"Timber, fish … ice," Elsa muttered as she looked through the treasury report from the last month. These were Arendelle's primary exports. These were the same words the rulers of Arendelle had been muttering since they had discovered they had more of these things than they needed, and that the occasional fresh vegetable other than the locally grown carrots, turnips and parsnips made a nice dinner.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw something come bounding through the door of the study. It was her sister.
"Hi, Elsa!"
"Anna?" she looked over the top of the report.
"Gonna borrow this boat here … don't mind me." Anna picked up the model of the viking ship that sat under the stained glass.
Elsa shook her head and waved her out.
Minutes later she heard boots.
"Hello, love." Carolina smiled charmingly. She stopped at the large desk that separated Elsa from the world and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I'm just here for that globe." She jerked her head toward the corner where it sat.
"Of course," Elsa said and smiled up at her. Carolina grabbed the heavy globe and easily hefted it up on her shoulder. That broadened Elsa's smile, and she momentarily envied the globe. But dutifully she turned her attention back to her work once Carolina's bootfalls has disappeared down the hall.
Still, every once in a while thereafter Elsa was pulled from her thoughts by those same boots wandering outside in the hall, or Anna's giggle.
Then everything was silent. It was the wrongness of the silence that pulled her completely out of her work. Ever since she had come out of her room into a world that was inhabited by Anna, she had happily abandoned this silence. Now, it was just too quiet. That couldn't be good.
Elsa stood and began her hunt. They weren't outside in the courtyard, which was the first place she considered. Of course the cold, gently drizzling rain probably had something to do with that. They didn't appear to be on the second floor where their respective living quarters were, although as she walked through the halls she had the strange sensation that something, or things, were missing. This feeling continued as she descended the staircase to the first floor, walked through the gallery … wasn't there usually a bust over there … and finally through heavy double doors into the large formal dining room.
Here the silence exploded into sound, the sound of a pitched battle. Fitz and Anna had commandeered the massive table. They had every model boat in the castle on it, and there were a lot of those. Antique replicas of viking ships were being pushed about with a firmness that made Elsa cringe inside. She hoped her ancestors weren't watching this from heaven, or Valhalla, or wherever they had made their afterlife, and if they were she hoped they realized she was blameless in this giant mess. The large bronze bust from the gallery was at one side of the table. Some distance from that was the largest of a set of nesting dolls the delegation from Russia had brought the last time they visited. The rest of the boats were scattered about in small fleets. The globe had been set next to the table, perhaps as a reference. But the best part … the thing that made Elsa laugh out loud … were the …
"Oh my, such lovely hats!" she said through a bubble of giggles.
Fitz and Anna looked up at her. Anna had been in the middle of making the "pew pew" noises that often stood in for ice magic in her stories, but now seemed to be cannon fire of some sort. She stopped in mid-pew. Fitz drew herself up from leaning over the table.
"Madam," she said in her most officious tone. "Hats are a very important part of Naval tradition."
Both Fitz and Anna were wearing carefully folded pieces of the locally produced tabloid on their heads. Elsa didn't have much to do with the source of horrifyingly lurid headlines that hinted at famine, corruption on the Council, or which Prince she had allegedly spurned, so she thought it the best use of the newspaper she'd seen yet. Fitz's homemade hat was worn sideways, which Elsa thought meant she was an Admiral. Anna's was back to front; she must be a Lieutenant, or a Commodore or this new thing they had instituted in the Arendelle Navy, a Commander. Both hats were sporting generous cockades, in the colors of … well, Fitz's was Avalon, but Anna appeared to be both Spain and Gaul … and maybe also Russia? The paints and pencils that had been used to color them were still at the other end of the table.
"What exactly is this?" Elsa asked.
Fitz looked shocked at her ignorance. "Why madam, this is the Third Battle of the Mediterranean, also known as Picard's Folly."
"I think they only call it that last in Avalon," Anna whispered.
Fitz continued her introduction of the players. "Over there," she pointed to the Russian doll, "are the Russian troops ready to try to land on our," clearly meaning Avalon, "Turkish allies." Anna helpfully demonstrated how the Russian troops were cleverly concealed one inside another.
"Here is that blackguard, Picard." Fitz gestured to a group of boats with a small jade frog sitting in the middle. Elsa hoped it wasn't the very rare, ancient jade frog from the Orient that had been given to her mother, but she had her suspicions.
"Here is Spain." Spain proved to be an even smaller group of boats with chicken feathers in them. Elsa would have to remember to inquire later about the feathers.
"And here is Admiral Wilson and the great fleet of Avalon," Fitz concluded with a flourish pointing to the large bronze bust of Ragnar, the third King of Arendelle, done in the Grecian style. Elsa couldn't help but notice that Avalon had all the largest and most intricate of the models. She also noted that Avalon appeared to have most of the ships.
Fitz continued,"This was Wilson's greatest triumph! A battle every Avalonian Midshipman can recite by heart." Anna nodded solemnly. Elsa thought that if Anna had been half as serious about her real studies as she seemed to be here, there might have been a contest as to who would make a better queen.
"Would you like to join us?" Fitz asked. "You can be Spain … or Gaul … or even Mother Russia."
"Can't I just be Arendelle, and just sit over here quietly and watch?" Elsa asked.
"That is why your Kingdom is so tiny, Your Majesty. No blood lust." Fitz shook her head as if this were a carnal sin.
"Fitz thinks that with the proper preparation I can expand Arendelle to most of Scandinavia," Anna added with a feral grin.
"Over my dead body," Elsa replied.
"Well yeah … probably. Especially with your command of tactics and strategy." Anna chortled back and turned to her fleets.
Elsa shot her sister a glare. "Fine, I'll be Gaul." The Gallic ambassador had been quite friendly to her after her coronation … probably because he was mortified in his own participation in Hans' plans. But still he had taken Hans back to the Southern Isles, not a service to be discounted.
Fitz looked horrified at the thought of sleeping with the enemy, but Anna just nodded and handed Elsa the tricolor cockade in Gaul's colors. Fitz then reluctantly pushed the jade frog over to her.
"I think I'll just give Picard to Gerda for safe keeping." Elsa carefully put the priceless ornament over to the side, and gestured to the staff to come get it.
"You still need a hat," Anna said with a grin.
"I have a hat," Elsa replied. Actually she had several, and they weren't made out of newspaper.
"You can't wear a Crown!" Fitz protested. "Gaul was in the hands of the Republicans at this time."
Elsa sighed, "Fine."
Fitz tossed over a piece of newspaper, clearly expecting Elsa to make her own hat. Clearly also a mistake, however, since Elsa had no idea how to do this. Fortunately her sister did. And so, soon enough the queen was being instructed in the fine art of paper hat making and how to properly pitch one's "pew pew" noise to signify the different cannon. And who could tell what might come of this exercise, she thought. Perhaps it might even prove handy should the Swedes get greedy once again.
At the very least she had saved the jade frog.
x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x=x
"Come on, you have to do it. A bet is a bet," Anna chirped as she passed out glasses to Fitz, Elsa and Kristoff. "You can't renege or your honor will be questioned." It was after dinner, and they were clustered in the nearby parlor. Dinner had been an abbreviated and somewhat tense affair. Now Anna, Elsa and an uninformed Kristoff were eagerly awaiting the promised entertainment of the evening.
Fitz glanced down at her hat, a surly expression coming over her face. "This is terribly unfair and probably dangerous."
Elsa sat back with a self-satisfied grin, the cat that ate the canary, or in this case more like the canary who surprised the cat with a sudden show of force. "It is a little late to consider that, don't you think?"
Kristoff stroked his chin. "Tell me again what happened?" He held out his glass as Anna poured ale from a growler of his favorite. Elsa and Anna were finishing up the last of the wine that had accompanied dinner. He noticed Fitz had gone upstairs for something more substantial that she now poured from her silver flask.
Fitz and Anna spoke at once. "Elsa kicked Fitz's butt." "The Gallic dogs cheated."
"Amiral Picard was victorious today in the Third Battle of the Mediterranean. It seems he wisely allied with Arendelle," Elsa intoned smugly, in a passable accent, making the point of the Gallic honorific.
"You cheated!" Fitz said her voice getting louder.
"I used the resources available to me. You agreed that we could do that."
"I meant historical knowledge of the battle …."
"Which is what I used," Elsa continued her lips quivering with the effort of not laughing. "I spent a fair amount of time studying history, including naval history since we are only accessible by sea … in my substantial free time."
"Oh!" Fitz crumpled the paper hat in her hands in frustration. She turned to Kristoff and exclaimed, "Icebergs! She used icebergs!"
"Wilson didn't have a chance," Anna chimed in. "Boats sinking right and left."
"Strategically placed icebergs," Elsa amended. "Very strategically placed." She turned to Fitz. "And Anna is right, a bet is a bet."
"You just wait," Fitz grumbled as she pulled a small bit of paper from her homemade cockade and started to chew on it. She grimaced and took a large swig of her drink, swatting Anna's hand away when she tried to hand her the salt shaker.
Elsa chuckled, "Cheer up, dear, I'm not making you eat the whole hat."