The opening of the gates was everything Elsa and Anna could have wanted.
The weather, the food, the conjured decorations, the ice-rink, the magical snow fireworks, everything was perfect. Elsa's powers didn't misbehave once.
Elsa herself positively glowed, affecting all around her, at least temporarily dispelling some of the distrust towards the Snow Queen. Looking at her, radiating a quiet joy, many felt an unexplained sense of breakthrough, that the storm was truly behind them, and better times were coming.
She knew herself well enough not to expect to ever become a people-person, like Anna. But today - today was a good day. She'd decided that as she conjured skates for Anna, since her sister neglected to bring her own.
"Oh, Elsa, they're beautiful", Anna responded, "but you know I don't skate..."
"Come on, you can do it!" Elsa said, and greedily pulled her reluctant sister towards the center of the ice-rink, feeling like she was claiming a first dance.
Elsa was grateful for this this small opportunity to make up for all the lost time. The low-born lad whom Anna had dug up in the mountains was good-natured about Elsa monopolizing his girlfriend; he stuck to his reindeer buddy. The man hadn't brought skates either.
It was wonderful to have feelings inside which, instead of applying the "conceal, don't feel" mantra, Elsa wanted to feel as strongly as possible, and to know that indulging this desire was the right thing to do. So she allowed her heart to melt as she held Anna's hands, in this moment of respite from all the duties ahead of her, and the heart of many a guest melted while looking on.
Later Elsa rested alone against a fountain, watching the others have fun, occasionally creating skates for a latecomer, or for earlier onlookers who finally plucked up the courage to try the rink.
Anna, Olaf, Kristoff and Sven were playing some game of Anna's devising, one which involved chasing each other and finding specific guests at the same time. Elsa didn't even bother trying to understand the impromptu rules, and she wagered that only Olaf understood Anna's rushed explanations.
Elsa sighed contentedly.
"You are so different now than at your coronation, Elsa", a female voice sounded.
A man and a woman, both in their early twenties, approached her. Though the man was perhaps older; it was hard to tell. The girl's brown hair was cute, but uneven from behind. It magically insisted on returning to the choppy length to which it was originally cut four years earlier.
"Rapunzel!" Elsa said, and smiled. She stood up to greet them. "My favourite pen-pal. And prince Eugene. So wonderful of you both to come."
Elsa had met Rapunzel at the coronation five days earlier, and they spent a pleasant while together, talking. Until then they'd only known each other through letters. The correspondence started three years earlier, with Rapunzel's condolences after the death of Elsa's parents. They'd died at sea on the way to Corona, to the celebration of the first anniversary of Rapunzel's return, after she went missing as a baby.
"Your Majesty", Eugene answered pleasantly, bowing. "It is a great pleasure to see you in good health."
His voice was too smooth and his features too handsome in a way that reminded Elsa of Hans. She immediately knew she made an impression on him, one which he was too slow to conceal, and she caught Rapunzel's eyes flickering towards her husband.
"Stop smouldering, Eugene", Rapunzel said in a sing-song voice, grabbing his arm.
"Sorry, was I doing that again?" he said defensively. "It just turns on sometimes."
"Yes, whenever you see a beautiful woman who owns a castle. Only it never works. What do I see in you again?" Rapunzel said, but her tone and the grin on her face made it clear she didn't mean it.
"I'll never know", Eugene looked down with affection at the messy brown hair next to his shoulder.
Elsa laughed softly. "You two seem to be having fun", she commented, smiling at the two.
"Oh, but we are!" Rapunzel said, smiling back at her. "This is a wonderful event. An ice-rink in summer? Terrific idea."
"And good taste, too", Eugene commented, indicating the icy decorations.
"Thank you", Elsa said. "I'm glad you got to see it. Most overseas guests from the coronation didn't stay around long enough to be here. I was afraid you were gone, as well - you're not staying at the castle any more?"
"No, we've been staying in the city. Not because we didn't appreciate the hospitality, of course!" Rapunzel said.
Eugene looked for a moment like he had bitten into something rotten.
Elsa didn't quite know what to say. "I... see..."
Rapunzel hesitated. Suddenly, she said "Um, Eugene, be so kind and bring us something to drink, would you? No, not from that table. That one", she said, pointing to the farthest table with refreshments.
"Of course, dear", the man got the hint immediately. "I'll be back soon. Ish."
Once he was gone, Rapunzel rested against the fountain, and said "Can I be completely honest with you, Elsa?"
"Please", Elsa said, resting next to her.
"We decided to keep a low profile while the port was frozen. So we found a place to stay in the city."
"But why?"
"Because Prince Hans was in charge, and we didn't want to be noticed by him."
"Hans? I don't understand. He's in my dungeon now, so you can rest easy if he worries you, but why avoid him?"
Of course Elsa realized that Hans and Rapunzel could easily know each other. The Southern Isles were only two or three days north-east of Corona by sailship, and surely diplomatic visits between the two realms were easy and therefore frequent.
"He was in Corona two years ago", Rapunzel answered, "as part of the expedition helping us with a sea raider base. I don't know if you remember, the Kron-Dare operation? Arendelle sent two ships, too."
"Oh yes." Elsa recalled the request for aid, and the Council meeting two years earlier. It was the only military undertaking Arendelle had been a part of in over a decade. "We sent ships, but we were too late to help with the main attack."
"You couldn't help the bad winds, and father was grateful just the same. But, well, Prince Hans spent some time as our guest afterwards, and... oh, I'm not going to beat around the bush. He was very charming, and I soon realized he was trying to seduce me."
The air around them instantly grew colder. If Elsa hadn't already frozen the fountain they were resting on earlier, it would have probably frozen over just then.
"Really", Elsa said flatly. "Despite your engagement to Eugene? How did you take it?"
Rapunzel rubbed her arms from the sudden cold, but showed no alarm.
She answered "A little flattered at first, to be honest. He could be very good company if he wanted to. And the thing is, Eugene and my father were not getting along as well as they should have been, at the time, while Hans impressed my father. There was a talk of them arranging a marriage behind my back and breaking off my engagement to Eugene. You can imagine my reaction."
Elsa knew by then to embrace the anger that had led to her magic acting up, rather than fight it. It had been barely a day since her breakthrough, but 'Don't feel' already seemed like the most counterproductive advice she had ever gotten on anything in her life. Fighting her emotions was about as useful as being on a ship heading towards dangerous rocks, and trying to turn it around with her arms. Taking the helm instead worked so much better.
As Rapunzel finished speaking, Elsa already managed to bring back the earlier temperature.
Then it hit her what she just heard.
"Ooh. I'm glad you managed to dodge that crossbow bolt", Elsa said, shuddering.
"Thankfully, my mother wouldn't hear of it. Then Eugene and Hans had a really unpleasant argument. It could have turned very ugly. But Hans had done a real service to Corona, even if his brother in charge of the expedition took most of the credit, and we didn't want a diplomatic incident with the Isles. So to smooth things over father rewarded Hans with a horse that had been meant for Eugene, and sent him away on what you might call good terms", Rapunzel said, and cringed. "Except with Eugene."
Elsa looked over her shoulder to see what Rapunzel's husband was doing, wondering what Eugene had done to get on his future father-in-law's bad side.
She found him telling stories to a group of boys and girls on the other side of the courtyard. Based on their captivated faces, the man was a natural with children.
"So they hate each other now. But is that why you went into hiding?" Elsa said.
"It's more than that. I've been studying the notes Mother Gothel left behind, trying to understand my magic better. And I found that sometimes I can catch... glimpses of things," Rapunzel said. "And back then, I had this uncanny feeling that I couldn't explain, that if I had given in to Hans' advances, Eugene would have ended up dead. I cannot really prove it or even explain it. But it was real enough to me to make me afraid. So when he took power here, I insisted to Eugene that we play it safe until the port is usable again."
This, too, is your fault, Elsa thought to herself.
"I'm sorry, Rapunzel", Elsa said. "You were valued guests, worthy of every courtesy. And I indirectly caused you to exile yourself from my hospitality, go into hiding, and all that on top of enduring my winter. I didn't mean for your stay to be like that."
"That's all right, Elsa, it all turned out well in the end. And we weren't bored, either. We volunteered at the hospital, so it was time well spent. I have something of a gift for helping the sick, you know", Rapunzel smiled wryly.
"Of course. So, I have you to thank for the fact that nobody died in the last few days?"
"Hm, nooot really. Nobody whom I treated was in a bad enough shape that I needed to cry on them or they would die. Anyone could have done the work I was doing."
So there was no escaping the moral debt Elsa owed Hans. But Rapunzel's story put it all back in perspective. Elsa's kingdom wasn't even the first one he'd tried to worm his way into. Even if she couldn't accuse a man of intended murder based purely on Rapunzel's past intuitions... Elsa reinforced her resolve to never forget that she was dealing with a venomous snake.
"But you couldn't have known that in advance", Elsa said, "so I'm still grateful that you volunteered."
Rapunzel inclined her head, accepting Elsa's words. "This means a lot to you."
"It does", Elsa said. "And I'm sorry I couldn't share my secret with you earlier, when you told me about your powers. It must have been really strange how there was so much I couldn't talk about."
"No, it's all right, Elsa!" Rapunzel reached to her reassuringly. "I understand everything now. I knew even then that you weren't really trying to be unfriendly."
"Thank you", Elsa said.
She suddenly shielded them both behind a glass-like barrier, when a group of children skated by, throwing snowballs.
Elsa shook her finger at them, and they skated away, laughing, shouting about the Snow Queen's wrath.
Rapunzel shook her head, rolling her eyes at the instigator, her husband, who was toasting them from across the ice rink, looking pleased with himself. "Oh, Eugene", she said softly.
From the start of their correspondence, the Coronian princess seemed like someone Elsa would love to befriend. Of course Elsa couldn't befriend someone if she wasn't willing to open up in return, and with so much of her life centering around her powers and the isolation these powers enforced on her, that was a problem. Fortunately, Rapunzel had seemed not to mind her reticence, and showed extraordinary patience, given the excruciating slowness of marine post, in divining safe topics for them to bond over. By the time the two women met in person, it took them next to no time to affirm the bond was real.
Elsa wondered if this was the only way for her to become close to someone - with lots of time and low pressure.
While making the ice barrier vanish, she suddenly frowned. "Rapunzel?"
"Yes?"
"Did you just imply your healing powers only work if you cry on someone?", she asked, looking at her.
"You're a very good listener, Elsa. Too good", Rapunzel's eyes sparkled.
"No, seriously, how do you make yourself do that on command?" Elsa laughed softly.
Rapunzel grinned sheepishly. "Do you really need to know?"
"Oh, I'm just curious."
Rapunzel looked to the left and right sneakily, then leaned over to Elsa's ear, and whispered.
"Oh, ouch!" Elsa exclaimed.
"Hey, whatever works. Just don't tell anyone about it. And while we're on the subject of our shared secrets, please don't tell anyone about me studying sorcery."
"I promise. Did you find any references on ice magic?"
"I'm afraid not. I found some interesting speculations by Gothel on whether my own unique power could be channelled into more generic sorceries - if I could have become a regular witch. She never chose to train me, though."
"That's fascinating. So you're studying by yourself?"
"Only as a hobby. It's so much more interesting than, say, tax law, or diplomatic protocol, or the complete heraldry of the Sea Kingdoms. But I have very little to go on, so I'm not really getting anywhere. I was actually hoping to use your library."
"Oh, by all means. It wasn't useful to me at all, even though we have some interesting tomes on magic. It seems a pure elemental talent like my own is completely orthogonal to regular witchcraft. I seem to have no gift at all for the latter, and even if I did, it wouldn't help me with my ice powers."
"Orthogonal, I like that word."
Elsa smiled. "I know you do. By the way, care to bet how many people here would be demanding a stake for both of us if they could hear our conversation?"
"I'd rather not try to settle that bet, Elsa."
"You mean I shouldn't stand up and shout: Hey everybody, how many of you know the word 'orthogonal'?"
Rapunzel giggled. "No, we wouldn't want to test everyone's tolerance like that."
Elsa shook her head in agreement with mock solemnity.
Rapunzel added, more seriously, "So, they're accepting you now?"
"More or less. Hans made it harder, but I'm working on it. And speaking of building positive relations, I'm writing a letter to Corona."
"Officially?" Rapunzel asked.
"I'm afraid so. Arendelle is going to need your kingdom's help."
"What's wrong?"
"Food is going to be short this winter."
"Oh, I see", Rapunzel said with concern, and put a finger to her cheek in thought. "I'm sure we'll help you as much as we can. The weather's been very good to us in the last few years. But it'll have to be my father to give you an official answer. I'm planning to go back in a few days, so I can take the letter."
"Thank you, Crown Princess Rapunzel."
"You're welcome, Your Majesty Queen Elsa", Rapunzel said with a glint in her eye.
Elsa laughed, shaking her head. "Oh, you have no idea how weird it feels to have a royal older than me say that."
"Well, get used to it. My father isn't abdicating in my favor any time soon, and I'm glad of it. And you're only a year younger than me anyway."
"You're not in a hurry to rule?" Elsa said, grinning knowingly.
"No! I'm not like you. You're really pulling off that regal thing now, you know? So much in control, like you know exactly what you're doing."
Elsa felt a little warmer. Rapunzel's words were something she'd needed to hear; she did need to pull it off.
"Thank you, but I'm sure you'll do fine when it's your turn."
"But hopefully not soon. Remember, I spent my whole life in a tower."
"So did I, in a way."
"But you were being trained to rule. You had books, tutors... I had no idea I was a Princess. I was just a plant being grown so that a loveless old woman could use me as medicine. I suppose I should be grateful that she even taught me to read."
"And your husband?"
"My dear Eugene? Whatever his life prepared him for, it wasn't ruling. We have a way to go, both of us."
"You are very open."
"I'm not that open with everybody. But I can tell that I can trust you, Elsa."
Elsa closed her eyes, touched.
Eugene eventually made it back with the drinks, and Anna's group joined them as well. Acquaintances were made.
The celebration went on.
"Elsa, are you listening to me?" Anna's voice sounded in Elsa's ear.
Elsa blinked, returning to the real world. She was on the castle balcony, accompanied by a talkative Anna and a silent Olaf. Anna had been recounting her impressions of the various guests she'd met, especially the pair from Corona.
"I'm sorry, Anna. I'm getting tired", she said, stifling a yawn. Her head was aching.
The truth was, after all the socialising she'd done in the previous few hours, Anna's constant chatter was becoming too much for her. Elsa's mind wandered towards all the many loose ends remaining in her life.
On the scale of months, there was the food situation. Weeks - the reactions from neighbouring kingdoms. Today - she was going to handle Hans and decide his fate.
"Elsa, you're snowing."
So she was. The railing where Elsa was resting was frozen over, and snowflakes were falling all around them.
Elsa knew she should be trying to stop it, but the thought of exerting her willpower one more time, after a whole day of that effort, was too much. It hurt, like a muscle cramp.
The day and a half since her breakthrough had been like a relentless training regimen, a crash course in directing her thoughts and emotions, forced upon her by her ice powers. Their behaviour gave instant, unmistakable feedback. There was no room for denial, for lying to herself.
"Elsa?"
Of course it only worked to begin with because she wasn't building on quicksand any more. Love was the bedrock on which her control was ultimately founded, just as love had been Anna's key to unfreezing her heart. And now, in the regular, daily struggle with her powers, it gave her the strength and decision to resist a lifetime habit of anxiety and denial. It had only been one day, but she was developing a kind of grim appreciation of how this struggle was changing her.
But it was so draining. And today she had no energy left to be that strong person any more. There had been too many people, too many decisions, too many thoughts, and too much to feel.
"Elsa, are you all right?"
The ground was starting to freeze over.
Underneath one day of emotional discipline lay a frightened little girl with thirteen years of practice at self-doubt and objectless fear, and this was her time again.
She needed to get away.
She swallowed, controlled her features. She quickly said, "I just need rest. Lots of it. I'll... see you tomorrow."
She practically ran.
By the time Anna emerged on the bedroom floor, barely keeping her balance from running down the stairs, Elsa was halfway towards the door to her room, with a patchy trail of ice and snow behind her.
"Elsa, wait! Oof..."
Olaf slid down the ice that Elsa had left on the stairs, and tripped Anna.
"Sorry, sorry!" he said as they both picked themselves up.
"Good night, Anna", Elsa answered, not looking back. She would have gone into her room already, but she was afraid Anna might try to follow.
"Elsa, I don't know what's worrying you, but I told you before, you don't need to be alone. I'm not afraid. I'll wear a winter coat if I need to, and bring hot chocolate for both of us. So let me keep you company for a while."
"No. Thank you, Anna, but I don't want to hurt you again. And I need rest now, not company. I don't have any worries you don't know about, I'm just exhausted."
Anna didn't believe her.
"But... Elsa, I'm worried about you. If you're snowing this much already, I'm afraid of what will happen when that door closes behind you, and you are alone just with your thoughts again."
Exactly what you're thinking, Anna, Elsa thought, exactly that will happen. I'll spend the evening morose and afraid as the room turns into a disaster area.
"I won't freeze the Kingdom again, at least. And you'll see me tomorrow at breakfast and I'll be just fine. Trust me. Please."
She started walking towards her bedroom door.
Footsteps started behind her.
"But..."
Elsa drew on what little energy remained, and became her imperious self for what she hoped would be one last time that day. She turned around. Some of the snow around them retreated.
Anna looked at her face, and stopped walking. Whatever she was going to say never got past her throat.
"Surely there has to be some point in your life", Elsa said slowly, "where you say, 'maybe always pushing my sister is a bad idea. Maybe sometimes I should not do that'."
She really was tired. She hadn't quite intended the venom she heard in her own voice. But she didn't soften her expression.
Anna bristled, but there was that tiny voice of common sense inside her and it was insisting rather loudly that maybe she should shut up after all.
"If only there was someone who could watch over you without being harmed by the cold", Olaf mused.
The two women stared at him, having forgotten that he was there.
"What? Oh, I can do that!" the snowman said.
He skipped towards Elsa, and took her hand, started pulling his creator towards the door.
"I can help make your bed, and keep the fire going - can you refresh my personal flurry just in case? - and I'll be quiet, too! You'll see!"
Anna's couldn't help smiling despite everything.
Elsa looked back uncertainly, and was relieved to see Anna give her a small wave.
Some time later, hot chocolate arrived. "By orders of Princess Anna", Gerda explained, handing it over to Olaf at the door, staying at the edge of the localized winter that held Elsa's room in its grip.
Elsa nodded thoughtfully as she thanked the elderly servant.
At the time, Hans was engaged in some light exercise in the confines of his cell. From the way his heart and lungs complained, he didn't feel he'd recovered enough for bodyweight training yet, but combat stances and footwork, plus some stretching - why not. They hadn't chained him to the wall or anything. Although, given the sanitary conditions here, did he want to regularly work up a lot of sweat? He'd have to think about it. He was new to this, he observed wryly.
A part of him was tempted to dramatise his situation with futile questions like: how did I get to this place? He remembered his promising childhood, his multitude of talents impressing his tutors... and now he was going to rot in this cell, or meet his end on a scaffold.
Only he knew perfectly well how he got where he was. His life had been a series of closed doors, as Anna put it. A series of struggles against the sea of mediocrity he was always drowning in. And as long as he'd stayed on the Southern Isles, he'd never escape it.
In Corona, he'd challenged fate cautiously, and sort of lost, coming out with a little bad blood, and gaining his equine buddy, Sitron.
In Arendelle, he gambled all the way, bet everything on this one chance to break out and become a leader in his own right. He lost again.
Hans didn't want to be the sort of man who denied his own mistakes, and risk failing to learn from them. But the sheer dumb luck of Anna finding her way to him and Elsa at precisely the wrong moment, with Anna herself precisely seconds away from completing her freezing... he wasn't sure what to learn from that. Killing Anna instead of leaving her locked up would have prevented that, but he needed a corpse which obviously died from freezing, not from a sword or strangling or whatever he could improvise at the time. Perhaps he could have let Elsa get shot by the Duke's crossbowman, at her ice palace, instead of going for the chandelier. But he also needed to remain popular enough to take over afterwards. He was the one who'd led the Weseltonians there, so he couldn't let Elsa simply die at their hands without at least seeming like he meant to stop them.
It was enough to briefly entertain the thought that he was cursed.
No matter now. He never bowed his head and succumbed to his lot, and he wouldn't start now. If they were going to kill him now, giving in to despair would avail him nothing.
But if they were going to keep him alive... then time worked in his favor. Opportunities would appear. Sooner or later, they would.
And he would be ready.
