XXI.

"Anna? You're awake?" Elsa glanced at her sister's condition, and immediately wished she hadn't. "You need to sleep, you must be tired."

Anna made a vain effort to sit upright. When she plopped right back into Kristoff's arms, he scooted to one side of the bed and sat his wife up next to him. Anna managed to pull the blanket over her legs with a throat-scarring cough to keep herself warm from the ice Elsa was applying to the room. "I'm sorry, Elsa."

I found that Elsa was repeating my conversation with her to Anna, from the other point of view. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Anna," she said. "Nothing at all. I'm the one who failed to keep you safe."

Anna gave her sister a warm, reassuring smile. "But I really am sorry Elsa. What happened at my wedding- it wasn't your fault, and I blamed it on you. I said some pretty nasty things to you, and I'm sorry." Elsa looked ready to tell Anna why she shouldn't be the one saying sorry, but Anna had one more sentence to say. "Do you accept my apology?"

Kristoff and I felt sort of intrusive at that point, as Elsa and Anna looked lovingly at each other. Anna did in a few words what I had been unable to do in a whole conversation; the room thawed, and Elsa smiled.

"Only if you accept mine," Elsa finally replied.

"Well, I do. So there. And Elsa?"

"Yes?"

"I've been through a lot in the last twenty four hours, and I could probably use a hug."

Elsa wasted no time in getting to the bedside, and in embracing her sister as hard as she could without being uncomfortable. Anna hugged her back with equal vigor, and the two glowed as every tension of that night dissolved into thin air. There was more magic in that hug, more beauty and more power, than Elsa or I could ever hope to match with fire and ice.

• • •

Eight months passed. Many things happened in those eight months, but nothing on the same level as the events that capped them.

On the first morning on board Klaus's ship, we set sail for Arendelle, and made it safely there a day later. Kristoff, Anna, Elsa and I had struck up conversation with the quirky Captain Klaus, as we came to call him, on the trip back, and he remained a good personal friend of ours, occasionally running royal errands to Fordane and occasionally being invited to dinner. A few days after we got back to Arendelle, we received news that Joakim's wife had assumed control of Fordane as Queen, and was pregnant with an heir to succeed her. I had to wonder if that heir was really Joakim's son, but it was somewhat nice to know that the government of Fordane wouldn't crumble with Joakim's death.

Every now and again, I would have nightmares about the night of Anna's failed wedding, but they were casual nightmares, the kind you talk about over breakfast. Anna and Elsa had a few as well, and even if he didn't want to admit it, Kristoff probably did too. Nobody had any panic attacks or anything, though; in fact, here were times in those eight months that rivaled the month before Anna's first attempt at a wedding in terms of a general sense of happiness. Everyone was certain that Anna would be comfortable with a second shot at marriage within the year, and everyone was certain that it would work out this time.

Other than the odd bit of news or an especially excited meeting of the Board of the People meeting, not much else happened. The whole debacle with Anna's ruined marriage started off the eight months, and afterwards…

I opened up a door to Elsa's room from the inside, so that Anna, Kristoff, and Olaf could come in. Nobody said a word, not even the usually talkative snowman, because we were all smiling. There was no reason not to be. I gently clicked the door shut and followed them over to Elsa, who was sitting in her bed with pillows piled up behind her back.

And in her arms was a baby boy, swaddled in fuzzy little woolen blanket. All that peeped out of the bundle was his face, a beautiful little face with the brightest brown eyes I had ever seen. My heart swelled with joy and pride and excitement and every emotion in between. I forced myself to stop looking at my child and take a glance at Elsa, whose face mirrored mine in the sheer magnitude of her smile.

"What should we name him?" Elsa brought her finger to the child's cheek, and he giggled amiably. Elsa giggled back at him.

I thought about Elsa's question seriously. Here was this person, who I had just met, yet I was ready to spend the rest of my life with. But it wasn't the same kind of readiness I had felt when I first met Elsa; it was just like I could talk to him for hours, whether or not he knew what I was saying. I felt like he was going to teach me a little something about being a person, whether or not he knew he was doing it. It was a different kind of readiness, a kind I had only felt once before.

"Mikael." I realized that I had been looking at the baby again, and turned my chin up to face Elsa. I repeated more confidently, "We should name him Mikael."

She agreed, but she didn't say it out loud. She didn't have to say anything out loud. She didn't have to say that she was ready for the future, a future with a child and a kingdom and a family. She didn't have to say that she couldn't feel like a monster holding such a little bundle of joy, and knowing that she helped create it. She didn't have to say that she loved Anna, or me, or baby Mikael. The best part was, I didn't have to say anything either. I just stared into her crystal blue eyes, and she into my swirling red ones.

***Author's Note***

So that's it. Looking back, there are so many things I could have done better, but whatever. It was my first story; I'll cut myself some slack. If you liked it (I'm assuming that, if you read this far, you liked it), check out my other stories I have as now: The Incident (Powerpuff Girls) and Princess Tournament: Fight to the Death (Disney Princesses). Those are a bit darker than this one, though, so be warned.

Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing! I'm finally and officially done with Alight, and I can move on to other things.

P.S. I stuck a bonus chapter on the end because I had written it and didn't have anywhere else to dump it. I liked it, and I hope you do too :)