Chapter 3: The Art of Courtship

It was another quiet Sunday morning. Elsa had been away from the palace and living with Kenneth for about ten months. As she brewed new medicines, Kenneth asked her, "Elsa? Why did you give up the throne?"

Elsa paused over the remedy she was mixing. "My council of advisers were forcing me to get married. Take a suitor as my husband for political advantage."

Kenneth's face fell. "Gosh, that's awful!"

"I know," Elsa huffed. "I knew that I wouldn't be happy, and that, if I ever do marry, I want it to be for love." She shrugged. "My sister is likely going to take the Ice Master Kristoff to be her husband."

Kenneth beamed with pride. "And good luck unto him! He has always been a friend of the workers. He'll make a fine King Consort!"

"Yes. If only the Council saw it that way." A sudden thought struck her and she turned back to him. "Courting must be more simple here."

Kenneth studied her for a moment. "It's more... physical, I would say. Most folks in the Seam... they don't waste time."

Elsa suddenly felt her throat go very dry and she gulped. "Physical?" She almost whispered it.

Kenneth was gazing at her intensely. "Yes." He slowly approached, so that Elsa was backed all the way against the counter. "It might start off with... a caress..." Elsa felt his hand brush along her hip, take her waist. Then that same hand boldly palmed along her bum, squeezing the tender flesh. Goosebumps alighted her skin, and she surprised herself when she didn't pull away, instead leaning into him. "Here..." Kenneth's calloused fingers cupped her rear end. "Here..." His other hand danced along Elsa's right breast.

Elsa felt her breath becoming labored. Her heartbeat was becoming more erratic. "And then?" she hissed.

Kenneth's eyes were clouded over with lust. With their grey color, it seemed that thunderstorms were dancing behind his lids. He and Elsa were very close together now. "Well, then... there might be... a kiss."

Elsa peered at him and silently titled her head. It was welcoming, encouraging, and their lips hovering, quivering, Elsa permitted Kenneth to kiss her.

The moment their lips touched was a soft one, but then their mouths crashed together the rest of the way, and Elsa moaned heavily into Kenneth's mouth. Boldly, she swept her thigh up and around Kenneth's torso as the hand holding her bum raised her leg to his waist. She undulated against him, groaning, communicating her need to make love. She could feel her knickers growing damp, staining through to her green sundress; she was already very wet.

Former Queen and miner stumbled upstairs into Elsa's room, kissing furiously. Kenneth threw her down onto the bed, and Elsa spread her legs for him eagerly. Kenneth crawled into the space between them, and still frantically kissing, he reverently began to undress her former Majesty. Elsa's hands deftly flew to the buckle of his belt, divesting him of his trousers. Undergarments quickly followed.

Kenneth's engorged manhood penetrated the swollen petals of Elsa's sex easily, and she cried out in pain. Like the gentleman he was, Kenneth stopped immediately.

"Did I hurt you?"

Eyes pricking with tears, Elsa shook her head. "Gently... gently..." she gasped out. Kenneth obeyed, tenderly rocking back and forth inside her. Groaning, her eyes rolling into the back of her head, Elsa thrust up her hips to match him.

"Hmmmm... Mmmmm... Uhhhh... Huhhhh..." Elsa's moans and sweet sighs were the most beautiful sound Kenneth had ever heard. She looked so gorgeous and exquisite when they made sweet love.

Clasping her paramour close, Elsa and Kenneth rolled around heavily in each other's embrace, so that Elsa soon found herself straddling to him. She made love to him softly, uncertainly, not entirely sure of what she was doing but gradually growing in confidence. "Hmmm... Mmmm... Kenneth..." At last, throwing back her head with a tiny cry, Elsa came all around him. Kenneth spurted up inside of her soon after.

The pair held each other in the rapidly fading light for many hours after they had sex, before Elsa finally rose from her bed languidly. Together, they dressed, stealing glances at each other and blushing, before Kenneth suddenly took her hand.

"Elsa... will you marry me?"

With a small, bemused smile, Elsa studied her suitor curiously. He was a commoner, but wasn't she one now herself? Besides, she had always vowed to herself that she would marry only for love. And here this man had crept up on her, little by little allowing her to fall in love with him.

And so it was now that Elsa decided to wed. She nodded. "Yes," she whispered. Kenneth's hand came to rest at the back of her neck, and her own reached up to tangle in his hair. Their faces drew together quite close. And then, Elsa craned her head so that their lips met, and she smiled into the deepening kiss. She was going to be a wife. She, Elsa of Arendelle, was going to be married. She, Elsa of Arendelle, was going to become Mrs. Elsa Everdeen.

Kenneth said that the marriage tradition in the Seam was to Toast a bit of bread over the fireplace. Elsa was delighted by the idea. She elected to wear her mother's wedding dress to get married in, which she had found in the castle attic and was one of the few garments she had brought with her when she left the palace.

Kenneth dressed himself in the only suit he owned, and invited several of his mining friends. Elsa would have invited her sister and Kristoff, but they were busy with their royal duties. And besides, this was personal, private.

After Toasting the bread, Kenneth and Elsa shared it. Then Kenneth pulled his bride close. There was a mixture of excitement and trepidation in Elsa's eyes, but soon she leaned in and shared with her new husband a long, lingering kiss.

Newly wed husband and wife quickly became very involved, so that their wedding kiss got a little out of control amidst cheers and wolf whistles. That evening, Kenneth swept his new bride off her feet and carried her up to their marriage bed, where they made sweet love and consummated their marriage.

It was a stormy night, on the evening of May 8th over a year later, when Queen Anna heard a banging on the front door of the palace. Rising from the bed she shared with her boyfriend, Kristoff, the royal couple rushed to see what was the matter. A dirty miner was standing outside the palace gates, his tears mixing in with the pounding of the rain.

"My lord and lady, I hate to disturb you. My name is Kenneth Everdeen. I'm the Miner Foreman in the Seam. Your sister Elsa, Majesty, is my wife, and she's giving birth to a baby!" As proof, the man presented Anna with the blue ice dress that Elsa had always taken to wearing. It was his wife's favorite garment.

A frightened Anna readied her horse and Kristoff eagerly agreed to come along. The Ice Master allowed Kenneth to ride behind him on Sven. At the last minute, Anna recruited her nursemaid, Gerda, to accompany them. As they galloped along, Anna's mind whirled. Elsa is married? Elsa is going to become a mommy? She hadn't heard from her sister in months, although rumors in the village had maintained that she was healthy and happy.

The royal entourage and Kenneth burst into a simple shack and raced upstairs to the second floor. There they found Elsa in childbed, straining and screaming from the pain of childbirth. She cried when she saw Anna, and her sister desperately kissed the tears away, holding and stroking Elsa's hand.

Kenneth and Kristoff assisted Gerda in delivering the baby, who came out with dark tufts of hair and deep grey eyes. Elsa instantly drew her to her breast, already deeply in love.

"Katniss," she cooed quietly. "Katniss Everdeen."

Kenneth fiercely kissed his wife, collapsing into a chair in relief while Anna wept tears of joy.

The years passed. When little Katniss was four years old, Elsa gave birth to another baby, this one with her mother's blond hair and blue eyes. Elsa named her Primrose. She happily made a career out of Healing, waiting happily until her beloved husband would come home from work in the mines.

Then, when the girls were still small, several horrible things happened at once.

The monarchy of Arendelle was overthrown, with Queen Anna and Prince Consort Kristoff brutally assassinated. The constitutional monarchy was reforged into a brutal dictatorship, with a man named Coriolanus Snow taking over as President. He invaded neighboring lands, razing the royal palace and re-naming the former kingdom of Arendelle as District 12, the last in a series of districts ruled over by a faraway Capitol. The new districts tried to overthrow Snow, but their rebellion was put down. A cruel gladiatorial contest known as the Hunger Games was created as punishment, to be handed down annually.

When Katniss was 11 and Primrose was 7, Elsa's husband Kenneth was tragically killed in a mine explosion. Elsa sank into a deep depression, watching her girls grow up around her and vowed that she would never love again.

Arendelle's once ruler, the former Queen, had surely been humbled.