35. Myth Busting
Carol Duffin traversed the courtyard of Arendelle's castle, and contemplated the tall double doors that lead to the fulfillment of a lifetime of searching. After all her journeys around the world, braving inhospitable conditions, in her pursuit of real magic, after being called every synonym for "foolish" and "crazy" in multiple languages, she would finally be able to interview someone who still possessed undeniable magic powers.
Speaking with Princess Rapunzel had been an honor, but given the Crown Princess of Corona's upbringing in extreme captivity, the relatively passive nature of her magic, and the apparent loss of her powers when her tresses were shorn off and the last vestige of her magic was expended in her first tear thereafter, there wasn't much new information to be gleaned. And since Princess Rapunzel had covered the remarkable story of escaping from the witch's tower, finding true love, and reuniting with her family in her self-illustrated memoirs, Duffin could not include too many details of the narrative in the planned second volume of "A World History of Real Magic" without running into a plagiarism or copyright infringement issue.
Fortunately, Arendelle's Snow Queen had full command of her powers and no authorial aspirations. It was almost too good to be true.
Duffin reached the doors, took a deep breath, and knocked. And as easy as that, the doors opened. No need for a detour to find a literal key or to solve a puzzle, no battle with a guardian, no trial to prove her worth. She simply handed the sentinel the card that had been in her official visitor's documentation packet, and the man rang a bell and ushered her into the front parlor and motioned for her to have a seat.
"The royal handler will be by soon, ma'am," the sentry said affably. "You're early, but the Queen is usually raring to go in the morning."
"Thank you. I'm sorry I arrived well beforehand, but I didn't know how long the line would be or how long signing in would take," Duffin said with a touch of embarrassment. In the back of her mind, she had been anticipating some kind of obstacle, even a banal one, to pop up at the ultimate stage; it was how these things always worked in the stories. The seeker never attained the goal smoothly.
"Oh, your VIP pass would have let you skip to the front of any line today, ma'am," the sentry grinned. "When Her Majesty is expecting someone, he or she gets top priority."
"I see," Duffin said weakly. She pondered how a traditional knight errant would have felt about a VIP pass to see the Holy Grail.
Another door opened, and the stout chief of the castle's staff entered the parlor. "Ah, Miss Duffin, good morning," Kai welcomed. "If you're all set, I'm quite certain Queen Elsa will see you now."
Duffin nodded mutely, and picked up her satchel. The final hurdle had been cleared. There was no emergency that needed the Queen's immediate attention, nor had the Queen capriciously changed her mind about the private audience. It really was going to be as easy as that.
"How is Her Majesty today?" Duffin asked as Kai conducted her through a few turns in the hallways. The only possible pitfall was that the Queen was in a sour mood from the events of the previous evening.
"She seemed rested and even-tempered. And we made sure to fortify her breakfast with chocolate," Kai said meaningfully. Again, Duffin nodded mutely.
They stopped at a door emblazoned with a large golden crocus - and tended by a tall, earnest-looking guard. But he merely politely inclined his head at them. The overseer nodded back and rapped smartly on the wood. "Enter," the Queen's voice enjoined from within.
The major domo opened the door only wide enough to stick his head through. "Miss Duffin is already here for her nine o'clock meeting, Your Majesty, if you are so disposed."
Elsa did not look up from her desk. "Just one moment, please." She finished writing, put her dip pen down, secured the ink bottle, and moved the paperwork off to the side. She met Kai's eyes and signaled her readiness with a tilt of her head.
Kai fully opened the door and indicated for Duffin to go in. And the historian stepped through the portal and found herself on her own in the same room with the most really magical person in the world. Duffin managed to curtsy.
"Good morning, Miss Duffin. Please have a seat. Would you like anything to eat or drink?" Elsa asked graciously.
"Not right now, Your Majesty," Duffin said as she sat down in a comfortable chair across from the Queen and took a notebook out of her satchel. "I had breakfast at the inn."
"Very well, ma'am. Then let's begin, shall we?" Elsa silently dismissed Kai with a toss of her head.
He shut the door as he left, and Duffin was left to face the problem that, while she had many questions for the Queen, she hadn't hit upon a good first question. She felt like she was in her old schoolroom, taking a test on a subject that she thought she had mastered, only to discover that she had overlooked a few chapters. Suddenly, being an expert in mythology, folklore, and stage magic was woefully inadequate in the presence of this beautiful young woman, scarcely older than a girl, who ruled not just a country, but an aspect of the natural world. The fact that this living proof of real magic was available for consultation by appointment and offered refreshments did nothing to make this encounter less intimidating.
Fortunately for Duffin, Elsa had seen guests metaphorically freeze up before and had developed methods to get a conversation started. The Snow Queen held her hands above the desk's surface and conjured a levitating, spinning ball of glowing snow which she cast up to the study's high ceiling, whereupon it burst into myriad individual snowflakes that gently floated down throughout the room.
Duffin stared at the spectacle, totally enchanted. She held out her hand and caught a snowflake. It was cold to the touch, and didn't melt against the heat of her palm.
"So, Miss Duffin, what do you think of real magic?" Elsa lead off.
"This is amazing!" Duffin gushed, the wonder and adventurousness of childhood rekindled as she gathered falling snowflakes, each one unique. "How can you be so nonchalant about it all?" Now that she had come out with it, it was the obvious thing to ask first.
Elsa gave a sincere chuckle. "I think being born with it helps. It's as familiar and natural for me as breathing ... or thinking. But," Elsa leaned over her desk and stage-whispered, "to be honest, sometimes I get a little giddy about it all, too."
In the Queen's light sprinkling of very faint freckles across her pale cheeks and the diamond-like glint in her sky-blue eyes, Duffin could see a trace of the child who had drawn donkey ears on her own reflection. Duffin smiled and relaxed. "What's your earliest memory of using magic, Your Majesty?"
"It's hard to tell if I truly remember it, or if being told about it from a young age has created the false sense that I do," Elsa stated. "Do you know what I mean?"
"I do. I have a similar problem with the time I excavated a portion of the back garden using a teacup from our good china set," Duffin admitted.
"Looking for something magical?" Elsa asked with light-hearted curiosity.
"Evidently, Your Majesty," Duffin said self-deprecatingly. "I think I remember hunting for a magic ring that might have been buried by the thyme. And I couldn't just use a commonplace trowel to find it."
"Well, I think I remember being excited and laughing and swirling snowflakes around above my bed when I finally somewhat comprehended what my parents meant when they said that I was going to have a little brother or sister," Elsa shared. "My parents were trying to get me to settle down to go to sleep, but they laughed along with me so much that it just turned into playtime. I would have been about a month or so shy of three years old."
Duffin raised a brow and jotted something down in the notebook.
"The earliest one that I can definitely testify to and pin down in time was making ice cubes to supplement the wooden building blocks I received for my third birthday. I guess I've always liked big projects, and I needed more pieces to construct what I wanted, so I just summoned some up," Elsa revealed. "They put a large square of oilskin on the bedroom floor after that, until I was old enough to understand that I needed to clean up before I left the room."
Duffin blinked and scribbled something else down in the notebook. Heeding Minister Nilsson's warnings about what not to ask -at least not too soon- she chose to follow an upbeat course. "Do you remember what you were building, Your Majesty?"
"Arendelle," Elsa said with fondness. "I was making it bigger in a three-year-old's kind of way."
"You always have been a builder," Duffin commented, almost laughing as she repeated Nilsson's characterization of the Queen.
"Building is what leaders do, Miss Duffin," Elsa shrugged.
"Not all of them," Duffin pointed out.
"All right, it's what good leaders do," Elsa allowed with a modest smile. "It's a family custom for each monarch of Arendelle to make some form of public improvement during his or her reign."
"At the rate you're going, Your Majesty, there won't be anything left in Arendelle that could possibly be improved," Duffin praised.
"Far from it, ma'am," Elsa deflected. "Science and technology always march on, and social philosophies always evolve. In fifty years' time, much of what is now state-of-the-art will be obsolete or broken, and what currently seems enlightened will look oppressive, barbaric, or just plain stupid."
"Still, your kingdom will have quite the leg up on everybody else," Duffin maintained.
"Whether that proves to be true is up to everybody else," Elsa said and smiled enigmatically. "What we do here is under intense scrutiny, and the rest of the globe will undoubtedly try to emulate us in certain things, nor would I intervene if some other land manages to copy us. I'm responsible for only Arendelle, and contrary to what some people claim, I try my best not to get too involved in the affairs of foreign countries."
"Your Majesty, would you say that attitude is also a family custom, or specific to the Snow Queen?" Duffin ventured.
"We have a long history of minding our own business, ma'am, and it is strongly impressed upon us to keep it that way, but considering that it's been centuries since Arendelle has had the means to be a major player in international diplomacy, it's mainly just my own policy," Elsa explained.
"So you're not tempted to use your powers to become Earth's mightiest hero?" Duffin queried.
"Ma'am, I'm not some avenger," Elsa clarified dryly.
"But I've heard about your work as a mediator, Your Majesty," Duffin said. "Certainly you-"
"Mediations are always among parties who all voluntarily consent to talk through their dispute with me," Elsa interrupted. "I don't force people to come to the table, Miss Duffin. Or keep them there if they have a change of heart. And we don't always reach an accord. Besides, if I didn't know it before, working as a negotiator has definitely taught me that most of the world's problems can't be solved by dropping a glacier on them. However, glacier-dropping is a useful talent to have to ensure everyone abides by the terms of the agreement."
Duffin gave a sigh of chagrin at her first misstep. "Very true, of course, Your Majesty. That was a dumb and presumptuous question."
"To be honest, I liked it much better than the standard 'Why haven't you taken over the world yet?' " Elsa confessed. "I wasn't one of the heroes of the story, but I clearly wasn't the one with the excessive desire for power, either."
Duffin was taken aback by the turn of the conversation. "But, Your Majesty, you lifted the-" she began.
"Eternal Winter?" Elsa broke in again. "Dispelling a calamity that I created doesn't make me a hero. That was merely a fancier version of putting my ice cubes in the bathtub when I was done playing with them, like a good little girl. If you want to talk to a hero, you'll need to chat with Princess Anna, or Ice Master Bjorgman, or Olaf and Sven. Well, Sven can't chat with you in the strictest sense, but he expresses himself fairly well."
"So you don't count yourself as one of the heroes?" Duffin asked in astonishment.
"Why would I? I spent much of the story performing a lot of the functions that would normally be assigned to the villain," Elsa replied without a hint of rancor. "I was aloof and cold to my extroverted, warm, perfect protagonist little sister for thirteen years. Within a span of about sixty hours after my coronation, I impeded, quote, true love, unquote, between Princess Anna and a young prince who seemed a fitting match for her; I froze my country and left everyone in the lurch; I mortally wounded the protagonist Princess and threw her out into the frigid wilderness; then, for an encore, I did some demolition at two castles, and severely damaged a number of visiting ships. Most proper villains would be rather envious of my accomplishments." Elsa smiled playfully, sat up straight in her chair, raised her head high, and thrust her left shoulder forward in a nobly bold pose.
Duffin was speechless for a minute, trying to determine how serious the Queen was being. "But, Your Majesty, all of that was unintentional," she insisted, although she wasn't sure it was a good idea to bring that up.
"Be that as it may, Miss Duffin, I came closer to causing a miserable ending than most proper villains in legends, contemporary fiction, and real history," Elsa countered. "My intentions wouldn't have mattered one iota if my sister had ended up as an ice statue or the planet had entered a permanent ice age. The world was lucky. The right band of heroes -and the right villain- assembled in precisely the right way at precisely the right time to stop the catastrophe."
Duffin blinked. She had heard reports of Arendelle's monarch's superbly keen mind and ability to dominate in debate, and had seen those traits briefly in action yesterday, but she was unprepared for this, especially so soon in the interview. She couldn't continue with her planned sequence of questions after an allegation like that. Duffin inwardly mocked herself for thinking that she would simply ask a question, and the magical Snow Queen would give a simple answer, and they would move on to the next question. The silence stretched. Elsa waited patiently for Duffin to make the next move.
"I hadn't thought of things that way, Your Majesty," Duffin said at last. "I really don't see you as a villain, nor do most other people. You were misunderstood and caught in a situation beyond your control."
"In hindsight, yes, it's obvious that I wasn't a villain. But with the information available to most people at the time, I was an ambiguous character at best, especially if they used conventional fairy tales as a guide," Elsa asserted. "Not everyone has analyzed and dissected folklore and mythology the way that you and I have. Once people are groomed to expect certain archetypes and plot structures, and there are enough classic elements in the story to convince them that they see established patterns, it's very easy to spring surprises on them."
"I was going to ask you if you ever read fairy tales, or if that was a bit superfluous," Duffin said, the feeling of taking a test returning.
"Not as extensively as you have, Miss Duffin, but the subject was of some interest to me. Whereas you looked for clues that would lead you to real magic, I looked for clues that would lead to control of my magic," Elsa divulged. "I had as much success as you did. Even the two purportedly authentic grimoires of real magic that we obtained are ridiculous. The directions for making talismans to block magic are totally useless. The spells are just cyclic gibberish. Like 'Eleka nahmen nahmen, ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen, eleka nahmen nahmen, ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen.' I didn't even know what I was reading. I'll let you study them, if you want, but there is as much real magic in them as there is in a collection of nursery rhymes. Someone would need to do a lot of mental contortions to believe that nonsense works."
Duffin blinked again. She sensed that she was being goaded to say something, because while the Queen's tone was cordial, many of her words paralleled the terms of derision and scorn Duffin had met with in her quests. The historian realized she was probably being evaluated by some unknown metric for some unknown purpose. This interview was obviously a two-way street, and it was more unnerving than any combat-by-riddles she could dream of.
"There is the possibility that the spells, like a few of the legends, contain some distorted memory of a really magical person, like yourself or Princess Rapunzel, from the distant past. Given enough centuries of oral dissemination and haphazard translations, Princess Rapunzel's song to activate the healing powers of her hair would be corrupted into something unrecognizable," Duffin conjectured.
"I would think that after the first few decades, people would see that the spells didn't work and conclude that they were doing something wrong," Elsa remarked archly.
"There has been the belief -now proven correct, because here you sit, Your Majesty- that only special people could use magic. Or that it took years of special effort and education to acquire and refine the skill, or a special process or object to unlock someone's magical potential," Duffin pronounced. "If the spell didn't work, the failure could be rationalized by saying the practitioners lacked the right qualities or qualifications, but there was always the hope that a breakthrough could happen in the future. I'm sure that you know this, Your Majesty, both as a scholar and as the Snow Queen."
"I do, Miss Duffin, but perhaps because my particular variety of magic is limited and ... quirky, let's just say, I don't understand how people wouldn't take into account that the spells are very likely garbled. Or how they could have been so naïve or arrogant to think that special powers won't come with complications that aren't covered in the lore," Elsa stated. "Especially since the underlying true stories have been altered not just by faulty transmission, but for the sake of entertainment value and educational purposes and to suit religious dogma and social mores."
"Certainly, you understand that the allure of power -both magical and worldly- is very strong for some people, Your Majesty," Duffin said.
"I do, Miss Duffin, but the most important thing about power is knowing how and when not to use it," Elsa avowed. "I know this as a scholar, as a real-life working queen, and as the Snow Queen."
"The world knows how lucky it is that you do, Your Majesty. I was in the Federal Republic of Central America when news of your magic was first spreading, and there was much concern and discussion about what the future would hold. They even put aside their local feuding long enough for me to make rapid progress to the nearest eastern port. But by the time I was ready to set sail, all the talk was about your benevolence, equanimity, and clemency," Duffin recounted.
"I genuinely didn't want to begin my reign and being openly magical with violence, and I knew I was under intense scrutiny, so benevolence, equanimity, and clemency were easy choices, ma'am. Which isn't to say that living on with the consequences of one's deeds can't be a worse fate than a humane execution, but I do not put a premium on killing, in keeping with both my family's custom and my individual preference," Elsa said solemnly. "I wasn't one of the heroes, but it was my lot to decide how many people ultimately died in the story and how bright and happy the ending was. I just wanted to have some contribution that I could be proud of."
Once again, Duffin could only nod mutely. Right now, there was nothing remotely childlike in the Snow Queen's lovely and intelligent face, nothing the least giddy or vulnerable in the star-like sparkle of her sky-blue eyes, only a wisdom that was well beyond her years, seemingly even beyond human, and it gave Duffin neither peace nor rest. "Perhaps you didn't save the day in the usual sense, Your Majesty," she said slowly, "but there can be subtler types of heroism. Sometimes being judicious and merciful are more difficult challenges than defeating the main villain."
"You sound like my sister, Miss Duffin. She's always looking for something encouraging and nice to say," Elsa noted, the unearthliness now gone from her features. Duffin was fascinated by the brief glimpse of the supernatural but at the same time was somewhat relieved that it had passed.
"Staying positive is a prerequisite in my line of research, Your Majesty. Otherwise I would have given up in frustration a long time ago," Duffin acknowledged. "Thus far, it's carried me to a few moments of triumph, your existence being the grandest one of them. I never dreamed I'd be asked to write a second volume; I didn't think I'd ever have enough new original material to write one. But thanks to you, now I will. So there's always hope. Maybe you'll also have chance for a sequel, and you'll get to be the hero in it."
Elsa chuckled. "If I do my job right, Miss Duffin, there won't be a sequel. It will just be one continuous happy ending for everybody. Besides, if I keep my head about me, I'm too powerful to be the hero if you want a compelling conflict. Only the strongest antagonists would have slim odds at best, so there wouldn't be much of a story," she boasted. "For example, if some villain had a magic knickknack, like a ring or bracelet or gauntlet, and there was no way to persuade him not to do something unspeakably horrible with it, I merely need line-of-sight to stop him, and my monoculars and telescopes give me a rather long range of operation. Even if he had some native power without the bauble that made it hard to know the best way to, uh, remove him from the equation, I could use my ice to simply decapitate him and cut off the arm that held the trinket while simultaneously impaling his heart, abdomen, and groin, and then drop a glacier on him, just for good measure. If I had something witty or vengeful to say, I would say it to the chroniclers after I was quite sure the villain was dead."
Duffin stifled a hoot of laughter. "You'd be no fun at all, Your Majesty. You need to learn how to toy with people," she teased.
"I do know how, ma'am, but there's a time and a place for it, and I refuse to put style before safety. So I'd be a terrible proper hero," Elsa said and hung her head in feigned shame.
"We could always embellish the story later on, Your Majesty, to make it a closer contest," Duffin quipped.
Elsa looked up and made eye contact with Duffin. This glance did not have the uncanny profundity of the previous one, but the cool fire of a born queen, who was used to giving orders and being obeyed, blazed through. "Absolutely not," Elsa contended with sudden seriousness. "I know you said it in jest, Miss Duffin, but if you are going to include my story and the findings of various investigations into the properties and extent of my magic in your second volume, it will be as factual and accurate as possible. I have already made it known to your publishers that I will not tolerate embellishments or modifications, especially not to pander to the whims of an audience or the expectations of a genre. I want to be portrayed as who and what I really am. I don't want to be mischaracterized as blameless, or as the villain, or a monster. Or as a hero, especially as a hero who had to fight really hard for the victory over the powers of darkness if all I had to do was snap my fingers. Do you understand, ma'am?"
Duffin nodded again, but this time was able to speak. "I do, and I whole-heartedly concur, Your Majesty. Humanity has already lost enough of its heritage due to all the editing and meddling and carelessness. We will never know just how many magicals there have been, or how they affected history; we will never know how many mythological figures are completely ordinary people whose real exploits would be astounding even without the superimposed fantastic elements. We are culturally poorer for it.
"And we will also never know just how many innocent, completely ordinary, non-magical people have been persecuted, like one of my foremothers, who had to flee her hometown to escape the stigma of the accusation of witchcraft despite being acquitted of the charges brought against her, or put to death due to prejudices and misconceptions about the nature of magic. You have my word that the description will be faithful and truthful, Your Majesty."
Elsa cocked her head and quietly assessed Duffin. "I am sorry to hear about your ancestor, Miss Duffin. Is she the reason you have such an interest in magic?"
"Not directly, Your Majesty. She was my grandmother's grandmother, and undoubtedly she knew some old lore, especially folk remedies like nettle tea and extract of willow, and as per family legend she was a colorful and enthralling storyteller. Whether those stories influenced my grandmother to believe that she actually, genuinely, truly saw a broonie -perhaps you've heard them called brownies, too- one night is uncertain. But at any rate, my grandmother believed that she actually, genuinely, truly saw a broonie one night, and so she was actually, genuinely, truly convinced that magical beings are real," Duffin related.
"And then you took over the mantle," Elsa presumed.
"Well, of course I was intrigued by the possibility that she actually, genuinely, truly saw something that was outside the common ken, Your Majesty," Duffin granted. "But later on, it became something like trying to solve a mystery. I also wanted to discern what truth, if any, lies behind the legends."
"Which would be that they are all basically devised to keep children and the less educated social strata in line or amused, or to give them explanations for things that we don't know the answers to," Elsa threw in.
"Pretty much correct, Your Majesty," Duffin conceded with a smile. "But every once in forever and a day, there's something that can't be dismissed so easily. Like the Dragon's Scale of Hua Shan-"
"That can't really be a dragon's scale," Elsa interjected playfully.
"It's the size of a dinner plate, and is very vivid tangerine in color with carmine and gold showing through underneath in a kind of chatoyancy," Duffin retorted with no animosity.
"It's a heretofore unidentified type of mineral that has been shaped by chance or design into the form of a scale," Elsa posited.
"It's very light, thin, and flexible," Duffin tweaked.
"It's from a heretofore unidentified species of fish," Elsa riposted.
"It was found about one thousand kilometers from the ocean, which would be the only body of water big enough for such a creature," Duffin rejoined.
"Something carried it inland," Elsa countered.
"Perhaps. But there was or is something unidentified with enormous, beautiful scales roaming or swimming around, Your Majesty," Duffin persisted.
"Fair enough, ma'am," Elsa yielded with a smirk.
"Or like the Sasanian Full Moon Stamp Seal," Duffin continued with the examples, and felt comfortable enough to raise a finger to forestall the Queen's tongue-in-cheek attempt to debunk the magical nature of the artifact, "which seems like a normal-enough jasper seal by day and most nights. Only when it's held under the light of the full moon does it glow with an eerie light and some symbol of unknown meaning is visible on its cabochon side.
"And like the Aksumite Antelope Hunt Relief Stele Fragments, which, when brought to within a hand's length of each other, will pull themselves together by some unknown force. They appear to be made from perfectly ordinary granite; they neither attract nor repel other substances; they are unaffected by magnets. The search continues for more pieces of the pillar.
"Or the healing power of Princess Rapunzel's hair. Yes, I know that skeptics will argue that it's all hearsay, that there are no objective eyewitnesses of the Princess' former powers, but the plant that was used to save her mother's life definitely had baffling attributes, and that Gothel woman must have had some reason for abducting and holding the Princess for eighteen years. Neither does the Princess' hair grow anymore," Duffin said.
"I don't doubt my cousin's claims about her healing powers, ma'am," Elsa assured her. "Although it would have been nice to know if her tears were always also able to heal and rejuvenate, because that did seem entirely too convenient of a plot twist."
"It's plausible that her tears and maybe even her blood always were magically potent as long as her hair was uncut, but the kidnapper's understanding of the magic was lacking. And now we and the Princess will never know what she was capable of," Duffin lamented.
"Fortunately," Elsa declared.
Duffin looked perplexed. "How can you say that, Your Majesty?" Duffin probed. "You appreciate your magic."
"I do, Miss Duffin. But my powers are quite different than Princess Rapunzel's seemed to be. Hers were the sort that would tempt people. Someone would have tried to steal her away again. People would fight to either possess her healing powers or destroy them. It would have been a crushing burden for her, eventually. Would she have healed and rejuvenated everyone who asked? How would she decide who was unworthy? What would she do if people were constantly clamoring for her help - and withholding it means they die, but giving it can and will lead to unforeseen ramifications, because the people never age or die as they naturally would? Real magic is a tricky thing," Elsa expounded.
Duffin again fleetingly saw that unfathomable wisdom in the Snow Queen's face, eyes, and smile, and was overtaken by the thought that she did not know enough. "Very true, of course, Your Majesty. That was another dumb and presumptuous question," she said meekly.
"Ma'am, you don't need to be so worried about asking dumb and presumptuous questions," Elsa counseled. "I apologize if my manner sometimes comes across as haughty or lecturing. It's a bad habit. Real magic is more or less uncharted territory, even for those of us with the powers. We're all learning as we go right now. That's why I assented to working with researchers and specialists in various fields: I'm using everyone's expertise to discover what I can do and what I shouldn't do. Many times, I hadn't realized something important until I was prompted by a dumb and presumptuous question."
"I see. I'm sorry if I seem a bit cowed, Your Majesty, but between your magic and how quickly you apprehend the implications or the solutions-" Duffin started to say.
Elsa's laughter cut the historian off. "Ma'am, you are talking to the person who buried her own country under a meter or so of snow, and didn't even notice it. I'm pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to the really major stuff," Elsa owned up. "I've had to say things like, 'Oh, wow, have my sneezes been coming to life all day? Sorry, I guess I wasn't paying attention.' Now that's dumb and presumptuous. And downright weird."
Duffin blinked again. "I'm given to understand there were mitigating circumstances, Your Majesty," she defended, although she still wasn't sure if it was the right thing to say. "You had fled far into the mountains for one of them, and were delirious for the other. What I mean is that when I spoke with Princess Rapunzel, she never mentioned any problematic issues with her former powers, but you saw a few right away."
"First, just because she didn't mention it, it doesn't mean she was unaware of it, Miss Duffin. I don't claim to know Princess Rapunzel that well, but I am passably acquainted with Princess Anna and the high-spirited, optimistic heroine archetype. For all their cheerfulness and bravery, there are some topics -usually the ones that are absolutely no fun and don't have good solutions- that they are not well equipped to talk about. They fully understand there are problematic issues that can't be overcome by sheer determination and a catchy song, but they do not like it one bit, and so they try to avoid speaking about it, or even thinking about it, if they can help it," Elsa elucidated. "Second, my cousin didn't have the benefit of the upbringing that she would have had if she had been raised by her parents, raised as a princess and not as a prisoner."
"Do you have any idea why this is happening, Elsa?" Agnarr asked, and resisted the instinctive urge to rub his hands together to keep them warm in the chill of the Crown Princess' bedroom.
"I think I was so hungry at lunch that I just couldn't hold it back," Elsa said, and resisted the nervous compulsion to wring her untrustworthy hands to keep them from touching anything that was liable to freeze over.
"Didn't you get enough to eat for breakfast? Why didn't you say something?" Agnarr interrogated.
"I didn't know if it was okay," Elsa replied quietly, eyes downcast. Somehow, she knew that people like her, people whose hands must always be sheathed in gloves and who must keep their literal and figurative distance from others, could not make too many demands. Particularly now that satin and suede were apparently no longer effective barriers - if they had ever truly been.
"Elsa, you're a princess, not a prisoner. You can ask for more food, especially if you're still hungry. Do you understand?" Agnarr pressed.
She stared at her feet and nodded mutely.
"Look me in the eye and use words, Your Highness," Agnarr challenged. "Like a princess, not a prisoner."
Elsa shut her eyes tightly, and swallowed. She took a few deep breaths as she tried to choke back all of her emotions. Finally, she looked at her father's grave but worried face and said, "I understand, sir."
Duffin observed the Queen close her eyes and shake her head slightly, as though trying to alleviate a mild case of eye strain, but suspected there was more to it than that. However, she was not going to risk being too curious too soon. "Princess Rapunzel made great strides in catching up," Duffin put forward. "She may not have had much insight about magic to offer, but there's nothing wrong with her brain or her heart. She's-" A knock on the study's door halted Duffin's statement.
"If you would please hold that thought, Miss Duffin. This is a snack for you, and probably a memorandum from Minister Rogalund for me," Elsa said.
"By all means, Your Majesty," Duffin complied.
"Come in," Elsa called out.
As predicted, the royal handler and two maids with covered trays entered the office. Kai set up a folding table next to Duffin's chair, upon which the maids efficiently placed a pot of hot tea, a cup, a napkin, utensils, a small pitcher of milk, a bowl of sugar cubes, and a plate of delectable-looking shortbread wedges with a medley of fresh berries and a generous garnish of whipped cream. Duffin looked at the treat with delight. "Thank you," she said to the maids.
Kai passed the Queen an envelope. "It's from Minister Rogalund, Your Majesty," the overseer said, as Elsa opened it and briefly scanned the contents.
"I will have tea at the Visby embassy at four o'clock, Master Kai. Please inform Minister Rogalund, Admiral Sverdrup, Captain Grimsen, and Chief Constable Johanssen that I would like them also in attendance, along with one other guard of Captain Grimsen's choice," Elsa told him. "Please don't forget to give Captain Grimsen some money, so that we can bring a nice bouquet for my hosts."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Kai said.
"Is everything satisfactory, Miss Duffin?" Elsa queried.
"This is more than fine, Your Majesty," Duffin confirmed.
"Thank you, Master Kai, ladies. You may go," Elsa directed.
The employees nodded politely as they left, and Duffin poured herself a cup of tea. "Nothing for you, Your Majesty?" she made sure.
"No, thank you. I expect the kitchen staff to prepare something special for my lunchtime dessert," Elsa forecasted with a sly smile. "And I will definitely have a cup of tea with the ambassadors."
Duffin nodded mutely, and had no doubt that the Snow Queen was just as brilliant at making someone squirm as she was at governing. She took a bite of the shortbread and a sip of tea. It was not exactly like her grandmother's recipe, but it was a very respectable approximation. She speared a strawberry, and dipped it in the whipped cream.
"Before you eat that, Miss Duffin, I should disclose that those berries have been preserved by my magic," Elsa alerted. "I don't think that fact will bother you, but some people have qualms about consuming food that I've used my magic on."
"Has anyone ever had any ill effects?" Duffin asked, and inquisitively regarded the strawberry.
"Not that we know of," Elsa said. "As an experiment, we've been feeding a control group of chickens, ducks, sheep, and goats exclusively magically preserved food for almost year now, and there are no signs of anything amiss or unusual in them or their offspring. You can see them at the magic lab."
Duffin popped the strawberry in her mouth without hesitation. It really was as tasty and juicy as though it were picked at peak ripeness in July. "My compliments to farmers, the chef, and the preserver," she saluted.
"Behold the power of teamwork," Elsa bantered.
Duffin took another bite of shortbread - but then nearly spilled her tea when a series of loud crashes disrupted the calm atmosphere.
Author's Notes - To avoid a plagiarism or copyright infringement issue, "Tangled" also belongs to Disney. I have opted to stick with the movie and "Tangled Ever After" (where Rapunzel retains only a slight magical sympathy with the sun) as "canon" and ignore the TV series. I can steal whatever parts of the franchise I wants!
The VIP pass that lets you skip to the front of the line would get big laughs in Orlando and Anaheim. The "Avengers" (also Disney/Marvel) and "Wicked" (music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Winnie Holzman, based on Gregory Maguire's novel) references would, hopefully, get big laughs everywhere. As a teaser, Elsa and a green-skinned witch will cross paths later on in the story and give each other a hard stare.
I feel justified in making Elsa's earliest magical -and possibly mundane- memory something related (ha! ha!) to being a big sister. It seems very in-character for her (see Olaf's initial reaction to the Snowgies in "Frozen Fever"), and it fits in well with the sisters' ages. And it seems like the kind of story their parents would have told them during "family time" before the gates were shut.
Elsa is Dangerously Genre Savvy - but also plagued by being Wrong Genre Savvy. Sure, if you put her in "Infinity War," she would break the story really, really easily, and (minor, very predictable spoiler) she curb-stomps in all of the showdowns in "Force of Nature" that are Marvel-esque. As a teaser, Elsa will eventually smack someone/something with a glacier, and, yeah, mountains are gonna get obliterated. But Elsa isn't really in the MCU; Elsa is in an animated musical. And so, there are plenty of antagonists (not necessarily villains, just as Elsa was antagonistic without being villainous) that she would be very scared to use her magic against (you can already guess one of them). Elsa also knows to qualify her badass boasting with "If I keep my head about me," because her track record of crashing into the Blue Screen Of Death isn't exactly reassuring. But, man, when her operating system is up and running, even if she really doesn't know/control what she's doing, she's so badass that it took all the heroes and the villain as a villain to stop her. That's some serious power.
"Do not put a premium on killing" is a shout-out to Sun Tzu and "The Art of War." More will follow. Because Elsa is a Badass Bookworm, too.
The bits about the Snow Queen having a lovely and intelligent face, eyes that sparkle like stars but give neither peace nor rest, and a smile that gives one the impression that one does not know enough are direct quotes from Hans Christian Andersen's original "Snow Queen" story. As a teaser, I will point out that there are two mirrors in the original HCA fairy tale: the devil-troll's mirror of distortion and the Snow Queen's mirror of reason. In the movie, Hans was the metaphorical mirror of distortion, and Elsa was the metaphorical mirror of reason. You will just have to keep tuning in to find out if Elsa ends up made of ice and trying to help cursed children in strange, unearthly ways by the end of "Force of Nature."
I feel justified in characterizing Elsa as being against pandering to the whims of an audience or the expectations of a genre because getting caught up in whims and expectations is why it took 70 years for them to adapt the Snow Queen tale and why it took an eleventh-hour "Eureka!" moment to save it from being a bland movie. Of course, if you suspect Miss D. will eventually struggle with the temptation to somehow or other make the sequel more exciting than Elsa wants it to be, you might be on to something...
