Queen Maribel was due to arrive in an hour, and Elsa was nervous.

All week long the snow queen had made an extra effort to help clean the castle. At first, this had only offended the sweet old maid who'd been in charge of housework for years. Elsa would trail behind her with her own dust cloth, vigorously polishing candlesticks and vases that were already spotless. At odd hours of the night, she could be found on the ladder scrubbing nonexistent bits of dirt in high places.

The poor housemaid was bending over backwards trying to stay one step ahead of her boss, but Elsa never once asked her directly to increase her efforts or reclean a room. She just quietly drifted through the halls with a glassy look in her eyes, stopping every so often to attack a piece of furniture with the feather duster or a section of the floor with the mop.

After a while, the maid accepted that the Queen wasn't trying to passive aggressively criticize her work, but simply needed a way to take her mind off of the diplomatic meeting that was rapidly approaching. The palace staff wasn't entirely sure why their leader was so on edge, and they all came to the same general conclusion: Queen Elsa and Queen Maribel must have some extremely important items to discuss during their meeting.

The palace staff made sure to do their duties with extra care that week.

"Elsaaaaa!"

The Queen jumped and knocked over the vase of flowers that she was carefully arranging. Thankfully, she managed to freeze the water that poured out before it hit the floor. It became an oddly shaped icicle that she swiped out of the air before it hit the floor and shattered.

I'm so high strung today.

"Anna, don't startle me like that," she snapped, glaring at the icicle in her hands.

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed!" Anna said cheerfully. She took the icicle and pretended to use it as a trumpet. "Doo do do doooo! Presenting, her royal highness, Queen Maribel of Santa Terraza!"

Elsa blanched.

"What? No, she's not due for an hour and the food isn't quite ready - at least, I don't think it is - and I still need to get some more water for these fl -"

"Whoa, sis! I was kidding!" Anna put her arm around her sister's shoulders, nearly throwing the poor woman off balance. Elsa was significantly taller, especially the high heeled boots she'd chosen to wear. "Be the queen of ice I know you are and chill out a little!"

Elsa sighed and avoided her sister's raised eyebrows. This was an important meeting. All meetings with royalty from the neighboring kingdoms were important! It was perfectly normal to get the jitters beforehand, right?

"You've got this. Everything is going to be just fine! Queen Maribel loves you. You know that."

Elsa blushed in her own unique way, with a whisper of frost blooming over her cheeks. Instead of the usual pink flush, she turned a faint shade of purple. The queen figured it was from the combination of blue ice and the red blood rushing to her face. Sometimes her ears turned purple as well. It was quite embarrassing.

"I suppose we are on particularly good terms with Queen Maribel and her kingdom…"

"Oh please, the last time she came we had pineapple and mango every day for a week. Remember that beautiful raft she brought Olaf? He still hasn't stopped talking about that one."

It was true, there was no shortage of lavish gifts every time Queen Maribel came around. Her kingdom was basically the polar opposite of Arendelle - full of strange tropical plants and beautiful white sand beaches. The gifts reflected this environment. There was a lot of exotic fruit involved. Secretly, Elsa was hoping that she'd bring some more of this exquisite chocolate. It had something special in it. What was it called… maybe coconut? Either way, it was delicious.

Olaf really wanted to visit Santa Terraza sometime. He all but worshipped the foreign queen.

"Speaking of Olaf, does he have his bowtie on?" Elsa glanced at her sister's outfit. "Why don't you put on your coronation dress? Something a little more formal? Is Kristoff joining us tonight? I need to tell the kitchen staff if he is."

"Don't get your bloomers in a bunch, I'm going to change before I come down to say hi. Kristoff is out ice harvesting tonight, so he won't make it. I'll probably pass on dinner too." Anna grinned. "It looks like it'll just be you and the Queen."

Elsa cleared her throat. "Very well then, I'll inform the kitchen."

"You heard about King Luis, right?"

Elsa's eyebrows shot up. "No, I can't say that I have?"

King Luis didn't often accompany his wife to Arendelle. Maribel mentioned once how he disliked travel due to frequent bouts of seasickness. This coupled with his hatred of cold weather resulted in only two trips to the chilly kingdom, both in the middle of summer and neither for more than a couple of days.

Personally, Elsa didn't care much for King Luis. Maribel's bright, bubbly personality was dulled considerably whenever she was in the company of her more serious husband. He always gave her sharp looks if she cracked a joke or led the conversation away from strict business. Their relationship had an odd dynamic that seemed more like a disapproving father and a free-spirited child instead of husband and wife. Maribel never seemed happy when she was with him.

"They finalized their divorce a few months ago. I don't think it's been made public yet, so don't mention it. Apparently it's been going on for a long, long time now. The process was super complicated and involved signing lots of official documents." Anna mimed scribbling her signature on an imaginary paper. "Just don't bring it up. It might not even be true, but Kristoff heard it through one of his ice harvesting sources. Santa Terraza has a lot of demand for ice."

Elsa was so stunned that she could only nod in response. A divorce! That was very uncommon among royals. She hoped that Maribel was okay. No wonder they looked like such an unhappy couple.

Anna skipped away with the vase-water icicle.

"I'll give this to Olaf, I'm sure he'll think it's cool!"

The remaining 45 minutes flew by. Elsa put the finishing touches on her makeup and ironed her suit once more before finally putting it on. She'd decided on this outfit over a dress for many different reasons, the most prominent being that Maribel often remarked on how she thought Elsa's choice to wear suits was very classy and sent a great message to the kingdom. The day before she mulled over which jacket to lend to Maribel, since she was perpetually dressed for summer and always got cold in Arendelle. The nights were quickly getting chilly, and winter was just around the corner.

Elsa hung the jacket on her bedroom door for easy access if (when) Maribel would ask for it. She wanted to make sure her guest was comfortable. Arendelle was known for its hospitality, after all.

The dinner table was set, there was a warm fire crackling, the candles were lit… everything was in place. All she had to do was wait.

Elsa sat in the big armchair nearest to the door and practiced a new trick that she'd recently discovered. If she manipulated a loosely packed ball of ice crystals in just the right way, she could make them dance and flicker, just like fire. The result was something that looked exactly like a blue flame, only if you passed your hand through it, you'd feel the sharp bite of frost instead of the dull ache of heat.

Every day her powers grew stronger and her skills became more refined. It was hard but gratifying work. She was excited to show Maribel the latest development. All of the other royals had mostly warmed up to the idea of her ice powers, but Maribel showed the most excitement by far.

Everyone else was polite, but Elsa couldn't help but feel like they were constantly formulating a strategy just in case of war. She couldn't really blame them. Deep down, Elsa knew that she'd only ever use her powers for good, but how were the others supposed to know that? Trust was hard to build, and only seeing the other royals in brief visits that were few and far between didn't really allow for any friendships to grow.

Maribel was different, though. She'd offered a type of support to Elsa that could only be matched by Anna, who'd been cheering her sister on since birth.

Elsa didn't really know why the other queen seemed to care so much about her. They were acquaintances at best. Perhaps she was that way with everyone.

The snow queen was balancing ten fire-flames on each one of her fingers when there was a knock at the door. Each flame burst into a tiny snow flurry with a small pop, and Elsa launched herself out of the armchair.

"Good afternoon, q-"

"HI!" Olaf flung himself into Elsa's legs and hugged her knees vigorously. "It's Olaf! I'm ready for dinner! Well, not dinner because I can't eat but you already knew that!"

Elsa couldn't help but deflate just a little.

"Hello, Olaf. I'm glad you could make it."

She smiled when she saw his crooked little ice bow tie. With an almost imperceptible twitch of her right hand, the bow tie straightened itself.

"I brought some dandelion fuzzies for Queen Maribel. I thought maybe we could all blow them out together on the balcony! It will be just like summer, but in the middle of fall!"

"That's a wonderful idea Olaf." Elsa collected the handful of weeds from him and tried not to dislodge any more of the fluffy seeds. They already looked a bit bedraggled, probably from Olaf swinging them around on his way over.

"Are you excited to see her?" He shimmied from side to side. "I know I am! I can't wait to hear all the stories about dolphins and crabs and, oh, what were they called? Pork-pies-is?"

"Pork-pies-is?" Elsa trailed off, her mind sifting through all the descriptions of Santa Terraza that she'd heard from Maribel. "Oh! You mean porpoises."

"Yes!" Olaf laughed and jumped with glee. "So many porpoises!"

"Olaf!" Anna called from the top of the stairs. "Can you help me with my hair for just a second?"

He gave one last hug to Elsa's knees.

"Sorry Elsa, but duty calls! I promise to come back later, after I help Anna!"

She watched the little snowman scurry up the stairs, leaving wet footprints (snowprints?) on each step. Elsa loved the little snowman, but she was relieved to have him out of her hair at for the time being. Waiting for Queen Maribel was stressful enough by herself.

Anna caught her eye right before she walked off with Olaf. Her sister gave her a conspiratorial wink.

Elsa squeezed her eyes shut and turned back towards the door.

Thankfully, Queen Maribel arrived only a few moments after that.

Elsa could see her thin frame, slightly distorted through the skinny frosted glass window set in the middle of the door. She didn't give herself any more time to overthink before grabbing the handle and turning.

The result was the door being wrenched open quite aggressively. It banged against the wall and Elsa winced, face already blushing purple.

"S-sorry! I didn't mean to- uh, well, hello! And welcome. Welcome back!" Elsa stammered.

Come on, Elsa! We practiced! She admonished herself.

The woman on the doorstep was grinning, and didn't seem to take any notice of her host's blunder.

Queen Maribel looked gorgeous. She was wearing a red dress with colorful embroidery and puffy sleeves. The skirt was long and ruffled at the end, swaying in the breeze as if she'd just finished dancing with a dramatic twirl. Her black hair curled over her shoulders and spilled down her back like tree roots anchoring themselves to the earth.

Elsa took a sharp breath.

Maribel was so out of place on her doorstep, but not in a bad way. The colors in her outfit contrasted sharply with the bleak landscape of Arendelle in autumn. Everything was already so cold and gray, but Maribel was summer personified. Her glowing olive skin seemed to coax extra sunshine right through the cracks of the gray clouds overhead.

"Hello, Elsa!"

The snow queen's eyes were drawn to the movement of Maribel's pink lips. A flash of light catching in the sticky gloss winked at her. Elsa wondered faintly if whatever she had put on them was coconut flavored.

Maribel barreled into Elsa not unlike Olaf had done only moments before. She certainly smelled like coconut, Elsa noticed.

"Hello," Elsa said once more, this time into the dark mass of curls. Maribel was quite short. She only came up to Elsa's shoulders.

The queen heard Maribel laugh gently, a musical sound like the ocean sighing.

"Oh!" Elsa pulled away abruptly and Maribel almost toppled over. She quirked an eyebrow and her lips caught the sun once again as she smirked at the pale, odd woman.

Elsa looked shyly at Maribel.

"Te gustaria unirte a mi para cenar?" She recited the phrase slowly, with a horrendous accent that she was well aware of. Elsa had been practicing Spanish, the language of Santa Terraza, for months in anticipation of this coming visit.

Maribel clapped her hands in delight and laughed again. "Por supuesto, guapa! El placer es mio."

"Okay," Elsa was pleased with her reaction, "But what does 'guapa' mean?"

Maribel gave her a mischievous grin.

"It means 'good-looking.'"

Elsa was thankful for the moment she took to close the door. She had to swipe a thick layer of frost off of her cheeks before Maribel noticed.