Author's Note: I had not originally planned on making more of these, but I was inspired by SorrowsFlower's excellent review, and agreed that this series of oneshots needed an ending, so here it is.
The title was given to me, so thanks to who is responsible for that.
But Someday...
The queen silently drew her legs up and tucked her chin upon her knees, watching the starlight as it filtered through the windowpanes.
She had always liked the openness of their room. The tall doors that opened up onto the balcony that overlooked the sea had been her favorite feature of the room. Agdar had laughed but agreed to move the bed so that she could see the sunset from it or the stars as they twinkled into being one by one until the world outside glittered with thousands of points of light, an eternity captured within manmade borders of glass and wood. There had been many nights where she would find herself awake as her husband slept, the sight of the stars comforting in a quiet way. They reminded her that for all the stress of life during the day, the world still turned at night, time moving forward at its gentle pace.
She couldn't sleep tonight, nor had she been sleeping well of late. Tomorrow she and her husband were to leave, for the first time in well over a decade, and despite their firm reassurances to their eldest daughter she found herself wrapped in trepidation. Elsa's control over her terrible, awesome power was at its height, but her happiness was not, and that thought made Idunn lay awake at night, thinking.
The gloves had been Agdar's idea and Elsa's choosing. Idunn knew immediately that they did not work, but she knew better than to say. She had lied to her younger daughter for the sake of her safety. Soothing Elsa with false words was no different. The intention, the outcome; they were both the same.
The guilt made her hands itch.
She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths in through her nose. The night air was still, as if it had been caught or persuaded with soft words to slow down and let her breathe. She had once imagined that she could draw this calm inside of her, stitch it to her skin, and smooth it upon Elsa's face when she stroked the girl's cheek as she slept. She had not touched her child in years. Elsa would not allow it because the walls she constructed around herself to keep her from touching and breaking the world also kept out those warm embraces that a wandering, withdrawn child always needs.
Elsa may have grown up but she had not grown old; rather, she had grown weary. That, at least, was something they had in common.
Idunn opened her eyes and shifted, careful not to pull on the covers. She leaned her head against the bedpost and looked out the window. The stars were lovely tonight. She longed to see them from more than just the windows. Years ago, when the girls were little enough that Anna still needed help walking, the four of them had spent a night stargazing from one of the tallest cliffs overlooking the fjord, laid out on a blanket. Anna had fallen asleep within minutes of Agdar blowing out the lamp. Elsa had tried to remain awake, listening intently to her mother as she whispered old folk tales about the constellations to her, Agdar stroking her hair when she eventually fell asleep too.
She remembered Anna first discovering how to open doors, the little girl hopping up and yanking on the doorknob and bouncing into whatever room looked interesting. She and her sister had made a game of it; Elsa on one side, closing the door, and Anna on the other side trying to get it open, pouting at Elsa's giggles through the wood when her little jumps weren't high enough for her to reach the knob.
She remembered finding Elsa wearing her mother's crown and one of her dresses, her little feet far too small for Idunn's shoes, standing in front of one of the suits of armor that had been a part of Arendellan history for years. Anna had come running around the corner wearing an ill-fitting dragon costume, complete with a three foot long tail and one and a half wings, and then proceeded to "rescue" Elsa from the horrible knight. It involved biting metal, crying, and a short lecture on taking care of one's teeth.
She'd been convinced they'd grow up to be utter terrors and a small part of her had been secretly glad. Her second pregnancy had been so debilitating that she was certain then that Anna would have no younger siblings, but it was all right, because the bond between her daughters was so strong from the moment of Anna's first opening her eyes that they didn't need anyone else. Elsa would grow to be the strong, self-assured queen, confident in her intelligence, bearing, wisdom, and with a special trick up her sleeve, and Anna would be right at her side, part partner in crime and part advisor and entirely her best friend.
Idunn sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees, blinking quickly around the tears in her eyes. At least she could blame night dreams on stress and exhaustion. Daydreams plagued her by feeling more real than her everyday life.
"You're still awake."
She glanced down. Agdar's voice was scratchy with sleep as he shifted. He pushed the covers to the side, rubbing his cheek. She could hear the scratch of his stubble against his palm, watched as the muscles moved under his bare skin when he set his arm down. He was a powerful man but he had always been gentle with her.
She drew her lips up into a small smile, meant to reassure, but it faltered under the weight of his gaze. His green eyes were always so much darker and deeper at night. Gone were their crowns, his medals and royal clothes, their responsibilities that hung from them during the day, leaving in its place the honesty that befell in the night.
She remembered so many years ago, a contract, a foreign land filled with nothing but the unknown, a new king, a newlywed, a stranger sliding a promise down her finger, the stiffness and solemnity of ceremony, giving way to the tentative awkwardness of a king and a queen who knew of but did not know each other as they went through the motions of marriage, giving way to a pleasant friendship that made her fear melt away until finally she could be Idunn and he could be Agdar and they could be man and woman with no titles or histories to come between them.
She nodded. "I couldn't sleep." She kept her voice low, for fear of disturbing the serenity.
He took up her hand in his, cradling it. His hands were much larger than hers, hardened from his military service. His thumb brushed lightly against her palm in long strokes, their ring fingers glinting in the starlight.
"Is the moon out?" he asked. He was still looking down at their hands.
"No," she responded after she glanced out the windows. There was a darkness where the moon ought to be.
He smiled, as slow and as steady as his thumb. "I thought it might be, if you're still awake."
She tilted her head at him, confused.
His eyes were green. They matched Anna's color well. But their depth had been passed down to their first daughter. "You don't remember?" His whisper crept across the darkness.
He chuckled when she shook her head wordlessly. "You never got much sleep when you were carrying her." She didn't need to ask who he meant. "It seemed like you never got so much as a night's rest, but you were never tired. I'd wake up and find you just…watching the moon."
She remembered that now, those long days filled with excitement as the days rolled on and on, one step closer to the end, the long nights filled with wonder as her belly grew too heavy for sleep.
He stroked her hand. "I thought for sure you'd give birth to a moonchild," he murmured.
She couldn't be sure she hadn't.
"You're not hiding another one, are you?"
She smiled for real this time. "No. Besides, I was better with Anna, wasn't I?" Her main sin hadn't been insomnia, at least.
His mustache framed his smile. "I'd never been skinnier."
She laughed into her palm, his own quiet laughter sounding like the rumble of thunder backing the tinkling raindrops that was her laugh. They had begun as two very different people and they remained so, their opinions and thoughts separating at times, but time and familiarity had allowed them the chance to learn to take those differences and weave them together into a partnership that had weathered stunning revelations, terrifying calamity, and that slow, lingering tread of knowing failure that could not be fixed by their hands alone.
Perhaps that was why she preferred being awake at night. Her bodily exhaustion was secondary to her craving for truth over well-meaning lies.
She let the silence fall upon them for a long moment, gathering her strength.
"Must we go?" She knew what answer he would give.
He didn't answer her immediately, his hand never stopping its motions. He had always liked to play with his hands, wringing them together behind his back as he presented his good side to his now greatly reduced court.
"Not tomorrow," he said, "but someday."
Someday. Someday, that day that they talked about all the time, as if it existed on the calendar, could be planned for, awaited, the days until its arrival counted and calculated. Someday, when Elsa's brows no longer had that thin line between them, when she stood tall and proud, her eyes sparkling with an inner fire, not dim with worry; someday, when Anna stationed herself beside her sister and was welcomed there.
That day had not come. It would not come, not for years, at this rate. Sometimes, when the honesty of the night turned against her and showed her her fears and not her joys, she wondered if it might ever come at all.
Someday had not arrived, but the servants knew what to do, the regent was ready to assist Elsa with whatever she needed, and perhaps a change would do them all some good. Maybe what Elsa needed, to stabilize herself and accept herself, was not the pressure of her parents, but distance, space to breathe. Holding her sister at arm's length was taxing, or had been, because Anna's steps now walked past Elsa's door instead of pausing; perhaps if they removed themselves from the situation Elsa might know peace.
It felt like a lie on her lips. She did not voice it; to do so would feel like blasphemy.
"No," she said, "not someday. Tomorrow, because…because someday won't come." She blinked quickly again. Her throat felt hard. "So, we might as well go anyways."
She closed her eyes when his palm grazed her cheek, turning her head into his caress, some of her worry bleeding out and into him. He could bear it better than she could. His constant offering was more than enough to make her love him all over again.
"It will come," he said, and leaned up to lay a kiss as soft as a cloud on her lips. "And we will be there to see it." His eyes were dark and filled with a sad, tired hope.
She turned her hand and gripped his firmly. "Promise me," she whispered, her voice thick with strain. "Promise me, please, Agdar…I can't…I…"
He kissed her again and laid his forehead on hers. "It will. It will."
And so the dawn came.
They rose and dressed in their usual silence. Their things had already been packed, their goodbyes had been made the night before, and while Elsa might be awake Anna was certainly still asleep at this hour.
As they made their way out of the castle they passed by Elsa's door, and Idunn paused. She offered Agdar a quick reassurance that she wouldn't be long and he nodded and left for the ship waiting at the dock.
Idunn knocked lightly on the door, just above one of the snowflake patterns. "Elsa?"
The silence was heavy, unlike the companionable one that often drew her and her husband together. This silence felt like worry lines written on a face that was far too young for wrinkles and far too old for innocence.
Elsa opened the door. She glanced around, presumably looking for her father, and stared at her mother standing there alone, confused. She hesitated for a moment, then drew the door open more, and Idunn stepped inside.
She looked around the room, satisfied to find there were no splotches of ice or snow anywhere. The air was slightly chillier than the hallway, but that was because the windows were open and the sea air was filling the room with the scent of the ocean.
"Is there something I needed to do?" Elsa asked quickly as she shut the door. She was already clothed, her hair put together and gloves covering her hands, the hands that she had begun to twist in her dress already. "I have the list of instructions from Kai, and you'll only be gone two weeks. That's…that's not enough time for me to do much damage – legally, I mean, I should be fine…" She stopped babbling, dropping her head down as she sought to control herself.
"It's just…I should be fine, so…unless you're planning on staying, actually?" Her eyes had that same sad, tired hope in them that Idunn had seen mere hours before.
She shook her head, and Elsa's hope faded. "Oh."
"I just stopped in to see how you were," her mother said.
"I'm fine," Elsa said.
"Is there…anything you wanted?" Idunn asked, wanting a reason to stay.
Elsa didn't say anything, and then she shook her head. "No."
Idunn watched her daughter, standing there in her room, the only place she felt safe, and felt like an invader. The distance between them felt enormous while the room crowded ever inward. There was no space to breath despite the fresh air because Elsa's face was closed and so was her heart.
Someday, things would be different.
Idunn steeled her nerves and stepped forward.
Elsa jerked her head back, her eyes wide and terrified, when her mother's knuckles brushed against her cheek, but Idunn took another step forward so that she was still in contact.
Elsa trembled, gaze darting between her mother's hand and face, and Idunn could feel the temperature begin to drop the longer she stood there, but she clenched her teeth and remained. Her knuckles began to ache.
Elsa blinked rapidly and dropped her eyes to the floor like some animal enduring a forced petting, and Idunn withdrew with a sigh. Nothing had changed. Her small moment of bravery had done nothing but proven how far apart they truly were, how alien affection was to her daughter.
Not for the first time, Idunn wondered what they'd done to her, and whether it was right.
She took a step back, which made Elsa calm enough to look her in the eye. "We'll be off within the hour."
Elsa nodded. "Goodbye," she said.
Idunn opened her mouth, but Elsa was a statue riddled with cracks; she dare not say anything.
She turned and left.
Kai was handing their luggage to one of the crewmen as the royal couple waited at the dock. The ship was small but magnificent, its well carved wood sturdy and secure.
There came a sudden pounding.
"Wait!"
Idunn had only a second to prepare herself before Anna was leaping into her arms, squeezing her to the point where she felt like she was drowning in physical affection. "Anna," she said, laughing, "you've already said goodbye last night!" She pulled back to give her daughter a look, noting her nightgown and bare feet with half amusement, half disappointment.
"I know, but if I say goodbye again then you'll come back faster," Anna declared. She stepped back and then offered the same bone-crushing hug to her father, Agdar's eyes meeting Idunn's over her shoulder as he grinned at her.
"Don't get up to any trouble while we're gone," he told her sternly, but ruined the effect by tapping her on the nose and making her giggle. She promised that she'd be as good as she could possibly be, which meant that Kai would have a long list to read to them when they returned.
"Besides, Elsa's watching over me, so I'll be fine, right?"
Idunn's lips twitched. "Of course."
The queen settled her hands on the railing. The wind streamed through her hair as the gulls cried while they followed the ship, drifting on the air currents above.
She laughed at the sight of her younger daughter, bouncing up and down at the end of the dock, whipping a handkerchief around in the one hand and shouting goodbyes, Kai at her elbow trying to grab the bottle of champagne she had planned to break upon the ship before they'd left. She'd been upset to learn that this rule applied only to maiden voyages, enough so that Idunn had been tempted to let her do it, just for luck, but thankfully cooler heads had prevailed and so Anna had left them with more kisses and hugs and entreaties to bring her back lots of stories of the wedding and the people and the lands they were sure to explore, for her sake.
Idunn looked up to the tallest tower. From one of the windows Elsa watched them. Her white gloves fairly blazed in the red light of morning. She raised one and waved hesitantly.
Her mother returned the gesture, and for a moment she imagined a brief smile overtaking her daughter's face. Then the moment was gone and Elsa was like stone again, a silent onlooker.
She stood at the railing for a long time, well past the moment when she could no longer see Anna, when the fjord became a small point on the horizon, when Arendelle faded away with the rush of the water beneath them
Agdar laid a hand on her shoulder. "I believe the captain wishes to show us around the ship. Would you like a tour?"
She accepted his offered hand and turned away from the last of the Arendelle horizon. She'd see it on the return trip.
And maybe, she'd finally see that someday arrive, too.