Anna wasn't sure she'd see the Duke again after this. She smiled bittersweetly and nodded at the Duke. "Y-you too." Anna bit her lip. She wanted to say more, but didn't have any words. Eventually she settled on, "See you again soon, I hope." She opened the door to Elsa's meeting room and with one final nod she was gone, skipping off to somewhere else. Meanwhile Elsa in the meeting chambers stared wistfully out a window, apparently not even noticing the doors opening. She was lost in thought right now, very distracted.

As the doors to the Queen's meeting room opened, the Duke sucked in his breath. There went the ease and in came the ambiguity. The Duke was a man of control; that was how his life had always been run until the day he came face to face with her and the haunting enigma she created that just didn't fit anywhere. Only she wasn't facing him at the current moment, instead staring out some window. What was she thinking? Was she trying to escape from her problems like that fateful night again? Did he repulse her so much that she didn't even want to look at him more than she had to? The Duke drew his mouth in a thin line from the last notion. Fearing that speaking would reveal too much of how he exactly felt for her, he loudly cleared his throat to get her attention. "Ahem."

The Duke clearing his throat was enough to make Elsa frown deeply again. She was not looking forward to this meeting. She took a breath, calmed herself down and smoothed out her crinkled brow. She turned to the Duke and regarded him with a nod. "Duke..." Elsa looked over the short, thin man in front of her again. He still seemed like a disgusting little weasel...but she was seeing another side of him now and perhaps she needed to take a closer look at the Duke's character. It was best to keep one's enemies close, after all. " Let's not beat around the bush here. I accepted your apology, but I'm not quite so sure about your intentions, still. Do you really want to make amends? Personal amends?" The words were soft and they flowed from her lips like a cool morning breeze, but they seemed to be a tad uncertain. She really had no idea who the Duke really was, aside from being the man who called her a monster and called even more loudly for her head.

It was but when the Queen turned to him that the Duke fully appreciated what a reckless move it was on his part to be the one to come back and visit her for his country's sake. Somehow, the dimmer lighting in this meeting room made her pale, shimmering form appear more beautiful still if that was possible. And her subsequent looking him over only added to the growing tension, thickening the air around him. The Duke gulped hard and shut his eyes as he focused on both gathering his wits together and ignoring her scrutiny. He must get to the point just like how he was during his military service all those years ago. His potential weaknesses had no place with what his country required of him. "Focus, focus," he muttered to himself.

Elsa looked at the Duke strangely. An expression not entirely unlike concern even appeared on her face for a brief moment before she snuffed it out like wildfire when she remembered who she was dealing with. She had to conceal any worry or pity she might feel for this man. The beautiful, young queen began to close the distance between them. "Duke.." Elsa tilted her head and looked down at him with a polite 'concern', very unlike the first concerned expression that lingered on her face briefly. This time it was much more formal. The young role well, she looked positively regal. "Are you okay?" She asked softly and not at all unkindly.

All it took was the Queen directly addressing him for the Duke to snap open his eyes and stop muttering. Not recognizing how close the Queen truly was, the Duke thoughtlessly let out an indignant shout of "Your Majesty!" But when the Duke saw her peering down at him, the closest she had ever come to him, he flushed from a mixture of emotions that equaled one universal color: red. "I..." The Duke took a few jerky steps back from the Queen. Any words he may have had were stuck in his throat; but breathing deeply soon helped dislodge them. "I don't think you understand the full...e-effect you have on others." He then gestured impatiently to the Queen with his arms. "Have you any idea what's been happening in Weselton? There are groups lobbying for war on Arendelle over your actions." The Duke could hear his own voice getting louder. He knew he had to calm down but the emotional pressure had been held inside him for too long to do that. Nonetheless, his burst of energy had to end at some point and so it did with him wearily mentioning to the Queen, "Didn't you learn anything from the consequences of shutting people out? Sometimes...sometimes, they simply break down the door."

Elsa cringed as she tried to get past the ringing in her ears from the Duke's loud shouting. She couldn't even mask the confusion she was feeling right now. The Duke tended to have that effect on people, but especially on Elsa. She never could get a good read on him. The Duke's face was as redder than a ripe tomato right now and, at first, he assumed he was angry or perhaps was having a stroke, but then he said something about not her not understanding her 'full effect' on people. Did he mean himself? Did he mean like...? Elsa didn't notice, but her pale cheeks were taking on a distinctive pinkish hue. Elsa shook her head lightly as she tried to listen to the rest of the Duke's manic rantings. When the Duke brought up Anna, she had heard enough. "Do not lecture me about my sister. This is another matter entirely, Duke. My sister never tried to have me killed."

The Duke gave a dismissing grunt more like his usual self when the Queen accused him of 'lecturing her about her sister' to get to her personally. "You think I meant your sister? People use such phrases more often than you think." Swiftly shaking his head, he moved closer to her, feeling bolder now that he got the majority of his issues off his chest to the one who needed to hear them. "Look, you're missing the point. Do you want a war to happen or not? I have to report to my brother, the King of Weselton, your answer. The choice is yours."

Rising up as far as his height would allow him, the Duke leaned his face near the Queen's as if he were going to kiss her. And indeed, maybe he was subconsciously thinking of doing so. But in actuality, this was, at the moment, the Duke's method of imposing his presence as he always did. Hence his utter shock at spotting the telltale blush across the Queen's features, unmistakable from such a close distance. No, he immediately thought to himself, furrowing his brows. It was some trick of the light. She would never...not to him...

Elsa's pink blush grew more red with the Duke being so close to her, she almost cringed back just to get away from this awkwardly close, almost intimate, encounter. Instead, once Elsa took notice that he was trying merely to seem bigger than he was, she took the opportunity to stand to her full height, which was a head or two taller than him. She ignored most of what the Duke said about Anna. She was sure that he was referring to her, but she would no longer let him poke at that raw nerve. "Of course I don't want a war, and I would not be so petty as to start one over trade disputes and being 'shut out'. Arendelle will not be bullied into submission. This discussion wasn't about Weselton, it was about you."

The Duke's face got stained by a blotchy maroon from the Queen reinforcing that the real topic of discussion was none other than him; that's how hard he was blushing. "S-So what of it?!" he spouted in response, defensively crossing his arms. "I'm merely an envoy to my country, a faceless representative!" That sort of reasoning was evidently not good enough for the Queen since she was still staring down at him. The Duke groaned and shut his eyes again. It should be a crime that this wretched woman could affect him so easily. "Weren't you satisfied with viewing me as someone to hate?" He clenched his arms tighter around his small body. Ice magic (sorcery, he remembered) or not, she couldn't force him to look at her any longer. Two could play that game (but she was still there). "What could you p-possibly want to know of me?"

Elsa crossed her arms while she stared down at the scrawny man before her. How had this weasel of a man ever scared her? How was he still managing to surprise her and catch her off-guard? Elsa was utterly clueless. "I want to know if you're truly sorry for your actions, if you really want to make a personal amends. In the throne room, you didn't seem particularly happy to be apologizing to me." Elsa looked down at the Duke. He blush had faded a little, but now she was starting to feel a shortness of breath. She took short shallow breaths as she waited to hear the Weselton Duke's response.

The Duke groaned again and it changed halfway into a particularly wry chuckle. "Well, do forgive me if I've only been accustomed to never having to once apologize." First his left eye opened, then his right, yet the Duke still didn't return the Queen's gaze. Instead, the silk carpet below was what occupied his vision though he continued to speak anyway. "That was one of the most difficult actions I've ever done. And you know what?" Some kind of fiery impulse took hold of the Duke in that instant, be it from word or thought. Staring up at the Queen with large, desperate eyes, he greedily clutched her upper arms. "I did it for you." His composure disintegrating as the seconds wore on, the Duke leaned into the Queen as he previously did only this wasn't for intimidation. No, this was purely the act of a man who had been pushed over the edge from his emotional turmoil. "Just to see you again." Pseudo-grimacing, the Duke pulled the Queen insistently down towards him, driven by the need to have her somehow understand. "This was what I wanted. This." The Duke emphasized the last brief word of his confession by squeezing the Queen's arms. "I wanted what I could never have..."

Elsa looked down at the Duke with lightly gritted teeth that touched just at the tips and squinted eyes. To say that she didn't understand what was happening was an understatement. "I-I...Duke..." Elsa just froze in place, she didn't know how to do anything else right now. She didn't know how she should even feel. All that she could feel was utter confusion. "...You...want me?" Did he..love her? Elsa felt like she should feel revulsion, and she did, but not enough, not like she was supposed to feel for this man.

Seeing the "Ice" Queen herself literally freeze up was not what the Duke had in mind, no-no-no, not in the least bit. He hadn't pined away for months on end to have more confusion be the final answer. Shaking her lightly, he glared at her with all his passion, too frustrated to remember titles, positions, or even her fearsome powers. "What do you think, woman?!" He then nodded his head rigidly, circling his arms around her like a strange boa from the tropics. "Of course I want you! As much as it doesn't make sense! I'm old and ugly and you're so beautiful! How did this happen?!" His huge hands grasping the Queen's upper back, the Duke positioned his mouth right over hers. "What do I have to do to make you, a grown woman, understand, Elsa?!"

Elsa wasn't thinking straight anymore, not after she looked into the Duke's eyes and saw the fiery passion behind them. She'd considered doing many things, from calling the guards, to freezing him up to his neck in a block of ice, but never did she consider kissing him. She knew that was the absolute wrong answer each and every time and yet her lips puckered, her face moved forward and pressed against the Duke's. She suppressed the screaming voice in her head that told her that this was wrong, that the Duke was nothing but a scheming, greedy weasel. Elsa didn't care at the moment. She just closed her eyes and let it go.