We do not own 'Frozen' or any of its characters.
"Frozen Again: 'But the Greatest of These is Love"
Act V
Chapter 10
"Inheritance"
Flynn Rider shakes himself awake. Once again, the thief finds his handsome person in a dark, dank, smelly pit of a prison holding cell with another unconscious beaten and battered man splattered atop him.
Just the kind of place he loved waking up in the morning to.
Actually, my preferred morning spot is to be wrapped in the soft folds of my loving little wife's warm supple body… Damn! When I get out of this mess, I'll make it my New Year's resolution to never have any sleeping companion other than my Blondie again.
Flynn makes a sour face at his current undesirable situation as he wriggles out from beneath a moaning Big Nose's pop. The old codger's flailed out gangly form had been cruelly tossed in the same ship prison cell to carelessly flop on top of Flynn, like so much rubbish.
Ewgh! Conversely, it is not nice to wake up under a pile of smelly, sweaty old man!
In the stifling summer noonday heat, felt even way down here in the Sjette Doight clipper ship's cargo hold, Eugene laments, unsure if the crimson blood dried on his cheek was even his own. He glanced over at the grossly beat-up and battered old man whose arms were sticking out at weird angles every which way.
In the dim light, he could make out the blood caked silhouette of a man limply hung up on the iron bars of the cage. "Oh, no no no no…" Flynn grunts, blinking his horror-struck eyes as he attempts to raise his aching, bruised body to its feet, only to find them bound to shackles to the middle of the cell floor.
It was Hans. The poor guy was dangling by chains from his wrists and arms and ankles to be cruelly suspended against the cage bars. From the lack of blood in his drained pallid white arms, Eugene judged that Hans must've been hanging there since the three of them had been recaptured by that rotgut Master Rügen and his hefty henchman when the brothers had been stopped in their escape to fetch unlucky Aged P.
Hmph! Don't bail on me now, Sideburns! You've got some seriously demented past acquaintances, Kid! I thought my illustrious backstory had enough sordid characters in it for both of us! That Count Rügen guy is one bad ass! What did you do to deserve that psychopath's wrath?
Eugene muses as he mentally pushes to prop himself up, mandatory shackles and roped hands behind his back and all, with a pained smirk at the bruises to his – I'd put money on it– cracked ribs.
That jerk's rifle butt was damn merciless!
"Thank God you're still breathing, Handsome! Don't scare me like that, Kid!" Going serious as he reaches his constrained self as far as he could be able to, at least, reach his ear to rest against Hans' leg thigh, where the main blood vessel of the great saphenous vein was still pumping.
His kooky chatterbox cover had been holding out for the hope that his kid brother's almost totally motionless body, that was sagging eerily above Flynn's own tied and shackled down to the floor form, was yet alive and kicking.
With a deep sigh, Flynn Rider sets to work at his lock picking trade once again with a bent nail he pried out of a floorboard nearby. He would not let the sickening bilge smells and wave tossed sea vessel's swaying get to him. The lone conscious thief's mind races, in time with his sore fingers, on how to get the trio of them out of this fine mess.
Minutes later…
"Ahhh! Ay-yah-yah! Yeesh! Did anyone get the license plate number of that wagon plow? I think I've been run over. What a crick in the neck! Hey, is that kid okay?" Aged P, only his hands in irons, whines as he comes to about twenty minutes after Eugene had pushed his sprawled out decrepit old form from its smothering position atop him.
"Yeah, for now. How did they get you on this boat, old man? And why?" The nimble fingered thief finishes unlocking one half of his own wrist cuffs that kept him pinned like a four legged animal to the ground. Flynn idly asks. as he lurches on his knees as far as he could reach and rifles feverish fingers through Hans' pants' pocket in search of –
"Aha! Come to Papa, my shiny little baby!" His own trusty set of thieving lockpicks had been obviously confiscated from his unconscious person by those thugs.
I amsuingfor physical reimbursement, plus mental cruelty damage as soon as I get word to my attorney back home.
Eugene recalled Hans and his silver nib pen that was 'mightier than the sword',he figured that those cretins wouldn't do such a thorough search of the redhead royal who was not necessarily identified as a common thief.
– add aggravated assault and harassment to my list of criminal complaints. Oww, some vital body parts are going to smart for a week.
Eugene takes that silver nib pen and starts to seriously go to work on his remaining shackles and handcuffs. But it was still tough to work on himself in such a twisted position, even if he was a master thief.
In between giving his sore fingers a break from the old rusty lock, Eugene was periodically trying to nudge Hans awake at his limp foot, but the flaccid kid wasn't responding.
Boy, am I gonna give you a tanning, Lillebror, for being so damn reckless! Wake up already! Eugene tries to laugh it off, though was starting to freak out that those guys might have done a real number on the Danish Prince.
"So, spill, Aged P." Busy at his trade, and multitask worthy enough to ask for some mission clarification, Eugene directs his frustration out towards the dithering old geezer who was using his jeweler's eyepiece (that seemed to be surgically attached to his squinty ancient eye) to inspect some rather large rats that were crawling across the bilge hold planks just outside the cage, cackling at the men trapped inside it.
"My daughters and I were just heading back on the road after the wedding when I had to make a stop in the words. At my time of age, nature is constantly a-calling. You'll see someday, you young whippersnapper! So don't ridicule. And the next thing I knew, without so much as a how-do-you-do, I was grabbed and bagged and thrown into a cart, rolling around like the last matzo ball in a pot of chicken soup." Aged P explains his earlier capture to Flynn, who had been focused on poking Hans awake and trying to pick at his own jammed padlock, all while keeping a conversation with Aged P, so as to not totally lose it.
"Now there's a happy visual put on the simmer to take with me. So, what's all this about? You didn't happen to do a song and dance job on this Count Rügen in one of your 'extraordinary, rare, one-of-a-kind custom jewelry shop shenanigans', did you, Aged P?" Flynn Rider was well acquainted with rare jewel brilliants and some extraordinary shenanigans in his twenty-six year stint as a master thief, before he met a certain green-eyed, life-altering Blondie beauty.
Big Nose's family business, while indeed turning out the finest, highest quality gold and silver jewelry of the first water, wasn't always exactly 100% on the straight and narrow. Although, as Eugene could attest from all the time he was conscripted to go to the forest path tavern with his bleeding heart bride, Big Nose himself was a thoroughly reformed crook since he and the other Snuggly Duckling thugs too met the sweet reforming influence of good and trusting Princess Rapunzel.
And Eugene Fitzherbert understood the power of her special reformation power very intimately well indeed.
Very intimately.
As Aged P looks away guiltily, quite caught-with-his-pants-down, the stubbly former criminal, for half a dreamy second in his wandering thoughts of his wife, imagined that his tender stroking of Hans' limp lower leg, was for his own lady love, until the passed out redhead above speaks blearily.
"Snowflake…" Hans murmurs Elsa's fond diminutive once again as his green eyes start to flutter open.
"Don't call me that, Sideburns! People might get the wrong idea! Sheesh! I'm just checking for your pulse!" Embarrassed as any red blooded male would be, Flynn, though relieved his little brother had not been totally knocked brain-dead by that villain's harsh head blow with the back handle of his brass sword, pulls away so quickly that Hans already punished head smacks against the cold cage bars as a result.
"Ouch." Hans wakes up fully now, his dazed mind swirling anew with the jolted bump as he looks around promptly. The taste of blood in his mouth was quite unpleasant as he readjusts his bothered jaw and licks at his still swelled split-lip with a cringed face.
The young man assesses his blood drained, dead weight unfeeling arms and his renewed bondage and chained ankles that kept him affixed above the ground to the cage bars.
"Which of the twin princes of the Southern Isles were you engaged to create a promissory wedding band for, Sir? Prince Ruddi or Prince Rune?" Refusing to give in to confined defeat as his clouded mind regains awareness, Hans considers all the facts that he already had gleaned on this unexpected venture concerning the reasons for Big Nose's abduction and consequently his Aged P father's internment.
Between dribs and drabs of information he had heard spoken from Big Nose and the pleading of his confused new bride Hilde, Hans had extrapolated that an engagement ring was the commodity in question. Judging from Master Rügen's self-righteous livid anger and this elderly gentleman's shifty eyes when confronted, Hans knew that he was correct.
So the simple process of elimination made it apparent which of his remaining unmarried siblings could be involved, according to this young genius' swift deductions.
"How in the world did you figure out the name of my client – Prince Rune – elem? Your Kid brother is a smart cookie, Thief! And a snappy dresser, too. May I say, how I admire your grey cloak ensemble immensely, young gentleman. A garment this stylish deserves to be accessorized! A 24 carat gold precious metal pocket watch would be just the ticket for every well-dressed young naval officer." The wise old Prussian jeweler never missed an opportunity to hawk his goods, especially to a rich, high society looking mensch whose high class lingo and deportment screamed 'important Navy man''.
"Put the sales pitch away, oldtimer. We're not buying." Eugene dismissively answers for his kid brother to the commercialized gold, silver and gemstones savvy businessman. "What kind of schmaltz did you pull on those suckers to deserve this serious take down of you, your son, and consequently us?" Flynn's skeptical eyes give the crooked old man with the great big schnauz a disbelieving, incredulous look.
"Well… Now that you ask… I had been slaving over producing the perfect gold and silver etched oh-so delicate engagement ring when my old eyes had accidentally – accidentally, mind you – slipped in a slightly, very moderately, by the Tavernier's rule of gemstones for dear Prince Rune – maybe a little less than a first water highest quality and clarity stone. But set amid so many stunning rubies and sapphires and amethysts, the ring was such a thing of beauty that no one would've been the wiser—had that hoity-toity Russian Princess that he counted himself hitched to, not been some kind of crazy fine diamond expert as a hobby. What kind of self-respecting young lady would have a crazy hobby of checking the purity of gems as one of her feminine accomplishments? I ask you!" Here, Aged P throws his animated hands up in the air in pure frustration at the iniquities of the world on whole that was against him.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Let me get this straight. You passed on a flawed diamond, set in some fancy engagement ring for some snobby Russkie Princess? Let me guess. She's in such emotional anguish with her poor broken heart insulted, that she's practically declared war on her loverboy, right?" Eugene's quirky eyebrow lifts up drolly, he a worldly man who understood that diamonds were a girl's best friend, after all.
I guess that's why the shiny clear baubles never did really like me…
"Anyways, the silly boy got the ring tossed back in his face for 'offending her delicate sensibilities'. And then, she told her Pappy, the Czar of Russia – Ay yah-yah! - all about it and he said to break off the engagement. So, if Prince Rune can't explain it by his Father's birthday celebration what happened properly to her and her angry parent who are attending the shindig, he will be an ex-fiancé, faster than you can say 'chutzpah'. Guess that's where I come in, to elucidate and clear things up to the girl. There was no need for my Nostrodamas and I to be dragged in by that jerk of a crackpot stooge so we could be put on some kind of kangaroo court trial or disclosure of wrongdoing hearing. They could have just asked for a refund if they didn't like the end results. Who knew a little innocent slip-up of my jewelers tongs in mistake would cause this much nuisance?!" The old school shyster says with unapologetic shrugged shoulders.
"Great. I love attending court trials. Seeing the justice system at work. Unless, of course, I'm the defendant. Anyway, it sounds like a really swell family gathering we've been invited to as guests of honor for your Father's – ourFather's– special B'day, Good-lookin."" Eugene comments, trying to put a light mood spin on the serious course of events that would lead them to the Southern Isles Castle of Egeskov.
"Justice in the Southern Isles is fierce and unforgiving, with long drawn-out sentences, if not swift, harsh punishment, Storbror. I sympathize with the misfortune of your oversight gaffe, sir. Although, I am by no means, a proper solicitor for your advocacy, especially in the sight of this kingdom that I have myself been expelled from, I will try to speak on your behalf for leniency." Ignoring Eugene's levity, Hans says gravely, already imagining his mocking brothers' and unsympathetic father's rejoinder to this pitiless application.
But the good heart in Hans would have to make an attempt, no matter how agonizing, for his new friend's sake.
'Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.' Hebrews 13:16
"Then, it's Rune whom Master Rügen is representing." As the wheels were turning in his head, Hans starts to struggle at his chains.
"Give it up, Handsome. I've been at it for hours. I even tried your handy-dandy little 'mighty sword'." Eugene displays before Hans his purloined silver nib pen that was not even beginning to scratch the surface of the multiple locks around dejected Flynn's ankles. "Those Dummkopf idiots put locks on the locks around both of our shackles and kept us just far away enough from each other to do any fancy cooperative maneuvering. I guess they mean for us to stay put this time, unfortunately." Eugene miserably hangs his crestfallen head as he gazes to the ground forlornly at his double shackles.
"Remind me later to pat you on the back for your strength of optimism in adversity, Storbror." Hans swollen mouth curls into a smirk at Eugene's defeatist attitude. "But for now, my hands are tied." The redhaired Prince intones with a bit of saucy superciliousness, wriggling his indomitable wrists and capable fingers that should have been lifeless for the loss of blood flow all these hours. But he, for one, would never give into pessimism as long as he knew God was in control.
Hans' swelled lip juts out as he looks down at where his big brother had already given up the struggle. Flynn Rider, his tool ineffective on his overwhelming bondages had flopped down as best he could with his twisted shackled wrists and legs, flat on the dirty ground hugging his knees close in a fetal position.
"Just remind me to kick you in those skinny pants for having such methodically scrupulous villains for past pals, and a royal flush house full of vindictive older brothers you dragged me into the crazy family tree thereof." Eugene retorts with a simper of his own, sitting up and going back with new panache to his lock picking pastime again, with renewed belligerence and insult motivated vigor.
"Argh! It's all your fault, Lillebror." In the mood to blame Hans for everything and anything, Eugene bangs his knuckles against the impossible, frustrating shackles that no amount of anger mis-managed smashing could budge the latch pins of.
But at least now he was trying.
"I know. That's what everyone always says." With the vivid recollection of brothers and Father accusatory stares and phrases that he ruined their happy family life by being born, Hans responds to Eugene's blame game with a sighed smile, accustomed to shouldering blame he was unwittingly the cause of.
"I bet you boys were the best of brothers growing up." With a languorous smile, Aged P remarks at the contentious scene of brother versus brother bantering back and forth, totally ignorant of their unfamiliar childhoods, nor the fact that they just met one another one short month ago.
Giving one another incredulous stares, as the two handsome young men each pause to glare up from their difficult enterprises, Hans and Eugene both break into chortles at the absurdity of it all.
Now, Eugene didn't have much of a choice, Hans was the first glimpse of a sibling he ever had.
But as for Hans, with a plethora of brothers to compare Eugene to, this half brother whom he could work so cohesively with, speak so openly and honestly with, good-naturedly teasing or sincerely challenging without thought of malicious reprise, was the one he had become the closest to, in the short life-changing month of getting to know one another.
"So, Lillebror. Tell me a story. A fun bedtime story about 'the twins'. The way you said that word as if it made you feel sick, it made them sound so ominous and terrible. Heck! Tell me all about all dozen of our big brothers' finer points, since it seems we've got all the time in the world to shoot the breeze together before we meet those fellas. Because I have a feeling that we're on a one way ticket to your palatial estate that I had the birds eye view of earlier, on the way in, Handsome. Therefore, don't you think I had better get some introductions to the supporting cast there, if we are going to figure out how to outfox the lot of them – ahem – I mean negotiate this sticky situation for our sticky fingered Aged P over here, before he starts an international incident?" Eugene asks, already imagining what his reception would be like in such a toxic environment, and not enjoying the sentiment of it at all.
If they called Hans 'unwanted', what juicy name would I engender? As if I don't know what they would call this wrong side of the sheets brother-from-another-mother…
"Where do I begin?" Hans lifts his indefatigable chin high, despite his excruciating, dire circumstances. "Ah, yes. Have either of you ever heard the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors? Although I, by no means, compare myself to that great Bible hero, I always did feel an affinity with my favorite Old Testament story friend as a singled out child growing up." With the modest disclaimer, Hans decides to begin his past childhood tale with the oddly similar Biblical analogy that entailed competitive, rival brothers, each vying for their father's attention and blessing to the point of doing harm to one another. The only thing was that, unlike the dreamer Joseph's father Jacob, Hans' patriarch certainly did not prefer him as the young chosen boy in the story was cherished and prized.
My Father disowned me…The bitter feeling any boy would abhor, between father and son, still cut like a knife.
Eugene and Aged P sit up as best they could in the cramped ship prison cell to listen with rapt attention to the oratorical eloquence of the young man hanging on the cage bars. It was as if consummate performer in Hans was in his element on this humble stage as he goes through the retelling, transporting his audience to another time and place and into his sorrowful past…
Meanwhile in Egeskov Chapel…
The single spire tall steeple holy building had been built across the moat and close to the shoreline overlooking the imposing castle and its outlying stable complex. So many people going in and out of the Egeskov Chapel gave it the most hustle and bustle the not-so-often-visited establishment had seen in many a year's time.
"It is so very nice to meet you, Princess Rapunzel."
"It's wonderful see you, Princess Rapunzel. I've heard so much about you."
"I am so glad to make your acquaintance, Princess Rapunzel."
"How splendid we finally meet, dear Princess Rapunzel!"
Accustomed to letting her dear mother Queen Arianna do most, if not all, of the royal greetings to any visitors in Corona, Rapunzel was at first bit shy to be the center of attention here. But after Mother Superior left for the big house to greet the King, nervous Rapunzel was beyond terrified.
Her full tummy was in knots to be left alone to fend for herself with these intimidating strangers, and the brown haired cutie certainly was glad when they all converged on her with appropriate smiles and over polite welcomes by the growing gaggle of well-bred royal women. They each do their duty in meeting with the visiting Prussian Princess at the urgent request of kindly Sister Clarice Angelika.
A stately older woman with a dark russet and gray streaks named Princess Emma of Sussex, first son Prince Kaleb's wife, as the eldest, most likely to be the future Queen of Denmark in her husband's hereditary primogeniture succession to the Danish crown, was the most regal lady in charge.
And it showed. The 46-year-old British woman, in a modest, deep turquoise empire waist velvet dress, was old enough to be 25-year-old Rapunzel's mother. Princess Emma even reminded the bright eyed girl of her mother Queen Arianna a great deal in both stature and deportment. But Princess Emma was just as noble and majestic as her mom, and kind-eyed enough to treat the visiting Princess as an equal.
"As members in good standing at this kingdom, may we welcome your presence in Egeskov, your Royal Highness, Princess Rapunzel of Corona." With a lovely curtsy, Princess Emma had led her sisters-in-law, Frederika of Radziwill, second in line son Anders' Polish royal wife, lovely Isabelle if Italy, third in line Lars' wife, and graceful, poised Elisabeth of Belgian, fifth in line Mattias' wife, to meet with the visiting Princess after Mother Superior had escorted Rapunzel here from the Castle.
"I am Princess Emma of Sussex. And these are Princesses Frederika of Radziwill, Isabelle of Italy, Elisabeth of Belgium, and Marguerite of Orleans. Marguerite? Where has she disappeared off to now?" Unpretentious Emma's deep brown, grey-streaked hair in a no-nonsense tight up bun with wisps of locks on the sides was in stark contrast to stunning Isabelle's long blonde sausage curls, pretty Elisabeth's golden tan perfectly framed marcelled tresses in a younger stylish modern wave curl do. And all three were even more differentiated from sober Princess Frederika's mousy brown, flower decorated, double ringlet side pigtails.
Rapunzel, feeling only the slightest bit out of place with her youthful and wild, not-so-elegant super short cropped cocoa brown spiky hair amongst these elegant older ladies, follows their quizzical gazes to where a piled low tawny blonde hair in a chignon, beautiful woman with large sad doe eyes had been kneeling at the front altar in solemn prayer.
"She is at it again, Ladies. I do think she just lost another one." A coquettishly whispered voice enters the fray from somewhere behind where the group was standing near the front entrance chapel nave.
"Olá, Princess Rapunzel. I am Princess Gloria Lujza of Portugal, eighth in line Prince Peiter's wife." A busty woman with a lavishly braided tall twist bun comes bouncing up from behind the quartet of women. "I have been dying to meet you, Princess! I have heard all about your exciting story! Just like a storybook! A baby-snatching witch who locked you up for 18 years in a tower for your magical, revitalizing seventy foot long golden hair; a tall, handsome thief who climbed the tower and ravished - oh I mean! - rescued you from your captivity. And you actually were allowed to bring him home to your kingdom and marry your own chosen dashing Prince consort! Oh, it is so thrilling a fairytale! Almost too good to be true! Is your thief as charming and handsome a rogue as they say he is? I am so jealous of you, Princess! Ooh! I wish you brought your bad boy Flynn Rider here for us to meet!" The big boned Portuguese woman with the dark black-haired center parted shining hair up in a tall bun was certainly vivacious as she hugs a chubby arm around Rapunzel's skinny shoulders.
"Gloria, decorum, please. Please don't overwhelm our visitor with your flights of fancy." Princess Frederika of Radziwill admonishes her bubbly younger sister in law as she adjusts her dark brown ringlet curled side ponytails in feigned humility.
"No, it's fine really. I don't mind. I'd love to talk about everything with you all later. But thank you for caring, Princess Amalia." Rapunzel pats the plain Princess on the back of her hand with a benevolent smile.
"Greetings, Princess Rapunzel. I am Adelaide of Austria, seventh in line Prince Jurgen's wife." The serious and austere Princess of Austria simply states. The elegant woman was born in Milan to an Italian Mother and Austrian father, and the Italian half of her royal parentage dominated her noble features. Strict Adelaide's darkest sepia loose hair was drawn up into a winged chignon bun that made her quite the stand-out beauty of the crowd, though her cool demeanor was forbidding.
"Hello. I am Princess Amalia of the Netherlands, tenth in line Prince Franz's wife. Nice to meet you." Sedate, although appearing as if she wished to say more, Princess Amalia of the Netherlands bows her head to Rapunzel. The browbeaten woman who feared her large muscled, brutish husband's reprimand, straightens the large dull brownish winged hair on either side of her coiffed head, then fixes the lace trimmed on her lavender off shoulder dress as if she were nervous or self-conscious. Twenty-one year old Amalia knew she was not pretty like poised Elisabeth, nor engaging as boisterous Gloria Lujza, but the quiet young woman made Rapunzel feel quite at ease.
Rapunzel gives the small framed mousy girl, who was a few years younger than herself, an encouraging smile as the Prussian Princess casually brushed her hand through her wild and loose shock of cocoa brown hair that had fallen into her face. Then a dreamy look crosses Rapunzel's face as she recalls how it was her Eugene who first sheared it off into this chic style like a professional barber, and how he had stated that he preferred his 'Brownie' this way ever since.
"May I be the first to say that I do adore your modern hairdo! I wish I had your hair, but I'm sure my Franz would not approve." Princess Amalia compliments the visiting royal with a touch of envy at how easily Rapunzel got away with that short style, looking so lovely without a trace of the winged style glamour that the Princess of Netherlands herself tried to please her own stern and exacting husband with. "It is so very, very…" Never so eloquent, the sweetly round-faced younger woman searches for the proper words to apply.
"Odd." Societal sophisticate Princess Antonia of Spain, the wife of sixth in line Prince Didrik, cuts to the core with her sudden cold words. Nodding to Rapunzel appropriately, her shining dark brunette hair glistens beneath that filmy white ostrich feather veil that shivers atop her ostentatious head as it shakes. Her piercing eyes were full of disapproval on her staid features as the drawn-faced woman looks down her long nose at the Prussian Princess with something close to scorn. Without a second word, Princess Isabelle turns away to walk through the chapel aisles with her long white fox fur stole trailing behind her as she goes.
"Don't listen to her. Antoinetta's always stomping around in a bad mood. Just because she can only have daughters – she has five of them already - when her husband so desperately wants a son. In fact, they all want sons! My Prince, too! Maybe I'll be the lucky one, but the traveling carnival fortuneteller was sure this would be girl." Fortunately, Princess Hermine of Waldeck, the young wife of ninth in line Prince Berte, was about Rapunzel's age, and sympathized with her, with a familiar hand squeeze as she pats her full with child stomach lightly.
The pregnant blonde's high piled curls were twisted not so neatly atop her head, where a dainty white flower spray had been attached to a comb. The yellow blonde's twisted ringlets cascaded at the nape of her neck in a messy knot that made Rapunzel warm up to her immediately.
"I'm Berte's wife, Hermine. The others think I'm dumb, because I'm the youngest among us so far, and a little sieve-headed. But I know why Antoinetta's continually cross. And I don't half blame her." The cute button nosed blonde in the flowery dress of pale pink lace confides in Rapunzel behind the fan that she was incessantly blowing over her face and messy hairdo.
"My! Aren't there a lot of us to meet!? And if those two last twin Princes play their cards right this weekend… There may be two more to add to our merry group of Westergaard brides soon enough!" Sweet Stephanie was excitable to meet new faces, and quickly changes the subject when the three oldest wives converge around Rapunzel to collect her to the tea table.
"Right. Okay. What I've been meaning to ask..." Mumbling Rapunzel bites her lip at all the emotional intrigue going on in this populated royal house, behind the scenes. This entire male dominated idea of importance put on succession in line of a kingdom was beyond her. She knew that, in Corona, whatever style of hair or dress she chose for herself to wear, if she had a dozen other brothers or sisters vying for attention, or whether her baby should be a girl or boy, her loving parents would be supportive and welcome either sex of her child. They had, since the family's reunion almost seven years ago, let Rapunzel be free and artistic to do whatever she liked, including marrying a non-socially picked out commoner man of her dreams. The keys to the kingdom of Prussia's inheritance were assured to be hers and her chosen mate's already, whether or not she was a boy, and whether or not she gave birth to a son or daughter.
But it appeared that Denmark was a different place than Prussia entirely.
Enough of the mumbling! Buck up, and say what you mean, Rapunzel!
After giving herself a berating / pep talk, Rapunzel gives the married princesses of this foreign kingdom before her a congenially warm smile. Then she takes a deep breath before speaking.
"Thank you all for meeting me at such short notice. You really are so kind to invite me to meet here for this lovely tea in this beautiful chapel." The Corona Princess gazes from face-to-face, even to the indifferent haughty ones. Each seemed interested in degrees to hear what this girl who came under the wing of respected Holy Sister Clarice Angelika had to say that was so urgently important.
Rapunzel hesitantly, with trepidation, glances down to where a pinkish Pascal was giving her thumbs-up from inside of her big mauve-pink skirt pocket.
Her eyes on the way up, glance at the thin figured, severely dressed in black, tightly pulled back tawny haired woman who had been devoutly kneeling in prayer at the other end of the church wrapped in darkness, right down to the black lace veil that covered her face.
"No dear! It has been our pleasure!" Personable Princess Elisabeth of Belgium smiled prettily at Rapunzel.
"Besides, it gives us an excuse to have the tea party, blessed by the Sisters, without our husbands breathing down our throats for a whole lovely afternoon!" Princess Hermine stuffs a cookie in her mouth as she shakes her messy hair of yellow blonde with those cascading barley curls in the back giddily.
"Oh! I didn't notice before! You're having a baby, too!" Hermine boldly touches Rapunzel's starting to bulge stomach in glee. "Now I have someone to talk baby talk to! And I won't be shushed this time because some of us are just beyond childbearing age, and too stubborn to admit she knows nothing about motherhood." Still in her late twenties and rash enough to show it, Hermine had been holding back her gushing over her expectant status as she lowers her voice behind her fan conspiringly with Rapunzel. Her blue eyes sneak over insinuatingly towards where her sister-in-law Princess Marguerite was praying fervently on her rosary several pews, doing her best to drown them out with Hail Mary's.
"I'm sure you don't have to bear a child yourself to know that a mother's love is a precious thing, blessed from Heaven. We must count ourselves lucky to have the chance to experience it at least once in a lifetime."Her own past with Gothel gave her a crash course on how not to act selfishly as a mother, as Rapunzel speaks with sage wisdom and a smile at the silly girlish cousin's giggles. But her eyes were becoming more and more interested in that dark veiled Princess from France in the far corner of the church who seemed to be in some emotional torment, though, none of the other nine wives of the Danish Princes appeared to be concerned.
So Rapunzel takes another deep breath and plunges in at being sociable at the tea party section of the chapel where the nuns had set up at a table with tea and crumpets and cakes and scones and the like.
"Hello. Why I am actually here is to ask if –" Rapunzel ever so quietly begins to ask, but the moment soon passes when the door of the chapel cracks open and Mother Superior arrives.
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
"Now I believe we are all assembled, and have had proper introductions with our guest.
So, shall we enjoy the lavish offerings of tea and sweet treats that the generous sisters of this chapel have laid out for us in our Prioress' visitation honor?" Unaware that Rapunzel was interrupted in speaking, Princess Emma motions to the others as she reverently joined Mother Superior, Sister Clarice Angelika, in the Chapel entrance vestibule where second in line proper Princess Fredirika had insisted on patiently waiting to attend the dignified Abbess of the diocese upon her return.
After a few minutes full of greetings and salutations to the Mother Superior, the elderly nun joins Rapunzel near the refreshment table.
"Did you ask the ladies your question yet, Princess Rapunzel?" The aged, more direct to the point Mother Superior plainly asked the Prussian Princess amidst all the polite niceties.
When you get to be my age, the good Lord may not give you much time left for dilly-dallying about!
"Um… Not yet." Rapunzel's hesitant smile and guilty scrunched nose told Sister Clarice that the timid, not so assertive child had not.
"Well, now's your chance, Dearie. Ladies!" Clap! Clap! "Princess Rapunzel has a question to ask you in her search for some important truths." The blunt old woman in the black and white habit interrupts the ten gathered Princesses plus Rapunzel, herself, and a few of the local nuns serving tea and cakes during this bustling noisy affair.
"Ahem… Ummm. Do any of you have any clue, by chance… It's really important that I know… Have any of you… By any chance…" A lump in her throat to be addressing such a crowd of feminine eyes all looking at her with intense curiosity, Rapunzel remembers why she was here in the first place.
To find out if Eugene made it, getting Hans help here, after the pair of brothers left that ship when Hans stubbornly refused to let Elsa see him so fatally injured.
"… Has anyone seen or heard anything, or know where I can find anything about the whereabouts of, gulp,Prince Hans of the Southern Isles?" As Rapunzel scans the entire crowd with eager eyes, the regal women in varying age degrees, to the last one of them, stops still, frozen in their drinking and eating and making gossiping merry into total silence.
"I take that as a 'no', I guess." Rapunzel's green eyes look from blank face to blank face of many of the thoughtful princesses who were startled to hear their esteemed visitor wishing any association with that disowned and disgraced youngest Royal of the house of Egeskov.
Though one of the ten Princess brides of the Danes of Denmark may have had some unseen insider knowledge left unspoken.
"Okay…" Rapunzel trails off, her mind roiling for her next step as her topsy-turvy tummy chooses this moment to protest and she woozily stumbles back against the refreshment table.
Now what? Where are you and Hans,Eugene?
The disappointed girl glances down in flustered frustration to watch how several frosted cookies and sugarcoated cruellers at the end of the table were magically disappearing into the carpetbag that she had left on a folding chair that one of serving nuns had moved from where it was in the front cloak room to rest by the refreshment table.
That same afternoon, down in the village.
"Why do we have to hide out while Rapunzel gets to go inside? It's been like hours now! I wish I could be a fly on the wall at that big old dumb Castle of Hans'." Princess Anna of Arendelle kicks the empty metal milking pail that she had been tossing stones into while she whiled her impatient time away, was speaking rather loudly from where she and her gorgeous husband had parked their sleigh in a deserted and quiet stable barn on the outskirts of the estate village of Kvaerndrup, Funen.
"Keep it down, Anna. We're supposed be lying low and not draw any attention to ourselves, remember?" Kristoff Bjorgman says low in his sweet mellow voice to his headstrong bride as he supplies Sven and Svala with some water and feed.
{"See you later, Buddy."} Sven's deep timbre familiarly rustles through his best friend's synapses with a friendly fond farewell.
"Now, you two behave in there while we go to eat lunch." With a silly grin on his rugged features, Kristoff bolts closed the door and teases, causing his reindeer bull friend to blow slighted air through his muzzle in defiance.
The Wind Whisperer had obvious mind reading advantages that he didn't even require to see how his buddy of a reindeer pal, in full rutting season no less, thought about the comely blonde reindeer. Sven's rusty brown eyes widen at Kristoff's insinuation as he bashfully glances up at his female counterpart in the barn. Svala, for her part, gives Sven back a bold pair of enticing fluttered eyes. GULP
With a smirk as he mildly shuts down that close connection with his lifelong partner Rangifer, Kristoff hooks his muscular arm around Anna's shoulders. His long strides catch up to her quick paced gate in no time.
Anna leans her tense frame back against his stablizing strength with her anxious thought.
"You got to know Hans pretty good, right? Are you picking up anything, Kristly? You think that if cousin Rapunzel comes up empty, then Hans is really not there? Do you think that that Hans and stupid Eugene made it all the way to Corona before he…?" The gingersnap of a girl allows the unpleasant dangled question to hang in the summery morning air.
Anna and her guy stroll down the street that she once vividly imagined that she'd be traipsing along on another fella's arm, through the heart of the village that overlooked his Egeskov Castle in the Southern Isles.
Unafraid to address the querulous subject of her concern for her former fiancé with her true true love now, Anna poses the pertinent questions to Kristoff.
Focusing his mind to his newfound powers of soul, the blond mountain man releases a useless sigh.
"I'm not getting any sense of Hans' actual person… Exactly… I think… But there is definitely a spike in thoughts about him. I can't exactly explain, this is all still pretty new to me. Maybe they do know something that they're hiding. Probably due to Rapunzel's questioning of the taboo subject. She's a gutsy gal." As Kristoff gentlemanly opens the front door of the Café diner for Anna to answer, he lowers his gentle voice even octave deeper and lower is not to be distinguished.
"But no Hans…" Anna exhales loudly, a bit deflated as she chooses a seat in the very same bakery that Elsa had served as a waitress in just yesterday.
"Still…" Kristoff, in his mental hunt for Hans Westergaard, had an itching feeling in the back of the sixth sense that someone he knew – someone besides Rapunzel and Olaf and Pascal – some person he knew well was within Egeskov's near vicinity. But his diverted mind couldn't pinpoint who.
"I just have this crazy feeling we should be here. We're in the right place to find out what happened, I just know it." Not understanding his own muddled predictions, Kristoff shakes off the strangely icy sentiment that felt rather familiar and close to home, when the bakery Café waitress comes to their table.
"Good afternoon to some new faces in our humble village! What can I offer you and your… little sister…to have for lunch today, sir?" the impressionable young daughter of the Baker had been hopefully batting her long eyelashes at summery short sleeved, ripplingly muscle bound hunk of burnin' love the minute exciting Kristoff Bjorgman open the door of this establishment.
"I AM HIS WIFE. Thank you very much. My husband will have four eggs, over light with just a sprinkle of pepper on wheat toast, lightly buttered. And, of course, a tall mug of coffee. Black, with two heaping spoons of sugar." Anna pointedly orders the meal from the menu for her man,which her ginger temper was sure to spell out in no uncertain terms to the practically drooling and fawning over Kristoff's rugged good looks teenager.
Oh yeah. We're not drawing any attention here, Anna. Good job, Feisty Pants…
Kristoff directs the mental message to his guileless other half. He toothily starts to whistle, hiding his red face behind the menu, when the few patrons of the bakery stare at the couple making the scene with a cowered back young waitress.
"And what can I get for you… Madam?" The similarly crimson faced, chastised young woman timidly asked the blatant 'get away from my man' claws that just were bared from this young lady who was almost spitting flames at her.
Kristoff tries to grin up at their verbally abused waitress sympathetically, but she would not meet his eyes, in that much fear of Anna's obvious fury.
"Umm… Just a few of those hot gingerbread cookies and a tall glass of your fresh squeezed milk, please. That sounds good." Coming down from her chilly affectation with a tasty sweet treat, Anna had no idea which 'icy' milkmaid brought in the fresh milk from that cow out back there. She had no inkling of whose tender queenly digits had frosted these particular gingerbread men now piled on the plate before her.
"Oh look! They frost their gingerbread men just like Elsa and I do back home! With snowflake and sunflower button shapes on their tummies! It's funny, isn't it, Kristly?" Anna innocently surmises as she points out the artistically placed, perfectly symmetrical sunflower, snowflake, sunflower frosted buttons on her gingerbread cookie man.
CHOMP!
"Just as chewy as I like it, and super yummy, too!" Anna was instantly in a better mood now for the tasty cookie melting in her mouth that so reminded her of her beloved big sister who was thankfully back home was her parents in the safety of her North mountain Ice Palace.
After all, Anna was going out on a limb, even against her own better will, to find out if that runaway redheaded Prince of Elsa's was even still alive…
Egeskov Lutheran Chapel, later that afternoon…
The church tea social had wrapped up with amiable Princess Rapunzel making many new friends among the various European Princesses all tied together by the common denominator of their Danish Princes. Though some of the women were snobby, stately or cold, the others were affable.
Though she did not divulge her own Eugene's somewhat scandalous connection to this Royal command's lineage just yet, Rapunzel was gladdened by the end of the session. Though no closer to discovering anything about Hans' or her Eugene's current whereabouts through much of what these females, once befriended, opened up about with candid information on their youngest brother-in-law, the sheltered Princess of Prussia gained even further insight as to Hans Westergaard's motivated drive.
Proud that she had suppressed her fears and sick stomach pains to be able to be called a friend to at least some of the nine princess wives of the Southern Isles, Rapunzel had opted to stay behind in the Egeskov Chapel for a few moments to collect her pregnant self back up to par while the other Princess wives left to attend Mother Superior's visit in the main Castle.
The compassionate Princess makes her way slowly through the family kingdom church, with Olaf stuffed full of doughnuts and crumpets three pounds heavier in her carpetbag. As she was about to follow the others on their trek down the rear drawbridge path back to the water castle across the moat, Rapunzel overhears the soft sobs of a woman crying somewhere in the furthest back pews, near the choir apse.
But as Rapunzel approaches the sobbing woman, she could see that the golden-blonde, pale skinned, dreadfully slender beauty was not alone.
Lukas?
Our Corona Princess is surprised to see in the emotional French princess' embrace, the short and pudgy young boy whom Anna had made fast friends with just a day or two ago at the Fattigskole convent some miles away.
Rapunzel stealthily moves back closer towards that rear row pew were Lukas was softly humming the church hymn 'Abide with Me'. She pauses to hear his encouraging song that finally garnered the tears to flow from this unloved, forgotten woman that the others had left to melt into the chapel the nave's dark shadows.
"I need Thy presence every passing hour; what but Thy grace to foil the Tempter's power? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, Lord abide with me…"
"Thank you, tout-petit (little one). Thank you for your song. How did you know this old woman needed a child's sweet song today?" Princess Marguerite's deeply accented French voice, though broken and distressed, had a secret smile behind it intended for the boy who had wandered in and heard her cry, his sweetness wishing to console her in the best way he could.
"Are you old? I think you're too beautiful to be old, m'lady." The polite little boy, well brought up to respect his elders and women in particular, didn't exactly mean to be a 'charmer'. But let's just say that cajoling sweet words with the fairer sex was in his blood.
"Where were you all my life, mon petit garcon (my little boy)? My, you are going to be quite a handsome rogue yourself someday, aren't you?" Marguerite pushes back the strands of errant wild bangs on the forehead of the little boy closed in her tender embrace.
She marvels at Lukas' toffee brown hair and something so familiar behind his gray blue eyes, the shape of his starting to be a tall Roman nose, the way his mouth's overbite curled up too cutely that you couldn't help be taken in by his sweet words and sweeter smiles.
Much like yours does, mon chere, Ivers.
Gazing deep into Lukas' eyes with her exotic dark ones, Princess Marguerite forgets for a moment her bitterness concerning her suave, charismatic husband these past seven years.
Not for lack of trying…But seven years that I have not been able to give you a single child. Never mind even just one beautiful boy you longed to make heir to your father's throne and present at least one Westergaard male among all the female children for the King's pride.
Marguerite's disturbed mind reverts back to the crux of the constant unspoken tension between herself and her husband all these years together. The demands of his kingdom of Denmark's traditional agatic male succession had taken its toll in driving the childless, infertile couple apart, she was sure.
"Just don't grow up to be a heartbreaker, un beau (beautiful one)." The Frenchwoman secretly owned a passionate heart beneath that cold, crusty exterior she wore to the world with her pride as an outer shell. Her most recent miscarriage this past month, her tenth to date over their seven-year marriage, had made her especially emotional. But this important milestone 70th birthday of King Herbert made this return home trip and her presence unavoidable.
The golden blonde haired woman with her dark veil continues to hug Lukas' cuddly body to her, stroking his head in quite a maternal way. Marguerite, though late in life for childbearing, went up to the large cross standing at the main altar. She prays fervently for a son just like him to regain her disinterested husband's affection and love back.
"What's a…'heartbreaker', ma'am? All I know, Mama says her heart breaks for me when we're apart. But she has to go to work in Paris and leave me here to go to school at the convent. She says I'm her good little soldier. Does that make me a heartbreaker, too, m'lady?" Lukas' asks in all sincerity, his big baby blue grey eyes wide with worry.
"No, my cherubim. No, that makes you a précieux sweetheart." With a silent wish on her praying lips as she clutches the large golden cross necklace at her throat with one hand, Marguerite caresses Lukas' wild brown hair with the other.
"I like your Jesus cross, my lady. The Sisters of the orphanage gave me one to, but mine's not as big or shiny as yours." Unaware of his poignant effect on her, Lukas rummages his fat paw down his shirtfront to produce the small silver cross necklace upon which his name had been engraved by the school on the back.
"Lukas… What a nice name for a little boy… Rigborg?... How funny." The 35-year-old Parisian comments as she squints her no longer fearful eyes to read the small cross' engraved print. She comments on the coincidence of the name of the first floor room at Egeskov Castle that her excessively poetic husband Ivers insisted on staying in – often on his own - whenever they visited his father's castle. He explained his reason for abandoning his oft-broody, recovering from miscarriage wife was that this particular room had his favorite view of the estate's 'romantic fuchsia blooms that stir the heart for love ' in its famed Topiary Gardens.
"Lukas! Lukas! Where are you, my silly boy?! You were only supposed to escort Sister Clarice back to the castle, my good little soldier!" As the doors are flung open, Daphne's high-pitched squeaky voice rings through the quiet chapel in search of her son.
"Oh! Princess Marguerite! I thought you were already back in the Castle with the other princesses, My Lady!" All puffing and huffing, for she had run the whole way across the lowered drawbridge between the Palace and its complementary church to its southeast, Daphne comes bounding into the vestibule, calling for her child before Rapunzel had the chance to warn her.
"Daphne?" The French Princess stands her thin frail frame from the pew seat in all her boned petticoat puffed skirt glory to speak to her own lady's maid.
"Mama!" Six-year-old Lukas happily sings out to see his mother, opening his arms wide for a hug. He abruptly leaps from Princess Marguerite's lonely lap to run to his mother's embrace.
Marguerite squeezes the rosary in her now wringing empty fingers tight.
"This boy Lukas is your son?" From the tight, neat bun French twisted to the top of her head, all the way down her shiny brocade satin yards and yards of dress skirt, to her elegantly turned heel hidden beneath her layered petticoats, when her exotic eyes were aroused, Princess Marguerite of Orleans was strikingly stunning.
The golden blonde haired, sharp nosed, pointy chinned aesthetic beauty's stare scrutinizes the plump, brunette little maidservant she had, out of the kindness of her heart, taken on from the kitchens of Egeskov. Marguerite soon made friendly Daphne her personal ladies' maid when the French Princess first arrived in this kingdom after an arranged marriage swept her off her feet by her dashing and debonair Prince Ivers seven long years ago.
"Why did you never tell me you had a little child?"
"Please forgive me, My Lady. I just didn't think… You would take me in as your personal ladies' maid, if I had this sort of… responsibility back home." Daphne submissively lowers her eyes as she pulls Lukas' wide-eyed head close to her chest.
"You think me so cruel that I would keep you separated all these long lonely years, far away from your precious babe?" With a tear in her eyes, the Princess of Orleans, who was often cross and severe, due to her emotional trauma that many miscarriages caused, was genuinely kind inside, as well as quite passionate, despite her tough outer shell.
But she would need to be very tough indeed, as the worldly Frenchwoman absorbs what her already suspicious mind had been coming to the miserable conclusion of, though her own snubbed heart was bleeding.
It was Ivers who suggested you to be my ladies maid, because you made 'the finest jams in the world', wasn't it? He always was especially kind to you wherever we traveled…
"No. No… Princess Marguerite! You've only been so kind to me! My Lukas and I miss each other very much, but we correspond often, soldiering on until the times my Lord and Lady visit Egeskov." Daphne's sweet voices trembles as her tingling with fright body shivers all over while she explained calmly to the confronting older woman, with little confused Lukas caught in the middle.
Princess Marguerite stands perfectly erect with her thin, elegant mouth agape, simply staring at her trusted ladies maid across the pews, as red in the face Daphne shifts from foot to foot nervously before her.
"And that makes your short time together all the sweeter, right, Lukas?" Rapunzel takes this awkward moment in the afternoon church setting to interject her sunshine between the discomfited two women.
"Hello, Princess Marguerite. I'm afraid we didn't meet properly before teatime, because you weren't feeling very well, and I wasn't very well either." Rapunzel smiles with a charming sigh. "It's a shame all those lovely cakes and cookies that the kitchen staff and the kindly sisters of this Chapel set before us will be wasted, since only a few of your sisters-in-law were eating." Rapunzel sweetly strikes up a pleasant conversation.
"I must say, your sisters-in-law eat like birds at parties. There's so much left! But I suppose proper ladies are meant to eat like that. I don't know about you, Lukas, but I for one am famished! Come on Lukas, ladies. Let's see if us four late comers can enjoy some cold tea and crumpets together now in peace without all their noisy chatter. They were all going on and on about my hair and the tower, and my thief of a husband. Let's go see what those other girls left us." Bubbly Rapunzel invites, putting her interesting backstory out until Lukas catches on to her giddy mood.
"Yeah! Let's go! I'm starving!" Lukas takes his mom's right hot hand and familiarly grabs hold of Marguerite's lifeless, cold left palm in his other fat paw as he tugs both of them forward towards the refreshment table.
"Non! No. Forgive me, Lukas, but I am feeling a bit ill myself again… Excusez-moi (excuse me), please, Princess Rapunzel, but I feel rather to discomposed and weak… Right now to eat or drink anything –" Princess Marguerite wrenches her hand from Lukas' grip and begins to back up distractedly to make a heart-disturbed escape.
"Ohh-oh!" Rapunzel, Daphne and Lukas watch in horror as the tall slender woman trips on her floorlength skirts and then on the carpetbag Rapunzel had just left at the chapel exit. Princess Marguerite begins to fall backwards towards the unforgiving marble floor of the vestibule, just out of any of the trio's reach –
"Don't worry! I gotcha!" Just in the nick of time, a pair of branchy arms come to life. Three mounds of inexplicable snow on this indoor August day, swiftly reconstitute themselves back into the form of a heroic man to catch the Princess of Orleans stumble backwards.
A heroic snow man, that is.
"CherDieu! (Dear God!) What is that thing?!" Had she not been so devout a woman of faith inside of the sacred holy sanctuary, Princess Marguerite of Orleans may have reacted with more violence or piercing scream when she opened her frantic eyes to be greeted by the strange otherworldly creature's snow mound body that was not so harmoniously aligned together. A toothy mouth at the top, crooked charcoal eyes in the midst of his face and carrot nose at the base of his discombobulated mug made Olaf a terrifying sight to see for anyone.
"Olaf! It's alright, Marguerite! He's a friend from Arendelle!" Rapunzel cries in warning and relief for her snowman friend's fortuitous save, though she wasn't sure if this was quite the right moment for his amazing revelation.
"Oh! Sorry! This probably doesn't look good." The happy, never affected snowperson rearranges his face, a bit disturbingly, and re-smiles, properly now, at the shocked woman laid out in his arms.
"Let's start again. My name is Olaf. I like warm hugs. How about you?" Olaf gives his usual pleasant greeting that Lukas accentuates by rushing up in supplying the snowman with the hug he asked for, if only that the purpose to disarm the what could be frightening unknown magic creature for the already insecure, addled Princess of France.
The loving, generous boy with a heart bigger than the shaky circumstance of his birth had the knowledge that God was his Father, though he knew not his earthly one, as Lukas then gives the startled flushed woman his next warm hug.
The embrace receives an at first startled, then brilliant smile from Marguerite. Rapunzel's heartfelt words she had overheard earlier, when no one thought she was listening, ring in her ears: 'I'm sure you don't have to bear a child yourself to know that a mother's love is a precious thing, blessed from Heaven.'
Marguerite immerses herself in the tender embrace. There and then, in the eye of her emotional storm, the French royal lady decides to rise above the occasion rather than experience yet another mental breakdown.
"Daphne?" With the lilting touch of her French accent, Marguerite turns to her ladies' maid with an extended hand, followed by a soft smile.
"Yes, my Lady?" Daphne scurries over to help her tall, before unapproachable mistress up from the crumpled pile of little snowman Olaf's cool save of the terribly thin lady, back onto her feet.
The plump little maid, who had few family ties in this world, was aware her whole entire career that hard work and effort had built up, financially and emotionally, to support as a single mother her only boy, feared it was all about to come crashing down around her ears with a resounding 'You're fired!'
"No more precious secrets between us, oui?" All of her own heart wrenched desperation over these past years of insecure self blame, useless self-doubt and melancholy depression that the holy sisters of her Cathedral back in Notre Dame had helped her through the dark days thereof, was all to make her handsome husband love her as passionately she loved him. Marguerite, as a good Catholic woman, who had come to her marriage late in life at the ripe old age of nine and twenty, handed over her prayer supplication to God to grant her a child.
Not only for her Prince Ivers' primogeniture inheritance right of succession that he and his eleven brothers were in rivalrous competition in their relentless drive to each claw their way to the top.
But it was her own pride as a woman, longing for the joy of bringing into her empty world someone so dear, who would be as close as a mother and child could be blessed, for all her lifelong…
"Now, let's go and have that lunch of cold tea and crumpets. To tell you the truth, ladies, I actually I prefer tea cold in the summer." Marguerite smiles, grasping Lukas' still outstretched hand in her tensed one to steady her slightly twisted ankle.
"And, Friend Olaf. I do enjoy hugs warm, very much, too." The stern, strict Princess Marguerite of Orleans, who had heard rumors of magical Arendelle and the cold North's royal Ice Queen, lifts her eyes to the Madonna and child the glass window depiction. The late afternoon rays of light beam through the Holy Child's halo glow of warmth to her sallow cheek gave her hope's pinkish color to go on living once again.
Inside Egeskov Castle…
With all the ladies of the court attending some tea service in the church to meet with a visiting Mother Superior, and all the Princely men hosting the majority of dignitaries and ambassadors on a tour of Egeskov estate's massive grounds, the Palace was left practically empty.
Save for the servants who were all busily scurrying around in setting up downstairs for the birthday celebration tomorrow. So that meant Elsa had pretty free reign to explore the second floor of the expansive castle, which would complete the last area left for her to search in the main house, with only the stables remaining.
With her cute maid's lacy frill headband that accessorized with her black-and-white frock, Elsa had her own hands full in taking up the mantle of chambermaid whose job was primarily to tidy up the bedroom, stoke the logs of the room's fireplace and clean its grates, gather up the laundry and change the sheets of bedding. All in all, generally freshen up the bedroom with an airing out after each night's usage for its visiting, noble occupants for the next day.
Sure, Elsa, as an independent young woman of self-contained means, where little staff in Arendelle growing up meant a bit more physical labor and personal abode cleaning than normal royal young women of her queenly status, was not entirely incapable.
She and Anna, along with Papa and Mama, with few servants more than Kai, Gerda and Johanne around the household, had practically run their Arendelle Castle more like a ship than a Royal Palace. Papa, as a sheltered boy himself, when he became the adroit Admiral of his Navy he loved the rigorous life of the sea, and had always been the hands-on type who wished to be thoroughly involved in even menial ship duties and work's own reward.
So when it came to teaching his girls a proper work ethic, Papa imprinted on them both to be responsible for cleaning and clearing their own stations, or else leave all the dirty work for himself and Mama, or dear Gerda or Johanne. With Arendelle's gates closed for 15 years, they each had enough of extra large castle helpful housekeeping duties to keep themselves busy from day 'til night, doing what most Royal rulers would never dream. There were no palace perks for these industrious Norwegian regals, but a God-fearing clean living where their sheltered little family could take care of everything themselves.
Now with Papa's strict work schedule close in mind as she uncomplainingly changes the bed sheets, clearing tables and scrubbing muddy floors from mens' tracked in boots 'til her fingers were water wrinkly from room to room, Elsa was not too shy to dirty her pristine white hands.
Of course, Egeskov's modern updated plumbing system that had running water, up through some miraculous thing called 'pipes' into 'bathtubs' and 'sinks' in special 'watercloset toiletry rooms' on each floor of this high-class contemporary castle that spared no expenses for modern convenience, certainly helped a lot.
"Impressive. We definitely must get this in Arendelle." Elsa murmurs to herself of the costly castle upgrade. But she would not mind one ort, shelling out some of Arendelle's hard-earned riches for this ingenious endeavor at all. Just think – no chamber pots to empty! Dear Johanne would be so pleased!
She peeks in the cute little bathroom at the newfangled indoor plumbing watercloset bathroom on the second floor as she was carrying some newly washed sheeting up to be re-bedded.
As the hard-working new maid diligently rolled up her sleeves and set to work on room after room (and using a bit of ice magic to hurry along the task of doing up this floor's 25 rooms, which seemed endless, with all the guests that kept pouring in for the birthday celebration tomorrow) Elsa was beginning to grow a little less hopeful that she would find her missing Prince here in his homeland.
Sigh.
Though disappointed not to actually find him, Elsa, after discovering that thrilling attic loft room Hans kept as a very flattering shrine to her alone, found so many more questions to ask handsome Prince now that she was getting to know his childhood past and youth into early manhood more.
Poor lonely boy.
Elsa recalls with a sweet smile that adorably boyish missive hung above the makeshift desk that yearned to be loved and belong… To her. And then that long list of top qualities of the aspiring young man to beguile her into falling for his charms was too amusingly conceited for her to take seriously.
I wonder which one of these bedrooms was yours…
Elsa idly wonders in feminine curiosity as her ice cryokinetics and cool wind breezes certainly helped her speed up the normally all afternoon long tasks of a busy chambermaid.
After she finished her tenth second story upstairs bedroom dusting and spiffing up, the efficient new servant briskly walks up the long servant's staircase, her arms full of freshly pressed and clean sheets up to her chin. The exhausted Queen, even though getting pretty tired, knew that this perfect time in the vacant castle wouldn't last for long, so she must finish her tasks quickly if she was to go investigating again.
The hard-working gal didn't take the time to indulge in the break that the rest of the downstairs cast of servants was taking. Elsa tirelessly trudges up the steps into the long hall again in her continual search of Egeskov's empty rooms for her missing Prince in any clues that may lead to him from here that her alert eyes were still on the lookout for.
But it was the Queen of Arendelle's keen ears that picked up an urgent insistent cough and wheezing in the furthest room at the end of the long palace hall that caught her attention.
"Louise… Louisa… Cough cough… " The choked out voice is barely audible and faint for Elsa to clearly discern what it was saying, or even if it was Hans' tenor or not under some kind of injured duress. But whoever it may be, the Ice Queen spared not the acceleration of her ice magic to carry her light feet down the twenty-five foot long corridor.
Cough! cough! Cough cough!
In a flash of ice, Elsa only pauses at the tall double doors for a split second before the plaintive gravelly voice erupts in another bout of coughing spasms violently.
Her ice power throws open the huge doors with those twin lion head crests and gold gilt trimmed doorjamb to doorknob to enter into the monstrously plush and ornate palatial bedroom.
Everything about this bedchamber inside screamed regal opulence to the intelligent girl's every step signifying to her that she, the incognito Queen of Arendelle, had just entered the chamber of the King of Denmark himself.
Her eyes strain to focus through the darkness at the king–sized grandiose wine and gold band brocade corded bed and its many velvet maroon mussed blankets, only to find it unoccupied.
"Louise… Is that you?"
Soon, the choked out muffled strains issuing from the floor of the opposite side of the lavish bed causes Elsa's tensioned body to spring to action. Her icy propelled heels adeptly hasten her around the luxurious bed until she was imminently kneeling at the sprawled out King's side.
Though the man was, as she was well aware, one day away from the allegedly elderly age of the septuagenarian year of 70, Hans' father still looked quite debonair indeed for his age, even in this distressed state.
His anxious, handsome bearded face utterly conveyed an attitude of regal dominance, despite its pained expression as Elsa brushes his salt-and-pepper dark brown and gray hair back from his creased brow where the tall imposing man was lying on the bedroom floor in a tizzy of fierce coughs and uncontrollable sputters.
"Your Majesty. Where does it hurt? What can I do to help you?" Her voice full of concerned compassion as she looked him over for any apparent injuries from the fall, Elsa's delicate fingers tenderly stroke the old monarch's chiseled square jaw and high pronounced cheekbones.
Wrapped in his deep wine red velveteen robe, King Herbert's eyes were closed tight in some pain that he was fighting to catch his breath through gritted teeth that had been difficult breathing through.
After a few moments of Elsa's insistent rubbing caresses of his hot cheeks and massaging of his heavy wheezing chest with her cold digits, his gravelly voice is finally able to speak cogently.
"It's my lungs… My lungs are weak. Cough cough. That pernicious, diabolical fool of a Doctor – Huff Huff – should not use his experimental medicines – Huff Huff – on the King – Huff Huff- don't you think? Need a higher dosage, no doubt. I was only attempting to – Huff –ring for that incompetent physician and tell him so – Huff Huff Huff – when the blasted – excuse my coarse vernacular, young lady – bell cord up there ripped off its rope." Elsa follows the Danish King's gaze up at the black puff hanging by a string attached a golden roped cord that had frayed off, causing the accident.
"And this off-balance, decrepit old creature tumbled off the bed along with it. I hate to admit that I really am getting too old to realize my dream of propagating Westergaards across Europe, aren't I? Those useless sons of mine… Just don't let them find me in a pitiful position like this…" The depressed, yet still proud old man was still concerned about his humiliation more than his own physical health as he struggles his stubborn, fatigued body to start to get up.
Conquering the world was becoming more and more difficult at his age, as the King was loathe to leave his proud kingdom into the hands of those young upstarts who were just waiting for their inheritance, as the hard man himself instructed them all their lives to do, with the goal to perpetuate the proud name of Westergaard
…It's all too late…
"Hold on! I'll climb up to reach the rope for the Doctor to come. Now, you just lie there quietly and wait for me to help you onto the bed… Your Majesty." As nimble as a cat, Elsa kicks off her high heels and silently crawls onto the King's bed, standing on barefoot tippytoe to reach her long-nailed pale fingers up to reach the shank of ripped off cord.
Of course, she was too preoccupied with her urgent mission of struggling to reach up, to be overly discreet and careful with her shapely legs, and the King's yet approving eyes for a fine feminine figure landed upon her. However, it worked to her favor that he could not help but be distracted to take umbrage to her high-handed, bossy audacity—completely unacceptable for a servant maid girl, even in the King's infirmed state.
"What is your name, girl? I have never seen you in this castle before, have I?" King Herbert was impressed by her boldness to instruct his august self to 'wait' for anything. As not a single person in all of his destined for greatness life had ever spoken to him before in the entirety of his dictatorial, domineering rule.
YANK! YANK! YANK!
"'Elsie'— whew! That was a bit difficult!" An exhilarated by all this activity Elsa calls over her hectic shoulder to the King's query.
"Hopefully the doctor will have heard that triple ring downstairs." With a blush at her flushed cheek boldness, Elsa announces, dusting off her hands as she gracefully, like a young gazelle leaps from the thick feathered mattress and back to the floor where she kneels back down beside the enthralled, prostrated man.
"My name is Elsie, Sir. I have just been brought in temporarily to help serve for your birthday celebration tomorrow, your Majesty." Elsa looks down at him with her most dazzling smile at the King gazes up at her in wonder of this maid's brash audacity.
"Now we'll get you back on the bed in no time." Elsa's long legs in motion and officious voice hovering over him quite mesmerizes the formidable dreadful ruler of this conquering land, until the slender female boldly leans down over the King's body to raise him up.
Recognizing that he was too weak and incapacitated for the lack of proper oxygen to be much help in standing on his own, Elsa put her thin arms around the larger man's chest torso and starts to lift him.
"Stop, Elsie. You are too delicate and frail a child to move me on your own. Where has that wicked, plotting footman Thomas gotten off to? This is too mortifying to bear. Call for that lazy footman at once! – Huff Huff – No. don't. That useless rascal will be even more disagreeable and antagonistic in holding this gloat over me, as well telling the rest of the staff. You probably will even spread lies of how weak, pathetic and feeble your King has been. There is no one I can trust with this debilitating humiliation in this house, not even one of my sons. Especially not my sons. Those onerous, scheming boys will be glad to be rid of their old father at last. All they want is my throne, my inheritance, after all… No one has cared for me for so long… No one to share this big empty bed and warm me… Louisa… I'm coming soon…" The breathless King's wandering mind
"I will get my breath back soon enough. Just be patient…" The somewhat delirious sovereign unconsciously speaks aloud all that he had in his mind, showing to Elsa that the fierce Danish King she had heard so much in rumor, had mellowed a bit from the cold calculating dictator that he had once been. King Herbert speaks under his faltering breath as the young woman's tender ministrations and arms around his weak body hold him so intimately.
Was he talking to her, or was he talking to the invisible woman of his past, his long deceased wife named Louisa, sentimentally? Elsa could not be sure. All she knew was that she had the overwhelming desire to help this poor, disconsolate man and give him whatever warmth she had to offer.
"Just close your eyes and let yourself go. Please trust me, your Majesty." Elsa breathes in the older man's ear, her frozen powers, infinitesimally subtle, beginning to build around her.
"Are you ready?" This won't hurt, I promise." Elsa softly asks and comforts, she still in the sweet recent memory of how she used her ice to gently lift her own Papa's injured form in such a way, she wouldn't harm him with frostbite's sharp chill.
With sweet soprano tones in bolstering confidence, the autocratic King was captivated, as if in an intrigued trance. King Herbert closes his eyes as she suggested and feels his tense body being lifted away from itself.
"Let it go." Elsa murmurs her cool breath against his hot cheek as if in a song. The Ice Queen puts on a show of physical exertion, tugging and squeezing and wrapping her arms around the King's chest torso delicately. But her ice was the real star of the exercise here.
"Come on, Papa, we can do this." Elsa subconsciously lets slip the too familiar title involuntary as she lifts King Herbert's stiffened wide shouldered form buoyantly from the uninviting ground.
The Ice Queen specifically and deliberately maneuvers her mental cryokinetics to, as gently and imperceptibly as absolutely possible, with the insulation of his thick velvety robe in between, ice lift the King's distressed body to his large plush bed.
Once accomplished, Elsa quickly defrosts her ice so its chill was never felt and never seen as she goes about arranging the King of Denmark onto his bed quite casually, like a caring nurse would.
"There you are, Sire. You just relax until the doctor arrives." Elsa smiles over Hans' father as she tenderly smoothes back the loose hair at his grey temples after her busy cool hands had helped tuck him in beneath his plush, wine colored thick blanket.
"How – how did you do that? Huff Huff – cough! You are much stronger than you appear, young lady." His weak, low-timbred, bass voice whispers out in sheer astonishment at this quite inexplicable housemaid – no, this pale vision of a gentle beauty – who entered his bedchamber and blew in on a cool breeze to rescue him.
"'Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.' Ephesians 3:20."
The King becomes lost in the pools of her large exotic blue eyes as Elsa recites the Biblical truth offered to King Herbert with that enigmatic smile on her enticing lovely magenta lips.
"Mysterious creature…" The imperious monarch rarely was so impressed by anyone, no less a lowly servile, unknown peasant girl, who had the cool composure and hidden inner strength—
… Of a Queen... King Herbert was so bowled over by this pale white apparition of an angel came down to him in his moment of need, he relents in verbosely berating the attending physician who enters the door.
And quiet, slender Elsa the chambermaid weaves silently out through the opened doors, unnoticed and practically unseen by the doctor, as a proper servant should be.
"Are you unwell, your Majesty? Is there a problem? You look rather red flustered in the face. Has something happened?" The middle-aged doctor goes to the intimidating King's bedside and fearfully begins to listen to his swiftly pounding heart with a stethoscope to his professional ear.
"Yes, you fool. Something has happened." King Herbert of Egeskov's Southern Isles gazes longingly from the door that just as magically closes with the cool breezes that she blew in on, to the portrait of his Queen that was hanging on the wall before him.
"An angel visited my bedside, today."
Elsa hears the King's strong voice say, as the characteristically cold and calculating ruler puts aside his regal taciturn, inapproachability to utter the words spicily.
The stern, severe, strict father of his clan of thirteen formidable sons of his powerful nation, on the eve of his 70th birthday, gazes at the portrait of his beloved wife, long passed from this world. Looking upon his Louise's soft features that never doubted him, though he was authoritarian and rigid with her children, King Herbert tries to imagine who - or what – that ethereal beauty was.
She who dared to touch the standoffish tyrant fearlessly with her cool tender hand, with her gentle wise words and icy blue eyes that seared through his soul…
"There are more things in Heaven and earth,King Herbert , than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet, Act I Scene 5
Elem - young man in Hebrew
Mench - friend in Hebrew
Chutzpah – gutsy impudence in Hebrew
Olá – Hello in Portuguese
mon petit garcon - my little boy in French
mon chere – my dear, in French
non- no in French
CherDieu! - Dear God in French
Happy Father's Day weekend, Frozen friends!
How's that for a 'Meet the Inlaws' intro?! (My Frozen take on the crazy wacky movie! ^_^) Not only do we get to see, through Rapunzel's eyes, 10 of Hans' brothers' better halves, but Elsa the chambermaid unexpectedly met Hans' Father, King Herbert of the Southern Isles! I'd say she made a fairly good impression with the old man, wouldn't you? ^_^
I did a load of research into some Princesses of that era and time, and modeled many of these new female characters in the story on these lovely real-life royals for the wives of our 13 + Denmark Southern Isles Princes! Many new characters equals many new words! Whew! That was the longest one to date! 14,000 + words!
Boy, Egeskov Castle is an interesting place to visit, with lots of people milling about for the King's August birthday! Tell me what you think of them! Which new Princess married to one of Hans' handsome brothers ('who could be wicked, and would') was your favorite? (I'm personally edging towards the vivacious Princess Gloria Lujza of Portugal - she's so boisterous and outspoken, and has a hankering for thieving Flynn, that I can't help but connect with her :) I hope my descriptives did those pretty princesses justice! ^_^
COMING SOON! If you want to see more of them, my big sis wowed me with her drawings , based on real life European princesses of that era, in Disney CG style of the Princes and their wives! She'll be putting up her wonderful CG artistry of all of these princesses and Hans' brothers soon! So stayed tuned! I'll tell you next week to look at her DeviantArt site for the pictures of the new Egeskoz cast!*o^)
Reviews, as always, are welcome!
We wish you and the Fathers, that your Holy Father above blessed you with here on earth, a very happy & fun day!
Get out there and play some horseshoes, watch his favorite game or just hang out watching some of his beloved old movies, so you have a great time together in celebration of the guy who started it all and took care of you growing up! We will be thankful for our Daddy here! ^_^ A loving, God blessed family is our grand Inheritance!
God bless!
HarukaKou