● Andy ●
Andy ended up sitting between Krista and her uncle, which proved to be a terrible idea.
Krista was glaring so much, he feared that alone would burn a hole through the man's head. Axel was the complete opposite. His posture was relaxed, he stroked the cat's head almost lazily, the gray tabby mewled in delight at the attention. He resembled what Andy thought a surfer dude would look like. The prince had promised he'd be a neutral party, whatever that meant- the tension wafting from Krista was palpable. They sat in an outdoor restaurant, Andy had just had breakfast and Krista could not eat a thing, so the only one with a tuna sandwich in front of them as Axel. He took bites like a starving man.
"I assume you didn't come all this way just to steal that cat," the blonde girl finally broke the silence. "Uncle Axel." She said his name like one would say dirty socks.
Andy sighed. Acting diplomatic was hard with Krista so on edge. He wanted to side with her, tell this man to go back to whatever Caribbean place he'd been sun tanning for the past years and leave Arendelle. That would probably make Krista very happy, and by extension make him very happy. However, Andy was willing to hear the man out, even if Krista was not. The atmosphere was too tense for such a beautiful, clear summer day. The perfect day for a date. A date this man had rudely interrupted with his presence.
"I understand you are angry. You have every right to be." He tore off a piece of his sandwich and fed it to the cat. It was hard to be annoyed at a man feeding a stray cat with such ease. "And I am sorry, Krista. I truly am." His dark brown eyes were honest when he looked up at Krista's lighter ones. His were apologetic, while hers were fire.
"Yeah, well, your apologies don't fix anything," Andy didn't know Krista to be capable of such ire. He remembered her face of disbelief when she'd laid eyes on this man. Like he was back from the dead or something. Also when she'd confessed, 'he doesn't care about me.' It was easy to place the pieces together, even if Krista hadn't really told him much. He knew her parents had passed, and that she'd pretty much lived with the ice harvesters and with the trolls. Then this uncle, he had not raised her, had not taken her in when her parents...
Axel had abandoned her.
Andy knew a few things about abandonment.
So, yes, Krista had every right to be angry. He didn't know the full story, but Andy fully supported her side. This man should seriously have a damn good reason to show up here.
"I know, and I'm sorry," he repeated. "I can't fathom how I'll make it up to you, but I can try."
Krista scoffed, "That's because you can't. Unless you can travel back in time-" the blonde raised her arms and glanced at Andy like, can you believe this guy?
"Krista." Axel sighed, ran his hands through his sandy hair and let it loose, no longer in a ponytail. "I cannot imagine what you've- what you've gone through, all alone..." he said, and had the grace to look guilty at Krista's pointed well, DUH! face. "I failed you, and by doing that I failed my sister. Failed your father too." So he was the brother of Krista's mother?
The man looked so sad, Andy almost felt bad for him. It did not help that the gray cat was purring against his chest, giving him the most innocent look possible. "I... You would not have been happy with me, Krista. I was... I was into some bad stuff when your mother... you know. I was in a bad place. I had to leave, for a while." the uncle said.
"You didn't take me with you. You didn't come back," the raw hurt in her voice was probably worse than the anger. Andy grabbed her hand from under the table and squeezed it. So the uncle used to be a... what? Be a drunk? Andy didn't know, didn't really want him to elaborate. Perhaps the man was right. He didn't strike Andy as a very responsible person. Maybe Krista had been better off with the trolls, they adored her.
Axel looked down at the checkered mantelpiece, he began picking at some of the threads. "It was better that way, trust me..."
Krista rolled her eyes, apparently not buying into his sob story. When he'd mentioned failing her parents, something in Krista's hard face had changed, but it had been for such a fleeting second Andy thought he'd imagined it.
"So why are you here?" she leaned forward with both elbows on the table, resting her head on her hands. The glint in her eye said she was changing tactics; from being aggressive to feigning intrigue. He opened his mouth to answer, but Krista quickly added, "Your real reason, please. Don't say you came just because you missed me."
He shut his mouth, opened it again, like he was dumbfounded she'd read him so easily. Finally, with a bit of a guarded expression, he said, "Were you aware of your parents' will?"
"You're here because of MONEY?" Krista all but roared. She stood up, making the chair scrape loudly on the cobblestone, the sound drew unwanted attention from passerby's. Andy stood up as well, having had enough of this family reunion. He had not said a word, but he'd been listening, and so far this guy was a bit of a jerk.
Her uncle flinched back, and the cat's tail puffed up, "No, no, no, you misunderstand me! I- I know your parents didn't leave much, I meant your mother's will. The one you possess is their married one, of the things they shared. My sister, she had a testament of her own. "
His words made Krista pause, stopped her from storming out. So that was news to her. "Sit down, please, let me explain," Axel said. He stroked the cat's fur soothingly, and with his other hand gestured at Krista's chair. She reluctantly sat back down, and Andy did the same.
"Well?" her face showed nothing but polite interest. But her eyes gave her away, they shone. Andy could relate, anytime some servant or someone that had known his own mom mentioned something about her, the little information felt good to know. She'd been gone for three years, and he still missed her every day.
Axel relaxed, he was all smiles again. "Your mother left a second will with me, for when you turned eighteen. I, ah, I guess I missed your birthday," he mumbled the last part sheepishly.
Krista waved away his last comment, "yeah, yeah, you missed out on most of my life," her jab wiped the smile right off his face. The cat jumped out of Axel's arms and onto the table, the striped tail almost wagging like a dog's, but much slower. It locked eyes with Andy and jumped on the prince's lap, rubbing its head against his tummy. Andy gasped in surprise, but recovered quickly and rubbed the feline between the ears. It purred.
"I thought we could read it over together," Axel continued, trying to ignore the happy cat that had just betrayed him. Andy made a show of petting the cat's head and its sleek back.
"But... my mom didn't have much? What could she possibly have left me?"
Axel smiled, "Oh, it could be many things... belongings, money, proprieties..." Krista's eyes widened at the third thing, and it only made his uncle smile wider when he said the last one. "Marriage contracts..."
Andy jumped so bad he startled the cat, who hissed and fled. "What!"
● Maddy ●
Her buffoon husband whined like a child when she announced she would not be joining him for dinner.
"Oh, Madders, come on!" he pouted, which looked rather ridiculous in a grown man's face sporting a coarse black beard. She glared at the 'endearing' pet name he'd had for her since they were young. He knew she hated it with a passion. "It's like you're married to Astrid, not me! You don't have time for me anymore."
"I spend all day with you. I've spent all my life with you," she retorted, and then she realized her statement probably applied to Astrid as well. If he noticed, Josef didn't point it out. He continued to rock back and forth in the chair in their room in the King's chambers, like the brat he was. "I need to speak to her, okay? It's about that king who's got Lena."
"The Snow King," Josef said in his best squeaky voice. Gods he could be so annoying when he wanted to. His dark curls were out of place, his dress shirt rumpled, the slob he always was. "Froze the entire fjord. Boo!"
"You read through my papers, didn't you," she wasn't asking it, she was stating it. She had a handful of reports tucked under her arm, things she'd researched to get back in Her Majesty's good graces after the tea party fiasco the other day.
And ho and behold, who would have guessed? King Adgar's son was born with quite the special talent. The power to control ice and snow. Just thinking about it made her shiver. If the reports and testimonials she'd managed to get were true, which they probably were, Lena had got herself into a hole so deep there probably was no bottom.
Things now spelled D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R. If Astrid didn't want problems with Arendelle before, she sure as hell wouldn't want them now. How did you even fight this? What hope did they have of winning this one?
It didn't matter. It wasn't her problem to deal with, it was Astrid's. All she would so is deliver the news to her, pretend to be the good sister like she always did. It should appease the queen, at least for a little while.
"You shouldn't leave things laying around that you don't want me to read," Josef sighed, like the mature adult that he was. "Fine, no dinner. Shall I expect you for bed?" She tried to ignore the resentment in his voice. More than once, she'd pulled all-nighters in Astrid's company, helping the queen decide how to run her gods damned country. On those nights Josef would be left alone, longing for his wife. Maddy was Astrid's biggest rival and greatest friend, and she did not know how to balance that out. One minute they'd be best friends, the next Her Majesty would be threatening to exile her own sister.
She rolled her eyes and readjusted her grip on the peace offering for Astrid, "Yes, love. I'll grace you with my presence after visiting our queen. I won't be long." I hope. Sometimes what she expected to be a five-minute conversation would drag on to hours. Astrid was just unpredictable.
"Hm. Very well," when he stood up, she was reminded of the height difference between them. He didn't tower over her, but he was no short man either. He focused on her face and smiled with that stupid goofy face of his, and she suddenly felt self-conscious about the scar on the left side of it. Astrid had gently reminded her of that. "I eagerly await our time together, my lady," Without thinking, she reached up to cover the ugly mark, something she hadn't done in front of her husband in years. Almost immediately, he grabbed her hand and removed it. "You don't have to hide from me," he said firmly.
The pure affection on his face made her melt.
"Josef..."
On her way to the patio, she practically ran into Johanna.
"Oh, Madeleine, I'm sorry!"
"Watch where you step," but Maddy's voice didn't hold the usual bite. Even when all her papers went flying, she didn't explode on the twelfth sister. She was probably still blushing like schoolgirl, flustered at her idiot husband's actions. Her sweet, dorky Josef. Many things on her life were a nightmare, and she'd committed a large amount of mistakes, but blessedly marrying Josef hadn't been one of them. He quite literally was the sun in her otherwise shitty life. She'd been lucky with him, some of her other sisters had married the worst kind of scum.
Johanna took note of her sisters' dreamy look, like she took note of everything. She raised a dark brow at the older woman. Johanna was her mother's daughter, an exotic beauty with tanned skin, dark hair and even darker eyes. Maddy's father could have easily denied that she was related to him, but he claimed the bastard girl anyway. She was the smartest of all of them, the intellectual little bitch that only ever talked to Lena, they were born about a month apart.
Before Maddy could process it, Johanna was on her knees, gathering the papers. "You dropped these."
"I know I did," Maddy mumbled, annoyed at the younger girl's stupid observation. They'd crashed in the middle of the stairs, Johanna was going up, while Maddy had been going down. She hoped Astrid was still having her sugary cakes in the patio. If she was not there, she would not know where else to look for the queen at this time of day. The sooner she was back in Astrid's good side the better.
Johanna paused before rising, reading over one of the papers quickly. Maddy realized this too late. She snatched them away, furious at Johanna's intrusive nature. "That's not for you!"
"Is that about Helena?" Johanna's voice was calm, but she did look significantly paler. "King Elliott froze Arendelle?"
Maddy shoved the papers under her arm, "How do you know all those things?" she snapped. She'd been too distracted to realize the little bastard girl had been looking through the papers. Naturally, Johanna seemed to know more than she let on.
"Gibbs should really make sure the letters burn when he tosses them in the fire," Johanna said with an impish grin, but her eyes were still worried. "And you should be careful while doing research, Maddy. The walls have ears."
"The walls have ears," Maddy imitated in a butchered version of the girl's voice. It was childish, but she did not care. Johanna's superiority complex was a lot to stomach. She thought she was so clever, this bastard girl. "Whatever. I'm meeting with Astrid to tell her."
Johanna smirked, and the signature facial expression was the only sign that they were related at all. "Okay, Maddy. You do that." Her tone implied she knew something Maddy did not, and it just made her madder. She began to storm away. She was at the bottom of the stairs when Johanna called her.
"What?" Maddy yelled back, "What the hell do you want now?"
"Help Helena," Johanna said, with a strange sincerity lacing her words. "Her fall is our fault."
"What is that supposed to mean, you pompous piece of-"
"Her fall is our fault," Johanna repeated, disappearing up the stairs, "some more than others, certainly. But we're all to blame. Her fall is our fault."
Johanna made as little sense as Cecile sometimes, so Maddy decided not to dwell on her sister's words. Lena's misguiding was not their fault, everyone made choices, however beneficial or rotten they turned out to be. You make a mistake, you accept the consequences, you own up to it. Maddy had made a mistake once, a huge mistake, and she was still paying for it years later; the scar on her face was a souvenir of that one mistake.
Astrid was finishing up the second of her little tart-cake things she liked to eat outside, which was an indicator that her sister was in a decent mood. No servant girls ran away crying, which was also a good sign. She'd known her sister long enough to read her mood through little things like that; also if her hair was pinned up or not, her amount of makeup, etc. It probably made no sense to anyone else, but Maddy knew her sister. She knew her better than anyone, and she still was not sure if that was a good thing.
The queen's hair was loose, in lazy blonde waves down her shoulders. Okay, maybe she wasn't in the best mood. Maddy approached silently, half expecting her not to notice her presence right away. But Astrid was Astrid.
"Stop sneaking about and come here," she didn't even bother to glance Maddy's way. She picked up another sugary treat and shoved it in her mouth, "have a seat, tell me what you've found out."
Maddy tried very hard to hide her disappointment. Of course, one of Astrid's "little birds" had probably already informed the queen of what her younger sister was up to. Little birds was Astrid's name for her spies. "Oh, a little bird told me," this or, "One of my little birds saw you," that. It was infuriating how she wanted to know everything all the time. In fact, one of Astrid's best little birds was Johanna, who shared Astrid's thirst of wanting to know everything. It was a disease, gods.
"I'm not sneaking about," Maddy let herself fall on the chair opposite of Astrid's. She pulled out the papers and let them fall on the table. Maddy used most of her self control to avoid helping herself some of Astrid's cakes. She remembered when they were younger, and Sophia had tried to grab one. Her hand had been red for days, from the slap the then-heiress had given her. "Here," Maddy gestured at the papers, "I'm sure you're already aware of all this, so I won't bother to explain."
Her disappointment was dull and obvious. Of course Astrid probably already knew about Elliott. She would've been the first to know, or maybe second to nosy Johanna.
"Actually, I'm not. I figured I'd let you do the research for me," Astrid said, helping herself to yet another cake. She ate so many and so frequently, Maddy wondered how her sister managed to stay so slim. Then again, the stress alone did take a toll on her appearance.
"Oh?" the tiniest bit of hope fluttered in her chest, and she hated it. She hated that it felt so good to know something Astrid did not, have information that would please the queen. "Did no little birds sing you a song?"
Astrid shrugged, "The birds have been quiet... all I've been receiving is whispers," the queen frowned, suddenly looking uncertain, "Whispers of things that should not be."
Maddy felt the smile spread across her face faster than she could stop it. Teasing Astrid was dangerous ground, but if she did it cleverly enough, maybe she could pull it off. "Really? Things that should not be?" she raised her eyebrows, "Could you elaborate?"
The blonde narrowed her eyes, probably not appreciating Maddy's half-mocking tone of wonder. "Magical nonsense, powers of..." Astrid shook her head, deeming it too ridiculous to even consider. Maddy bit her lip to keep from laughing. So Astrid truly did not know about... oh, gods, this was too good, too good. "What is it that you found out? About Adgar's son?" Astrid may know a little, but she did not believe it. Didn't believe that such a thing could be possible. All the proof she needed was right on that table, and she wasn't bothering to read it.
Maddy nodded to herself, flipping through her papers like there was nothing interesting in them, "Oh, not much... he's quite the architect, not good with horses... very good at math! He enjoys-"
"I asked you about things that matter," Astrid's annoyed voice cut in. "Not his dating profile."
"Ah," Maddy pretended to be confused. Astrid shook her head, irritation all over her face. Let her think I'm dimwitted, she'll let her guard down. "Well... there's this other thing, it's nothing of big importance, but..."
Her older sister rolled her eyes and picked up yet another treat. "Elliott, he does this thing, he..." Maddy said and took a pause, she waited until Astrid took a big, big bite out of one of her cakes. Chomp. When the queen's cheeks were full, with whipped cream dripping off her chin in a very unladylike manner, Maddy dropped the bomb. "He does this thing where he can control ice and snow."
The queen's reaction was maybe the best moment of her life.
Later that night when she was giggling under the covers with her husband, she reminisced the moment over and over, determined to burn it into her memory.
"Out her nose?" Josef's voice still held disbelief.
"I swear, whipped cream shot right out of Astrid's nose," Maddy's eyes were dry, she'd cried herself out from laughing so much. But thinking about it still made her shake with glee.
Astrid's ire had been worth it. After collecting herself, after getting Maddy to collect herself, she'd pored over the reports, with distress and anger clear on her face. Maddy had commented in the background, told her older sister about Sandlane and how Elliott had broke off relations with the duchess. Astrid sent servants back and forth, barking orders, making preparations Maddy did not care to know.
It got quiet after that, a little scary. The queen was silent, but Maddy knew what was going through her head; she was calculating, and she was planning. Like Maddy had thought, they'd never faced this kind of thing before. Would Astrid take the offensive, as always? Or try the defensive for once? This was too tricky, with them holding Lena prisoner and all. In the end Astrid was too aggravated to continue with the topic, she said she'd have something figured out by morning. Good luck to her.
"I would've paid good money to see that," Josef sighed, sounding honestly sad that he'd missed it. He burrowed his face in her hair, still with an arm around her waist. She'd never tell her doofus husband how much she immensely enjoyed these kinds of moments between them, but she suspected he knew.
She wondered how Astrid could bear itH. ow she could shoulder the responsibility of ruling all by herself. Maddy would have probably thrown herself off the highest tower if it weren't for Josef, he was something to look forward to at the end of every hard day. Marriage had been restlessly suggested throughout Astrid's rule, even when she was younger she'd had lots of suitors, but none that kept her interest for very long. Father was going to just arrange a marriage for her if his heiress didn't decide, but he died before he could do that. After him Mother died too, so Astrid was left to do as she pleased, which turned out to be the single life.
It was not that she needed someone, no. Her sister did perfectly fine by herself. But the matter of heirs was a pressing one. Astrid did not have any children. She didn't seem to want any. If Astrid died with no heir, Maddy would be queen. Maddy didn't have children either, but she was younger and she had a husband, so that was two steps ahead of their current ruler. It was like Astrid was just going to leave the throne to her, but knowing her sweet sister, she probably had bigger things planned.
She rolled over and nuzzled her husband's neck, "It was the best moment," she murmured. With Josef's warm body next to hers, she continued to wonder, did Astrid ever envy this? Did she ever feel lonely?
"Quiet, or Her Majesty will hear you," he whispered back. It was impossible she'd hear just from their adjoining bathroom, since they slept in the King's chambers and she slept in the Queen's, but Maddy did try to quiet down. "I'm surprised she didn't threaten to kick us out for how you delivered the news to her."
Maddy rolled her eyes, "Oh, she did. Wouldn't be the first time this week."
"If she ever does good on her word, where would you like us to go live?"
Maddy smiled with that same evil smile she'd let slide when Astrid had not known about Elliott's power. "Arendelle, obviously."
She'd said it sarcastically, the proposal was just ridiculous, and Josef laughed. She hadn't meant it, she'd never even visited the cold place so far north. She had no wish to.
Little did she know, that was about to change.
+++i wanted to show off a little more of helena's sisters, to get a feel on their characters y'know, now u've met johanna, got to know maddy's not-so bitter side a lil better. and yes game of thrones references are here to stay foreeeverr.
++eeeey I hope things aren't confusing, my english isn't rly the best, and i do try to make myself as clear as possible. if you have any questions, please ask (not as guest) so i can answer ya :) no spoilers of course.
+ next chapter there'll be a little someone from Atlantis :) so that should be cool, after the positive reviews on more disney characters, i'll be sure to introduce a few more! aaalso next chapter, if u've missed helena's POV, ur in luck! i know i have, kehe
thank you for reading!:)
