UPDATE: I've decided to continue on with the story, so those who have read it from Chapter 1 onwards, sorry to have kept you waiting. I've recovered from my writer's block and I have renewed intentions to go on. Please, though, just bear with me. This may turn out to be a time-consuming project, depending on all sorts of factors (e.g. time limits, inspiration, etc.)
- ladyofthecherryblossom
Elsa snuggled herself in a corner, penning down everything that had recently taken place since they'd arrived at headquarters. She recalled her father's rapid apologies as Rosemary cut through his desperate pleas with her incandescent scolding, and the shame masked beneath the blank faces of the soldiers as they strived to appear in a presentable way as was passable by a Queen's standards. The bitter air of the evening ate through minuscule gaps of the barely compatible walls of the army house, as memories of conversing politely with the battle-worn Arendelle soldiers flooded vividly into her mind came across as one of the happiest ones she had ever carried that concerned the war.
Her fur-trimmed coat had been placed around her shoulders to keep herself warm, despite the dark woolly jumper and matching skirt she wore, both generously provided by the army who knew that the women of the royal family were to stay with them overnight. Elsa's cheeks flushed from the icy atmosphere that hovered about the room, the weight of her body causing irritating squeaking noises within the poorly designed mattress beneath her. Just as she had had it with the amount of times her ink had been woefully spoiled, a knock on the door made her heart leap violently.
In entered a man of twenty-two (which she favourably supposed), presumably a soldier, with a rugged uniform and a mop of tousled brown hair, as if the war had raised all and any neglecting of his appearance. "Her Majesty sent me to ask if Her Highness the Princess Elsa is feeling well," he spoke cautiously.
Elsa's eyebrows curved upwards, perking with surprise. "Yes, of course. But why didn't she come to enquire such matters herself?"
"Because," the soldier inhaled deeply for a brief second, "She knows of my acquaintances."
"But I don't-," Elsa paused with sudden realisation. "Jack? Oh, but it can't be you!"
"I thought you would be more welcoming."
"Hush, I'm still trying to comprehend this," she snapped playfully. "Ten years and not a word! Whatever happened to you?"
Jack must have assumed this as invitation, and trudged silently towards Elsa's makeshift bed, where he sat by her. "I moved to Old Miller's Valley, after my eleventh birthday. My mother didn't want me working as a kitchen boy until I shrivelled up and died, so lately I've been training in carpentry. That is, until the war began, and I rushed to represent Arendelle." He grinned at her. "But enough about me. I want to know what my little girl has been up to during the last decade."
"Not little anymore," Elsa insisted with passion. "I haven't had a friend as close as you since. My sisters have been my only company up until now."
Jack's face was richer than the sun, but his eyes filled with a sort of deeply carved-in disappointment that was almost complicated for Elsa to take apart and analyse, as if she were a nurse with tweezers that picked up emotions. "I see," he said finally, "you've been undergoing training to be a future Queen. Just like the dear Elsa I know."
"Knew," she corrected him. "For one, I don't do dolls anymore. Or nursery games, in that matter."
"Still," he protested laughingly, then desisted. "Elsa-," he began again, then, out of the blue, he knocked into Elsa (rather clumsily, in her opinion), and his lips found their way between hers.
Elsa's eyes widened beyond measure, nearly toppling over the bed in a dazed fit of shock. Her hands wriggled for something, anything to hold on to, and instead grasped the back of his neck. Discovering the odd bliss of what she had first regarded as unexpected, Elsa felt her knees lock and her guard succumbing in one trembling gasp.
"Elsa," Jack asked her abruptly, "have you ever slept with another man before?"
Having a vague idea of where this was going, Elsa slowly shook her head.
"Would you like a demonstration?"
"But-,"
"I'll be gentle, I promise," Jack assured her in a hoarse whisper, "and I'll stop if you don't want to go any further."
Elsa thought in the heat of the moment. Despite her eighteen years, she and her sisters had never been properly educated on such subjects, and was curious to see whether it hurt or not. Besides, with a war behind them, anything could happen. Jack could die tomorrow if fate chose it - and her heart would break in two if he did. So, with all that put aside, she nodded, that one signal of consent that would forever change her life in so many ways.
"Oui mon cher," she said with a slight wobble in her tone, and both parties bowled over onto the full surface of the bed.
"Gerda, stop acting like a monkey and find your seat," Anna reprimanded her younger sister crossly as Gerda spent the next few minutes chasing after a stray dog who had somehow trespassed the headquarters' borders and was now circling the dining table with several little yaps. Meanwhile, Rapunzel graced the room with light-footed steps, her golden mane knotted into a wavy chignon and her pale lavender gown a pretty sight to be first seen in the morning. She slapped the latest roll of the daily newspaper before her seat, and nimbly crossed over to the bowl of cheese, prepared to hand herself a few fresh slices. And speaking of fresh...
"You could use some pills, Elsa. You look as if you've beaten up your beauty away," Anna remarked innocently as Elsa came in looking worn and unkempt, her hair tangled up in a horrific bush. The state of her nightgown told the sisters that she had somehow rolled around in it for a good hour or two.
"Spare me," Elsa replied, her voice dripping with mingled annoyance and sarcasm, though a layer of tiredness was crusted over. "No doubt you've had your own share of bad hair days."
"How about cheese, mon beau?" offered Rapunzel with a hidden snicker, thrusting the bowl she held towards Elsa's disastrous looking figure. "There's not much else the army can give."
Elsa feigned injury and distaste. "But I thought speaking French was mine to perform alone."
While the four princesses busied themselves with preparing their breakfast and eating it, Rosemary greeted her daughters with, "Good morning, girls..." and stopped short when she turned to Elsa. "Good heavens, child. Were you near to being run over by the department of destroying one's appearance?"
"I tried combing my hair," Elsa persisted in complaint. "But nothing, not even bobby pins, would work on me."
"Ah, well, such is life," the Queen returned with a low sigh, and stooped fleetingly to read the newspaper provided by Rapunzel. She recited the text in a startlingly quick pace, over and over, and flipped the paper so that it faced the girls quite plainly. "Have any of you cared to hear what the paper has said lately?"
"It's a fresh copy, received only half an hour ago," explained Rapunzel after swallowing the last of her cheese. "So none of us would have read it."
"'QUEEN OF ARENDELLE FROLICS WITH HER HUSBAND DURING TIME OF WAR,'" Rosemary revealed the headline, bursting out with released fury. "According to the daily herald, 'His Majesty the King Agdar of Arendelle's wife, Queen Rosemary, has recently taken to abandoning her kingdom in its times of greatest needs for the royal family, and instead chose to spend some 'hubby' time with her beloved. Journalists are criticizing Her Majesty for not performing her duties as she should while His Majesty is away...' I can't believe it!" Rosemary finished, and dropped the newspaper without much notice or care of where it landed.
"The paper didn't mention anything about the girls and me," Gerda pointed out suspiciously, "And I'm sure if you wanted to 'spend some hubby time,' as it said, you certainly would not have brought us."
"Indeed," the Queen simply agreed with eyes sharper than butcher knives. "Now, I want you all ready for mass by eight. And no fretting about ruined hair or other faults-" glancing once more at the likes of Elsa, "-remember, we have maids."
P.S. The character 'Jack' may or may not be Jack Frost from ROTG. I'll leave it to your wild imaginations ;)