Anna is sprawled out on her stomach on the floor of the study. It looks very comfortable, Elsa thinks, if only she wasn't wearing a very tailored gown that barely allows her to lift her arms above her head. Instead, she has settled for simply sitting on the carpet—Persian, she thinks—and leaning against the front of the couch for support. It is strange to not be behind her desk, but it would be even stranger to be at her desk with her sister down here.
"What exactly are we looking for?" Anna asks, pulling a stack of papers out of the large, wooden crate.
"Anything that doesn't check out," Elsa replies absently as she shuffles through her own stack of paper.
"What do you mean 'check out'?"
"Just anything that doesn't make sense."
"Oh, okay," Anna answers in a tone that implies that the response was not very helpful at all, but she's not going to ask for further elaboration.
"If there's anyone who doesn't look like they have a good enough reason to be staying in the castle," Elsa explains. "Or anyone who's logged in for a job that we don't actually need. Something like that. Just use your common sense and ask yourself, does this person belong here?" She holds up the first page of the logs. "I've got the residential wing here," she adds. She picked it on purpose, because she figures this particular guest would have been housed near the family's living quarters. "What do you have?"
"The West Wing," Anna replies. Elsa watches her eyes scan the page. "Well, it looks like the Crown Prince of Maldonia stayed here twice."
Elsa shakes her head. "It wouldn't be anyone of status. They're too well connected. Too much chance that word would get out and too many potential diplomatic implications. Can you imagine how Father would have felt if he'd had to go to war with Maldonia knowing that he was raising the Crown Prince's child?"
"Guess that rules out the Council of Traders' Goods," Anna mutters, tossing another page aside haphazardly.
"Careful," Elsa warns. "Those are official records."
"So, Elsa," her sister says in a would-be casual tone. "Back to what we were talking about earlier—oh, there's a florist here."
"What dates?" she asks, looking up.
"Oh, never mind," Anna replies happily. "It was the second week in May. He would have been here for Mother and Father's wedding anniversary. Oh, wow, looks like they brought him in from Corona, too. Fancy."
"Mother always did love flowers," Elsa remembers. "I'm sure Father spared no expense."
"Anyway," Anna continues, and Elsa suppresses a groan. "Back to what we were talking about at dinner, what happened?"
She wishes her sister would just let it go, because she is having a very difficult time burying her emotions when Anna keeps dredging them back up. "It was nothing."
"Liar."
"Just a conversation I had with the Prince."
"Which one?"
"Rolf."
"Prince Rolf."
"That's what I said."
"No," Anna shakes her head slowly. "You just said Rolf."
Elsa shoot her a pointed look. "You know what I meant."
"Do I?" Anna asks, quirking an eyebrow, but she moves on anyway. "What was the conversation about?"
"He just asked me if I was okay," she answers, dropping her gaze to the carpet.
"And what did you say?"
"I told him I was fine," Elsa replies.
"And?"
"And what?"
"That can't be everything," Anna insists. "Why all the questions about Father?"
"He told me…" Elsa is almost too embarrassed to say it, especially to her sister. She knows Anna thinks she understands life as a royal—she is one after all—but she also knows that the King and Queen's strictness towards her was made up for by an abundance of laxness where Anna was concerned. It makes no sense, Elsa thinks, because their parents must have known that she would never produce an heir, that Anna would likely take the throne one day, or at least raise the person who would take the throne one day, but then, they were only two people, and Elsa guesses something had to give. She knows she can't have been easy to handle, and her parents did have a country to run. Perhaps there was just no time to train a second daughter in appropriate behavior. Maybe they thought it wouldn't matter because the gates would be closed Anna's entire life. "He told me he knew."
"Knew… what exactly?"
She hesitates. "Knew that I couldn't actually tell him the answer," she admits. "For propriety's sake."
"Okay…" Anna replies. "And then what?"
"And," Elsa can feel frost blossoming on her cheeks like a blush. She looks adamantly in the direction opposite her sister. "I told him it was hard."
"What was hard?" Elsa can hear the confusion in the Princess' voice. She knows she isn't being specific enough for Anna to understand, but if Anna is going to drag the story out of her, Elsa would rather at least not make it easy.
"Concealing."
She can a sharp intake of breath. "Elsa, you know you don't have to do that anymore."
"Yes I do," she answers softly. "And I always will. I'm the Queen. I'm stoic, steady, and strong. I can't be weeping all over the shoulders of foreign dignitaries."
"Weeping?"
"I didn't weep," Elsa amends quickly. "It was an expression. I just… told him how I felt."
Anna furrows her brow. "What's wrong with that?"
"Well, I can't be stoic, steady, and strong if I wear my heart around on my sleeve, can I?" she hisses, and then immediately wishes she'd softened her tone.
If Anna takes offense to the statement, it doesn't show. "Elsa, you're not wearing your heart on your sleeve," she's smiling and it makes Elsa uncomfortable that she doesn't know why. "It's trust."
"Trust?" The word leaves a bad taste in her mouth, because, no, she cannot start trusting the Princes. She cannot start trusting anyone, except maybe Anna. Trust is how people get taken advantage of. Elsa is the Queen. She cannot risk it. Besides, she is not sure she could bare to see that happen to either of them again, not after Rolf's brother. Elsa hadn't liked the man, but she had trusted him, and look where that had gotten the both of them.
"Yes Elsa, that means you take someone at their word."
"I know perfectly well what it means, thank you," she snaps.
"And what's wrong with that?" Anna asks.
"Because," Elsa takes a breath to calm herself down. She can feel the frost spreading down her neck and wonders if Anna has noticed the cold white against her already frosty complexion. None of this is her sister's fault, she reminds herself. Anna is the one who didn't want the Princes to stay in the first place. "It also means that they can take advantage of you."
"Yeah…" Anna replies slowly. "But it doesn't mean they will. That's why you have to choose carefully."
The Queen emits a hollow laugh. "You're one to talk."
"Is that what this is about?" her sister asks. She pushes aside her stack of papers and sits up. "I trusted Hans and he betrayed me?"
"I trusted him too," Elsa admits quietly. "I trusted him with you, and you died."
Anna sighs in exasperation. "But that doesn't happen every time."
"Anna, you're the one who didn't want them here at all. Are you telling me you've changed your mind."
"Maybe I don't think they came here to finish what Hans started anymore," the Princess replies. "And I'm saying you're allow to have friends. Do I wish they weren't from a certain nearby kingdom? Yes. But beggars can't be choosers, now, can they?"
"Friends," Elsa murmurs. The word tastes foreign on her tongue, and she wonders if it's possible to really be friends with a person while knowing you have the power to halt trade with their country, that you may have to go to war with them in the future. Elsa wonders if it's possible to set aside all of those things. If it is, she doesn't know how. But she doesn't know how to be friends either, so maybe it's a moot point.
"Mmhm," Anna answers as she looks back down to the stack of paper at her side. "Looks like there were a lot of horse trainers here that year."
"What?" The Queen shakes her head. "Oh, no, Arendelle hosted some sort of horse show that year. Mother told me about it once. They're legitimate."
"A horse show?" Anna exclaims. "That sounds fun. We should have one."
Elsa smiles at her sister's enthusiasm. "Somehow, I doubt the other nations are going to be eager to come back here so soon." She returns to her stack of papers as well. "It doesn't look as if there was anyone actually staying in our wing," she mutters as she scans the list of names. "Everyone on here was logged in and out on the same day."
Anna shrugs. "That's normal isn't it?"
"Maybe…" Elsa replies without taking her eyes off the page.
"But seriously, Elsa, about this horse show—"
"Wait!" Elsa interrupts. Anna looks up in alarm. "I found one."
"One what?"
"I found someone who was staying in the residential wing," she answers. "Daniel Kristiansen.
"Well, what's his reason for being there?"
Elsa shakes her head. "It doesn't say." She pushes herself off the floor with an unattractive grunt and hurries to the door. "Marcus?"
"Yes, Ma'am?" The door cracks open and the young steward pokes his head in.
"Marcus, I need you to find all the records on Daniel Kristiansen," she explains. "They should be with the dossiers on the rest of the visitors."
"Of course, Ma'am," he answers. "I'll go right now."
"No," Elsa replies quickly. "Tomorrow will be fine. You're dismissed for the evening."
"Thank you, Ma'am."
"And Marcus," she calls after him. "Please keep this to yourself."
"Elsa?"
When she pushes the door closed, Anna is staring at her. Guilt is etched all over her face and, briefly, Elsa wonders if Anna too knows something that she doesn't. "Yes?" she asks, trying to ignore the unpleasant swooping feeling in her stomach.
"His name is Martin."
"What?"
"His name is Martin," Anna repeats. "You were right. The Princes were here, and I was angry, and…" she sighs. "I was messing with you," she finishes lamely.
Elsa isn't sure whether to feel relief because it turns out Anna doesn't know some huge secret about her past or embarrassment over the fact that she's been calling her steward by the wrong name for five days. She glances back and forth between her sister and the door, and because this is absolutely the last thing she expected Anna to say, the only word she can force out is, "Oh."
The wind burns her face, whips her hair. Tiny pieces of hail rip at her cheeks. She runs her fingers across her forehead and through her hair to hold it in place so she can see, but she feels moisture. She removes her hand and it is streaked with blood.
All she can see is white as snow spirals around her. There are shadows in the distance. They are coming closer. She doesn't know who they are, but she knows she does not want them to catch up to her. If they catch up to her it will all be over. She takes a step back, and then another. She can make out the glow of torches now as they approach her. Suddenly, she feels hot, so very hot. She tries to call on the ice, to form some sort of barrier between them and her, but nothings comes. She tries once more before balling her useless hands into fists at her side.
She turns to put more distance between herself and her pursuers, but then there is he is. She is face to face with him. Hans' mouth twists into a grin that reminds Elsa only of pictures she's seen in books. She thinks they are called jackals.
She is powerless to stop him as he reaches out and wraps his hand around her neck. He pulls her so close to his face that their noses almost touch, that she can see her reflection in his eyes. The ice has torn the flesh of her face and blood drips like tears from the cuts. She chokes as his grip compresses her throat.
"Your sister is dead," he whispers, and his voice is low and dangerous. She can feel the warmth of his breath on her face. "Because of you."
He releases her and she falls to the ground. She tries to crawl away but he plants a foot firmly on her cape to hold her in place.. He is standing over her, blocking the light. He raises his sword above his head.
"Queen Elsa of Arendelle," he cries over the howl of the wind. "I hereby charge you with the crime of treason and sentence you to death."
She can hear cheering in the distance, her own people calling for her execution. The shadowy, torch-bearing figures are near enough now that she can count them. Twelve. She tries to struggle, but she can't move. Her hands are frozen to the ice of the fjord. Her feet are bare. She must have lost her shoes during the scuffle. The ice slippers never were very practical.
Hans is grinning now, just like the jackals in her book. There is a maniacal gleam in his eye. He looks crazed, power-hungry, but her people will never see that, she realizes. She is the only one who will ever know, and it is a secret Hans will make sure she takes with her to the grave. The heat is stifling.
He begins to swing his sword down toward her.
"Brother!" she hears someone call.
"Elsa!" yells someone else.
Her world has gone black. She can't move. "Elsa!" she hears in the distance. The cry is muffled. Then she hears it again, closer this time. "Elsa!" She feels something touch her and tries to jerk away. "Elsa!" Someone is grabbing at her in the darkness. She still can't move. She can't escape.
"Elsa, wake up!" The cry is coming from very nearby now. "Elsa, it's me!"
Anna.
She snaps her eyes open. Anna's face is inches from hers. She screams in surprise and tries to pull away, but her limbs are tangled in the sheets.
"Elsa, it's okay!" Anna says, sitting back up on the bed.
She is panting. She can feel tiny crystals of sweat frozen to her body. "Anna," she breaths. "What are you doing here?"
"Umm," Anna replies, moving to untangle one of her arms from the grip of the blanket. "I heard you screaming. It was kind of loud."
Fantastic. "Did… did anyone else hear it?"
"No…" Anna busies herself with the sheets.
"Anna."
"A couple guards showed up about the same time I did."
Elsa breathes a sigh of dismay. She can feel her face growing warm. That is all she needs, the entire castle knowing that the Queen is having nightmares.
"You were screaming. You're the Queen. What did you expect?" Anna asks. "You could have been… being murdered by an assassin for all they knew."
"I was," she mutters as she pulls her other arm free and sits up.
"You froze your mattress," Anna points out unnecessarily.
"That's not all I froze," Elsa replies, looking around the room. Her floor is a solid sheet of ice. It is a small wonder Anna made it across in one piece. Frost works its way up the corners of the walls and icicles the size of her arm have blossomed near the ceiling.
"That's okay, though," Anna says. "It looks nice this way. It's very you. Not that you're icy. Or cold. Well you are, but just temperature-wise, not, you know, otherwise." She looks away.
Elsa folds her arms across her stomach, draws her knees to her chest, and stares in the other direction. They sit like that a while before Anna breaks the silence. "So… what was it about?"
"What?" Elsa asks partially because the question takes her by surprise and partially because she'd been so immersed in her own thoughts of princes and treason and ice that she is not entirely sure she even heard it correctly.
"The dream, what was it about?"
"Oh," Elsa drops her eyes. "It was nothing."
"Elsa, it's okay," Anna reaches out, places a hand on her shoulder. Elsa does not see it coming and pulls away before she can stop herself. Anna quickly withdrawals the hand and folds it into the other in her lap. "I get them too," she adds.
She looks back up at her sister, staring at the floor, hands wringing themselves in her lap. She has a sudden urge to reach out, to still Anna's hands with her own, but no. She can't bring herself to do that, to touch. "About…" she hesitates. "About Hans?"
Anna looks up slowly, cheeks growing pink, and then she nods. "Is that what yours was about?"
"He was going to kill me," she replies in the way of an answer. "And people were cheering."
"Sometimes I have dreams that he's killing you," Anna replies. "And I have to watch you die. And sometimes I have dreams that… he's marrying you instead."
Elsa furrows her eyebrows. "Why would you dream about that?"
"No reason," she shakes her head. "It's just a dream."
"Oh," Elsa says.
"His head always turns into a wolf's though," Anna continues. "In the end. Is this… is this the first one you've had?"
"No," Elsa admits. "Just the worst." Truth be told, Hans has turned up in her dreams almost every other night since her return to the castle and every night since his brothers arrived. Sometimes he's simply there, watching, waiting. Other times he whispers in her ear over and over again that her sister is dead and it's her fault. But he's never chased her before, never touched her, tried to kill her.
"How are you going to go back to sleep on this mattress?" her sister asks, pushing herself off the bed.
"I'll manage," Elsa replies shortly.
"Come on," Anna says. "You can share my bed. We'll have a sleepover. Like when we were little."
"I can't," Elsa answers quickly, her eyes widening. How can she place herself so close to Anna when she's just frozen over her entire bedroom? She cannot put her sister in that kind of danger. She will not. Aside from that, Elsa is not sure she would even be able to fall asleep with another person in the room, even if it is Anna, who only ever has her best interests at heart, Anna who would never do anything to harm her. She and Anna shared a room, once upon a time, but that was thirteen years ago, and a lot has changed since then. Elsa isn't even close to the same person.
"I don't mind," Anna is saying. "My bed is huge. More than enough room for two people. Not that I know from experience or anything," she adds quickly.
Elsa sighs. "Anna, I really can't. But thank you for the offer. I'll just go sleep in one of the spare bedrooms."
"Oh, okay," Anna replies, an air of disappointment in her voice, and Elsa can't help but feel a pang of guilt.
"Goodnight, Anna," Elsa says. "Thank you for waking me."
"Goodnight, Elsa," Anna returns, ducking out the door.
Sunlight streams through the castle's windows. The thing about the years of closed curtains, Elsa thinks, was that the darkness always matched her mood. The world shouldn't be allowed to be this bright when she feels the way she does. She can even hear laughter floating down the corridor. Disgusting.
But wait.
Who even is that?
Not Kristoff.
Certainly not Anna.
"Surely he's not trying to woo her," someone is saying.
"No," comes second voice. "See, look, he's just trying to show her the veins on the leaf."
"That probably is his version of wooing."
"Your Majesty!" Elsa hears before she's even completely rounded the corner. Erlend jumps away from the window and sinks into a low bow. Rolf follows suit.
"Prince Erlend, Prince Rolf," Elsa greets in a tone that she hopes is neutral.
They upright themselves and she is caught once again by their resemblance to their youngest brother. Especially Rolf's eyes, those eyes and that gentle, thin-lipped smile. The eyes in which she'd seen her blood-stained reflection, the mouth that had taunted her, lied to her, sentenced her to die.
She shakes the thought from her head. "Is something amusing?"
"Always," Erlend smirks, glancing back at the window. "Our brother. He seems to have accosted Princess Anna."
"What?" Elsa hurries to his side. Sure enough, she can see Anna and Prince Anton in the garden below. Anna is rubbing the crook of her arm and looking at something in Anton's hand.
"We think he's trying to give her a botany lesson," Rolf explains dryly. "It's his favorite pastime."
"He is aware, of course, that the Princess has a suitor?" Elsa asks.
Erlend laughs. "I don't think he cares. Romance is the last thing on Anton's mind."
"Anything other than plants is the last thing on Anton's mind," Rolf adds. "Our father keeps saying that if Anton is to marry, it will have to be arranged."
He is leading Anna by the elbow quickly toward a patch of flowers. Elsa is sure he knows exactly what they're called, but she only knows them as yellow. He kneels down and gestures for Anna to do the same. Elsa watches her sister plop down in the grass the opposite of gracefully as Anton begins to examine one of the blooms.
"Oh no," Erlend says. "He's started in on the stamen."
Rolf lets out a low whistle. "They'll be out there all morning."
"Well, they'll have to come in by lunch, won't they?" Elsa asks as she watches, to her amazement, Anna pick a blossom of her own to study. "The meeting…"
"Oh, that," Rolf replies. "No, Ivar doesn't need us for that."
"What?" Elsa raises her eyebrows.
"He just wants to go over some wording in one of the contracts," Rolf explains, rolling his eyes. "Nit-picky stuff that only Ivar would notice. He doesn't need us for that."
"We nearly laughed him out of the room when he even brought up the idea," Erlend adds. "I don't envy you. He'll probably make you go over comma placement for an hour."
"Excuse me?"
"He's been pouring over those contracts since you signed them," Rolf says. "You'd think his life depended on them being perfect."
"I guess that's why he's the career diplomat," Erlend agrees. "And we're just a lowly physician and violinist."
Elsa has to admit, it's good to talk to Erlend and Rolf without the pretense of business. She remembers what Anna told her last night. You're allowed to have friends. She looks back at her sister, sitting cross-legged in the garden watching Anton dissect a piece of grass. She thinks, if she could ever be friends with anyone, she could be friends with Erlend and Rolf. When they're not taking direction from Ivar, they're almost…
"When are you planning on returning to the Southern Isles?" she asks, because she doesn't want to think about what they almost are. She doesn't have time to bother with questions like how make conversation and what feelings are appropriate to share and whether to greet a person with a handshake or a kiss on the cheek—she's not sure she's even ready to think about the latter—when there are much more pressing matters at hand, such as Ivar's commas and whose daughter she really is.
"Two more days until our week is up," Erlend answers. "So, I suppose, the day after tomorrow." He looks at his brother.
"I suppose," Rolf agrees, though he doesn't look at Erlend, doesn't take his eyes off Elsa.
"Well," she replies. "You may tell Prince Ivar…" she hesitates. Anna probably won't be happy, though Anna does not seem as anxious to send the Princes off as of late. "You may tell him that you are welcome in this castle until he is happy with our arrangement. The future of our nations is too important to rush."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Erlend bows, and it amazes Elsa once again that they've slipped out of and back into formal address without her even noticing.
"Of course," Rolf echoes, and she thinks she spots a grin playing at his lips. She tries not to think of those other lips, the ones that sneered as she gasped for breath, the ones that—oh God—the ones that may have even kissed Anna. She doesn't know. She's never asked. She's not sure if she wants to.
A/N: Hey guys, first off, I've been getting a lot of concern in the reviews about what's going on between Elsa and Rolf. To avoid spoilers, I'm simply going to draw everyone's attention to the fact that this story is not tagged as a romance and leave it at that. If you have any specific questions or concerns you'd like addressed, feel free to leave them in the reviews or shoot me a PM. I'll be happy to answer anything privately. I just don't want to spoil everyone by detailing my entire plan right here.
There was a lot of Elsa with Anna in this chapter, which, I'm hoping most of you will think is a good thing. I've been busy developing the Princes, so they haven't really had a good heart-to-heart (or as close to that as Elsa is capable of) in the past few chapters. I'm also just going to throw out there that nothing is more fun to write than nightmare sequences. 10/10 would recommend. So you might be seeing more of those.
Anyway, keep on reviewing. I didn't get as many last chapter, but I guess after what went down in four and five, that was bound to happen. I'll see you all next update!
