INTERLUDE

Hans sighed, wiping the sweat from his brow. He stabbed his pitchfork into the now full manure cart, exhausted, and leaned against one of the stable's posts.

Finally, finished. And just in time for Fritz to show up and push me into the cart – again.

You'd think that after twenty-something times, the novelty of seeing your younger brother fall face-first into a cart of manure would wear off somewhat, but Fritz seemed to undergo a mental reset every two or three days, and he'd never fail to laugh.

As if on cue, a shadow loomed into his view. "Hey, Grubby," a voice called from behind.

Hans groaned at the sound of his despised nickname. Karl today, then.

For some reason, almost every single one of his brothers was stupid, sadistic, and criminally unlikeable. It was a good thing he himself had escaped this curse.

"Hello, Karl," Hans said exasperatedly, turning around. "What is it you want this time?"

Then he noticed that not just Karl, but all of his brothers, were standing there. Even Theo, who got picked on almost as much as he did. Something odd was going on.

"What's going on here?" he asked, taking a defensive stance in case they all tried to throw him into the manure cart at once. He noticed a newspaper in Karl's hands. "Practicing our reading, are we?" he said mockingly. "I hear you've gotten all the way up to five letter words so far!"

Karl ignored his jab. "So, do you remember those girls from Arendelle, Elsa and Anna?" he asked facetiously.

Hans sighed again. So this is the game we're playing today.

"Yes, Karl, I remember them quite well, as a matter of fact," he said, starting to turn back around. "What about them?"

"Well," Karl said, brandishing his newspaper, "they're getting married."

Hans' head snapped back around. "Really? To who?"

Nobody answered. A couple of them started snickering.

Hans sighed, realizing his mistake – making it evident that they had some knowledge that he wanted. He folded his arms, making his best attempt to appear uninterested.

"I mean, I can guess who Anna ended up with, but who's the sorry loser who got stuck with the ice queen?" he said nonchalantly.

At this point, Marco and Franco, who could not have been less subtle if they were transformed into elephants, burst into laughter.

"What?" Hans said, confused. "Are you telling me she didn't end up with deer boy?"

Now Karl started laughing, too. "Not even close," he managed.

"Look, I don't get what's so funny about this," Hans said, getting angry. "Two unlucky guys got stuck with the Bitch Queen and Princess, what's funny about that?"

By now all of his brothers were laughing, leaving him totally in the dark.

Finally, Theo took pity on him. "You really need to read this, Hans," he said, handing him his own newspaper.

"Fine," Hans said, snatching it out of his hand. "But I don't see what could possibly be so amusing about a couple of royal…"

He stopped.

He read the headline.

He read it again.

Then he started to read the article, just to make sure it wasn't a typo.

He froze in place, his hands locking rigidly around either side of the paper. His eyes grew wide, and one of them started twitching.

Karl walked over to him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Boy, you sure know how to pick 'em, don't ya, Grubby?"

Everyone else laughed harder. Hans said nothing.

"No, no," Heinrich piped up. "Trying to marry one of them? That was totally a good plan. Can't imagine why it didn't work."

They laughed again. Hans didn't respond.

"Hey, can you blame them?" Uli shouted over the laughter. A couple days alone with Hans is enough to turn any girl into a lesbian!"

Now all of them were roaring with laughter. Still Hans stood, stock still, showing no signs of movement, save for his twitching eye.

"Hey, quiet, quiet," said Theo, walking towards Hans. "Hans, brother, I have some bad news," he said. "You may not want to hear this now, but you gotta find out sooner or later." He put his hand on Hans' shoulder.

"You're not invited to their wedding," he said.

They all erupted into laughter once again, Karl laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes. Still, Hans didn't react.

They teased him for a few more minutes, then got bored and left. When they came back to check on him half an hour later, he was still in the exact same position.

He stayed like that for three hours, never once moving, never looking anywhere but straight ahead at the newspaper in his hands. Eventually, they started to worry that they might have put him into some sort of coma.

Then Heinrich picked up the manure cart and dumped its contents onto his head. That, at least, got a reaction out of him.