The Visitors

High Admiral Naismith entered Elsa's office and bowed. "Your Majesty," he said.

"Yes, admiral, thank you for coming. Please have a seat."

He sat stiffly in the padded chair without taking his focus off of her.

"Have you found someone matching the job description I gave you?"

"You'll meet him tomorrow, your majesty. He's the son of one of your queens' own. His name is Bo Nyberg."

Elsa was somewhat surprised. Of course she new her guard Valen Nyberg, and she knew a bit about his family, and they weren't farmers. "He has farming experience?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And his family won't be burdened by his absence?"

"No ma'am. He's been working as an extra on others' farms for several years now, and more because he wants to than because he has to, as I understand it. When I circulated your requested qualifications, it didn't take him long to jump at the opportunity. No doubt he heard about it from his father."

Elsa thought for a moment. "Do you have any concerns about a conflict of interest with both him and his father working directly for the crown?"

"No ma'am. I know the boy, and he's diligent and scrupulous. I probed him a bit to make sure he wasn't being pushed by his father, and as far as I can see he isn't. He's excited to work for the crown."

Chivalrous, she thought. Elsa smiled, then her smile faded as she turned to the next conversation topic. "There's something else. In addition to everything else that's going on right now, I have received intelligence that may suggest that I am being targeted for assassination."

The admiral's frown focused on a point on the front of her desk. "Are there actionable specifics, your majesty?" he asked.

"Only that he is an old man - or at least he looks like an old man. Tall, with short white hair. I mistook Mr. Olofsson for him yesterday."

He nodded in recognition. "Is this someone you know?"

"No." She paused. "And I don't know what he's capable of. I know that his apparent age is no obstacle to his abilities. I fear his abilities might be -" she hesitated. "Might be magical."

The admiral's eyebrows went up. "I see," he said. His frown deepened. "You know I operate on the assumption that there's always a conspiracy targeting you somewhere," he said. "I will certainly pass the word around to the men to be suspicious and circumspect; we can increase the guard in places; but without additional details I won't be able to make any additional changes intelligently. Haphazard changes can be worse than consistency. I can make one recommendation to you immediately though, and that is to keep your schedule secret, varied, and spontaneous. I know it will drive the council crazy, but you'll even have to call meetings at the last minute - and cancel them at the last minute."

Elsa's shoulders sagged. This was so unlike her. But she could see the wisdom in the admiral's advice. "Thank you," Elsa replied. "Is everything in order for tomorrow?"

"Yes ma'am. We'll be taking the King Agnar out a second time today to verify that nothing unexpected resulted following our first trip."

Elsa raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"When a ship comes out of dry dock, its first voyage finds the big leaks, but it's well advised to take a few more to find any small ones - particularly before a major trip."

"I see; thank you. I appreciate your thoroughness, as always. I'll see you on the dock tomorrow."

He rose, bowed, and left the room.

Elsa startled awake with a shudder that traveled the length of her body. She probably would have fallen back to sleep and not even have remembered it in the morning, had she not heard a familiar voice in the darkness next to her on the bed.

"I'm sorry; I'm sorry. I'll just go. I didn't mean to wake you."

"Anna!" She sat up. "Is everything OK?"

There was a pause, and then a sniff. "I'm scared."

Me too, she wanted to say, but that's not what Anna needed to hear. Elsa reached over and managed to poke Anna in her effort to pull her into a hug.

"Ow."

"Sorry." Elsa persisted and her next attempt was successful. They remained in that position for several long minutes. "Do you -" Elsa began.

"Can I -" Anna said simultaneously. They shared a quiet chuckle. "Go ahead."

"Do you want to stay here tonight?"

Another sniff. "OK," Anna answered weakly.

"Won't Kristoff miss you?"

"He'll figure it out."

Elsa smiled. Of course he would. She started to snuggle down into the familiar position of being nestled around Anna's back, but got a gentle elbow in the ribs.

"No; I'm going to have your back tonight."

Elsa's smile widened. It wasn't a particularly good fit, since she was the taller one, but they made it work. Elsa tried to stay awake long enough to hear the sound of Anna's relaxed breathing, but it didn't happen this night.

Anna, Kristoff, Olaf, and a full contingent of the Queen's Own guard accompanied Elsa to the dock the following day where the admiral was already awaiting them. Half of the guards - the ones with sailing experience - began boarding the King Agnar. They would be replacing some of the regular crewmen since the command ship wasn't that large. The remainder of the guards were already aboard the two escort ships that would be accompanying them. The admiral himself had also insisted on accompanying her. This would be a first for Elsa, participating on a voyage with the admiral himself. Part of her had wondered whether there would be any issues with the chain of command. She doubted it. It wasn't like the admiral to overstep his place. She doubted herself more. She hoped she had the wisdom to know when to shut up and let the sailors do what they were best at.

Anna's stance this day looked a lot like Elsa's: quiet and thoughtful, with her hands folded in front of her. It certainly wasn't a look Elsa was used to seeing on her sister.

She walked over and cupped Anna's face in her hands. "I'll be fine," she assured her.

"I know," said Anna. "This time I'm actually thinking you might be safer on a ship than here." She huffed. "Can you believe those words just came out of my mouth?"

Elsa pulled her into a hug. She wanted to give her more assurances, but she didn't have any. After lingering there, they released one another and Elsa took Kristoff's hand. "Watch out for her, baron" she said.

He rolled his eyes. "You hear that, Anna? You're supposed to let me keep up."

Elsa smirked. "Queen's orders," she added, tapping Anna on the chest. She turned her attention back to Kristoff. "Did you get to meet Mr. Bo Nyberg?"

He nodded and gave a thumbs-up. "He's solid," he said.

Elsa briefly wondered if she should be taking Kristoff with her. She would likely need to be doing some speedy character assessing in Falster, and she respected his judgement and feel for people. She knew he would come if she asked him, but she also knew his heart was with Anna. So was Elsa's. If someone came looking for her while she was away, she wanted someone capable and trustworthy at Anna's side. She gave Kristoff a nod and a smile. She gave Olaf a pat on the head and then boarded the ship. It was a much less frightening action than it had been last time.

Kristoff wrapped his arm around Anna as Olaf called "bye-bye!" waving his twiggy arms to Elsa aboard the ship. Elsa's mind was already starting to be in two places. What was ahead in Crescent Bay and Mittergaard was crowding its way in, but it would be impossible to completely push out the recent revelations and ominous foreshadowing that hung over her in Arendelle. Again she was facing the unknown, but at least she wasn't facing it alone. At least ... she hoped that was a good thing.

She remained on the deck as the crew went through the motions of getting the ship under way. Kristoff and Anna remained on the shore, Kristoff with his arm around Anna while she leaned against him. Olaf was wandering in wider and wider circles around them, distracted by dock workers, butterflies, flowers, and even his reflection in the water. It was enough to give her a slight smile. She made her way to the poop deck as the King Agnar sailed out of the fjord and turned south to begin its journey down to Crescent Bay. She had decided to wear her snow queen outfit today; she wasn't sure why. The unhindered north wind caught her skirt and her train and made them billow behind her. The weather was fair, and the waves even. She hardly noticed them this time. There were intermittent clouds in the sky, spaced out far enough to see blue all around them. Each one cast a shadow on the water that was clearly visible without the normal vistas of the Arendelle terrain to hide them. The ship was accompanied by the normal cadre of white birds, come circling high, others coming close enough to alight briefly on the rigging. At last, Elsa though. Time to think. But then her eyes wandered to those birds on the rigging, and she was pricked with that familiar sense of loss. She chastised herself for allowing it, but it was a part of her now. Is Olaf in danger too? she suddenly wondered. She didn't need any more losses.

You knew, she contemplated. Why didn't you tell me? Would you ever have told me? What else did you know? What else must I stumble into? She had been separated from Anna for Anna's safety, and the castle had been shut down until she could "learn to control it." What kind of control were her parents imagining? Complete suppression, for her own safety from a wandering assassin whose mandate it was to snuff out magic among mankind? Why hadn't the trolls told her? Whose side were they on? Did they think she was probably safe because she was born with the powers, not "cursed?" Right now her inclination was to be incensed, but she recognized this as one of the first stages of a process of acceptance. It was a good thing that she didn't have anyone to lash out at right now. You've kept a lot of secrets too, haven't you? she recalled. She winced at her hypocrisy, and her gaze fell. But that was for their safety... She looked back out over the water. It seemed making decisions for others' safety was a consequence of love. Perhaps it was time to do some more of it: in her ice castle, come what may, she could face this man without anyone else getting hurt. But she was the queen, and that meant not leaving her duties. What was the alternative? Tell everyone else to leave? She sighed in frustration.

She drew a sudden breath. Heinrick. The courtship. There was no official start date, but that whole idea was going to have to be put on hold until this matter was resolved. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she thought maybe the fewer people she drew into her risk-laden life the better. There were always some specialized risks that came with being royalty, but this particular risk was specialized to her. Maybe Arendelle will just have to do without a king, she thought. The notion of having someone in her life had been so foreign until just recently that it really was no great retreat to return there. Or so she hoped. She didn't look forward to breaking it to Heinrick though.

Fenris. It was still true that Elsa and Heinrick were two of only five people who knew exactly who he was, the remaining three being he himself and his parents. Installing him as a king was a roll of the dice. She had seen him demonstrate bitterness once, anger once, and committed altrusm once. She prayed it would be the latter that won out in Falster. Whoever Hermod found to surround him with, she hoped they were really good choices - people with a lot of patience and grace. At the moment setting him up as king simply seemed better than the alternatives. It really could go either way, though.

But no matter what she thought of it, it remained true that the position was rightfully his.

The King Agnar arrived in Crescent Bay the following afternoon. It had been an uneventful trip, and Elsa had left off rehearsing her speech to Heinrick and allowed curiosity about Buck's visitors to trickle in. She was also somewhat curious to see what state of mind she would find Fenris in. She had turned down Admiral Naismith's request to accompany her, but of course, he would not hear of her leaving behind her guards.

Baron Buck was waiting for her with horses and a wagon when she disembarked. Fenris' house was not far out of town and it would only take about ten minutes to reach it. They had no idea how much stuff Fenris planned to bring with him (although Elsa couldn't imagine it being very much); hence the wagon. She had dressed for the journey by horseback - wearing shimmering silvery-white riding pants, dark blue boots embroidered with snowflakes, and a dark blue long-sleeved riding jacket, also embroidered with snowflakes. Her customary platinum blond braid cascaded over her left shoulder.

"Your majesty, welcome," Buck said with a bow.

She nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you." She gestured towards the tall, stocky young man who had disembarked behind her, and who was slowly passing his gaze around the town, taking it all in carefully. "I'd like you to meet Bo Nyberg. I have specific work I need Mr. Fenris to do, as you know, and so I've employed Mr. Nyberg to assist his family in his absence. I trust you two will develop a good working relationship."

Buck nodded, not missing the polite directive. "Pleased to meet you, sir," he said.

"Likewise," Bo answered with quiet confidence.

"What of your visitors?" she asked Buck.

He grimaced. "They've revived, your majesty, but they're being perfectly intransigent. They won't tell us anything - not even their names. They say they will only speak with the snow queen."

Elsa frowned. "I don't have the time for this," she said. "Perhaps I can help get them talking to you though. May I see them briefly now?"

"Yes, of course. Follow me." He led her and her guards several streets over to a fairly plain two-story house. Their entrance caught everyone off-guard; there were hasty bows and curtsies. Buck held his hand out to a man as he passed, and the man placed a small ring of keys into it. They climbed the narrow staircase and came to a shut door, which Buck unlocked. He opened it, and with a "your majesty," gestured for her to enter.

The man and young woman were standing in front of a pair of chairs and a small table. They had obviously been sitting there and had risen upon hearing the door being unlocked. The man looked unlike any she had seen before. He was a good head and shoulders taller than the girl, with dark skin - darker than the people of Mittergaard - and with black hair pulled back into a short pony tail, and a noble penetrating gaze. The young woman looked to be a teenager. She was pale with evergreen eyes; her wavy jet-black hair came nearly to her waist and seemed to have little hints of red at some of the tips. She was lithe and had high cheekbones. She would have been stunningly beautiful if she wasn't such a frightened bird. She wasn't quite clinging to the man's side, but almost. Her eyes remained at the floor, shifting nervously. The man had a protective arm around her. No one spoke.

Elsa turned her head slightly towards Buck and said, "leave us."

He cleared his throat. "Your majesty, the way they've been acting, I wonder if -"

"Leave us," she repeated curtly. He gave a quick bow and shut the door.

After another awkward moment of standing silently, Elsa said, "I understand you will only speak with the snow queen." Neither of them answered. She wasn't exactly dressed like a queen today, although her embroidery ought to have counted for something, she would have thought, but their hesitation made sense. Elsa tapped her foot on the floor and ice rolled out in every direction and climbed the walls to the ceiling. The man looked about in wonder; the young woman twitched as if she had been struck, but Elsa did note that her eyes briefly flicked to catch hers. With a wave of her hand, the ice dissipated into a fog which quickly cleared. "I only have a few minutes, so please say what you need to say."

"Your majesty," the man began in an accent that Elsa didn't recognize. "Please forgive us for being so uncooperative. There is much danger, both for us, and, we fear, for you. That is why we've come. To warn you. We fear you are being targeted for assassination."

"By an old man with short white hair?"

The man's mouth dropped open. The woman's eyes were fixated on Elsa now, and she was trembling slightly.

"Are we too late?" he breathed.

"No," she said. "At least, I don't think so. Some peculiar things have happened lately, but I am on my guard."

The young woman whispered something under her breath.

The man looked from her back to Elsa and relayed, "She said, 'not enough'"

Elsa nodded. "What is your place in this?" she asked.

"We have powers too," the young woman replied, barely audibly. Then she cringed against the man's side, as if afraid she would be punished for speaking.

Elsa suppressed a gasp. It took her a moment to register the impact of what she had just heard. Oh, no, she thought. Three of us, in one place. She put a hand to her head, the other across her waist, and exhaled deeply. "I'm going to have to decide if it's a good thing that you're here or not," she said gently, "but I can't decide that now - I'm in the middle of a trip that I can't postpone. I have to leave, but I should be back in a week or two. We can talk more then. In the meantime, I will instruct your hosts that you are to be allowed to roam as you wish. What are your names?"

The pair's eyes met briefly. "I'm Johan, and this is Ambrelle."

"Johan, Ambrelle, I trust that you will say nothing of this to anyone. Do you understand?"

"Yes, your majesty," he nodded. She just looked forlornly at the floor.

What has that girl been through? Elsa wondered as she left. She could so easily see herself in Ambrelle; in fact, at times during her long isolation - more times than she would like to admit - that girl's face captured her exact mood. It was fear, for certain, but it was more: it was a worldview of despair built on the notion that her fate was sealed, that there was nothing she could do to change the course of her future. Elsa remembered holding the scepter and orb at her coronation, and watching the ice creep up. She remembered the astonished eyes of the guests piercing her when she first lost control before them all. Her fate certainly seemed sealed then. She had run - and felt free briefly - but it had only delayed it. They had come looking for her. Had Ambrelle run? If she had powers, of course she had. It was inevitable, wasn't it? Perhaps it was even more wondrous that her companion Johan appeared as emotionally stable as he did. What had diverted Elsa's course from ending up looking like such a broken frightened being? The answer was obvious: it was Anna. Just thinking her name warmed Elsa from within. Elsa thanked whatever gods there were yet again for the unwavering, stabilizing presence of Anna in her life. What had Heinrick called Elsa? The "guiding light" in his odyssey to healing? It was still mystifying that she would be a guiding light to anyone, particularly in the condition she was in at the time. Maybe that was the role that Johan was playing in Ambrelle's life now. Maybe he simply arrived a little too late.

And what of Johan? His carriage was noble, but his hands were those of an outdoors-man. And his nose... It reminded her of statues she had seen in her books of people in Roman times. They were an interesting pair, to be sure.

They rejoined the rest of the group of soldiers and townspeople, where Bo had mounted the wagon and was waiting patiently. She could see his belongings loaded in the wagon. Elsa mounted the horse Buck had provided and they began their trip.

Queen Elsa arrived at Fenris' house with an entourage of guards, Baron Buck, and a lightly loaded wagon being driven by a young man. Maria, Fenris' mother, was standing out front tossing seed down to a group of chickens. She looked taken aback by the size of the group accompanying Elsa, and curtsied deeply as they drew to a halt. Elsa gave her a warm smile and a nod. "Good day, Maria. I've brought you that helper," she said, gesturing to Bo in the wagon. Bo have a bow of his head.

Maria looked over as if sizing him up, and then nodded. "I'll tell Fenris you're here." She walked to the house as briskly as her country dress would allow and a moment after disappearing inside they heard the loud ringing of a bell from behind the house. A few minutes later Fenris crested the rise in the distance. Elsa saw him break into a jog once he realized who was here. He arrived, sweaty and panting, shortly after. Elsa could see his father Quince in the distance also, coming more slowly.

"You're here!" he said, as if there had been some doubt or confusion. "Do I have time to wash up?"

"Yes; we still have about an hour before the tides change and affect our departure. Is there stuff we can start loading for you while we wait?"

"Um - yes - mostly."

Bo got down from the wagon and began unloading his stuff. Several of the guards dismounted and followed Fenris. Quince arrived and greeted the queen. "Good day, your majesty. What's with all the guards?"

Elsa smiled at his innocent lack of decorum. "The chief of my military has had some concerns for my safety lately," she said.

His eyebrows raised as he processed this. "Well, I hope everything turns out well," he concluded. "If you don't mind, I'll go see if Fenris needs anything." She nodded, and he walked into the house.

Bo had piled his stuff on the ground, out of the way of the wagon. The guards began bringing things from the house: several old trunks and numerous sacks. It was enough to cover the bottom of the wagon one layer deep.

Fenris emerged from the house looking much fresher. His farm clothes had been exchanged for ... church clothes maybe? and he had tamed his hair. His parents emerged with him and they all approached the queen. She could see tears in all of their eyes.

"Take good care of him," said Quince. "And if he gives you any trouble, you just let me know." Maria rolled her eyes.

Maria gave Fenris one last kiss and Elsa heard her whisper to him, "Godspeed my son. We love you. We always will. And we'll help you any way you need us to." They all engaged in one last firm family hug. Then Quince bowed, Maria curtsied, and they walked slowly back to the farm house, Quince with his arm around Maria as she leaned her head on his shoulder.

When Fenris finally turned his attention back to Elsa, she gestured with a slight smile: "the wagon is for you."

"Oh," he said. He climbed aboard and took up the reigns. She waited as he held them, looking out over what had been his home for as long as he had known. He sat looking for several long minutes.

"Are you ready?" she finally asked.

"'He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home,'" he quoted. Then he sighed deeply and smiled at her. "I have much to be thankful for. This has been a place of piece all my life. At least, anytime it was not, I have myself to blame for it." He gave the reigns a snap and they started on their way.