All or Nothing
Chapter Nine
…..
Thank you all for the most recent batch of reviews, they really brightened my spirits. Life in general is a bit tough at the moment, I'm under a lot of pressure from my various jobs and if I had the time I'd have a new chapter out at least once a week, but thank you for being so patient with me.
…..
Shortly after she'd been given the hair strands by Merida, Elsa had taken them to the book; the idea of a queen being turned into a bear was just too tempting to leave alone.
Afterwards though, she felt an odd sense of sadness. To see how much Merida's parents had clearly loved her, and she them, and yet they were perfectly fine with marrying her off to a man who was more or less a stranger. Although advantageous matches were made amongst the noble families in Arendelle from time to time, the bride in question was always given the option of refusing. Elsa couldn't imagine presiding over three men fighting over a girl like dogs over a bone.
And despite the trouble they had caused each other, Merida and her mother held a genuine fondness for each other that was hard to see, knowing how horrifically Queen Elinor had died, and how her last thoughts were probably consumed by the thought that her beloved daughter was in the hands of the enemy.
Finally, a selfish notion on Elsa's part niggled at her like a splinter. Queen Iduna had been fond of her, in the absent way one was fond of a household pet, right up until the accident with Anna. Afterwards she'd kept her distance, except for the odd occasion when Elsa demanded her attention, and even then the queen had preferred to let her husband take control. And the king, while he undoubtedly loved her, had treated her with a mix of fear and disdain for her powers. They'd both been considerably more affectionate towards Anna, but even that wasn't saying much.
Elsa didn't know if her parents had even liked each other. They respected each other, spoke civilly, never argued, but there was little warmth there. Of course she now knew that the queen had loved and lost with great passion before she married, and who knew if her father could have ever loved? He'd never taken a mistress as far as Elsa knew, but not once had she ever seen him kiss his queen, or put his arms around her, nothing much friendlier than linking her arm with his at formal functions.
Through the magic of the book, watching another king and queen passionately in love with each other after years of marriage, enamoured of the four children they had made together, Elsa couldn't help feeling a little hurtful stab that she had never had this, and probably never would. And then she felt another stab for thinking this way, for they were dead and their children were scattered and distraught.
It could always be worse.
…..
After leaving her affairs with the advisors for the time being, Elsa made the preparations to go to the North Mountain to repair her castle. After a lot of internal debating, she found herself knocking on Merida's door the night before she was due to depart.
Merida answered with a neutral expression, but Elsa could tell straight away that she'd been crying; her eyes were red and puffy and her hair was messier than usual. Elsa felt a rush of fury that she struggled to keep off of her face. This was Maudie's doing; her latest letters had been full of details about how much the boys missed their sister, how they cried for their mother and father nightly, and why couldn't she ask her benefactors to sail her to Cava to be with what was left of her family? Elsa had given the nursemaid the benefit of the doubt for Merida's sake, but her patience was wearing thin.
"Did you need something?" Merida asked hoarsely.
"Yes, I do," Elsa replied. "I'm making a journey to the North mountain to repair my ice castle, and I'd like you to accompany me. We leave tomorrow morning."
Elsa was delighted to see that Merida brightened up considerably at the idea of a possible adventure.
"Are Kristoff and Anna going too?" she asked.
"No, Kristoff's been working far too hard lately. I've sent him to the Avsik hot springs for a week, Anna's gone with him to look after him." They'd been sent with a chaperone, of course, but Anna had jumped at the chance to spend time with her fiancé.
"Then, who is going?"
"Just you and me. I don't want to have too many people poking around in the snow. I think between your bow and my powers, we can handle any trouble that comes our way."
Merida nodded in agreement, grinning widely.
"You can count on me," she said. "Should I bring Lua? She'd come in handy."
"Yes, why not? Meet me at the stables after breakfast, the royal guard will be with us to the base of the mountain."
As she left, Elsa heard a little gleeful shriek from Merida's room and smiled. It was risky to be alone with Merida miles away from anyone else, given how she'd been feeling lately. But if it made her so happy, where was the harm?
…..
The royal guard tucked them both into military stance in the centre of their group. Since the kidnapping, they'd been fiercely vigilant and Elsa anticipated having to talk them into leaving them at the mountain base. But that vigilance was paired with a regretful respect for Merida; they were deeply apologetic over her arrest and eager to show that they trusted her with the queen's safety. Elsa only had to assure them twice that she'd be fine without them.
They travelled up the mountain on horseback until they reached an outpost, where they left the horses in the care of the farrier and continued on foot. Elsa could have used her powers to speed up their journey, but she was reluctant to interfere with the environment any more than she had been.
By midday, they were halfway up the mountain and began to hear the first mournful wolf calls. Elsa had been lucky enough to avoid them during her flight; she shivered to hear them now, and so close. But she was surprised to see that Merida didn't even touch her bow, wholly unconcerned.
"You're not worried about the wolves?" she called back to her. They were ten paces apart, Merida scanning the forest for something or other.
"No, they're just letting the pack know we're here," Merida answered. "If we stay clear of the trees we should be fine. Lua will signal us if they get too close."
Less than an hour later, a single wolf loped out of the forest towards them, Merida shot at the ground in front of it and it vanished back into the trees. That was the last they saw or heard of them.
The kitchens had packed food for them, but it was lutefisk, which Merida hated with a passion. She insisted on bringing down a migrating goose to cook later. Elsa watched her track the unfortunate bird with her eyes, arrow drawn, and flinched a little as she shot it through the neck. Lua caught it deftly as it plummeted towards the side of the mountain.
"You'll thank me later when we're not eating cold slimy fish," Merida told her when Elsa grimaced at the bird's corpse dropped in front of them.
"I don't doubt it," Elsa responded. "But I've never seen anyone hunt before. It's a bit grim."
"You do a beast more honour by taking its life with your own hands rather than letting someone else do it for you," Merida shrugged. "Or so the Gods say. My mother had a problem with it too."
"Is that so?" Elsa resisted the urge once again to tell Merida that there was only one God. "Did she disapprove of your hunting, then?"
"She disapproved of most things I did. But she didn't understand," Merida replied. "She wasn't a Ceilt. She was Bretanol."
Bretanol. Just like Madame Martine. Elsa made a mental note to ask about this later, as the snow was beginning to float down in droves and they couldn't afford to tarry much longer.
…..
They finally reached the castle as the sun was setting. Elsa very much enjoyed the look on Merida's face as she caught sight of the crystal spires glinting in the waning sunlight, wide-eyed and mouth hanging open. Allowing herself a little dramatic flair, she mended the staircase with a flick of her wrist, relishing the astonished gasp that came unbidden from Merida.
"You made all of this? In one night?" Merida wondered as they climbed the steps.
"Yes, well, it had built up over a few years," Elsa feigned humbleness. Secretly she was delighted that she had managed to impress the other princess so much.
But as they opened the doors and Merida's eyes were taken by the glimmering pillars and the glass-smooth floor, Elsa could only see the gaping holes in the structure and felt a pang of sadness. This was her castle, the first thing that had truly been hers and no-one else's. It couldn't have hurt more than if someone had taken a cannon and blown holes in it out of spite.
"This is amazing," Merida sighed.
"Well, it was," Elsa admitted sadly. "It's not the way it was when I made it. I have quite a lot of work to do."
"Anything I can help with?" Merida asked, looking eager.
"I'm afraid not. We got here in one piece, your job is mostly done. You can explore the castle if you want."
She needed no further prompting, with a careless wave she was off up the staircase, probably to find the highest point in the castle. Elsa set about the tedious work of restoring the walls.
During her outburst, building the castle had come naturally as a great wave of energy was released from her body, pent up over years of holding it at bay. Now, however, her power had dimmed down to a steady trickle and she couldn't fix all of the damage in one fell swoop. She patched the walls slowly, layering sheets of ice on top of each other carefully so as not to interfere with the standing pillars. She sent a ripple of frost to cover the gaps in the roof and encased them in solid ice to hold the domes in place.
The floor, thankfully, was completely intact, except for the spot where the chandelier had come down. Said chandelier had melted away, forming a lagoon in the centre of the room. She was about to freeze it over and cover it, but thought better on it and turned it into a small bath. Perhaps they could find a way to heat the water.
By the time the lower floor was finished, she was exhausted. It was nightfall by then, and the wolves were howling in force. She could tackle the upper floors in the morning.
As she suspected, she found Merida in the tallest tower. There was no ledge to sit on, just a thin rail, and she was leaning on her arms over the side, letting her legs dangle in the night's breeze.
"There wouldn't be much left of you if you fell from this height," Elsa admonished her.
"I won't fall," Merida replied breezily, leaning out further. The wind caught her hair and stirred it around like a scarlet cloud.
"Why must you persist in making me worry so? At least keep your feet on the ground."
"If I did, there'd be no point," Merida answered. "If you keep your feet in the air, it feels like you could fly."
Elsa laughed indulgently. It was a childish answer, but she sounded oddly sincere.
"And where would you fly to?" she asked, not really expecting an answer.
"Home. You can see it from here."
Elsa found herself looking across the horizon, despite herself. She saw nothing but sea and sky. Merida looked at her, and laughed at her confusion.
"It's that way," she said, releasing an arm to point off to the left, to an area where the clouds were thickest. "That's Dunbroch. You can't see it until you're right on top of it, the fog is too heavy."
Elsa squinted at the cloud, and truly it did seem to be concealing something in its depths.
"The Crone's Temple is the highest point in the land," Merida continued. "I've climbed as far as the Tooth, and I could see this mountain range from there. They're directly across from each other."
She turned again, to swing her feet in time with the breeze. Elsa inched forward and gently grasped Merida's skirt between her fingers. Not because she was afraid she would fall, she was sure now that she wouldn't.
But for a moment, it truly did look like Merida would fly away.
…..
Elsa constructed a brazier, thick enough to withstand a small fire, and winced as Merida plucked, gutted and debeaked the goose with unsettling ease. While she cooked the bird (and Elsa was grateful, for truly she didn't like lutefisk much either) Elsa asked about Merida's Bretanol roots.
"Well, she wasn't completely Bretanol. More like half on her mother's side. But she was raised there," Merida responded when asked about her mother.
"How did your father manage to convince a Bretanol noble to marry him?" Elsa asked, truly baffled. "More to the point, how did he convince the country to let her go?"
Bretanolia was notorious for having a strict code of conduct, especially for its ladies. It was the place to send young noblewomen to teach them refinement. Elsa and Anna would have been sent there themselves if it hadn't been for Anna's accident.
"It's a funny story, very romantic," Merida laughed. "In a manner of speaking. Mum was supposed to marry this Casmellin noble, the contracts were signed and she got on the boat, but then halfway there they were attacked by southern slave traders and taken away."
Elsa suppressed a shudder, her own ordeal still fresh in her mind.
"The Casmellin noble had a mercenary friend who had ties to Dunbroch," Merida continued. "He got my Dad involved, because the slave ship was just off the coast. They got lost in the fog. Dad mustered a couple of men and attacked them, burned the ship and set all the prisoners free. But he got himself injured in the process. And my Mum 'comforted' him."
Merida demonstrated with a crude gesture exactly what kind of 'comfort' the queen had offered the king. Elsa felt her cheeks burn.
"Good Lord," she whispered.
"Well, you could hardly blame her," Merida retorted. "He rescued her, he looked like he was going to die, she probably just got carried away. Anyway, he was fine. But obviously she couldn't marry the Casmellin noble after that, so they made up some story about him fighting for her hand and winning and she got to marry him instead. And I was the surprise visitor at their wedding."
Elsa stared.
"So that means…" she began, but couldn't bring herself to say the word. Merida said it for her.
"My nickname until I was eight was 'right royal bastard,'" she said with a grin. "Mum never admitted it, but everyone knew. Everyone."
Elsa found herself laughing, with a hand clapped over her mouth, but then she thought the better of it and laughed out loud. If it didn't bother Merida, why should it bother her? Merida laughed along with her.
"You must think us very dull," she said, wiping mirthful tears away. "My parents were terribly proper."
"You must have some stories," Merida said. "You can't have a sister like Anna and not have at least one."
"Well," Elsa began, but stopped.
"I knew it! Come on, tell it!"
Elsa swallowed. This wasn't a dignified story at all, and her parents had prized dignity above all things. But hell, they were dead and weren't in a position to care what she said to one person.
"Okay, fine," she relented. "Anna was about five, I think, and we started eating dinner formally with Mother and Father when we turned five. But Anna's not very good at being formal…"
Merida nodded, hilariously because she was probably the only person in the kingdom who was as bad as Anna, if not worse.
"So we were getting through the fifth course, and Anna started complaining that her stomach was hurting. Father shushed her, we carried on. And then…she passed wind."
"That's it? A small child passed wind? How dare she," Merida drawled.
"That's not all," Elsa told her. "Father was annoyed, he told her to stop. But once she got going, she couldn't stop. And Father was getting angrier. And I started laughing, and I couldn't stop, so I ended up passing wind too. That made Anna laugh harder, and pass wind harder too."
Merida was staring at her now, seemingly caught between horror and delight.
"Father was really furious by now, he started pounding on the table, shouting about how 'this is a proper family dinner and it's not dignified to behave like this,'" she punctuated her impression by waving her fists in front of her face the way her father had. "And he got so angry with us that he passed wind too. Louder than both of us put together. And Mother just got up and left the table."
There was silence as Elsa finished her story, lowered her fists and stared at her companion's blank face, smiling uncertainly. Merida broke the silence with a loud snort, followed by a gale of hysterical laughter.
Elsa laughed too. She felt the connection between them solidify, growing warmer.
…..
There were no proper bedrooms in the castle, just great stretching halls. Elsa built two beds across from each other so they could sleep close to the dying embers of the fire. Merida fell asleep almost immediately, throwing herself into slumber as enthusiastically as she did everything else.
Elsa couldn't sleep, exhausted as she was. With Merida so close, and silence stretching between them, she felt the pull grow stronger without conversation or work to distract her. Perhaps this had been a mistake.
Or, perhaps, an opportunity.
When would she ever get a chance like this again? At the palace, there were a hundred prying eyes watching her. Here, they were alone, miles from the nearest human being, and Merida was asleep. She'd probably never know what Elsa was doing.
What was she doing?
Without even realizing, she'd crossed the room and was kneeling beside Merida's bed. Merida was curled up like a cat, her face hidden by her hair. Elsa pushed a few strands back, her fingers brushed softly against Merida's cheek and a slow burn fired up in the pit of her stomach. She tested the sensation, stroked her cheek again with purpose, from the hollow of her eye to the tip of her chin. If she woke up, Elsa could say she'd seen a spider or something.
But she didn't wake.
Daring, Elsa pressed further. She trailed her fingers under Merida's hair, along her neck. She stroked her collarbone under the neckline of her bodice, dipped along the cavity of her throat. Merida made a small exhalation but didn't move.
The closure of the bodice was held with a single wide ribbon. If Elsa tugged on it, it would come loose and bare more skin for her to explore. It would be easy to tie again, and if Merida did wake, it could be excused away that it had come loose in her sleep and Elsa was fixing it for her, so she wouldn't get cold.
Just as her hand caught the edge of the ribbon and began gently tugging, Merida made a small noise and shifted, rolled onto her back. Elsa backed away, heart thumping. She felt a wave of shame was over her; she'd almost crossed a line, barely thinking about it. The shame was banished to the back of her mind by an equally strong wave of desire.
Merida's mouth was open slightly, her small rosebud lips inviting in the moonlight. Her face was turned slightly towards Elsa.
A kiss, then. What harm would a kiss do? She'd never know.
Elsa licked her lips in preparation. This would be her first kiss, maybe Merida's too. Just a small one, enough to sate her, quench this obsession. She leaned in close, until she felt Merida's breath fanning against her mouth.
But suddenly, Merida jolted in her sleep, frowning and mumbling something in Gaelic. Something that sounded like mother. Elsa pulled back to look at her properly, wondering if she should wake her, if it was a nightmare. Tears were gathering under her eyelids, but she didn't cry out.
The moment passed, Merida sank back into silent sleep, and heartsick Elsa returned to her own cold bed.
