Chapter 2: Grasping at Normalcy

"I love the day after Yule," Anna sighed, clinging closer to Kristoff's arm as they made their way through the busy streets. "It's like … you think it's a normal day, but everyone has just enough holiday cheer left over that it's really a great day, and people are more like to smile, and everyone's just friendly …"

"At least until you go into a shop and see how many people are trying to return all of the gifts they got," Kristoff replied, hiding a smile as he glanced sidelong at Anna.

"Oh, stop! Just because something didn't fit properly didn't mean the thought wasn't appreciated."

"Have you ever been in a shop on the day after Yule?" Kristoff asked. "I'm telling you, it's vicious."

"Bustling, more likely."

"I think the bustling turns into vicious the first time someone tries to brain the shopkeeper with the tacky woodcut that they're trying to return and he's refusing to take back."

"Oh, please, that doesn't happen."

Kristoff turned to Anna with a grin and a raised eyebrow. "Wanna bet?"

Anna opened her mouth, but before she answered, she glanced sidelong into the nearest shop window. Kristoff looked as well.

There was bustle, he would definitely give Anna that. But if one were to look into the back corner, where the marked-down Yule decorations were, and see the two women making a beeline for the last holiday candleholder …

"Gambling is a terrible habit. I'm pretty sure every etiquette book I ever read – well, skimmed – well, ok, pretended to read – advised against it," Anna turning and continuing to lead Kristoff down the street.

"Unless you think you can win," Kristoff teased.

"If you know you're going to win, it's not gambling," Anna replied.

"… All right, you've got me there," he admitted. "But then what is it?"

Anna turned up to him with that secret smile he loved, the one that was brimming full of mischief. "Pressing the advantage."

"You mean 'taking advantage'?"

"That too," she agreed. "So, are you still all right with Rose Hip for lunch?"

"Sure," Kristoff replied. "Is that your way of saying that you're hungry?"

"Well, it is almost lunchtime … or it will be by the time we get there …"

Kristoff chuckled. "Lead the way, feistypants."

And she did, striking out confidently in the direction of the most fashionable tea room in town. Not that it had been the most fashionable a year and a half ago – or even a year ago. But once the nobility and the wealthy had figured out that the Rose Hip Café was Princess Anna's favorite, it quickly became their favorite as well.

Ironic, considering how Kristoff thought part of the reason Anna had liked it was that it wasn't completely fashionable – how it served up good food, good tea, and good coffee in a cozy atmosphere, without any of the pretension that came with some of the more fashionable places. Even today it tried not to be a pretentious place, for all that the new clientele sometimes were. But at least the food and the drinks were still good.

And when Anna really wanted to mix with the common folk, there were plenty of taverns around the city, and going to them was easy as tying a scarf over her hair and putting an old cloak around her shoulders (and praying Elsa never, ever found out).

The shop-bell tinkled when they came in, revealing that it was, as was to be expected, quite crowded. Part of Kristoff wanted to draw Anna closer, keep her by his side as the people pressed around, but … he knew better. This was Anna's element. She was already on her tip-toes, trying to spy if any of her (numerous) friends happened to be here.

It was that motion that attracted Mistress Blom, the shop's owner. She stepped out from behind the counter and hurried over to them. "Your Highness, what a pleasant surprise!"

"Hi, Mistress Blom! Happy – um – late Yule!"

"The same to you, Your Highness." She didn't curtsey – it was crowded enough that Kristoff doubted she would have the room – but she did bow her head and smile. "Let me show you to your table!"

Anna didn't ask if there was a table for them – she used to, but she'd realized that no matter how crowded the shop was, Mistress Blom always had a table for her. And well she should, Kristoff thought, looking around at the well-dressed patrons who had filled the tea shop to bursting. If Mistress Blom could keep this up, she'd probably be able to retire in a year or two if she wanted to.

Mistress Blom led them to a table tucked in an out-of-the-way corner, behind a screen that one of the waitresses was moving. It had three chairs around it, but it was easily big enough to fit five (or more, if they were Anna's size). Kristoff knew from experience that enough chairs for Anna's friends would always appear, no matter how many friends joined her at her table.

And there could be quite a few friends.

When they got to the table, Kristoff took Anna's cloak, then he pulled the chair out and pushed her in once she sat down. Gods knew that Anna didn't need to be treated like a china doll, but the first time he'd done it, she'd grinned so widely that Kristoff had to keep doing it again and again, just to see that grin.

He wasn't disappointed today.

"I'll put our cloaks away, ok?" he asked, and Anna nodded, handing him her mittens.

"Thanks!" she replied.

Kristoff only smiled before he braved his way through the crowd – not that it was that hard, people tended to make way when they saw his broad shoulders and undeniably solid form coming.

The last thing he heard, before the hubbub of the restaurant took over, was Mistress Blom exclaiming, "My, that's a lovely ring, Your Highness!"

Kristoff felt himself growing pink and warm all over – but he shook his head and hurried off to the cloakroom.

It didn't take long to hang up Anna's cloak and his coat, hats and mittens stuffed into the sleeves of his coat. When he came back out again, he expected to still see Mistress Blom standing by the table as Anna asked how all of her kids had enjoyed their Yule and what her husband was up to these days. That was Anna all over – she'd talk to anybody, get their life story out of them in ten minutes and be their friend for life before an hour was up.

However, that wasn't what he saw.

Kristoff's steps slowed as he saw the teal coat of a marine on the back of a man sitting in the chair to Anna's left – the one that was usually his chair. He knew that coat, and for that matter that back, and the slickly styled blond hair up above it.

Moller. Not Elsa's secretary – his brother, younger, Kristoff thought. A captain in the marines, with a smirk that always made Kristoff's hackles rise, and a complete lack of ability to leave Anna – or Elsa, when he could get to her – alone.

Anna was smiling at him, nodding along as he spoke, but Kristoff knew that look – it was her "I might be smiling, but it's only because I'm imagining the noise my hand would make when it connected to your jaw" smile. It was enough to make Kristoff smirk.

But he still had to get to Anna. He threaded his way through the crowd, catching Anna's eye as he did so. She perked up at the sight of him.

He edged his way around the table, because as luck would have it, the chair Captain Moller took was the one that wasn't snug against the wall. Once he got to that chair, he nodded to the other man, mostly because he had to. "Captain Moller."

"Ice Harvester," Captain Moller replied with a twitch of his lips.

"Ice Master," Anna corrected – she always did. "Ice Master and Deliverer. And on New Year's Day …" Now it was Anna's turn to smirk. "Kristoff Bjorgman, Greve Ismester."

Even if the title made Kristoff's cheeks turn a little red, seeing Captain Moller's jaw fall … well, that almost made the whole thing worth it. Or it would have, if the point of all this (Anna) hadn't already made it more than worth it.

Kristoff reached under the table, groping for Anna's hand. He swiftly found it, running his thumb over the ring.

Maybe … maybe there was a reason why Moller took his usual seat, and for Anna wearing the engagement ring on the opposite hand. Because if those things hadn't happened … well, he wouldn't be able to hold her hand, feeling the cool metal band against his skin.

But Captain Moller had to be talking, and Kristoff realized that he should be listening. "A Greve! Well, that is fantastic news! I must congratulate you!" He extended his hand over the table, and Kristoff realized that he should be shaking it.

He did. "Thanks," he said, forcing a smile.

"That is quite a jump for a man of your birth," Captain Moller smirked, and Kristoff tried not to wince. "Might I ask what brought on this new honor?"

Anna's hand gripped Kristoff's more tightly, forcing Kristoff to take a deep breath before he tried to come up with a reply. That must have been Anna's plan.

"Why should anything bring it on?" Anna raised an eyebrow. "He saved me. Fought off wolves and later a giant snowman, ran me back to Rosen, and then ran straight into a blizzard to get to me. And by saving me, he saved El—the Queen. Last I checked, most noble families didn't do anything near that to get their titles.

"In fact …" Anna leaned forward, chin on hand, wearing what Kristoff thought of as her "Princess Thinking – Danger!" expression. "Didn't your mother's family become noble because your great-grandfather was the king's secretary for a few years? No, wait – a few decades?"

Kristoff blinked, wondering where Anna had learned that – but he shouldn't have. The castle's library was very big, and in the course of thirteen years … he wouldn't be surprised if Anna had at least glanced in every book.

As it was, Anna was blinking almost coyly at the suddenly red Captain Moller.

The Captain swallowed. "That … is true …"

"So—if he gets to be a Jarl—then I think becoming a Greve is rather the least you can do for someone who risked his life for the heir to the throne multiple times, don't you?" Anna kept batting her lashes at him, a somewhat silly smile on her lips.

Kristoff leaned back, smirking, eyebrows up, wondering that Captain Moller was going to say to this one.

"Perhaps … when you put it like that …" Captain Moller swallowed. "I simply find it odd that I am only learning this now. I would have thought my father would have mentioned it when Her Majesty brought the title to the Council for their approval."

And now Anna laughed. "Don't be silly! El—the Queen doesn't have to get the Council's approval to give someone a title."

"She … doesn't?" Captain Moller asked.

"Nope," Anna smirked. "It's all up to her."

"Ah—well—how interesting," Captain Moller hedged. "However, I must—"

The shop-bell tinkled again, and Anna looked up. Her eyes widened and she grinned. "Oh! It's Miss Bentsen and Miss Lise! Oh—and is that their mama, too?"

Captain Moller sat up ramrod straight, and even Kristoff gasped—it was something that happened to virtually all the young men of Rosen (of a certain social stature – and Kristoff supposed he counted for that now) when word came that the mother of the Misses Bentsen was in the room.

"Oh—my—will you look at the time," Captain Moller stammered, pulling his watch out of his pocket, looking at it upside-down, and shoving it back in the pocket. "I—I must apologize, Your Highness – Ice Master – but I truly must be going."

"Aww, you won't stay long enough to say hello to the Bentsens?" Anna asked, pouting, or at least pretending to.

"No, I fear—I have another pressing engagement. Good day, Your Highness."

And with that, he bowed and was gone.

Anna leaned back, smirking. "Works every time."

"Wait – you mean …?" Kristoff asked.

Anna turned to him with wide blue eyes and an innocent expression. "I must have been terribly mistaken, Kristoff – though in my defense, that girl's bonnet," she gestured to where a pair of young ladies, accompanied by an older woman, stood by the door, "looks just like the one I gave to Lise for an early Yule gift."

And Kristoff chuckled. "Nice one, feistypants."

Tap tap tap-tap tap. "Do you want to build a snowman?" Anna half-said, half-sang, as she tapped on the private door to Elsa's study. She pushed the door open and went in without waiting for an answer.

Elsa was bent over her desk, frowning as she looked over a sheet of paper with impossibly tiny handwriting crowded all over it. She looked up, blinking owlishly at Anna. "Anna? I said—I thought I said we could spend this afternoon together?"

"You did! I'm coming to get you for lunch!"

"Lunch? It can't be lunchtime, Gerda just brought breakfast …"

Anna's eyebrows went up. She glanced at the small tray pushed to the side of Elsa's desk. There was breakfast on that tray – congealed eggs, rock-hard bacon, and probably stone-cold tea, by the look of it. "Er … Elsa …"

Elsa turned and looked, blinking rapidly. "Oh gods," she muttered, elbows on the desk and head cradled in her hands.

"Hey …" Anna slowly circled the desk, put a hesitant hand on Elsa's shoulder. Even after all these months, sometimes she still tensed when she wasn't expecting a touch. But that didn't happen today. "It's not a big deal. I mean, Gerda might give you a look, you know, but if you eat more at lunch, I'm sure she'll forgive you. She's forgiven me for worse!"

Anna had intended to get a chuckle out of that. She supposed she would have to settle for Elsa's snort. "And what's the matter, anyway? Most of your Council is out of town – and there haven't been any surprise delegations, no surprise prisoners … no surprise anything, really." The light caught on her ring, and Anna smiled. "Other than a surprise engagement, but I'm guessing the only one surprised by that was me."

Elsa smiled. "I did know before you did."

"And I bet you saw it coming for weeks and months ahead of time, huh?" Anna asked, turning the comforting touch into a side-armed hug.

"Not quite," Elsa admitted. "… Actually not at all. But …" She looked up, putting one hand over Anna's and squeezing it. "We all knew it was going to happen eventually."

"True!" Anna agreed. "But … that doesn't explain why you're so worried, sis."

Elsa blinked, her eyes growing clouded and closed off. She took a deep breath, shaking her head. "I …"

She sighed. "Well – Friezenburg is certainly part of it … I keep reading the reports over and over …"

Anna leaned forward, scanning the report as well as she could. "Why? It—it seems pretty simple to me. I mean, Friezenburg found some coal in … Garotia? But that's on the border with Corinthia, and now Corinthia wants to grab the province and the coal." She shrugged. "Seems to me like standard operating procedure."

Elsa chuckled. "It's not quite that simple."

"Well, no, I know Corinthia has some other excuse because most countries seem to think it's rude if you just go in and grab someone else's territory, even if they all do it given half a chance … but Elsa, what's it matter to us? It's thousands of miles away!"

"More like a thousand."

Anna nudged Elsa's side. "One thousand, two thousand, what's the difference? It's still miles and miles away."

"Perhaps. But …" Elsa sighed, and then she reached into her pile of reports. She pulled out two pieces of creamy parchment. One was marked with the imperial seal of Friezenburg, the other with the seal of the King of Corinthia. She sighed. "They're both trying to get Arendelle on their side."

"What?" asked Anna, pulling the letters closer. Not that she needed to read them very closely to get the gist. "Seriously? How much help would they think we're going to be? We'd have to get there first, and if we go by sea, that means going around the whole darn continent, and if we go by land, we have to get through Corona – and how are you supposed to bring an army through Corona? I mean, it'd be one thing if we're on the same side as Uncle Leopold, but if we're not, then we're in big trouble, unless we want to start a war with them, which you're not going to do because that would just be dumb—"

"Anna," Elsa interrupted. "I … they're not asking for the army and the navy."

"Wait, what?" Anna asked.

In response, Elsa pointed to a single word that happened to be present on both of the letters: personal.

For a moment, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room, and Anna had to stifle a gasp. "No—no way. That's crazy. They're not suggesting …?"

Elsa looked up with half a smile and shrugged.

"But—but—that's crazy talk! I mean—what are you going to do? Make it snow on the army?"

"Oh, there is any number of ways my powers could make themselves useful," Elsa murmured. "Freeze a port – make a mountain pass even more impassable – cut off an army from its supply lines …"

"Wait—wait, whoa. Elsa – you could do that? I mean—the Great Freeze, you weren't meaning to do any of that …"

"I know."

"And there's no way of knowing if you could do it again—I mean—you're good, but you haven't done anything on that scale since!"

"I know."

"Then why are they asking you to do it now?" Anna wailed.

"Because," Elsa replied, "they don't know if I could – or could not – do it again. And …" Elsa bit her lip. "We … that is, the Council and I decided, very early on, that we would let the rumors of the extent of my powers flow unchecked. There wasn't much we could do to stop them, and, well …" She glanced up at Anna, wearing that nervous look Anna knew all too well. "It seemed the safest course. That is—making the other countries too afraid to attack seemed like a wiser course than frightening them enough that they would be convinced I was dangerous, but not so dangerous that I could not be … removed …"

"So now they all think you can win their wars for them?" Anna asked.

Elsa shrugged. "Essentially. Yes."

"Gods," Anna muttered. "But you won't, right? You're not—you're not actually considering joining this stupid war, right? You're smarter than that!"

Elsa looked down at the letters, her eyes hooded, thoughtful. "I certainly have less than no desire to drag myself or Arendelle into all of this. I can't … I don't see how it's worth the risk." And Elsa frowned in that way she had, like she was working on a difficult math problem and was trying to find the logic that would solve the puzzle. "But the trick will be staying out without creating enemies. Or if we must pick sides – picking the right side."

Anna frowned, rubbing Elsa's back without even thinking about it. "You don't owe either of these two anything. Why should you go fight their war for them?"

Elsa sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Because … because the world doesn't quite see things with your eyes, Anna."

On New Year's Eve, Nick Solberg stood by the reception table at the ballroom in the Weselton Embassy, sipping at the glass of brandy in his hand. Maybe it would steady his nerves. His eyes never left the door for very long.

"Öre for your thoughts?" asked a voice by his elbow. Nick nearly jumped.

Nearly. If he had learned anything in a year of being an ambassador, it was to never allow himself to be caught off-guard. Especially by the diplomats under his putative authority.

So Nick turned to the man beside him with something like a smile. "Just waiting for the arrival of the Arendelle royal family, Master Pilkvist."

Master Pilkvist sniffed. He did that often. He too glanced to the doorway. "They've taken 'fashionably late' well past the point of absurdity. It's past eleven already."

Nick decided not to answer that. He knew why the royal family was not here yet: instead of attending a single party or holding one of their own, they made the rounds of many parties. It was a tradition they had started the year before, one that had the benefit of being easy on the castle staff, thrilling for Anna, and giving Kristoff and Elsa a break and some time away from the crowds and crushes of people.

He also knew not to expect the royal family before eleven, or perhaps eleven-thirty. "We were thinking of saving your party for last – arriving before midnight, of course, but, well …" Elsa had shrugged when she spoke with him about it. "You don't mind, do you?"

Did he mind that Elsa would be closing out the night here? Not at all. Did he mind that she would be here around midnight, when …

Well, never mind that thought. The two of them had gone the better part of a year without causing more than rumors, deliberately left unconfirmed (and never denied officially, because that never did any good). To let everyone at the Weselton Embassy know what they meant to each other via an ill-timed public kiss would throw months of careful discretion out the window.

"Interesting that the Queen chose to attend any embassy parties at all," remarked Master Pilkvist. He had a glass of vodka in his hand, which he sipped from. "I believe she did not do so last year."

"Last year she was still trying to reenter Arendellian society. This year can be different," Nick answered, forcing a shrug.

"Or last year she had no embassies she wished to visit, while this year she does," Master Pilkvist shot back, eyebrows raised. "Myself, I believe the latter is more likely."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Believe whatever you wish, sir."

Master Pilkvist scowled before he forced his features to soften into a mere frown. "Ambassador, I should have a care if I were you. People are already talking. Should your … respect for Queen Elsa become misconstrued any more, they might begin whispering, and that—"

He never finished, and Nick was grateful. The door to the ballroom had opened, the butler standing at the head of it. "Her Majesty, Queen Elsa of Arendelle; Her Highness, Princess Anna of Arendelle; and … Master Kristoff Bjorgman."

The entire room looked up at the announcement, and Nick put his glass on the table. He bowed to Master Pilkvist. "You will excuse me, sir – duty calls."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and hurried to the door.

The first thing he noticed as Elsa's shy smile upon seeing him, which was quickly replaced by a regal tilt of the chin and nod. She was wearing red velvet tonight, a ruby dress over a cream underdress. There were ribbons and criss-crosses of lace, and flowers of fabric on it, and there Nick's powers of description ended.

She was stunning.

Anna was there, too, and so was Kristoff – Anna waving when she saw him, and Kristoff smiling as much as he ever did at these kinds of functions. But etiquette demanded that he address the Queen first, and so he did.

"Your Majesty," he said, bowing. "Welcome."

"Thank you, Ambassador," Elsa replied with a gracious nod. She was very controlled this evening – putting on a show – and he couldn't blame her. "And thank you for the invitation."

"But of course," he replied. Then he turned to Anna. "Welcome, Your Highness."

"Hi!" she replied. She hadn't let go of Kristoff's arm, and Kristoff didn't seem likely to encourage her to do so. "Thanks for the invitation, N—Ambassador."

Nick just grinned before turning to Kristoff. Kristoff already had his free hand out for a shake. "Thanks," was all he said, but that was plenty.

Still, his duty as host wasn't quite finished yet. "Your Majesty?" he asked, offering her his arm. Elsa took it, her hand small and cool enough that he could feel it through his jacket.

For a moment he wondered if he ought to worry. Elsa's hands grew quite cold when she was upset. But they weren't radiating cold the way they sometimes did. It was probably just that she'd come in from outside. Elsa might claim that the cold never bothered her, but that didn't mean that she was entirely immune to temperature.

More importantly, he could feel her warming up already.

As host, it was his duty to introduce Elsa to some of the diplomats' wives (she already knew all of the diplomats and high-ranking attaches), see to it that she had some refreshment, and finally leave her alone and see to some of his other guests. But it didn't matter. They'd find each other sooner or later.

They always did at these parties.

It turned out to be sooner rather than later – Elsa had perfected the art of melting into a crowd. Usually Anna helped, simply by being herself, bright and chattering, getting carried away in a story and drawing her audience along with her. One minute Elsa would be standing by her sister's side, laughing and shaking her head at the appropriate intervals. The next moment, she would have slipped away.

When that happened, their unofficial meeting place was off to the side of the ballroom, opposite the refreshment table – Anna always ended up at the refreshment table eventually, and she tended to draw the crowds and the eyes. Being on the other end of the ballroom was the safest place.

So when Nick saw a flash of ruby out of the corner of his eye, he made his polite excuses, bowed to his conversational partners, and walked to where Elsa was standing.

She grinned when she saw him. He noticed that she'd made a fan of white ice, which she was in the habit of putting in front of her face whenever a gaze seemed to alight too closely on it.

"Happy New Year," she whispered when she saw him, reaching for his hand and squeezing it before letting go.

"Happy New Year," Nick replied. He stood by her side – not too close – arms carefully clasped behind his back.

He had to be careful how he positioned himself. He'd discovered early on that the wrong angle meant that he was staring sidelong at her all night, his gaze skirting his spectacles entirely. Not only did that make it difficult for him to see her expression, it tended to lead to a headache.

He chose the right angle tonight, a good thing, for Elsa had a faint touch of a frown on her face. "Everything all right?" he asked.

She looked up with a bit of a startle. "What? Oh—oh, of course."

Nick glanced where she had been looking – but it was only Anna, dancing with Kristoff. Nick had to smile; Kristoff might not have been much of a dancer, at least not these kinds of dances, but even Nick could see how he was much better than he had been last summer, the first time he'd seen Kristoff dance at a ball.

There couldn't have been anything there that made Elsa look troubled and ill at ease. So she must have been looking at Anna while she thought of something else.

Unfortunately, Nick thought he had an idea as to what it might be. And never mind what etiquette had to say about appropriate conversational topics for a ballroom – he had no idea how to broach this topic at all, considering it probably involved state secrets and gods only knew what else.

Friezenburg and Corinthia.

So he decided to approach it sidelong. "Visit many embassies tonight?" he asked, offhandedly.

Elsa looked up. "What? Oh—oh, yes." She started counting them off on her fingers. "Andalasia, Corona, Enchancia, Friezenburg, Corinthia … and now here," she finished, smiling.

"Friezenburg and Corinthia," Nick repeated.

"Of course. One mustn't play favorites," Elsa murmured.

Nick looked at her more carefully. To say that Elsa was pale was usually a bare statement of fact, but she was looking a little more translucent than usual right now. Slowly, Nick unclasped his hands and held one out, ever so slightly.

Elsa saw his hand and swayed her hip. Her full skirt swished, providing them just enough cover for her to clasp his hand behind the skirt.

It was cold.

Nick looked from side to side. No one was paying any attention to them. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's go someplace … else …"

"What, leave?" Elsa gasped. "Nick, are you mad? They'll notice!"

"Trust me," he replied. "I know at least six ways to escape from this ballroom. Nobody will be paying the slightest attention."

He glanced toward a side servants' door. He'd never been bold enough to attempt an escape here at the embassy, but back home he had made liberal use of servants' stairways and back halls. He'd also made sure he knew where all of the halls and stairs went here, just in case.

Still, he'd never tried this with the most beautiful woman in the room holding his hand …

Once more unto the breach, he thought, took a deep breath, and made a beeline for the door, slipping through it with Elsa just before it closed.

They weren't safe, not by a long shot – but the hall was empty, and Nick was able to pull them out through another door, into a main hallway, before anybody came through. "There," he said, closing the servants' door behind them. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Elsa looked around in some surprise. "I—I know this hall …"

Nick grinned—and then he kicked himself. Yes, bloody brilliant, dragging the Queen through a side door and into a random hallway. If Elsa had brought guards along, he probably would have been gutted by now.

Or … perhaps not. He was fairly certain that every member of the royal guard knew what had happened at that warehouse last winter. Maybe he'd earned the privilege of having questions asked before the gutting.

"Yes," he said, "it's—well, my office is that way," he pointed, and he saw Elsa relax. "And there's a reception room here."

"Oh, good," Elsa replied, opening the door – seeming to relax even more when she recognized her surroundings – and leading him in.

If they wanted their conversation to remain private, he should have closed the door behind him. But … well, if anyone caught them, that would cause more than talk, or even whispers. So he left it cracked open.

He gave Elsa her space, watching as she stood in the middle of the room, looking out the window at the bright moon. She sighed, looking up toward the ceiling. "Frau Beringer asked me to create an ice-skating rink in the back garden of the Friezenburg embassy."

Nick blinked. For a moment he wondered why on earth the Friezenburg ambassador's wife would want a skating rink – there were more than enough in the city, and that was without Elsa's powers doing anything special.

Then he understood.

"And Signora Segreti had a special chandelier made just for the party. Like the one in the throne room at the palace," Elsa added, turning to Nick with a raised eyebrow.

He nodded, slowly. It was a distinctive chandelier, that – all bare iron and candleholders, easy for Elsa to decorate with ice crystals whenever she needed to frighten or impress someone (or both, he thought with a smile, recalling their first meeting).

"What did you do?" Nick asked.

"There was no polite way to refuse. In either case. But …" She shook her head, leaning against one of the sofas, clutching her arms as if she was cold. Nick fought down the impulse to walk over to her, wrap his arms around her, and not let go until she was warm again. "I'm not a fool. I'm quite aware that news of this will heading back to Friezenburg and Corinthia on the first ships. There were several people," Elsa continued, bitter and biting, "at each party whom I could—feel watching me, but whom I was most pointedly not introduced to."

Nick nodded again.

Elsa sighed. "What both of them want is quite obvious."

"Indeed."

She looked up, questions in her eyes. What do you think? What would you have done? Do you have any ideas?

But she wouldn't ask them. And Nick could not answer even if she did. Because even when they were all alone in a reception room lit only by the moonlight, she was still a queen, and he was still an ambassador from a foreign land.

She sighed. "I shouldn't be burdening you with all of this."

"It's not a burden," Nick replied, even if part of him was glad to hear that it was burdening him and not just telling him.

She shook her head. "It can't be easy for Weselton, either."

He didn't answer right away, even if the phrase left the door open for a confidence. What could he say? No, it wasn't easy for Weselton. They'd spent the better part of the past year trying to repair alliances broken off in the aftermath of Elsa's coronation, when other countries fed up with years of cheating and malfeasance from the Duke seized the opportunity of an angry Queen with gods-only-knew-what power as an excellent excuse to toss one-sided trade agreements to the side. And now their hard work could come to naught in many countries, all because of actions outside their control.

"We'll survive," he finally replied. Nick smiled. "Weselton is good at that. You'll see."

Elsa smiled in reply, but even in this light, Nick could see that it was a sad one.

"Elsa …" He stepped closer. She didn't move away. He closed the distance between them, putting an arm over her shoulder.

Elsa – there was only one word for it – she melted against him. Nick folded her close, eyes closed, breathing in the scent of her skin and hair. Like peppermint, he thought as he always did, and fresh snow.

And perhaps a hint of chocolate.

"They can't force you into anything you don't want to do – you know that, right?" he whispered, low enough that even spies, if there were any, wouldn't be able to hear.

"They can make it very difficult to refuse."

"True—but you're the Snow Queen. I'm sure you can think of something to make them regret that they tried."

She chuckled, shaking her head against him, though whether it was a pleased-if-exasperated shake or a mark of disagreement, Nick couldn't tell.

"But Nick," she started, "that isn't—"

She stopped – cut off, really, by sound of bells in the distance. "Is that …?"

Nick looked up. "Midnight." He smiled down at her. "Happy New Year, Elsa."

"Happy New Year," Elsa replied.

"Er," Nick hesitated. "You—you do know that there's a tradition …?"

She only licked her lips – and that was all the encouragement Nick needed to bend his head, hold her tighter, and kiss the woman who had made the past year one of the best in his life.

Well, THAT was a fantastic response for a first chapter!

Thank you IkLachomZwaartekracht, TheHumanCanvas, homers8736, fericita, grrlgeek72, Jacob Flores, MagicOfDisney, Batman1809, stillslightlynerdy, CrunchDeNumbers, RJCA27 (did I answer your question about NickXElsa?), Insectoid, Jedi-Jae, and Luv-U! I am so glad you liked what you read in Chapter 1. Hopefully this chapter has answered some of your questions.

Next chapter: 1st council meeting, among other things. ;)

Until next time!