The party was a buzz around Elsa. All the wine had left her in a state something like floating through the room. Was it obvious? Did other people notice? She'd never been to a party, what did inebriated look like from the outside? Was she even walking a straight line?

"Elsa I—"

Whatever Anna was about say (and it certainly sounded like something angry) stopped when she got close to her sister. Anna gave her the most incredulous look she'd ever seen and sniffed the air around Elsa. She narrowed her eyes and looked very long and hard at Elsa.

"Are you drunk?" she asked bluntly.

It sounded a little bit like betrayal, mostly like shock, and very tiny amount like amusement. Elsa opened her mouth and closed it a few times trying to form an answer that wasn't a lie but also didn't confirm the truth.

"Oh my god…" Anna whispered, "You are drunk. Of all people, you are drunk."

Anna hooked her arm into Elsa's. A part of Elsa's mind that was still working told her to break the contact immediately, the magic was still stirring beneath the surface. Anna could get hurt. But her sister felt warm.

"Are you kidding me?" she hissed. "You have the gates open for literally one day and you get drunk at your own coronation party. No, you know what, I want to remember this. The first day in my life that you actually messed up."

"Hardly," Elsa said, "As long as nothing goes wrong, nothing is 'messed up'." Elsa recalled her near mistake of letting Hans kiss her on the balcony.

"You really think no one is going to notice?"

"Is something troubling you?"

Elsa sensed an edge in everything Anna was saying. She seemed on the verge of telling her off.

"Nothing, tonight is perfect." It came out monotone and more sarcastic than Elsa would have thought Anna capable of. Then Anna walked away, sighing. Elsa did feel bad, Anna seemed to have genuinely wanted to talk to her about something (or yell at her about something).

Elsa stayed to one corner of the party. Anna did have a point, if people found out their precious, pristine, beautiful queen had willingly downed enough wine to kiss a stranger on a balcony with a party going on in the background, what other bad choices would she make. Papa would be disappointed in her.

"Want to play a game?" his voice whispered in her ear.

He waltzed past her, stopping to take a glass of wine from a passing tray, leaning back to her for just a second.

"Catch me if you can," he whispered and moved away.

Elsa watched Hans move swiftly through the party, occasionally sending glances back at her to make sure she was still watching. He moved right out the door and into the hallway where she lost sight of him. He'd had almost double what she had, how was he able to just ghost through the crowd so effortlessly.

And then she made her second mistake of the night. She followed him.

She kept to the edges of the party, away from crowds and dancers. She was part of the wall moving toward the door into the private hallway. And through the door she went, not caring if anyone saw her leave.

The hallway was dark, but she made out the form of Hans leaned against the wall down a ways.

"The queen gives chase," he laughed and backed away from her slowly, tauntingly, down the hallway walking backwards.

Elsa let a small, dangerous smirk take over her lips and followed in the dark. The sound of his boots led her around a corner and she watched him watching her as he stepped back and into the library. She followed.

As soon as she closed the library door behind her, his hand was on her shoulder and he appeared behind her. Setting the wine glass down, he took both her gloved hands in his and pulled her along through the shelves. After a few steps he slowed his pace to pull her in closer, their chests inches from each other.

"Do you explore your library often, Majesty?" he whispered.

"Yes."

He hummed in reply, close to her ear. Her eyes closed for a brief second when his breath touched her skin.

This was very, very wrong. This was a huge mistake. This would become a regret. But at the moment all Elsa could think of was how fun it was to sneak out of a party in her own honor and to not do it alone.

"Tell me something," he said, leaning against a shelf, allowing Elsa to hover in front of him, his hands on her waist and hers on his chest "What scares you the most?"

"That's an odd question," Elsa said.

"No, I need to know. What is the thing you're most afraid of?"

"Losing my sister," she answered honestly.

And the smile he gave then was not teasing or leering. Nothing in his demeanor suggested attraction to any part of her body but her brain…and perhaps her heart. He seemed, in that moment, to appreciate something about her she could not appreciate in herself.

"I'm afraid of dying invisible like my brothers pretended I was," Hans said.

"You're not invisible," Elsa said, looking directly into his eyes, a dim green in the dark library.

"I'm not dying either."

They looked at each other. Then it happened. It wasn't clear who moved first but somehow they met in the middle. Lips were on lips and it was calm. It was not a violent kiss, nor was either one of them fighting for control. They simply meshed together, and allowed it to simmer in a slow burn. Her hands slid up his chest onto his shoulders and one found his neck. Her fingers must have found a tender spot of flesh because he involuntarily let out a moan as her fingers teased across. She giggled at the sound and lightly broke the kiss.

Their foreheads remained pressed together and he was smiling against her face. His facial hair tickled her cheek and she giggled some more and attempted to push him away but he just laughed and pulled her closer, pressing a heavy kiss to her cheek, making sure to brush a sideburn against her face.

"That tickles," she laughed.

His arms circled her, pulling them together and her own hands hooked on the back of his neck.

"Why did you want to know what I was afraid of?" she asked.

"You can understand a lot from people if you find out what they fear most," he explained, "For example…you are more afraid of your sister dying than yourself. It says something…"

"And what did your answer say about you?" she asked.

"You tell me."

She studied him for a minute, letting her hands play with the hair at the top of his neck.

"You don't want to live life unloved," she surmised, "You don't want to die feeling unloved."

He regarded her words, tilting his head and jutting his bottom lip out in a pout. And then he smiled down at her and nodded. He looked as though he was ready to kiss her again but held back.

"Your party will be missing you," he said.

"Amusing considering I don't miss the party," she said.

He laughed into her neck and she fought the giggles at the tickle of his hair. But he did have a point. Her absence would be noted. And it wouldn't take long for someone to noticed Hans was missing too. And then it wouldn't take long for someone else to hypothesize why they were both gone.

The rightful, ordained queen of Arendelle snuck out of her own party with a man. And then they spent twenty minutes kissing and whispering in the library. It would either be seen as romantic or highly scandalous. Probably the latter. Maybe a mixture of both.

She exited the library alone. And reentered the party alone. Throughout the rest of the night she occasionally found him watching her, quirky an eyebrow at her when their eyes did meet.


The next day Elsa had a headache. Her body had a general ache all over. She was unusually tired and had to force herself up that morning, rubbing her forehead, and blinking her dry and burning eyes.

Everything they said last night sounded cliché, and childish now to her sober mind, talking about dying and feeling loved. But he was right, she felt she understood him in a far more intimate way than ever before.

She did not, however, have that feeling of regret and shame she anticipated. That was the first time she'd ever been kissed in her life. And though she knew that party was neither the time nor the place. And though she knew kissing a man she only just met in the dark corners of the library during a social gathering was beyond inappropriate….she knew she would have had worse feelings waking up that morning if she had not followed him in the library.

On her way to breakfast she saw Kai, annoyed, carrying a half full wine glass from the library muttering about a security breach and the damage they could have caused to the books. Elsa suppressed a grin, recognizing her own lipstick on the rim.

"Elsa!...Er, I mean Your Majesty," Anna's voice called from behind.

Anna approached Elsa with none other than Hans himself on her arm.

"I know the gates are closed and all," Anna said, "But I hoped that maybe…I don't know, you'd make an exception and let me…and Hans of course, he'll be my escort, have you met Hans? Anyway, if you wouldn't mind letting me—us—go into town?" Anna asked.

Elsa eyed Hans who shrugged at her from behind Anna and then winked. Elsa nodded curtly to her sister and moved down the hall. She felt his eyes on her. She continued on, vaguely feeling an apprehension. This was going to be a problem.