Chapter Eighteen

Apologies for how late this chapter has come, real life is giving me a few swift kicks at the moment , but this fic will be finished come hell or high water.

…..

Recovery from the pertussis was an achingly slow process. After the initial cough had finally subsided, Merida was still confined to bed rest for two weeks until she was deemed no longer infectious, and a further three weeks until her broken rib healed. She was so irritable and sulky during this time that even Anna found it hard to be around her.

Elsa, still feeling the hard pang of guilt that she had overlooked getting Merida vaccinated, visited as often as she could. She painted on her most cheerful face, suppressing a wince when she saw just how much weight Merida had lost in convalescence. But she was still able to adopt her sharp tone when she caught her walking around the room one night.

"Back in bed, now," she commanded in her most 'queenly' voice.

Merida groaned, but complied. Elsa didn't miss the little tremble in her arms as she lowered herself back under the sheets.

"It's just for a little while longer," she cajoled, sprawling out beside her over the coverlet. "The doctor will be back tomorrow, and you're much stronger now..."

"Strong?" Merida laughed hoarsely. "A stiff wind could knock me over. I've no muscle left."

The kitchen staff had been sending up multiple plates of dishes supposedly perfect for getting invalids back on their feet (for all their initial misgivings, they had grown fond of the "little red ghost") and she had eaten everything, even if half the ingredients were Dellian delicacies that she normally hated. They'd even gotten her to eat half a box of chocolates, though she complained the whole way through and was dramatically sick afterwards.

It had all done precisely nothing.

"I'll set you doing drills with the guards as soon as you're well enough, if you want," Elsa offered. "But for now, stay in bed. As your queen, I command you."

"You're not my queen," Merida fired back amiably.

"Then, as your...um," Elsa stammered. What were they to each other, exactly?

"...as your paramour..." she began again.

"Pah-ruh-moore? Wassat?" Merida asked.

Lover wasn't right, they hadn't gotten that far yet. Betrothed was all wrong, mistress seemed a bit off, admirer suggested it was a one-way situation...

"...as your sweetheart I command you," Elsa finished, though she felt a hot blush climbing up her face.

"Is that what it's called here?" Merida asked with a low yawn, slumping under the covers.

"We don't call it anything here," Elsa mumbled, fiddling with the cover of the book she'd brought with her. "It's not talked about."

"Why not?"

"Our God forbids it," Elsa told her, hoping she'd drop it but knowing she wouldn't. "It's a mortal sin."

Merida rolled her eyes. "That's stupid. Why does your God care what you do with other women?"

"I honestly don't know," Elsa answered truthfully. It had never made sense to her, even as a young girl.

"It's not stopping anyone else," Merida muttered.

Anyone else?What?

"What?"

"All the other women don't seem to worry about it," Merida shrugged.

Elsa turned to stare down at her.

"What other women?" she asked incredulously.

"Couple of the maids," Merida said breezily. "And that girl who brings in the cloth. The shoemaker's daughter and her friend..."

"I'm not sure I should be hearing this," Elsa gasped.

"Are men not allowed do it either? Because there's loads of them at it too..."

"Arendelle is a hotbed of sin," Elsa mumbled, slumping down the headboard of the bed.

Merida laughed so hard at her she was clutching her rib in pain, but at least it was nice to see her enjoying herself.

…..

Two nights later, Elsa put down the book she'd been reading aloud to her because Merida had been unusually subdued and was clearly not paying attention to the story.

"What's on your mind?" Elsa gently probed.

"Nothing," Merida muttered. "Keep going, I was listening."

"It's against the law to lie to the queen," Elsa retorted.

"You're not my queen."

"So you were lying then?"

Merida pouted, annoyed at being caught out. Then the look faded into something altogether more serious, and Elsa's concern was peaked.

"How likely is it that I might have died from that whooping cough?" Merida asked her bluntly.

Elsa swallowed, hard. She hadn't been expecting that.

"It's not that likely," she told her. "You're young and strong, and you had the best doctor in the country...those that die of pertussis are usually the very young or very old, or they're already sick."

"But they don't get it, because of that thing you said...the needle thing..."

"Vaccines? Yes, everyone gets them," Elsa said. "You need two more, for scarlet fever and measles. When you're stronger."

"The doctor told me how they work. How did they think of such a thing?"

"I'm not sure," Elsa answered. "Vaccines weren't invented here, they were discovered a few decades ago by a Piscadellian scientist..."

"In Dunbroch they would have stuffed me full of herbs and hoped for the best," Merida sighed. "It's not changed a bit in five hundred years."

"Well, medical advances can be a bit out of reach..." Elsa offered. "We were very lucky you knew what that rash Anna had was..."

"It's not just medicine," Merida retorted. "Everything here is different...you know for the first few weeks I was terrified to touch anything? I thought I'd break some of your furniture just by looking at it."

Elsa chuckled fondly and kissed her forehead, which Merida somewhat grudgingly permitted.

"It's because we kept everyone out for so long," she continued. "It's about time that stopped. When I go home, it'll be different. I'll see to it."

Elsa nodded and picked up her book again, because the mere mention of Merida 'going home' sent an icy rush up and down her spine. Merida settled down next to her, close enough to feel the heat radiating off of her body. She didn't seem to notice that the temperature in the room had suddenly dropped.

…..

The next morning, Elsa lingered in the aviary tower. It seemed emptier without Merida up there constantly, and although the staff and Elsa herself were tending to Lua, the falcon seemed put out that she hadn't seen her mistress in a while.

Elsa hadn't thought it possible for a bird to sulk.

But as soon as Merida had been strong enough to hold a pen, she'd scribbled off a letter to Maudie to let her know that she'd been ill but was getting better. Maudie had most likely been in a fit of panic in the meantime.

From the tower, Elsa gazed off into the horizon as far as she could. Dunbroch was there, she knew, hidden by fog in a way that was almost (and entirely possible to be) magic. She tried to imagine how Merida had felt in those first few weeks in Arendelle, surrounded by all these strange objects, unable to understand the language, with her homeland just out of view. In her shoes, Elsa might have frozen the entire nation in a panic.

A little speck in the sky drew closer and let out a shriek of greeting. Lua landed deftly on the ledge, cocked her head at Elsa and, surmising that she wasn't Merida, flapped haughtily and paced on the spot, hissing. Elsa threw her a hunk of raw chicken and took the letter of reply from her leg.

It was in Gaelic, of course. There were words here and there that Elsa recognized.

Abhaile...home...

Tinneas...sickness...

Buchaillí...boys...

Towards the end of the letter were a few scribbles that resembled words, but clearly not Maudie's doing. With a start Elsa realized that Merida's brothers were now writing to her too, or at least trying to.

The writing was smudged. Little boys had messy hands. And this was a new development...

Before she even realized she was doing it, Elsa was in the cloisters making her way to the memory book. She hadn't looked at it for quite some time; she hadn't needed to. Carefully, with the blade of a letter opener, she scraped some of the debris from the page onto the book.

Probably, it would yield nothing.

And yet, the little specks of dirt spread across the page and drew her in...

The atmosphere felt heavier on Cava, even as a spectre Elsa felt it sink down on her like a blanket. The sharp scent of the sea filled her and stung her eyes, and although it was cold it was a different kind of chill to the kind she produced with her own hands.

Inside this humble little cottage, a plump woman with a kindly face was poking at a pot over the fire. At the table, three boys were pushing food around on their plates. Well, two of them were. One of them was just staring at the plate with a deep scowl marring the baby fat of his face.

It almost hurt to see them. They were Merida's brothers, their features were a little thicker but they were unmistakable. They were tall for their age (she knew them to be eight years old now, ten years younger than their sister) with the last vestiges of childhood plumpness rapidly disappearing.

"Don't just look at it, boys," Maudie said tiredly in Gaelic. "Eat up."

"It's horrible," two of the boys said in unison. The third continued scowling at his plate.

"Boys, I'm in no mood today," Maudie snapped. "Tearlach's going to be back soon and if you don't finish your plate you can explain to him why not."

The two boys sulkily started shovelling the food into their mouths. At least, up until their brother picked up his plate and hurled it at the wall.

"HUBERT!" Maudie sputtered, red-faced and incredulous. "What in the name of..."

"What's happened to her?" the boy (Hubert) shouted.

"To who?" Maudie shouted back. "Look at the mess, Tearlach's going to be..."

"What's happened to my sister?" he growled. "Why aren't you telling us?"

"Nothing's happened to her, as far as we know," Maudie answered, a little calmer though still visibly furious. "She's probably fine."

"Then why isn't she sending any letters? Why did she stop?"

At this, the two boys who had been silent pinned Maudie with a horrified look, as though it hadn't occurred to them that anything might have happened to Merida.

Maudie sank down at the table and put her head in her hands. At that moment, a mountain of a man strode through the door, took one look at the scene in front of him and gestured towards the door. Kicking his stool over as he left, Hubert stomped outside. Elsa followed, and so did the large man.

"What was all that about?" For such a large man, he had a soft voice.

"Something's happened," Hubert mumbled, a little cowed in the man's presence. "She wouldn't just stop writing."

"I made a promise to you. Remember?"

Hubert mumbled under his breath.

"I promised that if we know anything, we will tell you. Have we ever broken that promise?"

"No," he muttered.

"We know as much as you do right now," the man continued. "If Warrick had somehow found her and taken her captive again, we would have heard about it. If she had died, we would have been sent word of it from the place she is in now. Most likely we are not hearing from her because of something else."

Hubert kicked at the ground irritably, but even so the rageful look on his face was starting to relax and fade. The man picked up a large bucket and tossed it to him.

"Don't come back until it's at least half full," he said, and ducked back inside the cottage.

Hubert opened his mouth to argue, but then seemed to think the better of it and went off to do whatever he was meant to do with that bucket.

With a snap, Elsa was out of the memory and back in the cloister.

She was conflicted, horribly so. On the one hand, the letter was Merida's, and she needed to hand it over. On the other hand, she'd just recovered from a serious illness and didn't need any extra strain.

And there was the little niggling fear that seeing how much she was missed by her brothers would prompt her to try to leave Arendelle again.

She can't. Not now. It's far too dangerous.

Warrick was still in control of much of Dunbroch, and the boys were clearly in good hands, and as long as they heard from her regularly there was nothing to worry about.

There was ample reason to keep her in Arendelle. For the time being, at least.