29. Sisterly Fluff, Volume 1
Elsa performed her evening ablutions with an ice cyclone and transformed her dress into a nightgown and light-weight satin-weave robe before knocking on Anna's door. This particular conversation was a job for a human being and not a queen. Or so she fervently hoped. She abhorred having to pull rank on her sister.
"Come on in," called Anna's voice.
Elsa opened the door and regarded her sister. Anna was half sitting and half leaning on the bed, with a nervous and uncertain expression on her face. She, too, had changed into a nightgown, and her hair was loose, making her look even younger.
Elsa quickly crossed the space between them and gave her sister a heart-felt hug. Anna loosened up and rested her head on Elsa's cool shoulder. Even after more than a year, it was still luxurious to have her big sister back in her life - really in her life, and not just an aloof, enigmatic presence haunting the perimeter.
"Are you okay?" Elsa asked again, looking worried.
"Yes," Anna replied with a trace of laughter.
"Is Kristoff okay?" Elsa queried.
"Yes. He just needed to take a break. He said it was too stuffy in there," Anna prevaricated. If Kristoff wanted to, he could tell Elsa about whatever he had heard the ambassadors say; Anna was not about to bring it up right now, especially since she didn't know the specifics.
Whereas Anna had been instantly skeptical of Kristoff's original explanation, Elsa accepted it at face value, and nodded in empathy. The Princess had to smile tenderly at how the Queen could be so artless in some ways and yet astute in others.
"Are ... you and Kristoff okay?" Elsa tentatively posed. She always felt gauche asking her little sister about the status of the romance.
"Yes. As good as ever, maybe even better," Anna confirmed.
"Was Grand Pabbie really okay after I left last night?" Elsa trawled, hoping she could lead Anna into discussing the old troll's warning.
"Yes. At least he seemed to be," Anna said.
"Did he say anything more about what caused that shock?" Elsa probed.
"Nope. He just said-" Anna sharply checked herself. Elsa gave Anna an interested look. Anna sighed, knowing that she had just given her clueless sister a clue and that the hunt was on unless she wanted to flat out lie. After the Great Thaw, they had promised each other to henceforth be as open and honest as possible. "He just said something that pertains to me."
"And you obviously don't want to talk about it," Elsa said with a playful grin. If one of them was holding out on the other, it was usually her, and Anna was the inexorable investigator. Now the tables were turned, with the added twist that she already knew Anna's secret; the true challenge would be to persuade her to divulge it without betraying Kristoff. "Was it about some kind of you and Kristoff thing?" As a test, she gave Anna an easy way out, since she very much respected Anna's privacy on that topic, and Anna knew the questioning would stop if she answered affirmatively.
"No," Anna said curtly, and plopped down on her bed.
"Are you sure that you understand it fully, that it wasn't some kind of riddle that maybe we should try to decipher together?" Elsa asked innocuously.
"Yes," Anna said with annoyance. She was irritated that she didn't know why she was balking at telling Elsa about Grand Pabbie's warning.
"Is it what's bothering you tonight?"
"Nothing's bothering me," Anna insisted. "Well, getting insulted like that was a little bit upsetting. And finding out yet again that some more of my memories aren't real was a little bit disconcerting. And withholding your dessert when you really did eat a big lunch was a little bit embarrassing. But other than that, I'm fine. You've had a much worse evening than I have. Elsa, I am so sorry!"
"It's all right. I think I will survive the temporary deficiency of chocolate in my system," Elsa said dryly. "But may I ask why you felt the need to punish me thusly in front of guests, Princess?"
"You haven't been eating enough lately," Anna scolded.
"Assuming for the sake of argument that your claim is accurate -which it isn't, by the way- you do realize that depriving me of food might not be the most apt solution?" Elsa asked mischievously.
"Hey, if I didn't do a good enough job cleaning my plate, I didn't get dessert!"
"When did you ever not clean your plate?" Elsa asked with a laugh.
"Plenty of times. You just weren't..." Anna trailed off.
"... There," Elsa finished softly. "Fair point. But why tonight with all the ambassadors, professors, officers, and council members as an audience? I know you have a reputation for unpredictability to uphold, but still."
Anna stuck out her tongue at her big sister, who responded with a giggle. "Father told me that misconduct should be corrected as soon as it happens, so that there's no confusion about why you're being disciplined."
"I think that philosophy applies mostly to little children and not to reasonable adults," Elsa pointed out. "I also don't think he meant doing something in front of high-status company, either. Not that you had much experience with high-status company when you were growing up."
"I didn't think it all the way through," Anna admitted. "I'm just used to you keeping a stiff upper lip in public - or running out of a room." Elsa stuck out her tongue at her sister. "I guess missing out on chocolate is a bigger deal to you than being called a freak who can't love." She gave Elsa a hard stare.
"Absolutely," Elsa confessed with a straight face.
Anna lobbed a pillow at her sister's head. The Queen easily caught it and tossed it back. "Seriously, Elsa, it was like you were agreeing with him! In front of high-status company!"
"It's called giving someone enough rope to hang himself. It's an underhanded tactic, but also an ancient one. When there's diplomatic immunity involved, a lot of times it's the only way to get rid of a jerk," Elsa elucidated. "The guards and constables couldn't do anything to him unless he got physically violent. Neither could I."
"Wait, what?"
"Diplomats get special legal exemptions and protections. Even if he had deliberately hurt someone in full view of everyone at the reception, we couldn't put him on trial or punish him unless France waived his immunity; throwing him out of Arendelle is as much as I can do to him -and I did- without France's permission. I'm pretty sure I already told you about this."
"You did. It still sounds stupid."
"I would never send one of our people as an emissary without a guarantee about how he or she will be treated. Not every country has the same theories about what makes for good laws and a fair criminal justice system. For example, Arendelle is currently an absolute monarchy, with the exception of religion - and even that exclusion is based more on good manners than anything else. I can change the laws here at my whim; I can overrule our judges and juries at any time. Clearly, you can see how that could be abused, and why foreign lands would be reluctant to dispatch envoys here without safeguards in place."
"Listen, after tonight, they can all go back where they came from, and it would be fine by me," Anna huffed.
"C'mon, I thought you liked the open gates," Elsa rejoined. "They're not all bad. And we have family ties to Visby, Ă–land, and Corona. Plus, the Coronans are going to be trading in chocolate, so we can't get rid of them." Elsa also plopped down on Anna's bed.
"I take it you had a hand in brokering the deal for your preferred minions?"
"I merely suggested the Coronans to the Daloans. No active meddling on my part," Elsa maintained.
"Why don't the Daloans sell it here themselves?" Anna asked, genuinely somewhat curious.
"It's a long story that would make your eyes glaze over," Elsa said wryly. Anna feigned falling into a stupor. "Suffice it to say, the Daloans live inland, and their coastal neighbors, who haven't always been nice to them in the past, are now more or less French client states. And they've been getting only a pittance for their crop, thanks to middlemen from Weselton."
"Oooh, I despise those guys - wait, did you just make chocolate more expensive?" Anna asked, genuinely somewhat concerned.
Elsa rolled her eyes. "I doubt it. The Weasels' price mark up was truly outrageous. Besides, I'm willing to pay more for chocolate if that means the Daloans don't need to resort to slavery to grow cocoa."
"Slavery?" Anna asked in dismay.
"Yeah. Like I said, it's a long story, but it looks like it will have a happy ending for everybody. Except Weselton, which is almost a happy ending by itself."
"Say, did the Daloans bring any samples with them? You know, cocoa beans fresh from the farm or whatever?" Anna had the beginnings of a plan to make amends for the dessert fiasco.
Elsa nodded and stretched out on the bed.
"What are we going to do with them?" Anna gushed.
"Top men and women are working on it," Elsa assured her, and clasped her hands behind her head.
"Growing them or turning them into chocolate?" Anna asked.
"I don't think we can keep the hothouses warm enough in winter with our present equipment."
"Why couldn't you have had tropical magic?"
Anna's bedroom was immediately turned into an ice-and-snow facsimile of a beach lined with coconut palms. The bed was engulfed in a snow drift that had the same texture as fine sand; and touching the foot of the bed, a thick sheet of ice with dainty wavelets frozen in place represented the sea. The trees were made of ice and had extraordinarily lifelike detail to their trunks and fronds. The clusters of coconuts, however, were the heads of smiling snowmen.
"Good enough?" Elsa asked pertly.
"No. And those heads are kinda creepy," Anna critiqued. "Very creepy, actually. Really, couldn't you make it warm enough to grow cocoa here?"
"Even if I could, it would adversely affect our other crops and other livelihoods," Elsa stated.
"What about a little grove? Just in one dell?"
The imitation beach vanished. Elsa closed her eyes and grimaced, and Anna's jaw dropped in astonishment as she felt the ambient coolness of the early autumn evening heat up perceptibly. The Snow Queen made a noise like she was struggling with an extremely heavy load before breathing out raggedly. The temperature in the room rapidly returned to normal.
"Oh, wow, that's hard," Elsa panted hoarsely and slumped her head back on a pillow. "Not at all like reversing the cold that I make. No cocoa plantation for us, sorry."
"That was still pretty awesome, though," Anna praised. "And maybe it'll get easier as your power grows if you keep practicing. It's fantastic that your magic can do all this stuff. Like being able to detect poison."
Elsa laughed. "Oh, it can't detect poison. At least, I don't think it can."
"But at dinner, you and that scientist said that the Whoeverans tested you and that your magic will automatically ice over anything you touch that's poisoned," Anna reminded.
"I made the Kakrafoonans and that poison test up," Elsa revealed with a chuckle.
"Wait, what?"
"There's no such place as Kakrafoon, and there was no such test. It's pure fiction. I put it in with the real research papers, where it can be read by anyone and widely disseminated, to deter people from trying to poison me, since that's probably my biggest vulnerability. This is a huge state secret, in case you didn't already come to that conclusion. Do not tell anyone, not even Kristoff or Olaf," Elsa ordered, suddenly sounding stern and looking Anna in the eye.
"You're a stinker!" Anna exclaimed, not sure if she should be impressed or troubled by her sister's cunning and talent for deception.
"Yes, I'm exploiting my policy of transparency to camouflage and spread a lie, but this has the potential to save my life, and the lives of the people that the would-be poisoner might take as collateral damage in order to kill me. I'm glad that Professor Newark studied it and mentioned it at dinner, because I want a country like Myrcia to think that I'm impervious to an attempt at a sneak assassination," Elsa asserted. "This is a good lie."
"I guess," Anna said morosely.
Elsa regretted letting Anna in on the ruse. "Look, I know how you feel about lies and secrets, but please understand that the Queen's gotta do what the Queen's gotta do to keep the country running and everyone safe."
"I get it," Anna grumbled, "but I wish you didn't have to do all this boring or complicated or sly Queen stuff."
"Somebody in the family has to work," Elsa joked, but as soon as she saw the look on Anna's face, she regretted saying that, too.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Anna asked sourly.
"Uh, that I have to earn my keep, and sometimes that entails doing boring, complicated, or sly things, just like most other jobs. This isn't a fairy tale where the royal family somehow lives a life of opulence and perpetual leisure without doing anything to directly sustain that kind of existence or to justify taking other people's money to pay for it. Beyond killing a dragon or a witch -who were probably merely misunderstood, innocent bystanders- every dozen or so generations, that is." Elsa saw that she was just putting herself deeper in the hole. "Hey, I'm not saying you don't do anything. You're my Minister of Society. You help me find out what the problems are in Arendelle and how well my solutions are working. You're also our Chief Morale Officer, and you have a fantastic knack for rallying people to a cause. You're a great hostess, party planner, and tour guide. You're my Official Bicycle Riding And Other Common Recreational Pastimes Instructor."
"Shut up," Anna said with an affectionate smile, but her eyes were wistful.
"Anna, is this what's been bothering you lately?" Elsa asked, turning on her side to face her sister and propping herself up on an elbow. "That you feel like you don't have a job?"
"Nothing has been bothering me lately. And it's perfectly natural for me to feel like I don't have a job, because I don't have a job - not a real job like you and Kristoff and Stefanie and just about every other adult has," Anna rationalized, looking down at the bedspread.
"Anna, there is a very simple way to fix the problem. I've told you that you can be my administrative assistant. It's a real job," Elsa encouraged as she sat up and rested her back against the headboard. "I was one for father for years. That's how I learned the ropes. In fact, you should come to work with me, now that I've formally named you my heir and my regent."
This did not seem to lift Anna's spirits at all, either. Elsa was beginning to get flustered; she knew she wasn't the best communicator, so she wasn't sure if she was totally misreading Anna and making a hash of the conversation, or if Anna was being extra difficult.
"Or you could become an apprentice in whatever trade you'd like. Or you could study at the university," Elsa offered. "There are lots of courses that could teach you how to really make a difference in people's lives. You could take a medical cla-"
"I'm not good with structure," Anna interrupted.
"You know that we have a lot of courses that have an experimental or free-form aspect. Things with practical applications or creative elements," Elsa argued. "I thought you'd love learning in a group setting."
"I'm also not good with being compared to other people," Anna brooded.
"Anna, it's not about being compared to other people. It's about learning! It's not a contest! It's about acquiring knowledge and skills for yourself, for your own benefit. It doesn't matter if it takes you half as long or twice as long as other people to get it. Well, okay, it would matter if you had to pay out of your own pocket to attend classes or needed to quickly acquire some means to support yourself, but since you don't, there is nothing to be anxious about."
"That is so easy for you to say, Magical Queen Genius the Show-Off!"
"You are not a dunce, Anna! All you need to do is apply yourself. You can do it!"
"You know what? I don't think you care about what I can do or what I want. I think you're pushing this because it's something you want to do!" Anna said snidely.
"You know how wrong you are about me not caring about you! But you're absolutely right that I would love to have THE OPPORTUNITY THAT YOU ARE WASTING!" Elsa roared. A gust of cold wind buffeted the drapes of bed's canopy and ruffled Anna's hair, breaking up the quarrel. Elsa quickly jumped off the bed, and made for the door. "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that or yell."
"No, wait, please!" Anna pleaded, also getting off the bed. "I was out of line! Don't go, Elsa! I'm so sorry! I'm the one being obnoxious! I know you care about me!"
"Anna, please tell me what's bothering you lately. Really, please tell me, Sunflower," Elsa implored.
"You didn't get a happy ending." Although it was said barely above a whisper, Elsa started as if Anna had shouted it in her ear.
Author's Notes - Chapters 29 and 30 should be considered a single entity, but since it amounts to 11K+ words with notes, and my browser and/or the fanfic website choked on it, I'm splitting it in two parts. This was the best "seam" I could find. Now I know how Tarantino feels.
I'm throwing y'all a lot of curveballs in this, so get ready. Elsa's being cutesy with Kakrafoon and the poison detection test. Will it come back to bite her? Keep tuning in to find out!
I hinted earlier when Elsa was talking with the Daloans that she could raise the temperature, with limitations. I figured that if she can undo the cold she makes, and freeze and thaw naturally-occurring water (presumably even in winter), as well as create and destroy matter, as well as create sentient, sapient, ambulatory snowmen, she should be able to affect the natural weather, with the limitation that it's very hard for her to to work in her "opposite" direction. There will be more about enthalpy and entropy later on. It'll be fun. She's like the Magneto of thermodynamics (and a little bit of stat mech), with the added bonus of being able to create material to work with. Although it's really neat to have Elsa play with some naturally-occurring materials, too. Niobium/columbium, anyone?
