Author Note: This story contains themes that may make some readers uncomfortable. If femslash or the thought of two consenting adults engaging in a relationship that is considered taboo in the real world offends you, then this story is not for you. I welcome reviews and critiques, but the world already has enough hate, so please keep your flames to yourself. There are many other wonderful stories on this site, and I won't be offended if you choose one of them instead.

When the Crocus Blooms

by Maerwyth B

Chapter 1.

"What was I thinking?" Anna groaned as she replayed the scene that happened a few hours earlier.

True to her word, she had arranged to replace the sleigh Kristoff lost during their trip up the North Mountain, and on top of it, Elsa had given him an official title. Maybe her excitement overwhelmed her common sense, or maybe she didn't have any common sense to begin with, but she'd let his gratitude get way out of hand.

"Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea," she muttered, climbing the stairs toward the private wing she and Elsa shared. At the time, it did seem like a good idea. After all, he was obviously in love with her, and she was certain she was in love with him.

At first, she'd been wary; she'd met Kristoff the day after she met Hans, and even though she didn't hate him, even though he'd risked his life for her, she wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

After the initial uproar settled down and that bastard Hans was shipped back to the Southern Isles, however, she found that she liked Kristoff more than she first thought. Elsa seemed to like him too, in as much as she seemed to like anyone. So, for the past several weeks, she had been spending a lot of time with him, up in the mountains and in town. He was very familiar with the landscape and Anna soaked up everything she could about the countryside she had only heard about for so many years. It really seemed to her, as they explored together, that she was falling in love with him.

"And then today happened." Anna instinctively wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, trying to erase the memory of what was supposed to be her first kiss from her True Love. It was her first kiss, but definitely not her True Love. "What am I going to do?"

Elsa would laugh at her when she found out; laugh, or lecture her. Anna couldn't decide which. Her sister seemed to be adjusting to her new role—mostly—but now and then, something made her pull back into herself. When that happened, she appeared much more like the Ice Queen the rumor mills of Eraulia were still buzzing about than the cheerful woman who turned the courtyard into a skating rink in celebration of throwing open the gates after so many years.

It seemed she was in one of those Ice Queen moods now. She'd agreed to the new sleigh and even offered the title of her own accord, but her smile was emptier than before, her laughter muted to the point of being almost absent. When she found out about the kiss, she was likely to be very displeased.

However, Elsa was the lesser of Anna's problems. Kristoff was the first and foremost trouble in her life, after that afternoon and his giddy assumption that she loved him back just as much as he loved her.

"How am I going to tell him he's wrong?"

She reached the double doors that closed off the sisters' private chambers and smiled somewhat wanly at the guard standing beside them. She would have chatted with him on any other occasion; today, however, all she could manage was a weak hello. He bowed in response and held the door for her, closing it again once she had passed through.

Anna breathed a sigh of relief once she knew she wouldn't have to deal with anyone until she wanted to. At the moment, all she wanted was a nap. Elsa was certainly downstairs in her offices, busy with business of the realm, so she looked forward to an hour or two of solitude and silence.

"I never thought I'd look forward to solitude," she said with a pained laugh. "Or silence. Well, live and learn, I guess."

"Live and learn what?"

Hearing her sister's voice made Anna jump, and she spun to find the Queen coming out of her own door with a startled look on her face. "Elsa! Um, hi! I thought you were downstairs … you know, being Queen and doing that ruling-the-country thing. I mean, you're always the Queen, of course, but … isn't there some treaty or something you were dealing with?"

Elsa studied her, her expression turning slightly exasperated. "I don't have the right to take afternoon tea in my own sitting room?"

"Ah, of course you do!" Anna wasn't ready to tell her sister what had transpired, but she was afraid Elsa would sense something was amiss and press her as to what. "I was actually just going to … um, there's still time before dinner and … well, a nap sounded nice, so I was just going to take one. Just a nap, for no reason."

"Anna, stop babbling." Elsa's gaze narrowed and her face started to color. "Is something wrong?"

Anna tried not to blush. "No! No, of course not; what could be wrong?" She laughed nervously. "Everything's great, just wonderful. How're you?" Argh, how idiotic can you sound, Anna? She stared at the ceiling. "I mean…."

"Did Kristoff not like his sleigh?" Elsa frowned and her voice wavered just a bit. "Don't tell me he doesn't want the title. I had to write an official proclamation, have the Council debate it, and then endorse it to give it to him. That's a lot of paperwork."

"No-no-no … he loves it …them … I mean—" Anna stopped and drew in a deep breath to calm herself. More slowly, she continued. "He was thrilled with both; he told me to thank you, since you're too busy to bother with him. I mean, not that you wouldn't bother with him, just that you've got better things to do. Wait, what?" She coughed. "Since you're very busy. Being Queen and such."

Elsa stared at her, an unexpected nervousness dancing across her face. After a long, silent moment, she shook her head and sighed. "Something clearly happened, Anna. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine. I do have more important things to worry about than Kristoff, actually. Don't forget that we're having a formal dinner tonight with the trade envoys from Farson and Grottony. So for Freya's sake, get it together before then!"

"Get it …" Anna's jaw dropped. "Geez, Elsa! You don't have to be that blunt, you know."

"Unlike you, I try to express myself so that there is no misunderstanding as to what I mean." Her sister crossed her arms. "And, if I'm not direct, you don't listen to what I'm saying."

"Yes, I do!" Anna protested. "It sounds like something's wrong with you." Elsa growled and glared at her, and her face reddened even more. "Not something's wrong with you, I mean, something's on your mind." She drew in a deep breath and let it out, trying to calm herself enough to not stick her foot in her mouth again. "We haven't had bedtime tea in a while; let's have it tonight, with tarts and chocolate truffles. We can just talk about silly stuff."

Her sister frowned again, started to speak, and then glanced away. "Maybe; I have a lot of work to get through and I may not be finished in time for tea."

Anna looked at the carpet. She didn't want to admit that she really needed her sister's strength in handling Kristoff, but she needed it just the same. "Oh. Ok. I just thought you might want to spend some time together, that's all." There was no response, and when she looked back up, she was almost certain there were tears in Elsa's eyes. "Elsa?"

"I … I do want to spend time with you, Anna. I really do. I just … have too much going on right now." Elsa smiled, though it seemed forced—and a little guilty. "I'll try my best to be done in time for tea, ok?"

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Anna smiled back, glad her sister at least wanted to pay some attention to her. Being near Elsa always made her giddy; all of her troubles seemed to fly away, leaving behind only the warmth and comfort of curling up on the settee and leaning against Elsa's shoulder while her sister read a book.

Elsa seemed to enjoy it too, often slipping her arm around Anna's waist, pulling her closer, and holding her in what felt like a gentle, protective hug. When they sat like that, in a comfortable silence, Anna wanted nothing more than to be by her sister's side forever. She didn't quite understand how quickly Elsa had become a vital part of her life, vital beyond their shared parentage, but she had.

When she was distant, as she was now, there was an ache in Anna's heart that would only be calmed by her sister's smile. She didn't understand why, but even Kristoff couldn't make her feel less alone. Of course, I'm not in love with Kristoff, so I guess that makes sense.

She missed the nightly tea they were in the habit of having together. She missed the sound of her sister's voice, her laugh, and how the blue of her eyes became deeper and more intense when she spoke of their years apart. In short, she missed Elsa — which was a little confusing, considering they saw each other several times during the day, if only in passing. But miss her she did. Elsa's promise to try to have tea lifted a remarkably heavy weight off her soul.

Her heart skipped a few beats and then calmed down. Maybe Elsa was coming out of whatever funk she'd been in for the last week. Maybe Elsa could keep her from sliding into her own over Kristoff and everything that came with that. "Ok, then. I'll make sure I behave at dinner, too."

The Queen made a noise that might have been a chuckle. "Thank you. I'll see you at dinner, then."

"Sure, at dinner." Anna started toward her own rooms; the sound of Elsa's door shutting made her pause and look back. Her sister wasn't in the hall, meaning she'd gone back into her room. That's weird. Didn't she say she had a lot of work to do?

After several moments, she shrugged. Elsa would do whatever Elsa decided to do. She'd promised do her best to be finished with her work before bedtime tea, and that was all Anna could hope for. More pressingly, she needed time to process what had happened with Kristoff, to process that kiss and why it made her feel the way she did—and the way she didn't.

Hopefully, by bedtime she could relax and enjoy sitting by the fire with her sister the way they had before Elsa started pulling away. She looked forward to chatting and getting to know each other again, instead of trying to walk on eggshells, feeling like Elsa was avoiding her for some unknown reason. She wanted to be able to ask for advice in what to do about Kristoff and the kiss and not be lectured or chastised about it, which was the only way her sister seemed to respond to her lately.

I suppose she'll tell me in her own time. I think it's harder for her to open up, since she didn't really speak to anybody for all those years. I just wish I knew what was wrong, even if I can't fix it. With a final glance back down the hall, Anna went to lie down.

Elsa leaned against the hard wood of the door that separated her from her sister and wiped at her eyes to clear the tears that threatened to start flowing. She hadn't expected to run into Anna, not when Kristoff had a new toy to play with and would certainly take her for a ride—or at least talk at length about it, given that it was late summer and the only snow lay at least an hour away. In fact, she'd planned on it.

Anna had looked hurt when she snapped about dinner, and Elsa felt bad that she'd pushed so hard to escape what she was afraid would be a conversation she did not want to have with her little sister. She'd been snapping a lot in the past week, and not just at Anna, but she couldn't help it when she was so terrified of someone realizing what had put her in such a foul humor to start with.

How long was she in the hall? Elsa stared at the ceiling, praying that Anna's fumbling wasn't due to overhearing what had happened too few minutes earlier. No, she'd have done more than fumble if she heard me. A wave of guilt washed over her; not only had she done what she did, she'd done it in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday. She rubbed her forearm across her eyes again as they misted over once more.

She wasn't completely certain when she'd fallen in love with Anna, but she had — and hard. In less than two months, the joy of reuniting with the sister she'd last seen as a small child had turned into raging, mind-numbing hunger for the grown woman she'd just met. Worse, she'd finally figured out exactly what it was she wanted, and how she would do it given the chance.

"I am such a horrible sister," she muttered. "Absolutely horrible. I have to get this under control, before she does find out about it."

Elsa managed to chuckle, though weakly. It was a little hard to believe she could control anything regarding Anna when she had just spent an hour in her bedroom imagining that the fingers touching her belonged to her sister. How could she control anything when all she could think about was seeing Anna naked across her bed?

She hadn't lied when she said she had a lot of work to do. She'd pushed back a meeting with two envoys from important trade partners, on the pretense of taking an early tea, so that she could come upstairs and fantasize about her little sister.

The meeting was intended to assuage fears that Arendelle wouldn't be stable enough to continue trade with, due to the new Queen's ability to freeze summer—and people. It wasn't an uncommon worry throughout the rest of Eraulia and Elsa knew it, just as she knew that it was vital to assure those that Arendelle did business with that nothing would change with her ascension to the throne. The two men now drinking tea downstairs with the Minister of Trade were perhaps the most important to convince of that.

She'd postponed such an important meeting solely because thinking about Anna being with Kristoff made her so jealous she couldn't see straight. When she got jealous, her only recourse seemed to be laying claim to her sister in her mind. At first, her fantasies had been fairly innocent, staring into space and wishing that she was the one Anna talked incessantly about and not that oafish mountain man.

In the last week, however, they had become far more graphic and found a physical expression that only fed her growing dislike of him. Why her sister would find anything attractive about a clumsy ice cutter, who was as dumb as a box of rocks and held lengthy conversations with his reindeer—in which he voiced both sides of the discussion—was beyond her. That she might do with him the things Elsa wanted to do with her made her want to freeze him solid and dump him in the North Sea.

"Stop it, Elsa! You have no rights to her." Speaking the words aloud did nothing to make her accept them any more readily. "She's your sister—your little sister, and nothing more."

Except she was; for thirteen years, all Elsa thought about was Anna —worrying about Anna, yearning for Anna, loving Anna. It was one sister missing another, nothing more, but all those innocent feelings vanished somewhere around the time Anna punched that bastard Hans in the face and sent him overboard.

She didn't fall in love at that moment, but she did realize that the Anna who threw herself in front of a falling sword, the Anna who gleefully sent the man responsible for trying to kill them both swimming in the fjord, was not the five-year-old she remembered.

It was at that moment when she saw first saw Anna, not as her little sister — even though she was and Elsa still loved her as such — but as a beautiful, fiery, fully grown stranger who tugged at parts of Elsa she hadn't even known existed until then.

"Ok, ok, Elsa, get it together. Farson and Grottony are too important to ignore like this." She drew in several deep breaths and tried to settle herself down, to regain the calm, cool state of mind that allowed her to deal with the diplomatic duties that she, as Queen, was expected to take on. That calmness was particularly important now, given what the coming meeting was about.

A knock startled her and she jumped; ice crackled across the floor. "Damn it, Anna!" She pulled the door open, fully expecting a redheaded fireball to bowl her over with some new, utterly unintelligible nonsense that she would listen to, for no other reason than to hear her sister's voice. Whom she met was Bridgette, the woman who served her as a combination handmaiden and personal secretary. "Oh. It's you."

The older woman gave her a stern look. "You're extremely late, Your Majesty."

"I know; I was already on my way."

Bridgette made a noise. "I suggest you get on your way a little more quickly. In case you forgot, Farson and Grottony are not on the best of terms with each other, and those two downstairs seem to be taking it to heart."

Elsa blushed. "Ah. I did forget about that." She smoothed the front of her dress to distract Bridgette while she turned the ice back into water vapor, and managed to smile. "Perhaps you could refresh my memory on the way down. You seem to know more than my advisors, anyway."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Elsa glanced down the hall in the direction of Anna's doorway when she joined Bridgette. She would try to make it for tea; perhaps mindless chatting would help her put her thoughts about her sister back where they belonged. It hadn't so far, but she had reached the point of grasping at straws—and at Anna, when she could get away with it.

Anna clearly thought Elsa was just being affectionate when she pulled her closer on the settee, but the arm around her sister's waist held more than sibling fondness—at least, for Elsa. I have to keep her from sitting so close to me—especially now that I know I could—

"Did you enjoy your tea?" Bridgette interrupted her thoughts as they threatened to take a very inappropriate turn.

Elsa jumped slightly. "Oh. Ah. Yes, thank you. The strawberries were very nice." Realizing a slight flurry had developed overhead, she moved her fingers surreptitiously to dispel it and hoped her companion hadn't noticed. "What time is dinner planned for?"

The pair crossed through the double doors and Elsa waved the guard back to his ease. Anna would have stopped to inquire about his health and whether his children had been successful at school, but she was still unable to make idle conversation the way her sister did.

"Quarter past seven," the older woman replied. "The Ministers of Trade and Economy will be joining you with their wives, as will Lord Fritzen, of course, though he will be alone. His wife is ill, so remember to ask after her health."

Great, Lord Fritzen. The vice chair of the Royal Council, he attended most official meetings that she did, primarily to keep her from committing some faux pas she had not yet been trained to avoid. She didn't particularly like him, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. Any time he had to correct her, it was usually preceded with some acerbic reminder that her father would not have made the same mistake.

They were cousins, though not close ones, and he seemed to think that gave him the right to treat her like a child, not the ruler of his country. She was terrified of him, the only reason she hadn't snapped yet, but the temptation was growing stronger every time they met. Eventually, there would be a confrontation, but not until Elsa felt comfortable enough in her role to dismiss a high-ranking member of the Royal Council.

She was fortunate that Mister Johansen, the Minister of Trade, was sitting in with her for this meeting; Lord Fritzen would have verbally harangued her until she changed her mind and proceeded as planned. Though in this case, that would've been smarter than what I did do.

Elsa nodded. "Of course." She paused before her thoughts turned to something more pleasant and she chuckled quietly. "Anna said she was taking a nap, which means someone will have to set off a cannon in her sitting room to get her up in time to appear."

"I'll remind Astrid to start early." Bridgette chuckled as well. "That is one thing time hasn't changed for either of you; you still wake up if the wind blows and your sister could sleep through an avalanche."

"Well, let us hope one isn't required to get her to dinner on time."

They continued down the stairs and started toward Elsa's official offices. She nodded to staff as they walked, trying to remember to smile, and to use their name, if she could. It was still a struggle, interacting with others in more than a formal way, but Anna urged her to try and so Elsa did.

As they drew close to the meeting room, where she would have to rehash what happened at her coronation — and likely provide a dozen assurances that it wouldn't happen again – the sound of arguing became audible, interspersed with Mister Johansen's calm voice.

"I'll send Nils with brandy," Bridgette said quietly. "Remember that Herr Karlsbaad will do everything he can to rattle your confidence, and Monsieur Salomon will refuse to believe anything you say until Mister Johansen repeats it. Refer any references to trade agreements back to him."

"And I'm dealing with them at the same time because…?" Elsa felt a headache coming on.

Bridgette gave her a sympathetic look. "Even though this meeting isn't specifically related to trade, Farson and Grottony don't trust each other and since they are both here, it will be much easier on you to do it this way."

"I'm told that trade negotiations have always included both countries at the same time; I know that there is a great deal of tension between them, but I don't see where that has anything to do with us."

"It's the only way to keep them from accusing us and each other of some nefarious plotting to give their opponent the upper hand in the pricing of goods," the older woman replied. "For whatever reason, they consider us as important allies and would likely go to war with each other if they felt slighted."

Elsa stopped and looked at her in disbelief. "They'd go to war just because we gave one of them a better deal on lutefisk? That's ridiculous."

"That's politics," Bridgette replied. "There hasn't been a major skirmish between them for six years; it's a new record, if I remember correctly. Understand me, Your Majesty; they're looking for a reason to fight. Arendelle's role is more mediation than trade."

"Great," Elsa groaned. "I'm not good at calming people down, you know."

Bridgette shook her head. "That's not your job, Your Majesty, though…." She paused and glanced at her charge with a sigh. "It is important to remain neutral. Your father had the same trouble, and he could go hunting with them to ease the tension when needed."

"Well, I'm not going hunting. Freya give me strength," Elsa muttered, then straightened her back and pushed into the room to prove that Arendelle's new monarch was more than capable of honoring the commitments made prior to her coronation — without freezing anyone or anything for annoying her. She rather thought it would be less painful than thinking about Anna for the next two hours.

Of course, anything would be less painful, and that knowledge continually pierced her with arrows of guilt and doubt. There was nothing she could do but soldier on and pray that somehow she would find peace without going insane first.