The Tears of A Queen – Chapter 10
A Big Hero 6/Frozen Crossover
*** Kingdom of Arendelle, 2045 ***
It turned out that if you ignored the Lutefisk Deluxe, Arendelle had a pretty good Nordic Pizza recipe. They were finishing the last slices, Wasabi and GoGo arguing over who got the last piece of the garlic bread and Fred playing a surreptitious level of Lemmings with Honey Lemon. The rest of the Herd hated it when they played at mealtimes.
Elsa was staring moodily at the '205th Jubileum' poster hanging on the wall when Tadashi reached over to cover her hand with his own. "Hey, it's going to work out."
She dragged her attention back from events 200 years past and murmured, "Hmmm?"
"I said, we'll figure out how to get your sister back," he assured her.
"How did you know I was thinking of Anna?" Elsa asked. She felt the warmth of his hand and relaxed the smallest trifle.
"Because that's the same look I get when I worry about Hiro getting into trouble with bot-fights. The look of an elder sibling afraid they can't protect the younger one from the trouble they're in," explained Tadashi with a knowing shrug.
Elsa sat back against the wooden booth seat and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "It seems hopeless, the public 'net hasn't got any information I feel comfortable trusting."
"YES! Victory!" yelled Fred as he nailed Honey's last lemming and his phone played the victory march announcing his superiority. He looked over at Elsa and asked, "Why do you say that, Elsa? I dug up a whole lot of stuff about you and your sister and Christopher. It even talked about Sir Sven Sorghum and how he rescued them up on the mountain."
"Exactly, Fred. First, my brother-in-law's name is KRISTOFF, not Christopher. For another, 'Sir' Sven is his REINDEER, not a knight, and the name is Bjorgman, not Sorghum. I'm afraid to ask you what they said about Prince Hans," she grumbled.
"Dudette, he was banished by the Snow Queen and never heard from again, according to the official history of the Southern Isles," announced Fred with a smug smile as he put his fingers into an "L" shape on his forehead and smirked at Honey Lemon. She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him, then put her phone away.
Brooding over this information, Elsa was unsatisfied. "I banished him the first time, right after the Thaw. But he came back twice more, then a last attack that made me into that statue. It's odd that the histories don't say anything about that." She fell back into a melancholy silence and rubbed her forehead again. A sharp headache was beginning to throb in her temples and around her eyes.
Tadashi began to rub gentle circles on her hand and she felt some of the tension drain out of her. She smiled at him in gratitude, and mouthed, "Thank you."
"Well, all we can do is wait for the director to call you and tell you what that Review Board decided. We should do some more snowboarding tomorrow," suggested Wasabi.
"You go, I'll be a nervous wreck until we hear from him," Elsa said. "I'll just wander around town and maybe spend some time researching my own life, if I can borrow someone's 'pad," Elsa suggested. "It's amusing to find out all the things I never realized I had done," She said with a sardonic grimace.
"Okay, that works. We're calling it a night, see you for breakfast amiga!" Honey Lemon scooted out of the booth, followed by Fred, Wasabi and GoGo. "Group picture!" and they all scrunched together so Honey Lemon could take a selfie of all of them. Elsa managed a smile, however little she actually felt like smiling. This 'selfie' ritual that Honey Lemon indulged in was one of the things about 2045 she just didn't understand.
Picture taken, everyone left, chattering about the events of the day as Fred filled them in on the visit to the museum.
Elsa had leaned her head back and closed her eyes so she didn't realize that Tadashi had remained behind until he resumed stroking her hand. She let her breath out in a deep sigh, content to wallow in the small pleasure all evening, but felt uncomfortable taking him away from his friends.
Sitting up, she smiled and suggested, "You don't have to stay with the ancient one, Tadashi. Us 226-year olds need our beauty sleep and shouldn't hold back you young people."
Tadashi knew she meant it as a joke, but it caused him to wonder what he was thinking of if he had ideas of a romantic entanglement. The gulf between them was enormous by any measure: age, experience years -and- elapsed years; cultural differences, the time gap making the quaint Arendelle customs trivial by comparison; most of all, life experience. She had been the ruling queen of a COUNTRY at the same age he had graduated high school and gone off to SFIT as a callow freshman.
"Tamp it down, Hamada. To her, you're just a kid, a nice one who's taken the time to help her out of a jam, but a kid nonetheless. That's all it can ever be." His sour thoughts didn't show on his face as he laughed at her little joke. "Like Fred said, you don't look a day over 200, Elsa."
He slid out of the booth and held out his hand to help her stand, made sure they had left enough money for the bill, then offered his arm to her as he imagined her prince would at some elegant ball. "My lady, may I escort you back to your room?"
He felt like a dork, then shivered as she put her arm through his and giggled. "You may, Prince Hamada. May I welcome you to Arendelle after your long journey?"
As they walked back to the hostel Tadashi wished that it wasn't a daydream and that he didn't have to wake up to the mundane world in the morning. He wished he could be her prince forever.
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It was mid-afternoon the day after Tadashi and his friends had come to visit. Siobhan had been busy all day on her workstation; it was her turn to rotate into the office from the museum tours. She was busy updating the collections inventory with the latest artifacts that had been brought out from the Royal Archives preparatory to being added to the exhibit.
Director Gunnarsson stopped by her desk and said, "Siobhan, I need to leave early today. Please direct any calls into voicemail unless it is something you can handle without my input."
Siobhan smiled at her boss and assured him, "No problem, Doctor Gunnarsson. I have the late rotation and will be here until 7 in any case. May I ask what I should tell callers if they insist on speaking with you?"
"I'll be in with the Academic Review Board, going over Mr. Hamada's proposal. So, unfortunately, anyone who must speak with me personally will have to wait until tomorrow," he explained.
"I will convey that message, Doctor. May I ask what you will be recommending to the Board? Tada – Mr. Hamada is a close acquaintance, and I'm intrigued by his work." Siobhan hoped that her slip wouldn't give the Director the wrong idea.
"Quite all right, Siobhan. I'll be recommending that we allow them access to the Royal Archives. It's been quite some time since a scholar as steeped in the history of Arendelle as Ms. Lemon has surfaced. Such diligence should be rewarded." He looked at her sternly and continued, "Now, please remain discreet, Siobhan. I expect you to maintain a professional distance and not share that with your 'acquaintance'." He smiled to show that he was teasing her, tipped his hat and left for the day.
Siobhan worked until four, then tapped an icon on her workstation to call Tadashi.
"Hello, Tadashi? Siobhan. I have some good news for you. Yes, the Director just told me that the Academic Review Board approved your friend's request for access to the Royal Archives. Tonight after the museum closes to the public if you like." She waited as Tadashi had a side conversation with someone, then, "You will? Excellent. I'll meet you at the entrance at 5:30 then. Okay, bye!" She tapped the icon to end the conversation and returned to her workstation.
Using her top level system access authority, she tapped in some code that would update the security software precisely at 5:30 pm. "Don't want any eyes on the exhibits tonight, do we?" Her changes would call up frames from the previous night's security cameras and loop them into tonight's feeds for the cameras. The personnel monitoring those cameras would see no one moving through the castle tonight. She, Tadashi and Honey Lemon would be invisible.
"Should be interesting. I wonder what she'll have to say for herself." Siobhan had been waiting a long time for this opportunity. She intended to make the most of it.
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Elsa had convinced the Nerd Herd that she truly had no interest in winter sports and that she would be content to spend the day at the hostel doing research on the 'net. Honey Lemon had left her 'pad behind for Elsa to use, and once she had linked it to the flatscreen embedded in the wall she could lay comfortably on the bed and read article after article until she felt her eyeballs were melting and ready to run down her cheeks. About lunch time she considered ordering room service, but decided to take a quick nap instead. Who knew that flicking your fingers all morning could be so tiring?
Tap, tap, tap. A soft knock on her door brought her out of a doze. "Uh, who is it?" she said as she tried to stifle a yawn.
"It's Tadashi. I thought I could interest you in a late lunch," came the reply.
A quick glance in the mirror on the door assured Elsa that she wasn't too disheveled from her nap; nothing a quick run of her fingers through her hair wouldn't fix, in any case. She opened the door to greet Tadashi.
"Hi. I thought you were going snowboarding?" she asked.
"We did that all morning. The gang wanted to keep going, but, well, I felt a little guilty abandoning you," admitted Tadashi.
Elsa was touched, and decided she could use the company. "I did skip lunch, and now I'm regretting it. Let me grab my purse and we'll go."
They decided to try one of the small bistros down on the waterfront overlooking the fjord. They found a table, ordered drinks and lunch, then sat enjoying the view of the sun-sparkled water and the pennants flying over the castle. Tadashi heard a soft sigh. Elsa was looking at the castle with a pensive longing.
"Elsa, we'll figure this out," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice.
"I can hope, Tadashi. But, we don't even know how you managed to release me from that curse, much less what the solution for Anna and Kristoff is." Elsa knew she should trust him and the rest enough to explain about the trolls. A discussion with GrandPabbie might be the only way to understand what had to be done for her sister. Olaf was unreliable at best. His comment that Pabbie had spoken about her tears made no sense to Elsa.
Their food arrived and they ate in silence for a few minutes. It gave Elsa time to come to a decision about the secret she had held back from her new friends.
"Tadashi, there's something I need to tell – " She was interrupted by his phone playing some song. He mumbled an apology as he dug it out of his pocket. She looked away and tried not to listen. Modern etiquette with regard to multiple conversations on multiple devices wasn't something she had mastered in the few short days she had been in this world. Elsa wondered why the devices seemed to take priority over the flesh and blood people actually present?
"Really? Wow! Hang on," Tadashi said, then held the phone to his chest and asked Elsa, "Siobhan wants to know if we can come to the castle at 5:30 today, they gave you permission to search the archives!"
Elsa gasped and nodded vigorously, her thoughts churning at the chance to find something that could give her a clue about what had really happened that afternoon 200 years ago.
"Yeah, Siobhan, that will work great. Thanks, thank you so much. Bye!" He hit the 'disconnect' icon and put the phone away, then exclaimed, "Whoohoo! We're in! Elsa, this is great!"
She was still reeling from the idea that she would finally get into the archives, but grinned and said, "I think a triple-mocha fudge latte to celebrate would be proper, don't you?"
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A smiling Siobhan had met them at the entrance, escorted them down to the lower level of the castle and scanned them through the heavy, hermetically sealed security doors. Elsa recognized the archive room from her own time, but it had been upgraded with modern lighting and a controlled climate. "How nice to be in a dungeon that's not damp and musty," she thought. After the second time she had found herself a prisoner in her own dungeons, she had them all converted to storage spaces. She wasn't taking any chances there'd be a third occasion to be locked up.
The scent of old parchment and leather was heavy in the air, even with the controlled humidity. Shelves of documents and books lined the walls, and a sturdy table with four comfortable chairs and a lamp hanging above it sat in the middle of the room. Siobhan waved her hand over a sensor on the wall and the lamp shed a warm, uniform light on to the table. "That should make it easy to read any of the documents you may wish to go over, Tadashi."
"Thanks, Siobhan. Could you give us an idea of how these are organized?" he asked.
Elsa was scanning the labels on the shelves and said, "Apparently, they are filed by year and by author, with 'governance' subdivided into 'taxes', 'trade', and 'domestic affairs'."
"Quite right, Ms. Lemon. Your fluency in the language is impressive. Where would you like to start?" Siobhan asked.
Elsa followed the labels to find "1845", then ran a finger over the label "Elsa, Queen", searching in vain for one that said, "Anna, Crown Princess".
"I don't see any correspondence from the Princess Anna," she murmured, as she ran a finger along the shelf, reading the identification under each section, occasionally tilting her head to read the spine of a book or ledger. "She must have left something behind before she told Pabbie to go ahead and enspell them!"
"Oh, that would be over here," Siobhan replied, waving to a section tagged with the label 'unclassified'.
"Why is it marked 'unclassified', Ms. Västerländsk?" wondered Elsa.
"Most of the writings in those ledgers didn't make any sense to the historians. The words seem clear enough but the sentence structure and narrative were so confusing that no one could agree on what they said," replied Siobhan. Shrugging, she continued, "Even though the headings seemed to indicate they were written by the Princess, they couldn't make out any cohesive theme that would confirm that. So they marked them 'unclassified'."
Elsa pulled down a ledger labeled 'Stuff'. That sounded like something Anna would do; her sister never had much patience for what she called 'queening', it was a topic that they had teased each other about in a good-natured fashion for the entire five years of Elsa's reign. For all her sarcasm, though, Anna actually was competent and filled in admirably as Regent when Elsa was indisposed or traveling on diplomatic missions.
Elsa took the ledger over to the table, sat down, brushed dust off the cover and began unwinding the ribbon holding it closed. When she opened it, she found a thick stack of papers inside, all of them covered with writing in Anna's distinctive penmanship. Elsa stifled a gasp and with a trembling hand, picked up the first sheet and began reading. It didn't take her long to realize that Anna had indeed left her a message. It was rambling and long, her sister's voice captured perfectly on paper. The whole story was there: Hans managing to sneak up behind Elsa and throw the magic potion on her; Anna shooting at him and missing with the crossbow; the short period of trying to conceal what happened. "Oh, Anna, as if 'conceal' had ever worked for our family..."
Turning that page over and reaching for the next one, Elsa was startled by Tadashi's voice. She had been so engrossed in reading Anna's ramblings that she had completely forgotten that she was not alone.
"E … anything thing there, Honey?" Tadashi had almost slipped and used her real name. Elsa realized that Tadashi didn't read Norwegian and had no idea what was written on the sheets of paper stacked in front of her.
"Um, yes, a very interesting account of the last days of Queen Elsa. Fairly routine, actually. Something about a curse and an old enemy. I suspect it was written by someone steeped in myths and legends, because it doesn't seem grounded in reality," temporized Elsa. She didn't intend to blurt out any of the reality in front of a stranger, so Tadashi would have to wait until they left the castle to get an update.
"That's amazing, Ms. Lemon. No one has made that much sense out of those scribbles before, and many have tried," interjected Siobhan. Her voice was no longer friendly; it had a distinct undertone of hostility that surprised Elsa and Tadashi both.
"Excuse me?" Elsa asked, not understanding where the change in tenor had come from.
"I said, no one has managed to make sense out of those scribbles before, and I am curious how a chemist managed to do so," snarled Siobhan. "But I think we all know that you are not a chemist, at all, don't we?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," sniffed Elsa, trying desperately to maintain an air of offended righteousness. Tadashi glared at Siobhan, too, as puzzled as Elsa but preserving their pretense as best they could. "This rather harsh discourtesy is uncalled for, Ms. Västerländsk. I am sure that the Director would be as appalled as I am."
Siobhan stalked over to the door and slapped the pad to lock it, then turned back to Tadashi and Elsa, pulling a small device out of her pocket as she did so. "The Director would be appalled if he knew you were down here at all. He knows who you are NOT, and his intention was to give you access tomorrow to see if you would unmask yourself and reveal your true identity. I decided to speed up the process."
Tadashi had started to stand up and argue with Siobhan, but she waved the device at him and warned him, "Ah, ah, ah, Tadashi. I would hate to hurt an innocent bystander. You might not recognize this, but it's a needle gun. Very quiet, very deadly." He gulped and sat down heavily. He had read about needle guns on military technical review sites while researching medical procedures to program into Baymax.
Elsa remained sitting in stunned silence after Siobhan's revelation, and she had no experience to understand what Siobhan was saying about the 'needle gun'. "Tad … Tadashi? What does she mean?"
He grimaced and replied, "They fire tiny tungsten needles at hypervelocities. Slicing off an arm or a leg with ease, or instant death with a torso or head hit. They're banned, supposed to be only theoretical, certainly not available outside of very deeply black research sites." He glowered at Siobhan and asked, "How in the hell did you get your hands on one?"
"My family has acquired many resources over the years, this is nothing, a mere trifle," she answered.
"If your family is so rich and powerful, why are you working as a museum docent? That hardly seems like a job for the scion of such a lineage." Elsa had found her voice, but still couldn't make sense of the situation. Why did this woman suddenly seem so hostile?
"Actually, it's the perfect job if one is trying to track down the secret of the Snow Queen and the Lost Princess," remarked Siobhan as she approached the table. "As I said, you're the first one who has made any sense of those ramblings." She waved the needler at the papers stacked in front of Elsa. "So, please, continue and read the rest. I can't wait to hear the end of the tale." Elsa found herself staring at a tiny hole in the barrel of the device Siobhan held in her hand and gulped, then nodded minutely and reached for the next page.
It took a minute for Elsa to slow her staccato-beating heart and calm down enough to make sense of the marks on the paper, but she finally managed it. She read one page, two, then the last one. Setting the final page down reluctantly, she had a puzzled frown on her face as she looked up at Siobhan. "This really doesn't make any sense."
Tadashi grunted and Siobhan's face twisted in anger. "What do you mean?" she barked. "Tell me what it says."
Slowly, Elsa said, "According to this, Princess Anna went to the tro ... a mage and asked them to invoke a spell to turn her to stone so she could wait for her sister to be freed from the curse that had frozen her. And it says that it will take the tears of a queen to release Anna from that magic spell. But it also says that Queen Elsa was frozen by the tears of a queen, and that just doesn't make any sense. How could a queen's tears do both?"
Siobhan frowned, then said, "Well, it so happens that 'tårer av en dronning' is the magic potion that Prince Hans used on the Queen, so that much is true at least."
Gasping, Elsa demanded, "How do you know that?"
Despite the thoughtful look on Siobhan's face, she never lost her focus enough to let the deadly little weapon drift away from threatening Elsa and Tadashi. Apparently coming to a decision, she focused her glare on Elsa and used her free hand to pull out a small bottle of blue liquid from her pocket and show it to them both. "Because he passed the story down in the family archives, along with the formula. Get up, we're going to pay a visit to the Princess."
Something clicked in Elsa's brain. "Siobhan Västerländsk. Siobhan WESTERGARD!"
"Close enough. An alias seemed prudent when applying for a job in the very castle of the woman my ancestor swore to kill, don't you agree?" Siobhan put the bottle back in her pocket, slapped the door pad to unlock it, then waved the needler at Elsa and Tadashi. "Now, come along and don't make any funny moves. I'll not hesitate to leave you both as a bloody stain on the floor!"