feel cheap. Her holding them was what cheapened them.
"You look radiant, dear," her father said, gently reaching up and brushing a single platinum hair back into place. She had it in a single long braid, not because she particularly cared for the style, but because it had been her mothers. His fingers shook, ever so slightly, as he did so. In the mirror she could see the creases and wrinkles in his skin as he gently placed the errant hair back in its braid. They looked like an old man's fingers, even though he was barely fifty.
"I really…I don't think this is necessary," Elsa whispered, her voice cracking as she did, and that wasn't what she wanted to say. She felt hands gently turning her around as her father pulled her into a hug, and she went gently to avoid creasing the coronation dress wrapped around her, that felt like discount cotton. Don't shake. Don't cry.
"I'm so sorry Elsa," King Agdar whispered into his daughter's ear, one hand wrapped around her and the other holding onto the cane that kept him standing. Only one cane. It was a good day. "If there was a single thing I could do, I would do it in a heartbeat. But Arendelle needs a ruler."
"Arendelle has a ruler," Elsa whispered back, "A really, really good one."
"It needs a ruler who can stay conscious for more than a few hours a day, and who can remember a conversation with more than twenty words in it. It needs a ruler who can sign their name to a piece of paper legibly, without tearing it into shreds or."
She hugged her father, gently, like he would break under her. The daddy of her childhood, strong and dependable and always there when she scraped her knee or had a bad day at school, had been torn down and replaced with a wraith.
What? Elsa had said when he had told her, three years ago.
They're not…quite…sure what it is. Sometimes close to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, sometimes closer to MS, her father had replied, and the look in his eyes had made her panic even before he had went on to explain. It's…not well-understood. The doctor only really use them as a comparison because nothing else makes sense, but the symptoms are roughly similar to both.
I don't understand, Elsa had replied. She knew her father had been seeing the royal physician more than the usual yearly check-ups and colds. Knew he had been rising a little later and going to bed a little sooner. Knew that Gerda had taken on more responsibility, but that was nothing serious. Nothing really worth getting worried about. She had refused to understand at first. Had insisted. He worked too hard, he needed to leave more to Gerda and the ministers. He just needed a short holiday, take mother away to the Caribbean for a few weeks. He needed to not stay up at all hours of the night.
I need to ask you to do something Elsa. Something I didn't want to ask you for a long time.
And because Elsa loved her parents so much she had said I'll do anything just tell me, and in the three years between saying those words and putting a crown on her head she had torn her soul in two. Because even though she loved her father, a part of her bitterly, bitterly regretted that she had said them.
Elsa, I need you to grow up just a little faster, her father had said. If I get any worse I may have to seriously consider…stepping down.
What?
Abdication, Elsa.
And the paths that Elsa had planned for her life had suddenly shrunk, and vanished. The woodland mosy trails and carefully-ordered architectural paths of her hopes and dreams had been replaced with a single heavy paved road that covered and buried them all forever and led to only one place. She had put her geometry and architectural books away and replaced them with dusty tomes of law. The time she spent travelling to the free clinic she had helped build, to the school and orphanage she had given time and funding to, was replaced by meetings with ministers and sub-ministers about Arendelle's relationships with other countries and the exact state of her home's industries and GDPs. Her music tutor had been paid for her time and told there simply wasn't room in the schedule, and the small group of friends she had fought tooth and nail to make at college drifted away inexorably as she had to say sorry but I can't find the time again and again until they had simply stopped phoning.
She had always known she would inherit one day. She had even looked forward to it. Her father was young and healthy, and there was so much time between now and that far-off day, time enough to live her own life, before she put on the crown and robes and lived for her country. Now it felt all those moments she could have had were cut from her timeline, and the life she could have lived in them had been thrown out with them. She should have been forty, or fifty, when she finally wore the crown. Not twenty-one.
Between Elsa the Girl and Elsa the Queen there was supposed to have been an Elsa the Woman, who would now never exist.
"I'm not ready," she whispered into her father's chest. "It's too much."
"Your mother and I are still right here with you," he replied quietly, and Elsa didn't know if it was because he wanted to be as quiet as her or because he simply couldn't talk any louder.
"Your majesty? Your highness? The carriage is here."
Elsa pushed her father away looked at the man in his ceremonial dress and felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. A twenty-minute carriage ride – still a carriage by tradition, even in the cold of winter – was all that separated her and it now. There would be a short ride through the city, the streets lined with cheering crowds for their girl-princess, and finally she would draw up to the castle and walk the long red carpet. The old man who had been the head priest since her grandfather's time would put it on her head, and that would be it. She would be Queen Elsa the Second, of Arendelle.
"You have to be strong Elsa," her father asked, his free hand still on her shoulder. She could still feel it vibrating slightly there and had to clench her hands into fists to resist the urge to shrug it off. What are you, and what have you done to my daddy? "Please. For me, for your mother, for everyone."
She took a deep breath and steeled herself, her nails biting into her palms, drawing blood the same way they had ever since he had told her about his disease. Ever since her destiny had been brought out of a nebulous future and shoved into her hands right now.
Do it for them. "Of course father," she said, her voice as strong as she could make it. Not steel, yet. Maybe not even iron. But she got the words out and her voice didn't shake as she stood there in front of the mirror, and a strange girl in royal robes too big for her stared back with terror hidden in her heart.
Agdar smiled as he looked down at her, and didn't see the fear there. "See? You can do it. I believe in you."
She didn't dare respond. She turned carefully, to stop the robe behind her from tangling, and walked out of the drawing room. The cloak was heavy, and every step forward felt like it took monumental effort.
It's too soon.
"Oh my god," Kristoff blurted out as the doors closed behind them. Marshall gave him a dirty look. "Sorry sir."
Elsa turned to the head of her security detail. "Marshall, can you go and check with Steffen that everything else is ready?"
Marshall wasn't fooled for a second. "Of course your majesty," he said, and strode off to find the rest of the entourage that had already arrived with the clothes and accessories for the weekend, and the gifts for the various dignitaries Elsa planned to meet, and all the rest of the metric tonnage involved when a head of state met with members of a foreign government off their home soil. He didn't mind being sent away. It wasn't proper for Kristoff to have such a…personal…relationship with his primary, but Marshall had been in Elsa's security since her father, and he wasn't going to begrudge the young royal a friend.
Kristoff waited a few seconds until after the door was closed and his boss was a safe distance away. When he was finally sure Marshall's preternatural senses wouldn't detect him, he snorted derisively and looked around the main hall of the 'house'. "But seriously, what the hell?"
Oh lord, it really was dire. When Duke Weselton had offered her the use of the place for the weekend's activities, she had expected something similar to her own family's summer residence back in Arendelle; something smaller and more personal than the official castle, more relaxed. This place was anything but that. Presumably Weselton had told the designer he wanted a mansion, but smaller, and they had…compromised. Everything had simply been shrunk to fit, and the rest had been filled in what someone imagined a 'mansion' should look like. The grand staircase leading from the main foyer to the second floor was barely wide enough for two people to walk up side-by-side. There were actual pillars in the middle holding up…well…nothing really. She could look up at the ceiling and see ornate gold wiring twisting around the wooden decorations. Styles clashed from one wall to the next, cherubs and gargoyles fighting for space on the pillars and the tops of the walls. There was even…oh god no…there was even a mounted lion's head halfway up the grand staircase, looking out over the doors. At least it wasn't a portrait of Duke himself. Elsa might have died laughing.
"Is this like Ikea on an unlimited budget?"
"Be nice Kristoff," Elsa said, trying not to grin and failing.
"I'm just saying, this is what three-star hotels look like when they're trying too hard."
Elsa climbed the steps and examined the walls as she went. Pictures of Weselton dotted the walls, all of them with a convenient brass plaque attached to the bottom of the frame saying who everyone in the picture was. Duke with old politicians posed over a dead lion in a valley somewhere. Duke at a table drinking with actors. Duke in a severe formal suit and a heavy gold chain among a group of…of…she had no idea what Rotarians were.
It was called an 'I Love Me' wall and it was designed to intimidate and awe the looker with the power and influence the owner wielded. She'd met several people who had them, but usually when people tried to awe her she held a singular huge advantage over them; she was an actual queen. Probably by the end of this weekend there would be a new picture up on the wall that read DUKE WESELTON AND HRM ELSA ARENDELLE.
She opened the door on a room that looked like it would have been owned by a decadent French king, if they had liked their rooms half-sized. She was too tired from the trip to complain though. She fell back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling in a distinctly un-queen-like manner. Back at home her dog would already have been clambering over her and licking her face with excitement, but here there was no such luck. Maybe she would just sleep until-
"Your majesty?" Kristoff's voice sounded from the other side of the door. "The briefers are here."
Rats.
Kristoff knocked before entering, followed by two of her entourage. Steffen Erikson, a well-kept man of about thirty who just neat and tidy and didn't have a single blonde hair out of place, just like the rest of the ushers back home, who had won the rock-paper-scissors tournament to go on the trip. Arendelle castle had dozens of them with various job who helped take care of herself and the staff, and they all seemed to be printed out from the same template. Next to him was one of her Deputy Press Secretaries whose name she couldn't quite recall, her actual Press Secretary kept home ill with something unmentionable and horrible back in Arendelle. She herself looked more than a little nauseous, although whether that was travel sickness or having to brief the queen Elsa couldn't tell.
"Your m…majesty," the young black-haired girl said, clutching a binder to her chest like a ward against evil. Elsa looked at grey eyes that probably would have been quite pretty had they not been wide as dinner-plates and possibly about to burst into tears. "I have the plans for the party here from Mr Weselton. The err…the…"
"The guest list," Steffen helpfully supplied, not helping with the young woman's nervousness. Elsa was staring directly at her, and those incredibly blue eyes were a little off-putting to a woman barely out of her teens who'd never met the queen before except a glimpse through her boss's door. Her name was Marie and she was only here because her boss Eva had been dead on her feet and practically dissolving in her office. Marshall had ordered the woman home as a biological hazard, and now here Marie was, her first trip overseas.
"The guest lists!" she yelped, bringing out a small sheaf of paper. She didn't drop it, but it was a close thing.
"Guest lists plural?" Elsa asked, watching in fascination at the young woman who seemed to be actually vibrating in front of her. "I assumed the event would be just Weselton and his associates and us…"
"Ours and the Americans. Ummm. He seems to have invited a few other people…" Marie said, and handed over the sheet. Sheets.
Oh dear. "This looks like half of the US Congress," Elsa said, annoyed. "And a little of the senate." She saw more names. "And a pretty good slice of Hollywood too!" She had hoped for a quieter gathering, where she could work on Weselton with a little more privacy. With a list like this there was no way that was possible. She scanned the list and handed it to Kristoff.
The blonde man did his own examination. "Oh, I've seen his movie. I wonder how tall he is in real life. Hmmm. Probably want to keep you away from her, bad associations with drugs. I have no idea who that is. Bloggers? Seriously?" He looked up. "Marshall will be furious. We should have brought more of the detail," he said.
Elsa sighed, furious for a whole different reason. What, was she going to be just one more big name and pretty smile to add to his wall? She had come for a serious reason about serious business and he damn well knew it, how dare he try and pass her off as some kind of trophy to display! "Who's coming as press?" she asked.
Kristoff frowned but flipped through the pages anyway. He reeled off a list of names and organisations, but Elsa didn't recognise any of them. A lot of them ended in 'dot com'.
"Most of them are entertainment bloggers," Marie said when she finished the list.
"Any real reporters?" Elsa knew it was a small prejudice, but she couldn't help it. She'd grown up spending Sunday mornings sitting ather father's knee as he flipped the huge broadsheets. It had been soothing, and he had always taken what they said so seriously. Those were news. Not a guy with a camera-phone and a website.
"Pabb- Patrick Anderson. He's a freelancer but he's trustworthy, and he only writes about the hard stuff. Government and so on," the black-haired woman said.
"Make sure we find a reason to bump into him." If Weselton wanted her in tabloids she'd make it a little hard.
"Yes ma'am," Marie said.
The three were eclipsed by the black monolith that was Marshall walking into the room. "Your majesty."
"We're going to be late to the party Marshall," Elsa told her chief of security. And if Weselton wanted to use her as some kind of decoration like you would order a Christmas tree online she was going to be delivered late and with a hefty customs fee.
"As you say."
Elsa stood. "Let's go see the wardrobe. Did everything arrive on time?"
"It's all there ma'am."
"Excellent. Marie, if you would?"
The young woman's eyes opened even wider, if that were possible. Elsa wondered if Kristoff put a hand on top of her head to steady her, would the whole house shake to the ground. "M-m-m-m…ma'am?"
"I can't get into this thing on my own, I'll need some help preparing, and you can brief me as I change."
She nodded quickly, sending ripples down her long straight hair. "Of course ma'am."
Tonight will be a good night, Elsa thought, gesturing Kristoff out of the room and undoing the first button of the ill-fitting suit.
A good night.
Elsa looked up in absolute shock from the piece of paper in her hands at the woman in the severe green dress stood before her. "Are you certain?"
"Yes your majesty"
She blinked, and looked down, then back up. "Really certain?"
"We're really certain, ma'am."
"Are-"
Gerda cut her off before Elsa could ask a couple more times. "It's been confirmed by cores taken from three different places, by ground-penetrating radar, by spectrographically analysis from three locations different from the previous three. The report is real."
Elsa scanned down the list. Some she recognised immediately, some her old science education was tickling at the back of her head that she should know, and more than a few she suspected that scientists had just strung some syllables together for a laugh. That was one column. The second column was called 'Est T (met)'. She looked back up at Gerda.
"Estimated Tonnage. Metric. Taken as an average," Gerda said gently. "It could be much less, but the samples taken so far are consistent, and the company is very good at what they do. It's probably more or less correct, give or take a few tons."
Gerda watched the young royal as she stared down at the piece of paper, handling it like it was glass. Gerda Folstad had served as Chief of Staff for His Royal Majesty Agdar Arendelle for two decades, and had fully intended to go on serving him for two decades more before…before the illness had made that impossible. After that it had only seemed…well…natural, to go on serving the next ruler. She had watched Elsa grow up after all. When the king had called her into his private quarters the day before the coronation, she knew she would have to when he asked. Her heart wouldn't allow the poor girl to suffer alone.
She's strong. She'll be stronger. But right now I think if you touched her she would shatter. Please Gerda, help my daughter.
Of course your majesty.
Now here she stood, looking down at Elsa as the young queen – the youngest queen in the history of the country – sat at her father's desk, in her father's private study, and held a piece of paper in her hands that told her Arendelle was rich. She looked so overwhelmed, it was heart-breaking.
"The gold seam is only part of the find your majesty," Gerda said, gently turning the page a sit lay on Elsa's desk. "There's a considerable amount of silver there, and various other useful ores."
Elsa looked at the second column. She couldn't picture how much that was. "What else?" she asked.
Several of the names in the first column were circled, one of them quite insistently, and Gerda tapped at them with a finger. "Those are rare earth metals ma'am. Quite valuable."
Elsa looked at two near the middle, whose circling was in red and actually eclipsed several other elements around it, the person had circled it so enthusiastically. One she recognised and stared up at Gerda with her mouth open. "Uranium?"
"Confirmed, and quite a lot of it. I assume you are familiar with the applications."
Oh god. "And Rhodium?"
Gerda rattled off a list of uses that made Elsa's head spin. She felt a splitting headache descend on her. "This is…"
"It's a treasure trove," the old woman said gently, seeing Elsa put her head in her hands and knowing that maybe unbridled joy and elation would probably not be the best reaction right now. "Most of it is simply wealth, but some of it…well…the uranium especially, we can use to kick-start whole new industries if we keep it in the country. And of course with some of the rare earth metals it's not just the fact that they're valuable in themselves. Several of them have reserves and mines only in China or others places that are, not to put too fine a point on it ma'am, prone to 'upheaval'. Most likely we could ask for slightly more than market price to compensate for a friendlier source with less chance of disruption. Easier delivery overland and etcetera."
"Who knows?" the young queen asked.
"Myself. You, ma'am. The scientists who tested the core samples of the rare metals and the operators of the machinery who uncovered the gold seam originally. A surveyor who confirmed the silver."
"And who will they tell?"
"They're contracted to secrecy as standard ma'am." Gerda saw Elsa give a small smile, and smiled back. "This of course means that the head of the site will know by the end of today when his men tell him. Duke himself a day later depending on the vagarities of timezones. Various governments two days to a week from now, accounting for bureaucracy."
"Oh god," Elsa said, probably without being aware she had. She looked out of her window at the great North Mountain. It was so old and so a part of Arendelle that it didn't even really have a name. When you said 'the mountain' people simply knew what you were talking about. From this angle, from the castle and the city next to it, it was still pristine. On the other side though men and machinery toiled away as gently as they could on the lower slopes beneath the ring of forest – nobody would have countenanced digging up the actual mountain itself – and now a piece of paper had come through to her saying that the same mountain that had loomed over her country and home all her live could make Arendelle rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Suddenly she felt it again, that pressure. The crown was under lock and key but she could still feel it pressing down on her head. Everything else and now this!?
"Congratulations, your majesty," Gerda said.
Whatever Elsa's reply would have been never happened, because at that second there came a quiet knock at the door.
"Enter," Gerda said instantly, then winced as Elsa glared at her. "Sorry ma'am."
"Come in," Elsa said, maybe a little harsher than she needed to.
The woman who came through the door was the opposite of Gerda. Where Elsa's Chief of Staff dressed in severe dark dresses, almost like a head maid out of one of those English dramas her mother liked, Evangeline Voll wore suits that reminded Elsa of the young successful lawyers on the American dramas that she liked, and she had the long brown hair and deep brown eyes to match the impeccable pantsuits she wore, as well as the figure to fill them. Gerda had hired her after old Gunnar, her father's Press Secretary, had retired to spend more time with his family (not a euphemism, he really had) and she had proved outstanding in the position despite her age.
Eva brushed long brown hair out of her eyes. "Apologies ma'am," she said in a voice that could enchant all on its own. "Duke Weselton of Weselton Mining and Commerce has contacted me through the local United States embassy, wondering if you could make some time for him."
Gerda and Elsa shared a look.
"Well, maybe a little faster," Gerda said with a shrug.
"Duke Weselton."
"Virginia. Weselton Mining and Commerce, Weselton Agriculture and Plastics. A bunch of others."
"Nathan Rockford."
"Dakota. Titan Heavy Machinery."
"Richard Stone."
"Senior senator from Texas."
"Umm…"
"Wait, no! Congressman."
"Briar Rose."
"Wait, really? Oh, err…singer. European, but don't ask from where. Weselton really does like the attention doesn't he?"
"Anna Summerford."
"…Nope."
"Junior congresswoman from Texas."
Elsa frowned as she examined herself in the bedroom's mirror. "I had Leif Westergard on my cheat-sheet."
"Umm…sorry ma'am, that was an old one from before the last election. Ms Summerford replaced him and..."
She shrugged. These people came and went. She wondered sometimes how anyone got anything done in the country. Her father had spent a decade dragging Arendelle to a place where maybe, slightly, ever so reluctantly they were prepared to consider one day possibly tapping Arendelle's natural wealth just a tiny bit. Maybe. How was four years or six years' time enough to do anything at all?
"Wow."
"What?" Elsa asked at Marie's exclamation.
"She's only a few years older than me. Two years in office and she's twenty-seven. She must have beat him the absolute earliest she could run."
The same age as me. The thought made her a little sad, and Elsa couldn't figure out why. She adjusted her dress. She had asked for it specifically. This was what she liked, that old suit could go burn in a fire somewhere. White and blue, snowflakes and crocuses. It was one of her favourite gowns. When she put it on she imagined if she closed her eyes she could feel a slight chill, and smell the beautiful flowers from her home.
She made sure that her torso was between herself and Marie when she took the patchy old gloves off and put on the silk ones. "How long?"
"A limo should be pulling up soon," her deputy said.
There was a knock at the door. "Enter."
Kristoff walked in and took one look at her, and smiled. "Your majesty."
"Mr Bjorgman."
"Your chariot has arrived."
She held up a gloved hand. "Lead on."
The rest of her security detail as already waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. To their credit, only one of them stared, although several were already wearing dark glasses, so maybe they were just hiding it. Marshall glared at Kristoff again, who let go of Elsa's arm as her heels reached the last step, and went to stand by his boss.
"Gentlemen," Elsa said, checking to make sure her braid was tucked in. "Let's go."
Clearly the party was already in full swing as Elsa's limo and her security's flanking cars drew up to the mansion, almost an exact copy of the smaller 'house' she just left. She would have to resist the urge to ask Duke why on earth he'd built a smaller version of his home only a few miles away.
Bigger though, the effect was much, much better. She could hear laughing coming from beyond the gates, and in the night the entire towering edifice glowed. She took a deep breath, checked the tiara on top of her head – she hadn't worn the crown in the end, it seemed…too much – and as delicately as she could stepped from the limo.
And was blinded, instantly.
"Your majesty!"
"Queen Elsa!"
"Hey, queen!"
"Kristoff, please," Elsa whispered, not wanting the first thing she did at Weselton's mansion to be cowering and holding her arms up defensively against arrogant reporters. Without another word the flashes lessened, and Elsa walked forward as Kristoff and the others gently but firmly opened a path between the cars and the front door. Elsa climbed the stairs as gracefully as she could in heels, to see someone stooped and thin already waiting there for her.
"Your majesty," Duke Weselton said, bowing so low Elsa wondered if he'd actually be able to stand back up again.
You couldn't have helped me just a little with that melee? "Mr Weselton, a pleasure," she said with a smile, holding out her hand, which he bent down again to kiss. Good lord the old man would do himself an injury. Wasn't he eighty-something? "I've been looking forward to this all week."
"Not as much as I have, I can assure you, your majesty," Weselton said with a flourish, still holding her hand as the phone-cameras clicked and whirred.
There, you have your picture for your wall. "Shall we?" she said, gesturing past her into the heart of the mansion.
"By all means. We've been eagerly awaiting your arrival," the old man said.
I bet you have.
They had. Weselton wasted no time. Elsa had barely managed to say hello to a dozen people when a nameless servant appeared at Kristoff's side and whispered something in his ear. She watched from the corner of her eye as he nodded and came towards her, his place by the door instantly replaced by another member of the detail.
"Ma'am."
"Kristoff."
"Mr Weselton says that he'd be honoured if you would join himself and some associates for a drink, in a more private part of the mansion."
She felt butterflies in her stomach. Finally. "Tell him I'd be delighted."
"Bjorgman I'll take it from here. Take your break," Marshall said. Kristoff nodded, and headed off towards the gardens, as Marshall stood by her side and acted as a human shovel to clear a path after the servant.
And then suddenly the dim around her was gone, and the harsh lights and flashing cameras were removed, as Elsa stepped after Marshall and the doors closed behind her with a soft click.
She looked around at the 'more private part' of the mansion. No ostentatious gold or decorations here, no mounted deer heads of ludicrous indoor fountains. The wallpaper was a simple deep red, and the few couches and chairs scattered around the room were leather, old and well-worn. The tables were all well-polished oak, and Elsa could smell smoky wood and a hint or whiskey in the air, coming from the small bar in the far corner of the dark room. It reminded Elsa of her father's private drawing-room. This was a room for old rich men to relax in and drink. Even the electric lights looked antique. In her white-and-blue ensemble, Elsa was the brightest thing there.
"Your majesty, I've said it before but I still mean it, it's a pleasure to have you here," Duke Weselton said, approaching her.
"Here here."
She looked around to see who else had spoken. Half a dozen people were dotted on couches around the room, and stood respectfully as she noticed them. To a man – no, sorry, Elsa could see more than one woman standing in the room too – they were old, or at least middle-aged. No young venture capitalists or Silicon Valley moguls tonight. This was old money. She didn't recognise a single one of them, and that was how she knew that regardless of how many senators, congressmen and rich movie stars were in the mansion tonight, these people were real power.
The power to give her what she needed.
"My I present my associates," Duke said, and gestured to the newest and cleanest looking seat. "Please. Would you like a drink?"
"Just some water please." Elsa sat and felt leather squeak under her as Weselton motioned for the bartender to pour. She took a deep breath, and spoke. "To what do I owe this, Mr Weselton?"
"Just Duke, please, I insist! And the question is, what can we do for you, your majesty?"
She just smiled and sipped on the offered water, as Duke began to talk.
It was just over an hour later when she came back out of the room, feeling twice as exhausted as when she had walked in, so much so that she almost grabbed at Marshall to keep from tripping in her heels.
God, the nerve of them!
"Your majesty?" Marshall whisper-rumbled.
She reached up to run at tired eyes, remembering at the last second she was wearing makeup. How tiresome. At least the crowd inside the mansion hadn't noticed yet, and she had come out in a reasonably secluded spot. Marshall was a little…large…though, and would be noticed soon. "Get me outside please," she whispered, and he must have heard her over the noise of the party because he just nodded, and started his human shovel routine until Elsa felt cool night air flowing across her face and dress. She wanted to wipe her face but she didn't want to risk ruining her gloves and having to take them off where people might…might notice.
"Your majesty."
Oh god, what now? she thought as she turned to see- Oh. Not another one of Weselton's lackeys, and he didn't look like one of the pap either, who all seemed to be at the other end of the mansion trying to get a picture of that young singer. The man stood in front of her was far less well-dressed, his suit greying and faded in patches, and instead of a camera or a phone he held a small battered notebook.
"Patrick Anderson," he said, and went to put a hand out. She shook it. "I heard that I should expect you during the night."
So this is 'Pabbie'. What a strange nickname. She wondered how he'd gotten it. "Mr Anderson, hello. Yes. Yes, I did." Drat. Her encounter with Weselton and his cabal had drained her more than she had thought. She felt scattershot, like her brain was spread outside of her skull.
Pabbie looked at her askance for a second. "If this is a bad time I can always make an appointment through your office for later."
She smiled, the first real one she'd given since she had arrived. "That's sweet of you to ask, thank you, but I'm fine." And she really did feel just a little better, now she seemed to have met someone with a soul. "I heard you had questions."
The notebook was flipped open, and in his other hand there was a cheap biro. "If you'd allow it."
"Lead on, but outside please."
The nerve of those old fossils!
She pushed it out of her head. She could fret and worry once she was out of his hot and sweaty hellhole and back in her home, where even if the weather was a little extreme you could fend it off reasonably easily. She focussed on the questions Pabbie was asking as she walked. Nothing hard or taxing, designed to catch her off guard. Pabbie asked how she was liking the US, and what she hoped to do, and she found herself answering easily.
When the greying man in the greying suit had finished, she smiled again, and waved as he went off, muttering into his notebook.
"Ma'am."
"Kristoff. That was a good idea. Where are they hiding reporters like that these days? Why can't more of them ask actual questions instead of just shouting?"
"Because those questions don't get page-views or sell yearly subscriptions," he said, touching her lightly on the elbow and guiding her behind a bush as a man in a much more expensive suit and a very large phone indeed walked past them towards the mansions, barely looking up from his screen to notice he'd just missed the Queen of Arendelle. Thank god for small favours. The drink seemed to have done its work on the assembled masses and most of the action seemed to have moved inside, where the tables were still fairly well-stocked and the comfy chairs where. The garden, previously incredibly busy and almost stifling, was now actually bearable, and Elsa found herself able to really see them for the first time since she had arrived.
"Kristoff."
"Elsa?" he replied.
"Walk with me."
The gardens were beautiful, on that she'd give Weselton credit.
Elsa moved through them easily, relishing in the cool air on the breeze and the grass tickling her feet over her heels. She ran a hand across the ornate stonework that filled one half of the garden and watched the soft light and heat play across her dress from the eastern side as the soft gravel of the paths crunched underfoot. A few people were still out there, people she recognised from her cheat-sheets and people she didn't, and if they recognised her back most just gave a small nod or bow. Much classier than the free-for-all scrum of cameras and false joviality back inside the mansion. From halfway down the garden, stood on a small stone bridge, she could look back and see it. Hear it too. If she turned around and looked to the back of the massive gardens, it was like another world. Softer, quieter. She- huh.
"What's that?" she asked.
Kristoff strained his eyes. "A lake?"
"Above it."
"Some kind of…small castle?"
"Let's take a look."
"Your majesty, I'd really prefer it if we went back to the rest of the detail."
"I'd really prefer not to."
Kristoff glanced around, just to make sure no-one else was in range. "C'mon Elsa, don't get me in trouble with Marshmallow."
She snorted. "I'll deal with him. Come on." Kristoff just shook his head, and followed.
Up close it was even better, and Elsa wondered if she could get something similar back home. The lake went all the way to the back of the gardens, where the lawn seemed to drop off a cliff to nothing, and beyond it she could see an honest-to-god forest, just like the one back in Arendelle. She ran a hand over the wooden bridge that led to the gazebo that seemed to almost levitate above the surface of the pool, and stepped on it. She could feel her dress grazing the damp wooden surface, but didn't care.
The inside was like the fairy-stories her mother had used to tell her as a child, what she imagined a witch's cottage would be like, all crawling vines and moonlight streaming in from the huge arched window-frame. Kristoff stood quietly next to the entryway to watch for approaching intruders, leaving Elsa alone as she put her hands on the balcony, and looked out. It was breath-taking. If the forest that surrounded the North Mountain was like a wall that separated man from nature, the pure Virginian forest that stood past Weselton's estate was…was nature itself. It seemed to go on forever, undulating up and down as it went all the way to the horizon. Looking out from the frame it was hard to imagine humanity existed at all past it. It is…pristine. She could have stared at it for hours. Might have, too, were it not for a single surprised word spoken by her bodyguard.
"Anna?"
"Kristoff?" a female voice replied, and Elsa turned to see who it was intruding on her reverie.
She watched stock-still as Kristoff spoke as…someone…walked through the entryway that they had a little while ago. The moonlight in her peripheral vision and the shadows that coated the gazebo combined to make it hard to make out anything at all, and Elsa just watched as Kristoff interrogated them, certainly not in his normal manner. Who was it?
"Hello, again. You're a long way from the party," he said.
"I could say the same thing about you," the shadow replied. Her voice sounded a little surprised but not shocked. After Weselton's false old-man camaraderie and the various voices of the dark cabal that had sat in judgement of her, it sounded…nice. Melodious, even. "I needed some air from…well…from all that," it said.
Kristoff looked back to the party, still going on back at the mansion. "I can understand that."
"Speaking of which if you're out here, you're a long way from your boss aren't you?"
Kristoff's eyes glanced at Elsa, who just kept watching as her security talked with this strange American woman. "Umm. Not really?"
Apparently though she had caught him glancing away. "Kristoff? Is someone there?" She stepped forward, further into the gazebo, and at the same time Elsa moved just a little, so that the moonlight streamed past her and onto the stranger, and the light glinted from green eyes, and she met Congresswoman Anna Summerford.
"Hello."
"Hi."
Kristoff looked from one to the other and sighed. "Ma'am this is Congresswoman Anna Summerford of the United States. Anna, this is her majesty Queen Elsa, of Arendelle."
She was…she looked so vivid. That was the first word that popped into Elsa's head as she looked at her. Deep red hair framed freckled cheeks and teal eyes that reminded Elsa of the pure clean waters that flowed down the North Mountain past the castle and fed into the ocean. The freckles continued down her neck until her dress hid anymore. Something that could have been silk or velvet, but a gorgeous deep green that hugged the woman's curves and then fanned out into a ruffled curtain that shifted as she did and made her look like a tame ocean flowed around her waist. Wait, were those… "Crocuses?" Elsa whispered, staring at the thin strip of materiel that circled around the woman's neck and shoulders, keeping the dress up seemingly by magic.
The woman – Anna – blushed, and Elsa watched fascinated as her freckles darkened and her eyes darted around, looking at anything but Elsa. "I've been telling people they're bluebonnets," she said.
"They're my country's national flower," Elsa said. "It's very pretty." She stepped forward, and before she even thought about it she was running a finger across that thin strip of material, looking at- Oh god! Elsa grabbed her hand back from Anna's as fast as she could without tearing anything mortified at what she had done. She felt herself blushing now, and turned away at the same time as Anna did and they both found something very interesting to stare at in the woodwork.
Anna was the one who broke the silence. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she said, looking at the same endless vista of trees that had enraptured Elsa only minutes – god, was it only minutes – before.
"It is," Elsa said, looking herself, and she could feel the sadness in her own voice. It reminded her of home, somewhere she desperately wanted to be after meeting with those people. She wanted to visit her father's sickbed, wanted to hug her mother and feel her kiss her forehead. Wanted to listen to Gerda and Eva bicker about protocol, and feed the horses in the stables.
"I'm glad we could show you something that did. Remind you of home. That is," Anna said, stuttering over her words. "Have you been having a good night?"
Maybe it was the sudden longing for home, or maybe it was the frustration over the last hour of the night. Whatever it was, when Elsa replied she did so totally honestly. "Hardly."
Elsa, you are a huge idiot.
When she dared to glance at the other woman, she found deep green eyes looking into her own. They were captivating. "You want to know a secret your majesty?" she asked, almost whispering.
"What?" Elsa replied, just as quietly.
"Me neither," Anna Summerford said, and smiled.
And just like that, like a dam inside her bursting and washing away the rot and darkness, Elsa was laughing, and she couldn't stop. She kept looking at Anna, who just smiled, and she knew she should feel more than a little silly. She was a queen, an absolute monarch, and now here she was standing next to a foreigner and laughing like a schoolgirl. Finally, after what felt like minutes of giggles instead of seconds, she managed to get herself under control. "Thank you. I needed that."
"What are you doing here anyway?" Anna asked, turning over and leaning her back against the wooden railing. "Wouldn't have thought European royalty would find much to do at a party made primarily to liquor up old men and get re-election money and laws out of them."
Elsa suppressed the giggles again. "Well, I'm not an old man but I am here for currency, of a sort. Goodwill."
"PR," they both said at the same time, and now they were both laughing. Oh, god, she felt so much better. She had been prepared to go home angry, and frustrated, and wishing she had never came at all. Now she felt…light. She felt elated, even. And all thanks to just a few words from the red-haired woman who stood looking at her, with moonlight streaming past her face.
"I know that story. I need a whole bunch of it. Goodwill is like actual money in congress."
"You're the youngest, correct?" Elsa asked, the one single fact she had grabbed from Marie before the party had started. Thank god for a good memory.
"Well, not the youngest ever. William Claiborne will probably hold that award until the end of the world. Youngest currently." Anna hesitated for a second before saying her next words: "You, too."
Not by choice. "Yes. It's a big bur- it's a big responsibility."
"I'd be glad that something like this could help with that, if only for a few days," Anna said, and gestured back at the party. Elsa kept her mouth shut. Anna was trying to cheer her up. Her, someone she didn't even know. Anna didn't need to hear about dark rooms of old men and women, and bad questions with worse answers. Elsa gave her a radiant smile and thought; thank you.
Anna herself seemed to wrestling with saying something, and Elsa just waited, happy with the silence. It was just…it was comfortable. Something she hadn't felt in years. Not since she had lost all her old friendships to her new position. Just being around Anna as she talked, the light seeming to bounce and reflect from those amazingly deep eyes, was calming.
After three years on a lonely throne, Elsa had finally realised she desperately, desperately wanted to feel comfortable with someone her own age, who wasn't worried about offending her queen or being a subject.
She wanted a friend.
"If goodwill and PR is what we're both after, I don't see why we can't arrange something," the young congresswoman said.
Elsa had to suppress the desire to shout YES at the top of her voice. "How?" she whispered instead.
Anna's eyes lit up even further, if that were possible. "Virginia's nice, don't get me wrong, but it isn't Texas. We'd love to show you around. Give you a real idea about what the south can be like. It isn't desert like in the movies, it has so much beauty." And on she went, about hiking and sports, and the food and theatre. History and culture and art. Elsa watched Anna as she talked and it was mesmerising. She loved her home and it came through in every word and hand gesture. Finally, it seemed like Anna ran out of virtues to extoll of the great state of Texas. She looked at Elsa. "I'm sure Arendelle is beautiful in the summer. I'd love to visit."
"It'd be a pleasure," Elsa said, and really, truly meant it so much. Something white burst with a soft pop, and for a second she thought it was something inside her own head as she stared into Anna's face. Then there was another, and she felt her own vision dragged back to reality, and to the manor, where… "Wow."
Fireworks burst in the air over the gardens. One half white and blue over the western side, the other half gold and red over the east. It looked like the entire party had moved out into the gardens to watch, and the noise of the fireworks that burst above them seemed almost drowned out by the clapping from the ground.
"Duke, you throw a hell of a party," Anna whispered, as she watched, equally spellbound, leaning forward and putting her hands on the wooden balcony.
"Look," Elsa whispered, pointing up as a giant blue-white firework burst in a snowflake pattern above them, and put her own hands there too.
She was surprised, for just a second, as she felt the heat from Anna's hands underneath her own. She felt the breath catch in her throat, and almost jerked her hand away when she saw that Anna hadn't even noticed. Was enraptured by the incredible explosion of colour over the mansion. So she left her hand there, and watched with her.
Compared to those few minutes the rest of the night was…
Unremarkable.
"Did you have a good time?" Elsa asked, distracted by the sheets of paper on her table. She had asked Marie to provide them before they had taken off, and the nervous young woman had outdone herself.
"Yes ma'am," Kristoff replied, watching his boss from across the table. "The canapés were excellent."
She barely heard him though, as she sat cross-legged on her seat, free to throw off those awful suits now that they were a half-mile above any possible press. Unless the paparazzi had access to jets, which she found unlikely. Instead she tried to focus on the papers below her. Information she would need, the beginnings of an arsenal she had to assemble to deal with an attack she suspected was coming. She had to memorise notes about heavy digging machinery, and rare-earth processing. She had to memorise these notes about corporate law and ownership. She had to fight to ignore the map of Texas that had somehow found its way into the big pile of paper.
She almost managed it too, but then a big dumb blonde man opened his big dumb mouth.
"Congresswoman Summerford and I talked. She was very pleasant to me," Kristoff said.
"Anna?" Elsa asked quickly, more eagerly than she had intended to. "Yes, she was nice. She…she had some good ideas." She had freckles all over her cheeks that blushed when she did.
"Should I tell the pilot to make a hard turn and head for Texas?" Kristoff asked, smiling at his ruler.
Elsa's eyes narrowed and she threw the pen she was holding at his head as she tried to control a blush of her own. "Quiet, you."
"Yes ma'am."
"But it's certainly something to think about," Elsa said. She laid her head back on the plush armrest and closed her eyes and thought about the party as she drifted off. She didn't see Weselton, or the tall cruel-looking woman with the thin lips that curled whenever she spoke, or the brutish Han Chinese man whose designer suit barely fit him, any of the other silent associates that Weselton had arranged around himself. Instead she saw a woman dressed in gorgeous greens with crocuses dotting her shoulders, red hair cascading around her shoulders and eyes like a tranquil sea. "Something to…think about," she mumbled, as comfy oblivion claimed her.
Elsa Arendelle dreamed of emeralds.
"Did it go well?"
"Hmmm?"
Anna knew she had an incredibly silly look plastered over her face, and that her Chief of Staff Kai was probably laughing at her inside his impenetrable skull, but she didn't care.
"I asked whether the weekend went well, congresswoman," Anna's Chief of Staff asked her.
"Oh! Yes! Yes, very well indeed." Anna was trying to think hard about that little job title, she really was. To DC for a few days to make sure her staff hadn't done anything silly like tried to secede, or introduced a bill banning chocolate, the back to Texas so she could check on the things she really cared about: Her parents. Her home. How the schools that she had fought to secure funds for were using it. How the library she had donated money to keep from closing was doing.
She was really trying to, but it was hard. Her hands were playing with a small piece of fabric, a little scrap from the dress she had worn at the last minute to the party. It was from the shoulders, the thin piece of silk or whatever decorated with the flowers that had caught her attention. Anna had thought about tossing it. It was trash, after all. But she hadn't, and since getting on the plane it hadn't left her hands. If she closed her eyes she could still see El- Queen Elsa as her hands came forward to run along the fabric. She wondered what the hands were like under the gloves.
She looked out the window and smiled, but she wasn't seeing Virginia or Texas, or even any kind of terrain at all.
She was seeing blue eyes like sapphires, and a smile.
Boom. And only what, a two-week wait? That might be the shortest you'll get so enjoy it.
There's your first piece of headcanon too; after being thrown out of AISTB!Arendelle, Eva fell through a convenient time portal and ended up two hundred-odd years in the future, where she changed her name, got a degree in international affairs and a real last name, and now has a job with a great-great-great-great-great-etc descendant of Elsa. See, I told you she'd be okay.
Alright enough comedy, a question: Frozen isn't exactly one of the most...populated...films of the Disney canon, and a fic like this with the plot I have planned is going to have a bunch of secondary and tertiary characters who will exist and have conversations and be generally cool people that you will like. Thus I have two options:
1) I can use OCs. There are a few introduced already in minor roles because I can't plan ahead and should have asked this question at the end of chapter one.
2) I can go the traditional route for modern AUs, and use Disney characters. A couple have been inferred but not named just in case, and I am pretty sure I can do them the justice they deserve if we go with this option.
If you have an opinion, slam a review on over. In fact slam a review on over anyway, I crave them. See, audience participation can be fun!
