The dingy light that Anna goes to bed by isn't helping, for it was just the same. Just the same as when another lone figure in black walked up that corridor- smaller, much smaller, a far simpler figure than cut by Margareta, and the corridor had been far colder- maybe, on reflection, because Elsa had been on the far side of one of those doors, or maybe because the place was so very empty.
It's not fair. Not fair that I meant it and she doesn't. Not fair that she looks the same, but has no idea… no idea! Even Elsa-!
Anna lays her forehead down in her hands on her vanity table. Stop it. Stop all that. She manages to conjure a picture of Kristoff, when she'd pressed him on the subject of what came before the trolls and there had been nothing in the little that he remembered that sounded good. At least the servants had been there to keep Anna safe and well-fed.
When they'd had the conversation a few months ago, Kristoff had been surprisingly blasé about it, or at least had carried on driving the sled.
"Why are you looking guilty like that? You didn't know me then."
"I know but… well, with going to the funeral and everything, you know, alone, and not being able to see Elsa and worrying about whether I could do anything for her… I've felt, well, you know, pretty sad sometimes; but then when you say that I think I had a whole castle and the servants and everything, and- and, when you say how it was for you I think- maybe I shouldn't have done."
"No, no, don't go down that road. Seriously, it's not a competition, right? I had it hard one way, you get different problems. Like, I was very small and didn't have to stand up in public and be polite to people about it, right?"
"I guess."
"And I was alone, but then I didn't have an Elsa to deal with."
At that Anna pushed herself under his arm.
"I'd still choose Elsa. Elsa was always worth it."
"Of course she is."
"You're good with her, you know that?"
"There's no need to make your sister sound like a baby. I don't do anything for her."
"Yes you do. She's vulnerable and you help her feel okay." She snuggled her face against him, breathing in the smell of leather and lanolin and pine and, well, reindeer and more than a suspicion of under-washed man, and it was wonderful. "And you make me feel okay. Better than okay."
"Mm-hmm. Can I make you feel okay some other time, when I'm not driving?"
"Oh, promises, promises-"
Anna sits up sharply out of her reverie because that was the point that they'd hit a rock, or a tree-root, or something, and come to a very un-erotic collision of heads.
She watches the river of rain that was pouring down the roof below her window (there was not a lot else to see with the low-hanging clouds.) Happier thoughts. By noon tomorrow the castle will be free of Westergårds, perhaps forever- if they do show up again, from the sounds of it, it's probably going be 'what thirteenth brother? Seriously, did we have one?' (And that was a happy thought, though a rather pitiful one: what must it be like to be ashamed of your brother, or your father's brother, to neither be able to defend them nor want to?) It might stop raining. Or it might not, and she could ask Kristoff to come and help tidy the attic with her- an obscure attic where there was no room for anyone to come in just in case they wanted any help, just when they were getting on very well indeed just the two of them. (Anna took to heart all the times she'd been told over the last year that marriage was a serious step that wasn't to be rushed into. That was why she was making sure she got plenty of practice at it.) That's a plenty happy enough thought to lie down with, listening to the rumble of raindrops surging right over the roof-tiles.
Before that they're going to go to church together, apparently. Well, at least when they're listening to the Bishop, Anna won't have to try to find things to say to Margareta.
Though 'we' had better be including Kristoff. They are engaged, and he's been at her side for a couple of parties, but it had seemed a little convenient that the first time a foreign king arrived with his daughter had been when Kristoff wasn't around… Anna rolls over in her bed, wondering how the dispute might go (she never argues with Elsa exactly, oh no, but if Elsa is trying to hide Kristoff away…)
"Of course I'm not," Elsa says, as she brushes her hair the next morning, only just visible in the mirror behind the great ivory cloud pushed over her face- she always has to separate it to brush layer by layer. Dressed in what might be grey but looks lilac in the dim light, she looks so pale and ethereal that if it weren't for her voice she might just be a trick of the light, a reflection bounced between the fjord and the mirror to make that slender figure appear to move. "It's not exactly a sensible long-term policy; Kristoff is here to stay, and if I made him invisible it would start to become…"
"Disloyal? Cowardly?"
"I was going to say 'conspicuous'."
"An invisible Kristoff would be conspicuous?"
There's a suspicion of Elsa's off-centre smirk under that silky curtain.
"Wouldn't he just?" She shakes another section of her hair out. "I was trying to draw attention away from some of the sleeping arrangements in these apartments these days."
"What? Me and Kristoff have separate rooms!"
"You have separate rooms, yes. Quite a long way down a cold corridor."
"And we go to bed in them. And wake up in them."
"Well that's alright then. I don't have to learn anything that's going to shock me and my innocence will remain intact."
"…um. Yes. Yes, that's good. It's all good." Okay… well if Elsa thinks she's not ready to hear anymore then yeah, Anna can go along with that. Not like there's anything she would hidefrom Elsa exactly but she doesn't want to offend Elsa if there's stuff she doesn't want hear about. She can find something else to say. There's loads of other things to say. Like the view out of the dressing room window of, of…
"I see the Gertrude's preparing to leave already."
"Well, they have to make a living."
"They've kept the black sails."
"I suppose they're not going to waste a set of sails. Anyway, they won't stay particularly black forever. And all ships love a story attached to them."
"I guess… are we wearing black to church, Elsa?"
"No, no. We're not in mourning. Something sombre. Your grey silk will be fine."
"Um, it won't. It's, um, being re-dyed brown."
"Brown? Brown silk, you?"
"Yes, I know, but it got covered in coffee!"
"Oh Anna!"
"Hey, that wasn't my fault! There was an earthquake!"
"Oh, that day." Which was weird. Arendelle didn't have earthquakes, so when Anna had got that strange swaying feeling and the table had started violently rattling Elsa's tea-set, she'd thought that she was having some kind of fit, and she wondered how she was doing that to the whole table. Then when she looked scared at Elsa and saw her sister staring in amazement at the pastries dancing on the cake-stand, she realised it wasn't just her. Elsa tried to put down the milk jug but missed, sending a white spray over the tablecloth and as for the coffee that Anna was holding… "I found out about that, you know. Do you remember that there was a strange boom and a big cloud on the horizon? The Gertrude reported that a volcano blew up in Selki's Island. Not a big one, but big enough."
"It can't have been very big if we only know now."
"Well, you know what it's like with Selki's Island; all the news we get here is about a month old."
"Oh. Yes, I guess so." Anna fiddles with the belt of her morning-dress. "Do you think Hans was still there for that?"
"I really couldn't say." Elsa lifts the side of her hair up as she starts braiding, revealing that she's looking up at Anna, her eyes wide and bright. "It's nearly over, darling."
It goes on for a while longer, though.
It's not a funeral, as such; the coffin isn't in the chapel with them; really it's more a service about the matter that King Magnus is here at all- though it's not clear whether he's listening to the Bishop admonishing them all to send not to ask whom the bell tolls, as he keeps fussing over his daughter, patting her hands and asking in whispers whether she's warm and well enough. Margareta is pale but upright and doesn't actually look like she requires this much nursemaiding, in fact had she been alone her performance would be marked by its serene dignity and sociable, considerate restraint; rather undermined by being implied at every turn to be overwhelmed by it. How queer that she's not just almost twenty but clearly quite capable, and yet cannot refuse all this protection and help that seems to make her helpless!
The church isn't quite empty, there are the few who are always there of course, and a handful of what Anna thinks are guards- she was looking at the floor as she came in because it was so hard to meet anyone's eyes and not show anything in her face that she didn't mean to and people would take it wrong.
She's not hurting anymore, honestly. It's not personal that the idea of a face she'd both cherished and loathed now being eaten out of existence makes her feel…
"And you as well must die, belovèd dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel,…" it's a good reading, though she has heard it before. That would do. Yes.
"Hey," Kristoff whispers in her ear, "hush now." His blessedly warm hand encloses hers. So much for secret thoughts.
Well, other secret thoughts then.
She looked down at her hand wrapped in Kristoff's lying in her skirt- which it turned out was ready and looked better than she'd hoped, and once it was on, with her hair up and the neck high as it was, didn't suit her badly at all! The only off-putting thing was the way her skirt looked a little like a puddle of melted milk chocolate. Or chocolate fondue. Slightly distracting.
Wow, but Kristoff's hands were big.
Big feet too. She's never really looked at boots like them.
She wonders if, if she mislaid Kristoff somehow, she could use his boots to find him again.
Not that she thinks it likely to forget what Kristoff actually looks like. That was a very weird story, now that she thought about it.
It's not like foot size matters that much.
She mentioned the conversation to Elsa once, over hot chocolate in front of the fire.
"Would foot size matter to you, Elsa?"
"In what context?"
"In the context of whether you wanted to marry someone or not." Elsa looked puzzled- perhaps at the idea of her marrying anyone, Anna wasn't sure. Perhaps it was the wrong question to be asking… "I mean when do you get that into the conversation, anyway?"
"I've no idea. I suppose given how Hans dressed, you could just look at his genitalia and make a guess."
Anna had spent a few minutes drinking her chocolate and asking herself what she'd really heard, then another few minutes trying to un-hear it. It was really weird when Elsa made jokes.
For goodness sake! Go back to Kristoff's hands.
So perfect for enfolding her hand completely. For holding her.
She wonders how big his wedding ring is going to be. Whether it'll feel different then when he squeezes her hand, among other things.
Are they burning incense in here? They never normally did that in the castle chapel… perhaps the flowers were standing in dirty water.
Think of Kristoff's hand spread wide over her shoulder, suddenly involuntarily clutching her tight…
He was holding her hand quite tight now, actually. So much strength it felt like he could protect from anything, always controlled, delicate. Like those big hands were just made to hold a little baby…
A little baby that needed changing. What the heck was that smell?
"There will be an end of chiefs, and there will be an end of chief's sons, and there will be an end of chief's wives- and then-"
And then the Bishop stops because one of the doors at the end of the chapel has crashed open. Not a squeak and a clunk of an ordinary entrance, nothing that could be silenced with a look of enquiry or disapproval, no collective susurrus at some people's scatterbrainedness or timekeeping would do here.
It is in fact, very ill-timed. Could not have been more inappropriate a person to turn up, to ruin this moment.
Anna screams, and it's a while before she feels ridiculous.
It's a good scream, Kristoff will assure her later. Not sissy squealing. Right from the gut. Powerful. Would give a team of wolves second thoughts.
She still instantly isn't sure why she screamed. But it doesn't seem inappropriate.
The guards and servants are suddenly all on their feet, straining for a view as if for the entrance of a bride.
Indeed there is one between them- for there are, in a sense, two- who could be said to be wearing white. Except it's only by inference white, under all the blood.
The head is bigger than Hans' own head. It's bigger than his chest. It's so big his hands don't actually meet when he's got it hugged round the neck, with its almost-closed eyes and lolling mouth giving it a crazy look of being astonished to be hugged so (as well it might have.)
Oh, and from the full length of the church it's obvious that it has been dead for quite a while. And that Hans has been covered in blood- covered, rivulets having run down his face like someone tipped a bucket over his head- for some time, too. It's so bad that people are taking a step towards him and then falling back again.
And then the Bishop says:
"…and there will be an end to chief's sons, and…"
A guard- (Corporal Haugen?) steps out from the isle, and Hans somehow manages to push past him- and Anna hears what must be his voice, though it's like no voice she ever heard-
"…Elsa…Queen Elsa…"
And Corporal Haugen looks up to the royal pew.
Elsa stands up to her fullest, straightest, where-do-those-extra-inches-come-from height, and comes down the steps to the central aisle. Anna isn't sure whether or not anyone else can see the round bubbling ball of magic that she's got cradled ready in her hand.
She can see Hans' face now, fixed on Elsa's… in so much as it can be fixed. It's Hans, just about, but not Hans at the same time- a great violet stain covers one temple down to eyes that don't match up and under that noisome veil something is out of shape, imperceptibly wrong, an expression that is incoherent.
As he comes close to Elsa- who has gone marble-blank, immovable as a monument of a millennium or more- Elsa ad infinitum- Anna sees him try to speak again- or at least his lips move.
Elsa merely nods.
"It is done."
When Hans falls, it still isn't neat. Holding the bear's head doesn't help, as he falls on it and then rolls off, and his head ends up smacking Elsa on the foot. Anna briefly wonders if being headbutted in the foot is painful (if she hadn't seen it it would sound very questionable.) Elsa's face only looks furious for a split second before, oh yes Elsa, she throws the magic she's been holding into the very dead head of the bear beside her, freezing it solid. Then she does cave in and say:
"Help."
Anna and Kristoff need no more encouragement, and Haugen (if that's who it is) is soon there, and even Margareta- though she bends over Hans, although Anna can more or less forgive that.
"Is he dead, Elsa?"
"I don't think so."
It's not too bad until Haugen tentatively rolls the bear's head aside to lift the whole body lying in the aisle and…
"Good gods," he breathes, then looks up embarrassed, muttering, "sorry."
"Ooh, no kidding."
"That is a very broken arm."
Elsa looks over Anna's shoulder at what they've seen- there just shouldn't be so many ways in which that left arm should be twisted.
"You know- Dr. von Rodham would have to see it, but I think it's rather worse than that."
"Wait, what?"
"I'll explain later. Corporal, please take this man to hospital and have your men do… something with his… tribute. Preferably elsewhere."
Fortunately for Corporal Haugen, he has men subordinate to him to call on.
Now that the head is frozen above everything else, it takes four men to lift it up in a chorister's cassock- which actually causes Hans' eyes to flicker open for a moment. By now Kristoff and Haugen are sliding the parts of a guardhouse stretcher under him, trying tactfully to make Margareta get out of their way. It must be her pale face, more so for the black bonnet, that he sees, when he blinks in seemingly sluggish thought and manages to mutter:
"Who's dead?"
Kristoff looks at him with a smile.
"Guess."
