Chapter 6: Love is Love
Elsa's Cabinet was in an uproar over their Queen's announcement that she was to marry, and the presentation of her chosen suitor.
"It's an outrage! It's a blasphemous outrage!" Secretary Mattis was practically spitting in his venom.
"The Queen cannot take a bride! It's hideous!"
"Your Majesty," The Secretary of the Treasury warned. "If you go through with this, you will be forced to abdicate the throne."
Elsa took a deep breath, and reached for Ilya's hand. "So be it."
"No!" A child's cry could be heard just before the door to the Cabinet room burst open, admitting Elsabeth, Vladimir and their parents bringing up the rear with baby Christina. "Auntie Elsa and Lady Ilya love each other! If Auntie ablidicates, so do I!" Elsabeth was resolute in her vow, even as she fumbled the big-girl word.
"So do I," Vlad crowed.
Anna's eyes were steely. "And I."
"Can I abdicate something I've never wanted anyway?" Kristoff asked no one in particular.
Anna smirked at her husband. "Yes."
"Then so do I!" He turned to face down Mattis and the others, even as he bounced Christina. "Unless you actually want my youngest ruling over all of you, I suggest you think really hard before letting the monarchy go down the toilet," unknowingly echoing Mattis's own words.
Vlad clambered onto a chair and mirrored his father in challenging Mattis. "We're the royal family. You're just that one Cabinet guy. We outrank you!"
Mattis looked stunned, his head whipping from one royal to another. The rest of the Cabinet looked sufficiently cowed.
Elsa triumphantly smiled, even though the tears threatening to fall. "The wedding will be as soon as possible. Meeting adjourned."
Ilya took refuge in Elsa's study, bowing her head as she burst into sobs. Her bride-to-be was right behind, closing the door silently.
"What's wrong?"
Ilya just shook her head, bewildered. "From the mouth of babes..." she breathed. She almost found it funny. "From the mouth of babes..."
Elsa came up behind her and took her in her arms. "I'm grateful too."
Ilya beamed at her with pure love. "Your family is amazing."
As if on cue, Kristoff, Anna and the children came barging in without knocking. Anna looked from one woman to the other, amused. "Are we... interrupting something?" Neither Elsa nor Ilya could answer before Kristoff started rambling.
"Mattis is melting down harder than Olaf's popsicle stand on a sunny day!" He nearly cackled. "Serves him right; he's not worth a shit anyway!"
"Watch your language, reindeer man," Elsa warned, though she was smiling. Ilya wasn't so at ease.
"They'll try and stop it," she voiced nervously, her eyes going to Anna.
Anna grinned, throwing a shrug. "So what if they do? You guys don't need the big royal wedding, anyway. Kristoff and I did it for the people's sake, and even then he couldn't stand it!" She smiled flirtatiously in her husband's direction. Kristoff smirked sheepishly back.
"But a royal wedding is tradition in Arendelle," Elsa frowned.
"This isn't a... traditional couple," Anna argued back. "It's much more beautiful than that. So we can afford to break a couple more traditions." Her eyes widened, a familiar glint in them, and Elsa sensed what was coming.
"Anna...?"
"Yes, this could totally work!" Anna began running away with her new thread. "We wait until the castle is asleep, then we all sneak out of the palace, out of the kingdom and go to the Ice Palace on the North Mountain. You and Ilya can get married there, in the presence of our family!"
The kids cheered. Kristoff eyes gleamed even brighter than his wife's. "I'll hitch up Sven!"
"Now that is quite enough!" Elsa shot down in her best regal voice.
"You and Ms. Ilya deserve to be happy, Auntie," Elsabeth reasoned. "A big royal wedding won't do it, even if the Cabinet did approve of the marriage, and you're the one getting married!"
"There you go," Anna smiled smugly.
"And we're the royal family. We have all the power to do what we want. We bind the marriage now, and then ram through an official ceremony later!" Vlad added.
"There you go again!" Anna laughed.
Elsa bit her lip. She already knew that she had lost. If her family was willing to go the extra mile for her and her girlfriend, who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? Her eyes finally met Ilya's. She would not go forward with this without her. When Ilya nodded, Elsa echoed it. "Let's do it." The kids shouted in approval again, with their Aunt quickly shushing them. "But first, to bed with all of you!"
Kristoff nodded. "We leave at midnight."
Elsa and Ilya quietly tiptoed into the nursery. Splitting up so they each took a bed, the couple went to rouse the children.
"Vladimir... Vladdy..." Elsa crooned. "Wake up, my love. It's time."
Vladimir snapped awake, retrieving a glow stick from under his pillow. He slept lightly, it seemed. Just like his father.
"Let's go," his voice unusually serious for a four-year-old.
Across the room, Ilya was helping Elsabeth out of her bed. "Go wake your sister." Elsabeth went over to the crib and lifted Christina out. The infant hardly stirred. Oh, well. Having the baby awake wasn't exactly essential.
The two brides guided the children down to a back door of the castle, where Kristoff and Anna were waiting for them. Kristoff held a finger to his lips, quelling his children's squeals.
The royal family hustled across the rear courtyard to the royal stables. Kristoff broke in quietly, nudging his shoulder into the door until it gave. Sven raised his head, waiting for them.
"Where the heck have you been, slowpoke?" Kristoff growled in Sven's voice.
"Got held up, buddy. I'm a family man, remember?" Kristoff replied.
"Ugh, you've really let yourself go," Sven huffed.
Ilya glanced to Elsa. "Explain to me what's going on, exactly?"
"Oh, that I could," Elsa sighed, her eyes twinkling with mirth.
"Wait! We forgot Olaf!" Elsabeth cried, turning for the stable door, but Kristoff held her back, even as he finished readying the sleigh.
"Don't worry about him now, he'll be all right! We'll tell him when we come back in the morning." What Kristoff didn't say was that he feared Olaf would be too loud as the entire family tried to essentially sneak out of the kingdom. He strapped down the harness. "All aboard, everybody!"
"Who's Olaf?" Ilya asked as Elsa helped her into the sleigh.
"Family snowman," Elsa brushed off.
Ilya nearly tripped. "Family... snowman?"
"I'll explain."
"You have some serious 'splaining to do," Ilya observed of her soon-to-be wife.
Kristoff took the reins. "Grab onto something, Ilya! We like to go fast!"
Ilya laughed. "A daredevil for a brother-in-law! I like! Do your thing, reindeer man!"
Kristoff clicked the reins. "Sven: go. Hi-ya! Ya!"
The sleigh shot out of the stables, maneuvered around to the front of the palace and out the front gates. The Arendelle villages soon turned into wilderness.
Elsabeth and Vladimir quickly passed out with their sister in the back, and Kristoff let them. "We'll wake them up when we get there." Anna sleepily laid her head on her husband's shoulder.
"And when will we get there, exactly?"
"Well, if I push Sven to the limit... maybe an hour before dawn."
Anna jolted up as if burned. "Hour before dawn? You said we'd be back by morning!"
"I calculated wrong. When we come right back, I'll make something up!"
Anna frowned. "Mattis won't believe a word you say."
"Mattis is so dumb, he wouldn't know how to pour melted snow out of a boot if the instructions were stamped on the bottom!" Kristoff growled. "I can pull one over on him, trust me."
They reached the Arendellian foothills, passing by Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna in record time and in silence. Elsa finally broke it when she realized something.
"Wait: who's going to marry us?"
Anna winced. "Didn't think about that. Is it too late to turn around?" She reached for the reins, but Kristoff fought her off.
"No, we cannot ask the Bishop to marry them. And no, we are not going back to get Olaf. Honestly, you're as bad as the kids!"
"But who's going to officiate?" Anna whined.
"Marshmallow could do it. He's already there at the Ice Palace."
"I am not having a giant abominable snowman conduct my wedding!" Elsa snarled. Ilya let out something between a whimper and a squeak.
"You have an abominable snowman? Are there... any more I should know about?"
"Nope, just those two," Anna called over her shoulder.
Kristoff's brow was furrowed, thinking hard. "Sven - pull over. I've got an idea."
They had reached the hot springs where Kristoff's troll family lived. Stopping in front of a bunch of boulders, Kristoff put his fingers to his lips and blew a sharp whistle. "Hey, guys! Wanna come to a wedding?" He clicked the reins again before there was an answer, but soon Ilya looked back to see a horde of trolls running after the sleigh.
The journey went faster and faster now, Sven putting in a Herculean effort. The sky was still not gray by the time the group reached the summit of the North Mountain, where the Ice Palace awaited. Ilya's jaw dropped.
"Elsa... did you... make that?"
Elsa smiled proudly. "Yup. I only come up here a couple times a year. Do you like it?"
"I love it," Ilya beamed. She turned to her bride adoringly. "And I love you."
Marshmallow let them in, Ilya trying not to appear as scared as she actually was upon seeing the abominable snowman. Everyone climbed the grand staircase to the top floor. The royal family proceeded out onto Elsa's balcony, with Anna emotionally giving her sister away. Grand Pabbie conducted the ceremony.
After the elderly troll pronounced the Queen and her lover wife and... wife, Elsa and Ilya embraced and kissed longingly, captured in the light of the rising sun. Elsabeth and Vladimir, bleary-eyed, led the clapping and cheering, accidentally waking baby Christina up. The trolls were even more raucous, but it hardly mattered. The family was complete. Queen Elsa of Arendelle was married.
Elsabeth ran up to her aunt and threw her arms around her middle. "Auntie! Now you have someone to kiss you the way Daddy kisses Mommy!"
Elsa smiled. "Why…. Yes. I suppose I do." She turned to Ilya. "I love my wife," she proclaimed with conviction.
Ilya grinned. "I second that."
And the couple stole another, relieved kiss.