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Chapter 25
Exiting the inn, Anna and Kristoff took a stroll through town. Many of the towns folk recognized her, but didn't pay her any mind. They would call her "your highness", nod respectfully and continue walking. So often did Anna skip around town that no one was surprised to see her anymore. In fact, some of the kids had gotten to know her so well that they called her "Big Sis" and invited her to play with them.
As they walked through town, they discovered that the excited crowd looking for Elsa had dispersed. Anna asked one of the kids why the people suddenly didn't seem interested anymore, and they told her that a rumor said the Queen had already returned to the castle. No one has seen her cross the bridge, but some folk say that they saw her enter the castle while wearing the attire of a towns girl.
"Do you think she has gone back?" Kristoff asked.
"I don't know," Anna contemplated. "She doesn't have any clothes that match the description."
"Let's head back," Kristoff suggested. "If she still isn't back, then we can come out to look for her again."
Nodding, Anna agreed.
Strolling through the market place they paid a visit to the carrot stand, asking Olaf if he had seen Elsa. He shook his head, saying that there was an excited crowd, but Elsa hadn't tried to make contact with him.
Hand in hand, Anna and Kristoff headed back to the castle.
Elsa had requested for Anja to help her bathe. Honored to be the only one in the presence of Queen, she prepared a hot bath at record speed. Afterwards Elsa had put on her ice dress, showing Anja for the first time the transformative powers of her ice magic. She was sure that she wouldn't see Rainer again before dinner, and allowed herself to play with some of her magic. As a token of gratitude, she created an ice dress for Anja too. So stunned was the servant girl that she didn't know what to say anymore. Instead, Elsa forced the dress into her hands and told her to go change.
Minutes later, Anja had stepped out and her body shone with the bright ice fabric that only Elsa could make.
"Here," Elsa said and took off her ice cape.
She clipped it on Anja's shoulders and summoned an ice mirror in front of her. Coincidentally, the servant maid had the same platinum blonde hair color as Elsa, only her nose and cheeks were slightly different.
"Actually...wait," Elsa grinned, and for the first time in her life Anja heard what the Queen sounded like when she was excited.
Elsa took her make up kit and because the chair was on the other side of the room, she decided to create an ice chair instead. She told Anja to sit down, unaware that the maid didn't have the same resistance towards the cold as she did and hence her bottom felt icy cold.
"Let's see what magic we can do here," Elsa smiled and began applying eyeliner.
After several minutes of experimentation, Elsa completed her masterpiece. Anja walked up to the mirror and examined herself. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. With the power of make up, Elsa had managed to turn her into her twin. If she looked closely, she still looked different from Elsa, but from further away, with the different layers of makeup Elsa had applied, one could not tell that she was not the Queen. The only difference was that although she wore the same ice dress, her posture was still of that of a servant and she did not radiate the awesome authority Elsa had, the authority that made everyone understand that she was the Queen.
"Your majesty!" Anja flushed red. She didn't know what she should say. Should she be happy or horrified? She didn't understand why Elsa would make her look like this.
"You look exactly like me," Elsa said with her hands on her waist, satisfied with her work.
After looking at her reflection for several more moments, Elsa added: "But there is something missing."
Walking several circles around Anja, she examined the slightly frightened servant girl. At first she thought it that it would be fun to create a doppelgänger, but now that she had seen how successful she was, Elsa thought that it might be useful to have a body double to use as a decoy.
"Stand up straight," Elsa instructed, but it was perceived as a royal order by the maid.
Her spine stiff, she straightened her stance and looked straight ahead.
"Try to stand up straight, but relax," Elsa said.
Taking a deep breath, Anja tried to calm herself. Elsa was in deep thought, and servant girl realized that the Queen's voice did not carry the usual commanding authority.
"Good...put your hands in front," Elsa took both of her hands and clasped them together in front.
Mumbling, Elsa continued to contemplate. There was still something missing. Was it her voice? Her attitude?
"Try to speak like me," Elsa said.
"What do you mean, your majesty?"
"Repeat after me, and try to sound exactly like me," Elsa said.
Anja nodded.
"Arendelle is honored by your visit," Elsa said, reverting back into the tone she spoke with that radiated the authority of a Queen.
"A - Arendelle is...uhm, honored by your visit," Anja repeated.
"You can't stutter, and don't 'uhm'," Elsa said.
"Arendelle is honored by your visit," Anja said, her voice less shaky, but still lacking the utter conviction that she was the Queen.
"You need to speak with more confidence. Speak as if you know that you hold great power," Elsa said.
"Your majesty, if I may ask, what is the purpose of this?" Anja asked.
Dumbfounded, Elsa looked at Anja, realizing that this entire time she had only followed her own train of thought and never explained her intentions to this confused servant girl.
"I thought that it might be useful if I had a body double," Elsa said. "Arendelle has more enemies than you know, and as the Queen, it might be better to have someone impersonate me."
Anja's eyes widened with fright, taking a step back.
"No, no, don't worry," Elsa raised both of her hands to her chest. "You're not going to get killed. I was just thinking having a doppelgänger will be useful if I ever needed a decoy."
Before she could say more, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in," Elsa said.
"Your majesty, Princess Anna has come back from town and is inquiring after you," Kai, the royal butler, said.
Upon entering the room, he stopped short and rubbed his eyes. He thought that he was seeing two Elsas.
"Tell my sister that I will come down in a minute," Anja said, her voice imitating that of Elsa's.
"It will only be a minute," the real Elsa added.
Flabbergasted, the butler turned around and headed downstairs.
Elsa and Anja looked at each other and shared a laugh.
In truth, Elsa had always thought Anna looked a lot like her, but her strawberry blonde hair would be impossible to dye, and her eccentric personality was prone to outbursts, something that would blow her cover if she became Elsa's body double. Anja on the other hand was a lot more timid, and hence shouldn't have a hard time impersonating the calm demeanor of a Queen.
"Your task for the next few days is to learn how to speak and act like me," Elsa said while helping Anja take off the ice dress. "You will have to observe me and copy my facial expressions, the speed of my hand movements, the way of I walk, everything."
"Yes, your majesty," Anja said.
"Elsa!" Anna exclaimed as her sister walked down the stairs. She had kept on her ice dress and it glittered in the late afternoon sunlight.
His eyes still filled with shock, Kai watched the royal Queen come down the stairs. He could swear that he just saw two Elsas speak to him.
"Anna," Elsa smiled and gave her sister a hug.
"Were you with Rainer?" Anna whispered into her ear, her voice burning with curiosity.
"I will tell you everything in the library," Elsa said.
Elsa put both of her hands on Anna's shoulder and smiled. "Bring Kristoff too."
Anna turned around to face Kristoff, who was standing idly, waiting for the two sisters to finish exchanging their whispers.
Anna nodded and signaled for Kristoff to come with her.
Once they were in the library and the doors safely closed behind them, Elsa let out a deep breath and relaxed. Between these shelves filled with hundreds of volumes of Arendelle's history, Elsa could relax and speak openly without political consequences. Even with Anja she had to be careful. She needed Anja, but she didn't trust her not to at least leak a little bit of information.
Facing Anna and Kristoff, she told the pair about everything that had happened today. How she instructed Anja to spy on Rainer so that she could seek him out. She told how she disguised herself, sneaked out of the castle and went outside on her own to talk to Rainer in the Arendelle Park. Her face slightly reddened when she told her sister and her lover how Rainer carried her to safety and how Rainer used his gold to buy the innkeeper's silence. Then in hushed whispers, she talked about how she became intimate with Rainer inside the room and how she stopped right when he was about to climax. Finally, she told about how Rainer helped her find a better disguise and how Count Fidenzia helped her get back into her own castle.
"Well...about that," Anna bit her lower lip.
"What do you mean?" Elsa asked.
After some hesitation, Anna told Elsa about how she used an even larger sum of gold to buy the information from the innkeeper.
With a sigh, Elsa closed her eyes and covered face with her hand.
"Anna..." she exhaled, not sure how else to react to her sister's knuckle headed stubbornness.
"It's Ok...it was only fifty royal gold pieces," Anna waved her hand.
"FIFTY! GOLD!" Kristoff exclaimed and jumped out of the chair he was sitting in. "FIFTY GOLD! I thought you gave him a bag of copper coins!"
"Is that lot of money?" Anna bit her lower lip.
"Anna, that is enough money to a buy a lifetime's worth of carrots for Sven," Kristoff shook his head.
"Oops," Anna bit her lower lip again and averted her eyes.
"It doesn't matter," Elsa said. Fifty gold coins was nothing to the royal treasury. "More importantly, what do you two think of Rainer?"
Both sisters automatically looked to Kristoff, who was the only man in the room and both assumed he as a man would be a better judge for Rainer.
Scratching his jaw, the merchant inside Kristoff awoke. Anna could almost hear the wheels turning inside his head, his narrowed eyes deep in thought.
"Definitely Rainer is attracted to you, Elsa, I mean your majesty," Kristoff said, still unsure of how he should address his potential sister-in-law. "If he didn't care for you, he wouldn't have gone to such a desperate measures to keep you safe."
"But..." he added. "After your last move, I think you have definitely increased his feelings, but we can't be sure of how close he is to confessing his plans and joining Arendelle. Right now, I think progress with Rainer is solid and I'm not worried about that as long as you continue with your tortuous advances."
Kristoff stopped talking, but both sisters could tell from his face that there was something else on his mind.
"The person that worries me the most is Count Fidenzia," Kristoff scratched his chin.