On her nightstand is a small clock, the creamy face hardly bigger than an egg, set in a polished wooden house inlayed with bits of zinc, brass and turtle shell. Anna squints at it and reaches over to tilt it into the moonlight – 2AM.
Seems like as good a time as any, she thinks, swinging her feet to the floor and snagging her quilted house robe off the back of her vanity. The brass knob on her bedroom door is cool in her hand but not cold, and she dances a complicated little two-step down the hallway, feet mincing around the planks of wood that squeak and taking extra light steps past Elsa's door. She's honed this to an art; 2AM has been her acquaintance for many years.
The nice thing about the middle of the night is more than the thrill of maybe getting caught (because really, what would Kai do, except walk her back up to her room and roll his eyes?) or the idea that somehow the hour is forbidden and therefore mysterious. It's the choosing to be awake: taking the time that's hers and no one else's.
Anna feels her way carefully around the sharp corners of the kitchen's long counters and benches, shoves an apple in her pocket and continues along, hands hovering in the dark, feeling the outline of the cupboards and doorframe, and stone under her bare toes. There's an awful lot of direction in the life of a princess, even the spare one: be here at this time, dress this way, say these things. Don't offend. Conjugate your French properly and use the right fork.
She's so glad that's going to be Elsa's job because come on, really. (It's a fork. Who cares, moi?)
Behind the kitchen is a rose garden, and in one of the beds a sturdy lattice propped up in the mulch. Anna rests her hands lightly on one of the slats, considers for a second, deciding, then follows with both feet. It's a game almost, to reach the kitchen roof – no disturbing the plants, or the cook will be after you (and that is NOT a lady to mess with), try not to get splinters in your feet, don't sway, don't fall – still, it doesn't take more than a minute or two before she's pulling herself up over the wood shingles.
From the kitchen roof it's simple business to reach the castle's upper spire. Keeping her eyes to the heavens, Anna tucks herself into a comfortable of stone, pulls the apple out of her pocket, and after taking a bite, savors the tang as it spreads over her tongue and down her chin. Overhead, the sky is alight with streaks of green and purple, ribbons and laces flowing in the original Maypole dance; it's 2AM, there's no one to impress and she has the best seat in the house.
