Chapter 6: what is this feeling? So sudden and new?

"Anyways!" Cynthia ignored her brother and addressed the sisters. "Let's get outta here. We've got things to discuss."

"Wait what? Just leave in the middle of a party? That's kinda rude."

Cynthia stared at Anna with half lidded eyes and pure apathy. "And?"

Drake put his hands on his sisters shoulders. "Besides the fact that we do have things to talk about, we're also not big on parties. People tend to treat us like we're rarities that need to be poked and prodded."

"Case in point." Cynthia motioned to a group of people that had surrounded Olaf and were, indeed, poking and prodding the poor snowman. Fortunately for them, he was giggling and laughing, unaware of how rude their invasive actions were.

Elsa shooed them away from him, took his hand, and led him back to their little group. She cast a glance at the front of the ballroom where Bernard was still introducing champions. If they were going to leave, it would be now. "Alright. We'll duck out, and I'll apologize to Dirgelaff later or something."

"Wonderful." With a flat expression, Cynthia made her way to the doors, not waiting for them to follow.

"Geez what's got her in such a hurry?"

Drake leaned closer to Kristoff and whispered, "You're about to find out in three...two...one."

On que, a man, seemingly out of nowhere, appeared right beside his sister. "So your a Dragon kn—"

"—I carry a gun."

"Message received." He was about to back away, before catching a glimpse of the snow queen. "Oh you're the—"

"—I carry two guns!"

"Got it."

The sisters watched him slink away, Elsa in particular took special notice. "Wow. I'm never coming to one of these things without her again."

"Yes my sister has a way with men. All of them involve firearms and extreme pain, but it works for her."

Thankfully they had gotten back to their room without further incident, although Drake and Cynthia took a lot of convincing to step into the moving box.

"So it just takes us to where we need to go anywhere in the tower?" Cynthia examined the box from outside it's odd walls.

"I just file it under 'just roll with it'." Kristoff grinned. Finally they stepped inside and the doors shut behind them. The box jumped to life and began to move forcing each of them to grab onto the railing along the walls. A sudden jerk pushed Elsa to the side, knocking her into Drake.

"Hey Elsa," he grinned, "we haven't properly talked since I got here. So 'hey there'."

She chuckled, genuinely glad to be seeing him again. "Hello Drake. You have no idea how much I appreciate you coming." Neither one of them realized that Elsa hadn't bothered to right herself.

The doors parted in front of their stateroom, the Dragon Knight siblings appeared taken aback at what they were now looking at. "Okay. That's kinda cool, I guess." Drake poked his head out, making sure they were on a different floor.

Elsa shouldered passed them, and placed her key into the door to open it. "Welcome to our state room." She opened the doors and gestured for everyone to come inside. "Maybe we can talk to Bernard about expanding this room or something so you can stay with us."

"I would not argue with that," Cynthia was taking in the sights of the room, but Drake had yet to enter.

"Come on in Drake." Elsa gestured.

"Nah I'm good." His response was quick and slightly unnerving. He simply hung back at the doors with Elsa who had held them open for everyone.

"Come on! There's plenty of space!" Olaf demonstrated this by running around, even splitting himself apart and rolling.

"I know why he's not coming in," Cynthia had found herself by the wall of Dirgelaff's doll collection. She picked up one of the porcelain creatures with curly blonde hair, red lips, and large blue eyes. With the doll in her hand, she approached her brother. "Drake here has pediophobia?"

Anna scrunched her face. "Pedio—whata?"

"It's fear of dolls!" Drake stepped further away from the room, "now get that thing away before I set the whole room on fire with you in it!"

Cynthia stuck out her bottom lip as she taunted him, shoving the doll closer to his space. "Awe, but she's just a wittle cute dolly."

"Yeah, but the last one did try to kill you!"

Elsa wrenched the doll out of her hands and tucked it close to her. "That's enough." She scolded. Cynthia put up her hands and backed away, but was still feeling a sick pleasure tormenting her little brother. Elsa handed the doll to Anna, who placed them with the others and promptly threw a sheet over top of them. To be fair, there was something off putting about them, but Elsa just chalked it up to just being dolls. She never really liked dolls anyways.

Once that was done, Drake finally stepped inside, but still kept a wary eye on the sheet from the other side of the room.

"So. What was it you two wanted to discuss with us?" Elsa asked, getting down to business.

Cynthia flopped onto one of the beds, took a quick note of just how soft it was before pulling out a rolled up parchment and reading:

Dear Drake,

Elsa, Kristoff, Olaf, and I, this is Anna, have entered in Dirgelaff's tournament and we need a champion. Could you pretty please come to Dirgelaff's island and help us out again? We'd be super super grateful again. There's no rush, but as soon as you can, that would be great.

From Anna and Elsa.

Once she was finished, she leaned back on the bed. "Now. Want to tell us what you two stepped in this time?"

Anna folded her arms in offense. "What makes you think we 'stepped in' anything?"

"Because this tournament is a death trap." Said Drake. "We've heard too many stories of this guy, and he gets off on people playing his games, especially when they lose."

"I understand." Elsa stated calmly, "but you have to know we didn't have much choice in the matter."

Cynthia scoffed. "Now this I gotta hear."

Drake glared at his sister, snorting smoke in her direction as if warning her to watch her manners, as if that would ever happen. Elsa ignored their silent exchange and began to recount the story of how black poison had been infecting her kingdom.

Cynthia raised a brow. "Why not contact us?"

"We tried!" Anna practically yelled, "we sent letters all over the place and no one answered." Before she continued her rant, something occurred to her. "But you guys got that one." She motioned to the letter in Cynthia's hand.

"Well you used a magic bottle." Drake clarified. "A bit more trustworthy than birds or whatever. And we never got any letter from you. At all."

"Regardless," Cynthia interrupted, "You guys thought the best option was to enter a tournament for a CHANCE at winning the cure for your kingdom?"

"Well it's more complicated than that now." Elsa shuffled in her heeled feet. "We weren't even going to compete once we got here, maybe meet some old friends to help us out, but that was before we saw that Prince Hans is competing too."

Cynthia and Drake looked at each other. "Who?"

Kristoff, who had been getting undressed to get into something more his style, emerged from the washroom. "Green eyes, red hair, mutton chops, total ass hole."

"Yeah!' Olaf agreed. "Asshole." Elsa rubbed her forehead with the tips of her fingers while Anna laughed nervously. This was something they'd have to nip in the bud.

"He's someone we don't like and he doesn't like us, and he's competing in this tournament and the idea of him getting a wish is scary, alright." Anna said in one breath. "And what's worse is that he's using a dragon knight too."

That seemed to get their attention. "Your kidding? Who?"

Anna shook her head trying to remember. "Uh, white hair? Glove on her hand. Annie? Archey? Annabelle?"

"Arabella." Elsa finally said.

Drake suddenly went rigid, his eyes nearly too big for his head, while Cynthia flopped back onto the bed, laughing at the ceiling. "Man, oh man can this day get any better?"

"Do you guys know her or something?" Kristoff asked.

Drake began sputtering. "We-well—we—we—we sort of—kind of—maybe—sort of—know—"

Without getting up from the bed, Cynthia pointed to her brother. "Drake used to date her."

"Hey! Elsa!" Anna jumped back when A sudden shot of ice blasted against Her and Kristoff and covered the wall behind them.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," she quickly waved her hand to remove the ice, "I don't know what happened there. Just a weird, um," with all eyes on her, she couldn't find a reason for her sudden icy outburst. She cleared her throat. "Sorry. Thankfully you are familiar with these competitions."

Cynthia shrugged the incident off and didn't mind the subject change. "Mostly to stay away from them. Our father, and every dragon master, warn us to stay far away. If people want to risk their necks in something like this, then that's their problem, not ours."

"Then I feel like I have to ask," Elsa's tone was almost quiet, as if she was nervous about the answer they would give. "Why did you come to help us? I mean is it okay you're here?"

Cynthia sat up on the bed and looked at her brother with a priggish grin. "Want to answer that Drake?"

He glared at his sister again before answering. "Well. Our father doesn't, exactly know that we're here." The room got uncomfortably quiet. "He thinks we're on a mission somewhere else."

"Wait, so you are not supposed to be here?" Anna asked with wide eyes.

"Well you shouldn't be here either." Drake pointed.

She put her fists onto her hips. "Well if somebody had responded to our letters!"

"We didn't get your letters! But you still shouldn't have come here anyways. I mean you were gonna let Kristoff participate? He wouldn't last two seconds. No offense."

He held up his hand, laughing. "None taken."

"ANYways!" Cynthia shouted. "We're all here, we're all dumb, now let's think about our next move."

"Super," Drake smirked at her, "we need to know what's poisoning their fjord." She tilted her head. "What? We figure out what's happening, we go in, solve the problem. Then I just have to worry about this Hans character and Arabella and it's all good. Right?"

She rolled her eyes. "I doubt it will be 'all good', but it's a start. And I'm assuming I'm the lucky one that's going to save Arendelle again?"

He began to rub his hands across his mouth as he spoke lowly, "Well technically I saved Arendelle, but that's neither here nor there."

"Well even if she did go to Arendelle, one, she'd have to get there," Anna held up a finger then another, "and two the problem is in the ocean."

Cynthia snapped her fingers. "Darn, and I can't breathe underwater."

It was Drake's turn to grin smugly. "But we know a pair that do."

Cynthia suddenly appeared horrified. "No! No way! You'd better—"

Drake reached for his necklace. "I'm gonna do it."

She got to her feet and advanced on him. "Drake I'm serious, don't."

He backed away, not intimidated by her at all. "I'm going to—"

"—I swear to god!" She began chasing him around the room until he disappeared into the washroom, slammed the door and locked it behind him. "Drake! I'm gonna kill you!"

"This is payback for the doll!" He shouted from behind the door.

The Arendellians exchanged confused glances. "Are we missing something?"

Elsa shook her head. "Apparently." Amongst Cynthia slamming her fist against the door, Elsa was able to hear knocking at the door. "Huh. Wonder who that is?" While she didn't know who was there, she assumed it to be maybe Bernard, or one of them, but she didn't expect to see Dirgelaff himself on the other side of the door.

"Oh. Master Dirgelaff? Is something the matter?"

She hadn't known him long, but since they arrived he seemed confident, flamboyant, and somewhat cheerful. While he still wore an enchanting smile, it was lopsided and awkward. He was fidgeting with his hands behind his back and shuffling on his feet beneath his robes.

"Please, forgive the intrusion, but you left the party so suddenly. Please relieve my confusion."

Elsa facepalmed, figuratively, she wasn't going to do that in front of him. She should have at least thanked him for a lovely evening. "I apologize. We had urgent business with our champion."

He peeked inside, seemingly confused seeing Cynthia pounding on the washroom door. "I see. Well, I'm about to take a walk, care to join me?"

She assumed he had invited her to go over some important notes to know for the tournament so she eagerly agreed. "I'll be back Anna. I shouldn't be long." Anna halfheartedly waved her away, she and Kristoff trying to pry Cynthia off the door.

With a shrug, Elsa stepped outside with Dirgelaff.

:0:—

Anna and Kristoff finally pulled her off the door, asking her what it was she was freaking out about.

"He's calling some friends of ours. Twins that are madly in love with me and it's both annoying as hell, and really annoying as hell."

Kristoff watched the door with furrowed brows. "Um, how is he 'calling'...anyone?"

Cynthia removed her hat and ran her hands through her strawberry blonde hair, realizing who she was talking too. "Sorry. The dragon spirits in all dragon knights are connected, some sort of astral plane or something, but all dragon knights can somewhat communicate through their gems." Her explanation seemed to sail right over their heads. "Just roll with it."

The washroom door opened, Drake's smug grin a mile wide. "Frankie and AL are on their way. Should be here within a day."

Cynthia threw her hat at him, cursing so loudly Anna had to remove Olaf's head and stuff it in the closet so he couldn't hear. Drake merely stuck his tongue out and threw her hat back.

"Where's Elsa?" He asked when he noticed she wasn't present.

Anna began removing her jewelry and putting them back into a box. "Dirgelaff came by and they went for a walk together." She was so matter of fact she didn't notice Drake suddenly appear concerned.

"You let her go out, er, go walking with him?"

Kristoff put Olaf back together. "What's the big deal? He's weird but so what?"

"You don't know!" Drake found himself shouting, "He could be grooming her for some horrible magic or something."

"'Grooming her for horrible magic'?" Cynthia repeated. "Like what? Sacrificing her to the devil? Or better yet, convince Elsa to sacrifice someone else to the devil?"

"No!" He shot. He made his way to exit the room. "If you're not gonna say anything useful then why bother saying anything. I mean when was the last time you've had an unexpressed thought?"

She waited a beat. "I'm having one now." He rolled his eyes, mocking her before leaving the room. Cynthia went back to lay down on one of the beds, laying her hat down across her eyes and kicked her feet up.

It was quiet for a while as Anna changed from her dress into more comfortable evening wear along with Kristoff. Once it seemed like they were ready to retire for the evening, Cynthia suddenly said.

"You guys changed him you know."

They paused. "Wait what? We did? How? Why? What do you mean?"

Cynthia removed her hat from her eyes and leaned back with her hands behind her head. "Ever since meeting you, he's taken his studies and his training more seriously. Although this is the first time he's done something ridiculously stupid, which makes no sense to me."

Kristoff and Anna glanced at each other and shrugged. Not entirely sure what to do with the information.

:0:—

Elsa wasn't sure what to expect, but she was pleasantly surprised to learn Dirgelaff was delightful company. She was expecting to be told some things about the tournament that she needed to know, but instead he simply escorted her around the halls of his home, engaging in pleasant conversation. They exchanged stories of their past families, Elsa losing her parents on the seas and how he lost his parents to disease. They talked about their time alone in a huge place with only servants as company.

"...well that wasn't completely true. I still had Anna, but I, well my parents and I, thought it would be best if we were apart. So I shut her out, and remains, to this day, my biggest regret."

He nodded in understanding. "That must have been hard, with her sister and the eventual rift, but such is the life of those of us with gifts."

She tilted her head. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

He opened his mouth to speak until he realized where he and Elsa had ended up. Two large window doors that led out onto a terrace.

He smiled. "Before I answer, I have an idea that would be a delight, a walk through one of my gardens on this fine night." He pushed open the glass doors, revealing a long terrace that stretched around the tower. Along the terrace were various beds, filled with a different variety of plants that Elsa hasn't seen before. She stepped onto the terrace, gazing in wonder at the plants illuminated underneath the moonlight. "I have a few gardens around my estate, but the plants here only bloom as the day grows late."

"Wow." Elsa seemed particularly drawn to some flowers that were glowing a light blue and had aimed themselves directly into the moonlight. "They're beautiful."

"Only the loveliest in my tower," he joined her looking down at the glowing flowers, "it helps more when they hold some sort of power."

"Oh these are magical?"

"Well their power pales in comparison to yours. Power, along with your beauty, that I've come to adore."

Elsa flushed, now realizing why it was he wanted to walk with her. Her sudden discomfort caused frost to dance over the glowing flowers, but Dirgelaff either didn't notice, or ignored it. "If I am to be brutally honest, the power you have is equivalent to a goddess." She stood up straight and felt his nose inches from the crook of her neck. "You shouldn't be ashamed of such a gift. Maybe I can help, your burden, lift."

She felt him inhale that sent a shiver down her spine and she quickly put distance between them. "I apologize, master Dirgelaff, but I'm afraid I have to retire for the evening. We have a long day tomorrow after all? Am I right?"

Dirgelaff has gone from shy and nervous to seeming irritated, and possibly, angry. He watched her with chocolate brown eyes before he smiled a smile that didn't reach them. "Yes, my queen of the Arendelle lands, your humble request is my command."

:0:—

As soon as Drake exited the room he sprinted for the nearest window, opened it up, and jumped out. To an outside looker, this would appear alarming, but before he could hurtle to his death, he had changed into a dragon and began soaring the skies around the tower. He flew around the tower a handful of times, his snout aimed towards the wind, searching for a scent he knew well.

"Not stalking," he told himself, "concerned." He rolled his eyes at his own idiocy. "Sure, all creepers say that." A small breeze blew the scent he was looking for against his nose and he aimed himself towards the south side of the tower. Thankfully he could see, from far away, Elsa and Dirgelaff on an outside terrace. He landed onto a nearby ledge and hid himself behind a statue.

He changed back into his human form, to make himself less conspicuous. He scoffed when he saw him lead her to one of the flower beds. "Blue moon flowers. Pfft! I coulda done that."

"Then why didn't you?"

He'd knew that low sultry voice anywhere. Arabella had changed out of her dress into a one piece violet leather outfit that went all the way to her neck. The leather was reminiscent of dragon scales, except for black pieces around her waist neck and boots. She leaned against the wall, with her arms folded and an amused stare.

"Have you been standing there this whole time waiting for me to land here?"

She gasped putting the tips of her fingers against her mouth. "Oh that would be so devious of me wouldn't it?" She lowered her hand and approached him. Drake fighting to keep his eyes on hers instead of the swaying of her hips. "But no. Believe it or not I have better things to do then try to figure out how you are spending your nights." She tiptoed to the edge of the ledge and started almost dancing on top of it. "I wanted to talk with you, but when I went to your floor I saw you jump out a window so I followed you."

She was making him nervous the way she maneuvered along the edge, but she seemed to have no issues herself. He cleared his throat. "Talk to me about what?"

She coyly peered over her shoulder at him. "It's been a long time. Can't I just say 'hi'." She did a pirouette, just now noticing the other terrace. "Oh I see. Keeping an eye on your queen?"

He folded his arm's defiantly. "Technically she's not 'my queen'. She's my friend."

"Uh Huh." She seemed unconvinced, but decided to humor him for now. She continued tiptoeing along the ledge. "You know I never would have expected you would end up at a place like this, doing something like this."

Drake stared at her confused. "What's that supposed to mean? That I'm not the kind of person to help someone else?"

"More like this," she air quoted, "isn't our problem, as your father would say." He narrowed his eyes, but didn't say anything. This just seemed to amuse her further. "Oh wow. Master Corwin doesn't know you're here? HA! Mister, 'by the rules' suddenly breaking them." She walked past him looking over the statue at the snow queen. "Guess I can see why."

"See what?"

She stared at him with a sly grin. She came away from the ledge to close to distance between them, putting her inches from his face. "Catch me and I'll tell you."

He scoffed. "What are we, five?" She didn't respond, she simply threw her arms and leapt backwards off the ledge. "Hey!" He changed and dove for her, but being fluent in their game, she changed as well and pulled up before hitting the ocean.

"Let's see how that thing handles!" She yelled back at him and took off into the sky's, an irritated, yet grinning Drake followed her.

:0:—

Elsa felt an odd chill slither across her shoulders that pulled her attention towards the sky. She let out a small gasp when she saw Drake, as a dragon, flying with another one. The pink dragon shape of Arabella. The two flew around each other, back and forth and around, almost like an aerial dance. A game being played with just the two of them.

Something started bubbling in her stomach. A knot that was twisting inside of her. What is this feeling?

"My queen? Is everything alright?"

She nodded and threw her chin up as she walked back inside. "Yes, Dirgelaff, everything is okay on this fine night."

Crap! Now I'm speaking in rhyme.