Chapter 2: The Queen's Speech
Kristoff looked at the Texan with suspicion before turning to Olaf. "Are you sure that's a real country?"
The snowman turned and muttered some gibberish to the Texan, got some gibberish response, and then replied to Kristoff, "He says Texas is more real of a country than Royal Ice Master is a real thing."
"Well, ask him his name," Kristoff requested, before turning to scan the crowd. Tents were still going up in the castle courtyard, the beginning of Buckthorn Berry festival. Somewhere darting between the stands would be Anna.
Kristoff's search was cut off when the Texan answered, "Juh sweez Decker." Kristoff didn't know the High Court's lingua franca, which is why he needed Olaf to act as translator, but still knew that a proper Frenchman would be offended by that accent. Good thing he was just an Arendelle Ice Master.
"He says his name is Decker" Olaf began.
"I got that much, and that doesn't sound like a real name either," Kristoff replied. By then he had spotted Anna in the crowd, sitting some small child. He wanted to see what that was about, but also didn't want to abandon his charge with the Texan. He turned back to the snowman. "Olaf, can you ask Decker why he wants to know about ice?" he asked. Then, kneeling down close to Olaf continued, "And find out exactly why he wants to know it. I don't want the kingdom's ice harvesting secrets getting out for the wrong reasons."
Olaf's eyes widened. "Ooooh, of course." He turned and flashed Decker a suspicious look, before launching into some tirade in French.
Kristoff stood and smiled. That ought to keep the pair of them busy for a little bit. Now what was going on over at the other end of the courtyard with Anna? Was that boy crying?
Suddenly Anna leapt to her feet while pointing and shouting "PIG!" Kristoff followed the boy's gaze to see a pig sniffing at an apple cart. He looked back to where Anders was standing, but only saw Anna's shadow disappear into the crowd, with a yell of "Halt, you swine!" This probably wouldn't end well.
Sure enough, the next thing Kristoff heard was a loud thunk, accompanied by apples streaming all over the square. She looked over her shoulder to shout some apology to the cart's owners, but not seeing where she was going, she crashed into a table of buckthorn berry pies and slid along its length before it flipped over her.
"I'm sorry. I'll help you bake more," she was saying to the pie bakers.
But they replied in unison with a resounding "No!"
When Kristoff first met Anna, he had gotten hit in the head with a sack full of carrots. Seeing the growing disarray in the courtyard, he considered himself to have gotten off easy. This would probably be a good time to start heading out, least he get dragged into the middle of everything. He turned to Olaf, whose interrogation of Decker had turned to a pleasant chat. "Well?" Kristoff asked the snowman.
"Oh, you again. Decker says he wants ice because Texas is hot."
Kristoff chuckled. So much for the interrogation. From somewhere behind him, he heard Anna shout "Follow that pig!" and the sounds of newly pitched tents collapsing to the ground. Now was definitely a good time to head out.
"Alright. Let's grab Sven and head up to Moonstone Lake," Kristoff said. "I needed to visit the woods anyway."
Olaf translated that for Decker, before turning back to Kristoff. "Why do you need to visit the woods?" Olaf asked, before jumping up and down, saying "Oh, I know why! The little troll girl told me… Should I translate it for Deck—?"
"No!" Kristoff cut him off. "Let's just, uh… let's just find Sven. He's waiting just outside the gates."
Elsa paced back and forth in her bedroom. Speeches. Why did it have to be speeches? She knew the answer well enough: she was a queen, and queens gave speeches. This was simply another duty she had, now that she wore the figurative crown—the real crown was still missing along with Marshmallow in the northern valleys. Growing up she had always known that someday this duty would befall her.
She remembered when she was little, before the gates had closed, her father would give a speech at the beginning of every berry festival. He would stand, regal and composed, on a stage against the Eastern fence of the palace courtyard. She and a very young Anna would be standing in the back of the crowd. They didn't need to try to pack up against the stage to see the King. They saw him every day. Anna would pull at her sister's hand. "Come on, Elsa. Let's find some pies!"
Elsa would just let her sister tug at her arm. "We'll eat pies later, Anna. Papa is about to make his speech."
Then the King would start to talk. "Citizens of Arendelle," his speeches always began, to great applause.
Elsa would try to listen and try to ignore the five-year-old's tugs at her arm, each tug accented with a rhythm of "pies—pies—pies—pies." Then Anna would stop tugging, lean in close, and say in that voice she used when she knew she had a secret weapon, "I think I saw some chocolate pies." That was the magic word to nine-year-old Elsa. She would run about the courtyard following Anna, looking for the fabled chocolate pie, the speech completely forgotten.
Years later, after the gates had closed, the King would still make a speech from the Eastern Tower of the castle, projecting his voice out to the town square where the berry festival was taking place. Elsa would look on from her bedroom window. "Citizens of Arendelle," those speeches would begin the same way.
An adolescent Elsa would strain to listen to the ebb and flow of her father's voice—calls from the tower followed by uproars from the crowd below. She would close her eyes and imagine herself in the tower, speaking to a crowded square. But at the thought of all those piercing eyes—her heart would start racing and breath would come short. Soon she would open her eyes and see that her windowsill was frosted over. Then controlling her power was more important that paying attention to the speech outside.
Why couldn't I have paid better attention all those years ago? Elsa wondered. She looked down at the only three words she had written for her speech so far. Citizens of Arendelle…
There was a knock on the door, a familiar cadence of knock-knock'a-knock-knock, Anna's knock. Elsa jumped to open the door. Maybe her sister could help! At least she would be a welcome distraction from the empty page. But as she opened the door, she had to take a step back from what she saw. Her sister was stained in purple and completely water-logged, sea-water still dripping from the end of her twin braids. Anna wore a guilty grin on her face.
"Can I borrow a dress," she said.
Elsa stepped aside as her sister dove into the closet. She hoped this wouldn't be like when they shared a room in their childhood, and Anna would ask to borrow her cloth—when Anna would fling half the wardrobe out of the closet, leaving their room like it were haunted by a very fashion-savvy poltergeist.
The queen was proud of her sister today; she hadn't flung a single thing out of the closet. Instead, she popped her head out to ask, "What is this?"
The next Elsa saw, Anna popped out of the dressing room, in a gown that looked like she was sitting in an enormous pumpkin, with full-sized gourds as shoulder poofs. "Ooh-la-la" she said in a sing-song voice and mock French accent. "My hips are here, my hips are here, pardon my behind young man, didn't mean to knock you down."
Elsa held back a chuckle. "It was just a gift," she said.
"From whom?!"
"I don't know… one of the big countries," she answered, adding a woodsman's hat to top off Anna's ridiculous costume, and shoving her back into the changing room.
"I can barely fit through the doorway," Anna continued in her mock accent. She continued humming, before popping her head out and asking, "What about an ice dress?"
"An ice dress?" Elsa asked.
"Like the one you're wearing."
Elsa looked down at what had once been a teal woolen winter dress, which through her ice magic had become soft blue frozen gossamer, punctuated with icy hexagons and cascading snowflakes. In the evenings when she would change into her night gown, she would think about how much she loved her kingdom, and the open gates, and her sister; and the dress would revert back to the woolen teal. Every morning, regardless of what outfit she initially would put on, she would twist her foot into the ground, sending icicles radiating up the hem, expanding outward in a vortex of snow. Every morning she would emerge from the whirlwind in her icy dress. It was a routine that helped her control her frosty powers. But did she have enough control to freeze over Anna's dress without freezing her sister as well? She didn't want to think about that.
Instead she answered, "Wearing ice can get pretty cold."
"It's not too cold for you." Anna replied as she returned to spelunking among her sister's gowns.
"Well, the cold never—"
"Right, the cold never bothered you anyway." Anna finished. Then she stepped out wearing a soft mint-and-salmon dress, with dark red shoes in a matching pattern. "Found one. What do you think?"
"You look lovely." Elsa answered, "But those shoes are new, and ..."
"Yeah," Anna began, "but they match, and I just ruined mine. And I know I should have taken better care of them, but I was just too excited, and—"
"It's okay Anna—I'll let you wear them," Elsa answered, steadying her sister. "But in return, I'll need your help with something."
Anna looked in amazement at the speech her sister had written, or rather at the three words and striking lack of speech. Her sister was afraid of public speaking? Her sister, who could compose essays and treaties, and such emotional poetry—Elsa had recently, after much pestering, cajolery, and no small amount of begging let Anna read the verses she had composed behind the closed doors of her adolescence—that same sister needed help writing a simple Berry Festival speech.
"… And then I have the quill against the paper, but I imagine myself actually standing on that stage, and all of those people looking at me, and what if the word I want to write is exactly the wrong word? What if sounds too pretentious—like I'm some lofty royalty that they will never relate too? Or what if it's too simple, that as their queen they are expecting more? And before I know it—"
Crack. Anna looked down to see the quill in Elsa's hand had frozen over, the ink solidifying, expanding, and shattering the fountain tip.
"Hey, hey, calm down Elsa. It's just a festival speech."
"But every year at Buckthorn Berry festival, Papa's were so…" Elsa clenched her hands into fists and closed her eyes, trying to convey the emotions she remembered from her childhood. "And the kingdom loved him so. I don't know how I can follow in his footsteps."
"First off," Anna began, "You won't be following Papa—you'll be following Louis. Do you remember his speeches?"
Anna though back to the past three years of regency, headed by Governor Louis. He had taken it upon himself to deliver the speeches. He would walk around claiming that this year, this year, he had nailed it down, but each year he would fail spectacularly. He tried to joke through the tedium of royal governance, but his jokes would fall flat, then he would awkwardly stumble as he tried to recover. Anna wrinkled her nose at the memory. Seeing the same look painted on Elsa's face, Anna surmised that her sister must have the same memory of them too.
"Secondly," Anna went on. "The kingdom loves you. Just this morning Anders was saying how he wanted you to catch Norm."
Elsa cocked her head. "Who's Norm?"
"His pig."
Elsa looked at the crumpled dress in the corner of her bedroom, soaking in seawater and spackled with buckthorn berries, and couldn't help but think that this pig might have been behind it all. She looked Anna and chuckled, but the grin quickly drooped and she sighed. "I just wish I could ask Papa to help me one last time."
Anna replied with, "Well, we can do the next best thing." She grabbed her sister's hand and started pulling her out of the room. "It's long overdue."
Anna led her sister out the palace back gates, across the low-rising hills, to a low-laying valley with two jagged boulders carved with the seal of Arendelle and simple runes reading Agdar and Idun. The final memorials to the King and Queen.
"I've only visited this valley a few times," Anna began. "But it always helps me to …" she trailed off, noticing her sister's arms were dropping in temperature. The ground around them was beginning to frost over. "Elsa. Is everything okay?"
Elsa ran towards Agdar's stone, falling to her knees in front of it. "I'm so sorry Papa," She sobbed. "I could have … I could have frozen the sea. I could have saved you. But I had to conceal… But I don't have to hide it anymore. He said fear would be my enemy. But it wasn't their fear threatening me, it was always my own…" As she went on, frost would trickle outward then wane back.
Anna felt like she was eavesdropping on something very private and personal, so she decided to give her sister space, walking to the far side of Idun's stone and sitting down in the cool grass. After a beat, she started talking to the stone. "So Mama, it's you and me again, while Elsa and Papa are off having the discussions that rulers have."
She paused, as if waiting for the stone to reply. But after growing up having one-sided conversations with a portraits and a shut door, she didn't let the stone's silent answer deter her, and she went on. "And I want to help her real bad. And I know I'm gonna. But we could use your help too."
She paused again, before saying what she'd been holding back for three years. "I've missed you mama." The tears she was holding back fell freely.
"Anna, thank you for taking me here—I think I know what to put in the speech."
A thousand miles to the north, Askel approached the small encampment. The fire in the middle of the circle of tents flickered and danced in the cold arctic wind. A single woman sat by the fire, her face masked by a midnight-blue bandana, her eyes masked in the shadows of the dancing flames. Behind them a fortress of stone and ice towered in the distance.
"The raid managed to scare the bears away, but they'll be back in a day or two."
"Askel, you look grimy. And did you forget to whom you are addressing?"
"At my age, you stop caring how you look, my Queen. But the fact is that those bears didn't like leaving the fortress. They will be back."
"Yes, in a couple days. That will be enough time. The next batch of men should arrive this afternoon."
"The next step will be removing the toppled columns and—"
"Shushshh," the Bandit Queen interrupted Askel. Askel noticed the queen's eyes in the firelight had taken on a crystalline texture. "Another vision."
"You have been having them almost continuously for the past three months."
"The time to strike is almost here. Every vision must be considered."
"What do you see?"
"A rock, carved with runes."
As they walked back, Anna mulled over what she heard Elsa say to their father's headstone. Finally she asked, "Do you really think you could freeze over the ocean?"
Elsa looked at her sister. "I don't know. I still have nightmares thinking about ships lost on stormy waves."
Anna thought for a moment. "Is that why some mornings your door is entirely frosted over? You're trying to freeze the oceans in your sleep—to save Mama and Papa?"
Elsa looked at the ground as she answered, with a bit of embarrassment. "My dreams about losing Mama and Papa are sad, but the nightmares when I really lose myself in fear and let the ice flow—those are ones where I lose you." She looked at her sister briefly, before returning her gaze to the ground. "Anna, I only just got you back. I don't want to ever lose you again."
"Hey, sis," Anna began, grabbing Elsa's shoulder. "You know I'm not going anywhere."
Elsa raised an eyebrow at her sister.
"I mean except when I sail to Denmark on Tuesday. But that's just for Eric's wedding, so I'll be right back." Seeing that this explanation didn't satisfy her sister, Anna went on. "And he's marrying the daughter of the King of the Atlantic. I wouldn't be surprised if King Triton sent a contingent of swimming guards to escort our ship all the way across the sea. Since we're all going to be family soon, right? I mean Cousin Eric is actually a cousin of ours, isn't he?"
"Yes, Erick is a third or fourth cousin, removed once or twice, on some side or other. I'd actually have to consult the family tree to see which."
"See, we're all family. So I'm sure the mermaids won't let anything happen to our ship." Anna folded her arms and nodded her head, as if that settled the matter. Then she thought for a moment. "He must be a pretty distant relation, 'cause he doesn't look anything like us. I've seen his portrait, and his face is all … flat."
"Anna. I hope you have better things to say to the young Danish prince when you actually meet him."
"Right, because the etiquette handbook says," Anna put on a tone of mock-formality, "that when one meets a foreign prince, princesses are not to comment on his appearance, be it attractive or ghastly."
"That's what the etiquette handbook says."
"And a princess is never to answer honestly when asked her opinions on politics and trade, instead steering the conversation toward the weather and latest fashion trends from Paris," Anna continued in her mock-formal voice.
"Um, I don't think was a specific rule in the handbook," Elsa began. "But I suppose some people say—"
Anna cut her off with, "And they say princesses should never go off on adventures to rescue their kingdom."
Elsa raised an eyebrow.
Anna continued "Riding off into the frozen night, battling the elements, battling wolves—" At this point, Anna grabbed a stick and started sword fighting against the air. "All to save her kingdom!"
Elsa smiled. She knew where this was going. "That is what they say."
Anna replied with a big grin. "Well it's a good thing we know better."
Back in the castle courtyard, Anna took her place in the back of the crowd while Elsa stepped onto the stage. "Citizens of Arendelle," the Queen's speech began, to the applause of the crowd.
Before hearing any more of the speech, Anna was distracted by the smell of berry pies. She wandered over to the table that she had knocked askew just that morning. Before she got too close, she felt a tap on her shoulder. "Princess Anna, a slice just for you," the baker said, handing her a small plate with a slice of buckthorn berry pie on it.
"Thank you very much!" Anna enthused.
"Just maybe eat it over there," The baker said, pointing to some place far away from the pie table.
As Elsa was changing into her night gown, she heard a knock on her door. "Hey Elsa, I brought your dress back. I had it washed and everything," Anna was saying as the Queen opened the door.
"Thanks." Elsa grabbed the gown from her sister. "How is packing?"
"Oh, you know. Putting things in trunks. I guess I'm not sure what people wear in Denmark. I mean, I've never been."
"I'm sure you'll love it." Elsa began. "I read about a spread for your bread in the morning called Pålægschokolade. It's thinly sliced chocolate. You'll have to bring me back some."
Anna laughed nervously. "Yeah, the Danes won't be a problem. But what about the other side of the wedding. The Atlanticans?"
"I'm sure they're lovely too," Elsa started, before beaming excitedly. "Just imagine, though. Mermaids. I always heard stories, but I was never sure I could believe them."
Anna looked at her sister's icy dress, hung up near the wardrobe, the bottom slowly thawing into a teal colored wool. Then she looked out the window and up to the northern mountains, where somewhere nestled between the peaks was the Valley of Living Rocks. "Mermaids. And Snow Queens and Trolls. I wonder what other hidden folk are out there."
"The world is more mysterious and wonderful that we could imagine."
"It really is," answered Anna.