Kaya quietly disentangled herself from the slumbering queen. Elsa had the most peaceful expression on her face. Kaya guessed Elsa had finally rid herself of the nightmares, at least for the moment. The captain couldn't deny that she hadn't slept so soundly herself in years, but the heat signature of one of the servants coming closer was enough to trigger her always-alert senses into reality.
Elsa moaned softly and seemed to regret the loss of contact.
Amber eyes softened and Kaya pulled the sheet up to cover the queen more effectively, not that she thought the queen would need it.
She was long gone by the time Gerda stepped up to the door.
"Elsa's been a bit out of sorts today, hasn't she?" Anna picked at her food while Kristoff tore into his.
"Just leave her alone." Kristoff said through a mouthful of food. "I'm sure she'll come around."
"But what could've happened to make her like that?" Elsa had been acting weird all morning. First she was late to breakfast, quiet during the entire meal, then walked right into a closed door, seemingly lost in thought. Anna had thought it was funny at first, but now she had to wonder.
If that wasn't enough, Elsa had set a record for the fastest-eaten dinner that night. Anna was amazed that she still made such an un-royal like action look so regal.
Did it have something to do with this Kaya woman? The captain seemed to be going about her business as usual, and nothing looked out of the ordinary.
She shook her head. Maybe Kristoff was right, and she was worrying about nothing. Elsa was allowed to have her off-days too, right?
"You sent for me, Queen Elsa?"
Sooomebody's in trouble~! Orinda sang cheerily in her head.
Kaya promptly told Orinda to shut up as she opened the door to the queen's study and quietly shut it behind her.
People had been whispering all day that the queen had been acting strange, walking into walls and such. Kaya didn't have to guess what was making the queen uncharacteristically clumsy.
Elsa had fought the nagging feeling of disappointment that had flooded her when she realized her Captain had left sometime after she'd fallen into the one of the most restful slumbers she'd ever experienced.
"Captain Kaya." Elsa turned around and smiled when she saw her. "I wanted to...thank you for what you did last night."
Kaya bowed. "It was no problem, Your Majesty."
The queen nervously wrung her hands. "I actually don't have dreams like that very often." Her gaze seemed to be somewhere else. "I had struck my sister, when we were kids."
This didn't surprise the Palladonian, but she listened anyway.
"It was an accident; we were just playing, and I had made little snow hills for Anna to jump to and from." She sighed. "She was leaping too fast and I couldn't keep up with her and I-"
"Queen Elsa." Kaya didn't understand why sharing an awful memory with her was so important to Elsa, but if it was that painful to share, Kaya didn't want to be the reason why.
"That's when my father dismissed most of the staff in the castle. He thought I could control it, contain it." Elsa looked down at her hands. "He told me to conceal my power; not to feel it."
Kaya had to hold back a snort of derision. "Then he was a fool."
"What?"
On impulse, the captain moved forward and clasped Elsa's hands in hers. "He was a fool to think that he could control something so powerful, or that you could control it without proper training." Her eyes were narrowed. "And he was a fool to tell you to ignore your nature, to hide it."
"He was just scared for me, he-"
"He should have trusted you to find a way to deal with your power in your own time." Kaya sniffed. "He should have allowed you to grow into it. As it is, he only made it worse for you, locking you up like a criminal and hiding you away from the rest of the world."
Elsa looked like she wanted to argue, but couldn't. When she glanced back at her hands again, they were shaking in Kaya's.
Kaya softened her tone. "Try not to worry about the past; what's done is done and there isn't anything you can do about it now."
The queen looked up into her eyes. "How do you know so much?"
For some reason, it saddened Kaya to think she couldn't be completely honest with this woman. Mean-spirited and cruel though her father had been, he never told her to hide who she was. When he discovered her abilities, he had thought more of how to use them for his own gain, and that was why he pushed her to control her power. He hadn't been afraid of her, but she had a feeling Elsa's father couldn't have helped feeling anxious about such a great threat to his kingdom, even if it was from his own daughter.
Kaya closed her eyes and sighed softly before opening them again to meet the queen's waiting gaze.
"I've...been through something similar." Surely the experience itself had been exactly the opposite, but the outcome had been the same. They had both been trained from an early age to not to feel or show any emotion; warned that if they did, it would be disastrous for everyone around them. Kaya's formerly earnest nature had made keeping her desire for companionship difficult to contain, but after her first encounter with Orinda, Kaya had grown more reclusive to the point that being alone no longer bothered her. Elsa, apparently, hadn't been so lucky.
Elsa seemed to accept the vague answer and leaned into Kaya's touch for a moment longer before Kaya released her wrists.
"If what happened last night made you uncomfortable, Queen Elsa-"
"What? No!" Elsa cried, then, realizing she'd raised her voice, blushed. She looked down, embarrassed. "Not at all! I mean, thought it was just a dream at first, you know, and-"
Kaya smiled softly at Elsa's babbling. She'd never would have thought mindless chatter could look so endearing.
Elsa stared up at her in awe.
The captain raised a brow, and the smile disappeared. "What?"
"You smiled!" Elsa laughed. "I knew you could!"
Kaya blinked rapidly a few times, startled, before she stepped back slowly and cleared her throat.
"Well, if there's nothing else, Queen Elsa..."
Elsa giggled. "No, nothing, captain."
Her captain bowed and then made a hasty exit.
Who knew her stoic captain would be so cute when flustered!
Kaya placed a hand on Loren's shoulder to hold him in place. "Easy."
Loren scoffed.
His captain glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "Something funny?"
"This is stupid." He whispered, gesturing to the stag not seventy yards from them. "Shouldn't we be back at the palace, training?"
Kaya snorted. "If you think that learning how to pin someone to the floor is the only training you'll need to succeed in defending your queen, then you're an idiot."
Narrowing his eyes, Loren was about to yell something back, but Kaya slid forward, closer to the brush that they were hiding behind.
"Hush now." Kaya gestured towards the stag. "Look."
The stag had noticed something was off. He'd lifted his head and was sniffing the air.
"Now?"
The idiot's going to scare it off! Orinda was always in the best of moods when Kaya was in the middle of hunting. Kaya could never shake off an unwitting sensation of pleasure that ran through her when she fought, and she knew that Orinda was to blame.
"Hold." Kaya's gaze was intense; her eyes resembled burning embers. "You won't be able to catch him by running; anticipate his movements and cut him off."
Frowning, her trainee looked back at the stag.
"Focus." Kaya murmured. "You know this terrain; trust your instincts."
Loren steadied his hands on the bow he carried. He had already tracked the stag this far without much help from Kaya. The man was good at trusting his gut rather than his head. Pity those instincts could only get him so far. He had to learn to listen, watch, and keep his mouth shut until just the right moment.
Which was a hard lesson for her charge to learn, apparently. Kaya knew that Loren would probably have been happier with the shotguns that her father had invested in for his war plans, but Kaya didn't particularly care what the man wanted. This was what was going to make him more useful to Elsa. At least, this was the first step.
Kaya nodded to the man as he raised his bow to take the shot before the stage darted off.
The arrogant fool made the mistake of physically revealing himself before the stag had returned to his original grazing position. Kaya knew he would more than make up for it with his marksmanship, but seeing Loren have to sprint a few feet after the deer wasn't exactly the result she was going for.
Loren finally stopped and aimed his bow at a blank spot in the air, just as the stag ran in that direction.
The arrow was released and hit its intended target with a thunk!
Orinda whistled in mock-admiration at his marksmanship, right after hissing in annoyance after the stag had bolted.
Kaya scoffed, resisting the urge to rub the bridge of her nose. "Now just think, how much less energy would you have exerted if you had actually done as I told you?"
Loren glared. "Look, I got him, didn't I?"
Kaya walked past him, then smacked him upside the head so fast he didn't see it coming.
"Don't get smart with me, moron." She glanced at the spot where the stag had fallen. "He's still alive, which means you didn't do your job right."
The man rubbed his skull. "What difference does it make if he's still alive right now?" He shrugged. "I'm just going to kill him in a minute anyway."
"Then you've failed to grasp the second point of the lesson." She turned and strode to the stag, placing an ironically gentle hand on its side as she slid a hidden dagger out of its sheathe. "It's the single most important lesson that I can teach you."
Loren looked on, eyebrows drawn. "Which is?"
The woman pursed her lips in disdain of what she was to do, seeing all too clearly the parallels in the difference in power between Loren and the stag, to herself and the rest of the world. Save, perhaps, for Elsa.
She snapped out her answer to his moronic inquiry as her strike to the deer's heart, swift and true, hit home.
"Mercy."
