Chapter 29 – Alternatives

Anna waved as Elsa and the guards left the castle courtyard. She understood that Elsa still felt she needed to "fix" things. Well, kind of. Anna was happy to finally have Elsa back in her life, but Anna didn't always understand Elsa. But if Elsa said that she needed to do something, Anna would support her, even if it meant not seeing her sister for a few days.

Elsa's party now gone, Anna twirled back towards the castle. But before completing the maneuver, she noticed something. "Huh, that's weird."

It was the sunrise. It wasn't like she had never seen a sunrise before, but rarely in this configuration. Anna tended to sleep late, usually needing the castle staff to wake her if there was anything important she needed to get up to attend, rare though that was. And so, she rarely saw the sunrise. She'd seen it more often in the winter, since the days are so much shorter and the sun rises later. But in the winter, it rose in the southeast, coming up over the fjord. Now, in late summer, it rose in the northeast, lighting up the city and the ships at the docks. She couldn't remember ever seeing it quite like this before. It was beautiful.

But after only a few moments of appreciation, Anna's contemplations were interrupted by the rumbling of her stomach. She was up, so no point going back to bed. Besides, with Elsa gone, Anna was temporary-Queen, so it would be interesting to live the day like Elsa. But first, breakfast.

Sitting now at the head of the family dining table, Anna sipped at the pale yellowish juice Gitta had served her. It was a bit bitter and made her tongue tingle. But that's what Gitta said Elsa usually drank in the morning with her breakfast.

"Are you sure, Your Highness?" Gitta seemed surprised first by Anna arriving so early, and then by Anna asking to be served Elsa's usual breakfast. "It's not like what you usually have."

But Anna insisted. And a few minutes after the juice, there came the rest, some bread with butter, and a plate with slices of cheese, meat, and fish. Cold.

It was okay, but not really Anna's thing. But she made the best of it, putting the meat and cheese between a couple slices of bread and making a sandwich out of it. She tasted the fish, but it was wasn't her thing. And it was bit too pink, which just didn't seem right. So she left that behind.

Breakfast, such as it was, complete, Anna now contemplated her next course of action as temporary-Queen. Elsa had rescheduled any official meetings, so she didn't have to deal with any of those, so what was left for Anna to do with her regal powers?

Anna returned to her room to get dressed properly for the day. Pree, now officially Anna's lady-in-waiting, was, in fact, waiting in Anna's room, a dress laid out on the bed, hair brushes and ribbons laid out upon the vanity.

Pree curtsied. "Good Morning, Your Highness."

"Hey Pree!" called out Anna. "Oh, good choice for the dress." Anna sat down in front of the vanity and Pree proceeded to brush out this morning's case of bed-head. "Ow!"

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, there was a knot. Well, several—"

"Do you think we should do something fancy with my hair? You know, because I'm Queen today?"

"Well, I can—"

"Except there's nothing to Queen at today, so I guess it doesn't really matter."

"Of course, Your High—"

"But then as Queen, I can make something happen, right?"

"I guess—"

Anna spun around, so fast that Pree lost her grip on the hairbrush which remained stuck fast in Anna unruly shock of red.

"Hey, what do you do when you have a day off? When you decide what you want to do?"

The brush now out of reach, Pree clasped her hands behind her back. "Well, I usually visit my mother, and sometimes meet a few of my friends and go into the town."

"Hmm," declared Anna pensively. Anna turned back to the mirror, and so Pree took the opportunity to extricate the hairbrush and resume her work. And after several further minutes of diligent effort, Anna's hair was wrangled into an elegant up-do.

Shortly thereafter, Anna emerged from her room, now properly accoutered. "Pree, please find Master Kai. There's some Queen stuff I want to do today."


A little less than an hour later, Anna was in a sitting room with the recently summoned Helga Alweign, working out the details of their day.

"So I've sent word to Chef Hellstrøm that we're going to have a luncheon, but he needs to know for how many," Anna began. "I'm not sure. I want to invite all my friends, but then I realized I don't have that many… I've been stuck in the castle for so long, I don't know that many people. Some of the castle staff, I guess, but that's not the same thing. But then I thought of you and all the people I met at your party, and that would be great, but I don't know if I can really call them friends yet. I can say you're my friend, though, right?"

"Oh, I hope so, Your Highness—" Helga said excitedly.

"Great! So if you're my friend, if there's nothing royal going on, call me Anna, okay?" With Helga's eager nod, Anna continued, "So, do you think we can get many of them to come, I mean it's pretty short notice and all…"

"Actually," suggested Helga, "we could invite my sisters."

"Huh? I though you only had one."

"No, not Britta, my sister sister. She's busy with her Lieutenant Lovey-Dovey all day, anyway. No, I meant my sisters, my classmates at Madam Siggen's Finishing School. You know about Siggenskole, right?"

"No…"

"Really? Madam Tarja, our year's housemistress, says you would have been a student with us, in our year, if the King hadn't closed the gates. Queen Elsa would have attended too, for a while anyway, until she would have gone back to the castle to learn how to be Queen and all. But you should have been with us! Anyway, school doesn't start back up for a few more weeks, our final year, but most of everyone should be in town, so a lot of them should be able to come."

Anna was quiet for a few moments. "I was supposed to go to school with you? In town, with other people?"

Helga nodded. "Madam Tarja says that Arendelle's princesses have been coming to Siggenskole for forever, it's a tradition. She said it was actually quite a controversy when you didn't come. Princesses and other noble's daughters from other kingdoms attend the school too, though there isn't anyone special there right now."

"Okay, let's do it! Do you think they'll come? I mean it's just me, not Elsa."

"Are you crazy?! An invitation to the castle? Of course, they'll want to come. And even more because it's you!"

It took another hour to get all the invitations written, addressed, and finally handed over to Master Kai to be sent by messengers across the city. That completed, Anna and Helga continued their strategizing.

"So, we'll already have a bunch of people in the castle," plotted Anna, "so they'll already be here for the next part. There was this troupe of actors performing in the courtyard the other day, a play about a princess and a tiger and a lamp or something like that, I'm not completely sure… but it looked great! So I've sent them a note asking them to perform their play here in the castle, in the ballroom, this evening."

"Sounds like it's going to be a great day," Helga noted excitedly.

"Yeah. I just wish Elsa was here for all of it. She's been doing all the hard work of being queen, so it seems unfair that I'm doing the fun stuff." Anna stood up and began pacing in thought. "I'll just have to have her make me queen again, and my first order will be that she has fun. We can do some of the same kind of things, have nice lunch with friends, maybe not so many, she prefers it a bit more quiet and personal, and a play or a concert after, though I think she'd like something a bit more serious. Maybe something from history put to music… something like The Decline and Fall of the Great Southern Empire: The Musical!"


"… and so Signi went around telling everyone that Thalia had moved to Terra Nova. So when Thalia actually arrived back at school, she had to get all her stuff from storage since it had all been packed up to be shipped away!"

"I told you, I was tricked," exclaimed Signi in her own defense. "Petra told me that Thalia's family had moved away, and you never told me it wasn't true."

"Oh sure, blame Petra when she isn't here to defend herself."

The nine women, all sitting around a large table in the castle's formal dining hall, talked and laughed, telling stories and such. Ravnhild, the instigator of the latest exchange, sat next to Helga, who herself was sitting next to Anna, who held the position at the head of the table being both the gathering's hostess, and, of course, current regent of the kingdom.

The serving staff were currently clearing the dishes from the main course and were now pouring glasses of a honey mead that was recommended for the princess by Chef Hellstrøm himself. Anna had tried a few sips earlier and was surprised by its sweetness. Not strong or sharp, like the wines Elsa seemed to favor. This was much more her style, and agreed that it be served along with the dessert, a delicious krumkake with lingonberry sauce.

The luncheon was going wonderfully, in Anna's opinion, the seniors of the Siggenskole having immediately accepted Anna as an honorary member of their class. They told stories of both their adventures and their tragedies since they started their time together at the school ten years ago. Anna could only imagine what her life might have been like if her parents, the King and Queen, had decided to enroll her in the school, instead of keeping her in the castle, behind the closed gates. Instead of the loneliness, she would have had all these girls as her constant companions, as her sisters. They couldn't replace her real sister, of course, but for all that time that Elsa refused to be with her, to interact with her in any way, she could have had these sisters instead. Who knows how things would have been different.

"… so would you want to, and do you think the Queen would let you?"

"Sorry, what?" Anna realized that she had gotten a bit lost in her thoughts and had missed Ravnhild's question.

"Join us for our last year at the Siggenskole? Arendelle princesses are supposed to attend, and now that the Queen has opened the gates… do you think she'd let you?"

"Wow. I… I don't know. I mean, I guess so. But Elsa, um, the Queen, wants me to help with some queen-stuff… but then she also wants me to learn more about the world so I can help her with the queen-stuff…"

"I'm sure if she told Madam Tarja what she wants you to study, they'd arrange things for you. I mean you are the crown-princess. And when you have royal duties to perform, the castle is just a short carriage ride away."

"Oh." Anna now really had to think about it. Now that she had Elsa back in her life, she was reluctant to do anything that would keep her away, but Elsa worked on queen-stuff and had meetings, so it wasn't like she sees her much during the day anyway, and she'd only be in the town, not another country or anything, so they'd still see each other all the time, and it would only be for one year, then she'd back at the castle full-time, able to help with the queen-stuff all the better. But then she couldn't leave Elsa all alone again, not after all this time…

"I don't know. Maybe. I'll have to talk to Elsa about it, of course."

"Of course," agreed Ravnhild.

"Hey," jumped in a new voice, Corinne, from near the other end of the table, "remember the winter during out third year when there was so much snow that we couldn't even get out of the dormitories for a week? Ran out of bread, milk, and eggs after three days, and we were just eating soup for the rest of the time until they could finally dig us out. Housemistress Maivi was getting so crazy being trapped, she was ready to start digging out herself…"


After the luncheon, there were still several hours before the performers would be ready to start their production, which Anna had since learned was something of a musical version of an old fairy tale called Aladdin. Anna remembered reading the story a long time ago, something about a kingdom and boy and a djinn granting wishes, but she couldn't really remember the details, and she had read a lot of fairy tales when she was little, and alone.

So, to fill the intervening time, Anna decided to give her new friends a tour of the castle.

"…and this is another sitting room, we call this one the Red Room, because, well, that's the color of all everything in it." Anna opened the door and stood aside for the group to look in, showing the fourth such room, this, as described, equipped with a divan and several chairs, upholstered with a fine, red velour, and the walls adorned with a wine red wallpaper embellished with a gold filigree.

The circuit had comprised the various rooms around the main level of the castle, starting with the throne room, stopping by the several receiving areas, circling the ball room, checking each of the private sitting rooms, revisiting the formal dining hall, and finally arriving in the portrait gallery.

"…which came from the Frankish Kingdom around 1260 A.L., if I'm remembering what Professor Lugdensen said."

"It must really be something to live in a castle," said Sittona, who had otherwise been quiet for most of the tour. "I mean, we all have nice houses, but it's nothing like this."

"Well, it's not really the same, is it," countered Signi. "We don't need to hold court or receive foreign princes, do we. So the castle has to be so fancy and ornate. But not very personal."

"Well, Elsa and I actually live up in the private residential wing up on the third floor—"

"You know, it's kind of like how it is for Thora," contributed Vigdis from the back of the group.

"Who?"

"Thora Ingendatter. She's in our class, but she came to the Siggenskole different from the rest of us. She's an orphan and attends on a scholarship. I mean, nothing wrong with that, Freya knows, she's probably the smartest one of all of us. But since she has no family, she actually lives at the school, even during breaks over the summer. Well, sometimes she stays with one of us, but essentially the school is her home. So she has her room, which is hers, but the rest of the school is like the castle, all formal and for a particular purpose."

The comparison struck Anna. That amongst all the women in "her class", she, a rich princess who has servants and lives in a castle, might have the most in common with someone who attended the school on charity.


With the afternoon concluded, they moved on to the evening's entertainment. Since the theater troupe and the castle staff were going through so much extra effort to set up a royal performance at such short notice, Anna and Helga had decided to invite more people to see it, to make it worth the trouble.

And so, in the ballroom, the stage was constructed at one end, curtains and false walls erected to allow the performers an area for preparation, and several rows of chairs arranged on ever increasing risers. The chairs ultimately ended with an improvised "royal box," two much nicer chairs on their own risers, set above a bit from the rest.

Now, had this all been happening with Elsa in the castle, it would be Elsa with Anna as her companion. But with Elsa away, and Anna as regent, Anna's the royal-in-the-box, and so who would be her companion? She'd invite Kristoff, but he's off climbing up the North Mountain with Elsa. Then, maybe Helga, since they had been together for the day setting everything up, but she wanted to sit with her sort-of boyfriend. ("Well, he's attending the University of Oslo, so I don't see him a lot, but when he's back in Arendelle, he calls on me, so I don't know…") So having run out of ideas, Helga suggested that she invite the only other royal in Arendelle at the moment, Jean-Pierre, Viscount of Mont Blanc.

"So…" started Anna, "been doing anything interesting lately?" People were still getting to their seats, and protocol was, to Anna's surprise, that the royals would be the last to be seated, and only then would the performance begin. And so, in the meantime, Anna and Jean-Pierre waited in the comfort of a near-by sitting room.

"Well, since I have only a short time left in Arendelle before I must return home, I have taken the opportunity to sail about the fjord, taking in the beauty of the water and the heights, and of the mild temperatures." Jean-Pierre smiled and took a sip of wine, then continued. "I see you have taken to your newfound authority with aplomb and produced an exciting production on short notice. And your selection of guests, inviting only from the more youthful of social circles, has caused quite a stir. You are the talk of the town."

Anna blushed. That people in town were talking about her, the spare, was funny. But as long as she had Jean-Pierre here, she decided to find something out.

"We all enjoyed ourselves at Helga and Britta's party… um, you like Elsa, right?"

"Yes, of course. I quite enjoyed our time together that night."

"So… would you be interested in courting her?"

Jean-Pierre raised his eyebrows in surprise at the content and directness of the question. "Court her? Well, it's not quite so simple a matter as that."

"It isn't?"

"We are royals, your sister, you, and I. And as royals, we have certain duties. You see, my father is the Duke of Savoy, but it is his intention that my brother inherit a kingdom. And to create a kingdom, one must have allies, strong allies. And nothing cements an alliance like matrimony."

"Well, if you have to marry another royal to make an alliance…?"

"Elsa is a charming, intelligent, beautiful woman, and were we to be joined, I believe we might actually be happy together. But by this time next year, I will be the consort of the Princess Rosalia of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. My brother is already married to a princess of Genoa, and my little sister will one day wed an heir to the Duchy of Parma. It has already been negotiated and planned out. I fear this will be my last visit to Arendelle for quite some time."

Anna was quiet, thinking. She knew that she was expected to marry another royal, but also that Elsa wouldn't force her. Marrying a prince was always so romantic in the stories, and that was probably part of why she fell for Prince Hans so easily. But to think it was really so much more like a business arrangement was depressing, and she felt sorry for Jean-Pierre.


Despite the discomfort caused by her conversation with Jean-Pierre, Anna enjoyed the performance. While it didn't seem to stick too close to the original story, Anna was particularly entertained by the Djinni character, painted all in blue and telling the silliest of jokes.

Afterwards, she gathered with most of her original luncheon party, their companions, and Jean-Pierre, for a light evening meal, drinks and sandwiches. They were set out on a balcony on the rear of the castle, that provided a view of the mountains, the sun now starting to set along the peaks.

Her day as Queen had gone very well, finding new friends having a wonderful time with them. But nibbling on a sandwich and gazing up into the heights, she couldn't help but feel that it all would have been so much better had Elsa been here with her. She could only imagine what Elsa was doing right now.