I haven't forgotten this one, sorry it took so long to get here! I wanted this chapter to be well polished and I ended up shifting it around twice before I was happy.
Bumblebees buzzed, dandelion fuzz floated on the air and outside the castle walls came the sound of a snowman at play. Elsa was sat in the shade of a tree in the royal gardens, they had been planned by her mother and sitting amongst the beautiful flowers and well cared for trees made her feel closer to her. Sat amongst a pile of carefully selected flowers (The gardeners had been "dead-heading" the blooms) was Katja. The sunlight was giving her hair a burnished gold gleam as she wove crowns and bracelets from the colourful blossoms.
Elsa leaned against the tree and looked over to the doorway, checking to see if Freya was back with the lemonade she had been sent to collect. Lazy summer afternoons were something she had never really had before or during her isolation so she indulged in them whenever possible now.
As Katja played with the flowers she sang.
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.
Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.
Call up your men, dilly, dilly, set them to work
Some to the plough, dilly, dilly, some to the fork,
Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, some to cut corn,
While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm.
Lavender's green, dilly, dilly, Lavender's blue,
If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you.
Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, And the lambs play;
We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm's way.
I love to dance, dilly, dilly, I love to sing;
When I am queen, dilly, dilly, You'll be my king.
Who told me so, dilly, dilly, Who told me so?
I told myself, dilly, dilly, I told me so.
By the second verse Elsa had joined in, her rich voice mingling with the high tones of her daughter. Katja noticed right away, she looked up, half smiling around her words as they sang. When they finished she joined Elsa in the shade, a pair of flower wreathes in her hand. She sat down in the shade too, close to her mother.
"So you're going to be Queen then?" Elsa teased. "How do you plan to do that?" she was smiling and tickled her daughter under the chin.
"Oh, I don't know Mama." The girl giggled, placing a crown on her mother's head. "I'll just have to marry a prince." Katja smiled as Elsa took the other crown and placed it amongst the ash-blonde braids.
"No no my dear, I want you to stay here with me forever." She captured Katja in a hug and kissed the top of her head.
"But Mama, I do want to have a prince charming or a Lord something. Maybe a brave knight." Katja snuggled into the hug. She might be twelve and a big girl, but getting hugs from her mama was something she would never outgrow.
"Nooo, you'll be my little girl for always and forever." Elsa squeezed the hug and got more giggles from Katja but once they stopped, the girl looked thoughtful.
"I'm not a proper princess though Mama. What am I going to do? Matty is learning to be king and Lissy is learning all the things a princess should know and already tells me all the time how many princes are going to want to marry her..."
"Is she being a problem?" Elsa looked into the blue-green eyes to search for upset. As she had grown a little older Lisbet had become rather outspoken, most of the time it was kept well in hand but she followed after her mother and could sometime say things without thinking.
"No. Not really." Katja adjusted the flower crown on her head. "It's just thinking about the future and stuff. You are Queen and Mam is a guard and Uncle Kristoff is a Ice Master and Aunty Anna is "Princess Meet-and-Greet" and Matty is going to be king, even Lissy is going to do something important, 'cos Queens who are married to kings do a lot of stuff, and princesses who marry princes."
Elsa paused to think, she hadn't thought to worry about Katja's future too much because at her age she had been too troubled by growing powers and four years of isolation. "You could have any important role when you are grown up Kat." She started. "You are officially a Lady and all the visiting diplomats and ambassadors who live here in Arendelle know that I spend a lot of time with you and teach you with Matty."
Katja nodded, in recent months, once her lessons with the tutor and her adopted cousins ended she would sit in with Matteus when he spent a few lesson times a week with Elsa. She didn't have all the same lessons, Matteus had time with an aide who taught him 'king stuff' in the week. Those periods she spent with the etiquette teacher and Lisbet or the both of them learned things from Anna.
"I won't lie, as a ruling Queen a lot of...unwritten laws are overturned. I was the only heir in the family line, if my Papa hadn't died so young and Anna or myself had married and had a son, he would have been crown-prince." She let the thought sink in. "As it turned out I am Queen and if I had taken a husband..." Katja sniggered and got a tickle in punishment. "I would have outranked a husband, he would have been a Prince Consort."
"Like Uncle Eugene?" Katja liked the wily man who was married to her mother's cousin.
"Exactly like that. Rapunzel is the Crown Princess and when she becomes Queen, Eugene will still be the prince." Elsa paused again. "Though for you, my dear, marriage would be what everyone expects, to some political match or high ranked young man." Katja made a face.
"Boys can be... interesting..." Her ear tips coloured red, while she wasn't quite as enamoured of fairy-tale princes and the romance her Aunt Anna and Lisbet would chatter away about, sometimes when she watched her Mam put new guards through their paces or saw the sons of visiting dignitaries being very courtly and polite she had a little inkling that they would be in her future which wouldn't be so bad.
Elsa laughed, "Well, that one is something to talk to Anna about; you've got me stumped on that one." She hugged Katja again, not really liking all this talk of her little girl growing up.
"Yeah, I will won't I. Maybe about a few more things." She grinned again and shook her head to all the questions Elsa asked then.
There was clink of glasses. "Hello! Sorry I took so long." Freya carried a tray of glasses and a jug of lemonade. "There was an incident with a snowman and a reindeer. I sent Matty to warn you I'd take a while."
"He must have gotten distracted." Elsa said, "We haven't seen him." Freya sat down beside her and put an arm out for Elsa to lean into her.
"Nope." Katja added, she picked up a third flower crown and put it in Freya's curls. "There."
"Thanks cutie. So, lemonade for all." She poured out three glasses from the pitcher.
"Iced." Elsa waved her hand over them and watched the frost trace through the liquid.
"Yummy." Katja and Freya said together.
Elsa had never really had any opportunity to enjoy a lazy afternoon, between her self-imprisonment and duties as Queen. She was absolutely revelling in this one, held by her partner as they watched their daughter play.
As the Queen's little family enjoyed the summer sunshine, her nephew and heir was busy in his own little scheme. Contrary to his aunt's thoughts, he hadn't been distracted on his mission, well, not until the last moment. He had reached the interior garden just in time to catch the singing, not wanting to disturb them he had held back, enjoying hearing their duet. He had wanted to pass the message on after, but their conversation had given him pause.
Matteus was nearly thirteen, he too had been on the receiving end of his sister's taunts (usually after his own teasing of her) and the thought of being arranged a Queen always worried him.
The thought of Katja having a husband felt even worse.
"If you want to romance someone right, lay the groundwork early." That was what the younger guards had said when the prince had snuck out to talk at night.
Now, small gift in hand, he was sneaking into Katja's room. The posy was tied with a twist of ribbon scrounged from a barely heeded doll in his sister's toybox, the flowers simply lavender found all around the castle gardens, one sprig from each bush to conceal that they had been taken. Katja loved crocuses and lavender and it was the wrong season for the first. Lavender made the room smell nice too, and it was fitting considering her song he had heard.
Sneaking in to lay it on her pillow he haltingly sang the first few lines, the ones he was beginning to hold close.
Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,
When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.
Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.
He didn't know someone had seen his scurrying around, nor that they were watching him now, leaving his secret gift and singing in an adolescent approximation of his father's fine voice. He hurried out of the room and away to some suitable activity to excuse his absence all day, unaware of his observer.
A sly grin turned to a sigh at the romance of it all as Anna slid into a seat in the family floor hallway. She had caught her son looking up to mischief, but it had turned out so much better. "I must have done something right." She spoke aloud, to the portrait on the far wall of a couple she held dear. "I'm raising a real Prince Charming Mama, Papa. I hope you'd be as proud as I am right now."
For a moment a mote of sunlight in the air could have possibly made it seem like the figures in the portrait were smiling wider and Anna mirrored them. She kept what she saw a secret though, it would be all the more delightful to watch things develop as they should.
Everyone had a wonderful summer afternoon and when Katja found a scented posy in a tiny twist of ribbon on her pillow, she wondered who could have placed it there and felt the slightest warmth when she wondered if it had been Matteus. She didn't comment on it though, to anyone, even if Elsa and Freya both noticed the little sprigs sat in a vase, even long after the flowers had dried.
I had the ideas for this after one of my many music listening sessions. My parents were the youth of the 80s so their music tastes include such groups as Marillion. Go and listen to their track Lavender, it is a nice twist on the traditional rhyme.