Anna had known since her earliest childhood that she was a terribly unsatisfactory princess.
Don't talk so loud, they'd told her. Don't run in the halls. Don't stuff yourself at meals. Don't argue with the diplomats, sneak cookies from the kitchens, swear at the courtiers (not even in foreign languages), peek at the dirty books in the library, take weapons lessons from the guards, or wink at the kitchen boys. And please, your Highness, for the love of all that is holy, don't ask so many questions.
Everything fun was a 'don't' - and all the boring things were 'do's.
Do be polite to everyone you speak to - even if they're stupid, rude, or boring. Do attend all lessons, even if it's a sunny day outside and the spring snow is melting and the crocuses have just come up in the meadow. Do wear a corset, even though it pinches and you can't breathe. Do learn etiquette, heraldry, military history, geography, economics, and a minimum of four foreign languages. Remember, dear Princess, you will be the Queen one day.
'One day.' God, how that phrase haunted her.
From a very young age - she couldn't remember how young, it seemed like forever - Anna had dreaded this far-off 'One Day' when she would suddenly become responsible for living her life by all of the Do's and Don'ts at once. The day when the fate of the kingdom would apparently rest on whether or not she could remember that the primary exports of Polonia were wheat, chalk, and elaborately painted teapots, while also speaking perfect Malanese, and suppressing any poorly-timed burps.
As a small child, she had comforted herself by remembering that none of this would happen until both Father and Mother were very old. And surely by then she would have learned everything she needed to know. By that long far off day when she became Queen (ugh), she would surely have lost the itching desire to abandon everything around her and go adventuring some place where no one knew that Anna was the Crown Princess of Arendelle.
Some place where she could be herself. Whoever that was.
Well, that terrible 'one day' was now approaching, apparently - and coming up far sooner than anyone would have wished. Especially Anna herself.
Everyone knew, of course, that the voyage to Caprus could be dangerous. Sudden violent storms were known to come up out of nowhere and suck ships down without a trace in the usually placid seas off the country's coast. But the merchant vessels of Arendelle made the trip all the time, and most of them came back in one piece. So no one was unduly worried when King Edvard set off for the trade symposium - after all, he went to Caprus every five years for this meeting, and had always returned safe and sound.
But two weeks after he had set out, the word came back from Caprus that King Edvard had never arrived. Two weeks after that, some fishermen had found smashed pieces of storage barrels marked with the Arendelle seal floating in the currents that formed the usual route between Caprus and Arendelle. And two weeks after that, the wreckage had finally been discovered, crushed against a reef that had somehow gone unmarked on the ship captain's charts.
And so Arendelle officially entered a state of mourning for her drowned king.
Queen Helene's grief had sent her into a state of shock which lasted long after the funeral. She hardly spoke, ate, or slept. Even Anna, who could almost always coax a smile out of her mother, was at a loss to do anything but sit beside her mother's bed and hold her hand as Queen Helene stared blankly at the ceiling, her face expressionless as tears trickled slowly down the sides of her lovely face.
Anna mourned for her father too. Of course she did. True, King Edvard had never been especially affectionate towards his playful, irreverent, ever-clumsy daughter. True also that they had clashed frequently, especially over Anna's apparent inability to "take her responsibilities seriously, as befitted a princess." At the state funeral, Anna remembered with a horrible stab of guilt that their last fight had been on the morning of her father's departure, and that she had not gone down to the docks to see him off. She'd stayed in her room, sulking and resentful. Now his last words rang in her ears:
"Can't you at least pretend to care about the future of Arendelle, Anna?"
But she did care. She cared desperately. Anna might not be everyone's idea of a perfect princess, but she loved Arendelle with all her heart - and she knew, deep in her bones, that as the realm's queen she would be a horrible, terrible failure.
Of course, Anna wasn't yet Arendelle's queen. Her mother Helene was still (perhaps reluctantly) alive, and Arendelle's relatively progressive constitution gave the widowed queen quite a lot of authority over the kingdom. Helene had ruled wisely beside her husband for many years, and was completely capable of assuming responsibility. But she seemed not to care anymore what became of her realm. She wouldn't attend meetings, review documents, or even speak to any of her ministers. After the funeral was over she had begun to speak again, sometimes, when asked a direct question. She would eat occasionally, and bathe and change her clothing when someone reminded her. But she was utterly indifferent to the ever-mounting issues of governance that demanded her attention; and with her silence, authority fell to Anna.
Anna didn't want it. She had never wanted it. She was born to be queen, but she would sooner muck out the stables than negotiate a treaty.
It was only a few days after the funeral - her father's empty casket lowered into the frozen ground, the sound of her mother's heaving sobs echoing in Anna's ears - that the courtiers and government officials had begun to haunt Anna's footsteps. At first the requests were relatively simple - official signatures on notes, a nod of approval for some meaningless details of castle management, that sort of thing. Then she'd had to meet with some diplomats, and have her hand kissed, and try not to sound terribly stupid when they wanted to discuss some intricacies of foreign affairs that she hadn't gotten to in her political history lessons yet. Then some trade agreements had come due for renewal, and Anna had had to pretend she understood the Trade Minister's explanations, which lasted all through a long, exhausting, utterly pointless afternoon. With every passing day that the Queen stayed in bed, Anna could feel the eyes of the court and the country turning towards her, silently begging her to grow up, do her duty, assume the reigns of power - and it terrified Anna beyond words.
So she'd started hiding. Whenever she saw another secretary heading down the corridor toward her, she'd duck into a side chamber, scuttle down a hallway, dart into an unused bedroom, or shut herself into a broom closet. Anything to get away. It wasn't dignified, and it wasn't a solution, but she couldn't seem to help herself.
She was tiptoeing down one of the corridors behind the library - avoiding her etiquette tutor, this time, as most of the important ministers seemed to have disappeared somewhere and were thankfully leaving her alone - when she thought she heard her mother's voice from inside the room.
Anna stopped in mid-tiptoe, astonished. Her mother, speaking? Her mother, in the library? Queen Helene had scarcely left her chambers for weeks.
It would be terribly un-princessly to eavesdrop. Anna could practically hear her etiquette tutor telling her so.
She silently told her etiquette tutor to go stuff himself, and snuck closer to press her ear against the door.
Yes, it was her mother. Speaking in the firm, official voice that Anna had not heard since before her father's death.
"... simply don't understand your urgency, gentlemen. Surely this is not the right time to be thinking of such things."
"I must respectfully disagree with you, Your Majesty." That was the somewhat whining voice of the Chief Social Secretary, which Anna could have recognized anywhere. "The kingdom is in most desperate need of a reason to look towards the future - something to plan for, something to celebrate. This is the perfect time to be considering the Princess' marriage."
Anna almost choked. What? Marriage? But - but - !
"She's too young. Scarcely eighteen."
Thank you, mother, Anna thought.
"You were not much older when you were married, your Majesty." This was the voice of the Royal Historian. God, how many of them were in there, discussing Anna's future without her? "And consider, marriage might do a great to steady the Princess. She has been so much alone throughout her life, no friends of her own rank and age, and she is so full of energy and affection. Perhaps, with a handsome young husband, she will have - ahem - an outlet for those - ahem - energies." Having talked himself dangerously close to the precipice of an impropriety, the Historian coughed again and was silent.
Anna's cheeks burned. "Energies" indeed! The dirty-minded old fool.
"Well. I suppose there's no harm in sending for Prince Hans. We'll see if they get on well together, and then, perhaps -"
"Your Majesty, I would urge you to press the point a little more strongly than that with Princess Anna." The soft, measured voice of Prime Minister Oryn cut off the Queen. Oryn had been Prime Minister since before Helene's birth, and was perhaps the only person who could interrupt an Arendelle royal with impunity. Helene fell silent to listen as Oryn spoke.
"Arendelle owes a great deal to the Southern Isles. The last several winters have been unusually long and hard, and we have had to import a large portion of our grain on credit. If we were to back away from the betrothal, the consequences to our financial standing with the Southern Isles -"
"Yes, Prime Minister, I understand." There was a hint of sharpness to Helene's soft voice that was just short of a rebuke. "I am perfectly well aware of our debt of honor to our distant allies. But I am not prepared to mortgage my daughter and the throne of Arendelle in exchange for a few winters' worth of grain, however desperately we needed them at the time, and however grateful we may be to - "
"Your Majesty, I'm afraid you already have mortgaged it. Mortgaged her, if you wish to put it in those terms. Quite irrevocably."
There was a heavy silence. Anna listened to all of them breathing. Her own heart was hammering in her chest so loudly she was afraid they might all hear it through the door.
"... What do you mean?" asked Helene at last.
"The documents of betrothal were signed and sealed late last winter. I have them here - wait a moment -" there was a rustling of parchment "- along with a comprehensive statement of our debts to the Southern Isles." A silence as Queen Helene examined the documents. "The statement of accounts, as you can see, does not include this winter's borrowings, which have been substantial -"
"How did this happen?" Helene's voice cut through the Minister's dry speech, and it was louder, sharper and clearer than Anna had heard it in months. "How did we let things get to this point? How did Edvard keep this from me? These numbers - Minister, these numbers are horrendous. This is more than Arendelle brings in during the best of years. The best of five years. And the interest rate - my god, it's insane. How could Edvard have agreed to such terms?"
"I don't know, your Majesty. Had I known, I would certainly have advised him against it. I can only assume that he believed Arendelle would be able to make good on the debts long before now. But as you know, the winters for many years - the past twelve years -" the Minister's emphasis on the number was oddly insistent - "have been terrible, and getting worse. No one could have predicted such run of hardship."
"I - I just - I can't believe he never told me," said Helene, and from the muffled quality of her voice Anna was sure her mother had buried her face in her hands.
When the Minister spoke, his voice was gentler. "Your Majesty, the terms of the betrothal are extremely generous. The Southern Isles have agreed to forgive all debt, and to ensure that Arendelle is completely provisioned for as long as these over-lengthy winters persist. They are an increasingly powerful nation, with a substantial navy and many trade relationships on the Continent. Securing our alliance with them can only be good for Arendelle."
"You talk of "securing our alliance" as though it had nothing to do with Anna. With her future happiness."
"Your concern for the Princess is most touching, your Majesty, but -"
"She is my daughter, you know, Minister."
The Minister coughed. "Of course. Of course. But your Majesty, we have no reason to believe that she will not be happy. By all reports, Prince Hans is an exceptionally intelligent, well-mannered, and decently brought-up young man. He is even reported to be handsome, for goodness' sake. What more could a young girl want?"
"Love, perhaps?" the Queen suggested, with a mixture of sarcasm and pathos.
"Love. Yes, well." The Minister again coughed that detestable dry cough of his. "Not all Princesses are lucky enough to marry for love."
"I was," said Helene. Her voice shook only a little.
"Well, perhaps love will grow. As I said, Prince Hans is said to have every quality a young lady could wish for in a husband."
Another considering silence. "How long have you all known of this?" Queen Helene asked at last.
"Several months," admitted the Social Secretary nervously.
"And not one of you thought to mention it to me before now?"
"We… we did not want to burden you, your majesty. You seemed, erm… preoccupied."
It was the closest these men would ever come to rebuking Helene for her abandonment of Arendelle during the past few months of deep mourning. The all knew it. There was another silence, which Oryn broke.
"Your Majesty, it is time to secure the future of Arendelle. Princess Anna is a lovely girl - warm, generous, and charming -"
What? Oryn thought she was charming? How sweet of him. Maybe Anna had misjudged him in the past -
" - but she lacks many of the essential skills to be a good ruler of Arendelle. She is impulsive, over-opinionated, under-confident, and painfully deficient in social graces. Not mention frequently unwilling to be guided and educated by her elders."
No, never mind. Anna hadn't misjudged him. The man was a pretentious, mean-spirited, cold-hearted old fart.
"In short, she needs a husband. Someone wise, stable, mature, with political experience and excellent diplomatic skills. Prince Hans is perhaps a little younger than one might wish, but I have met him and talked with him, and believe him to be far more astute than his youth would suggest. Not only is this marriage necessary to the country financially, it may even prove to be the very thing necessary to secure the political effectiveness of the monarchy, and perhaps even the happiness of the Princess herself."
Another silence. Longer than any of the ones that had come before. Anna wanted to burst in and yell at them all that this simply wouldn't do, she was not some piece of property that could be mortgaged in payment for Arendelle's loans, and she didn't care how handsome this stupid Prince Hans was, he sounded like a colossal bore and she wasn't going to marry him even if her mother -
"Agreed." The Queen sighed. "Very well. Send for him. We will end the period of mourning in another month, and Anna's marriage will be announced at the Christmas Ball."
The Chief Social Secretary gave an audible exclamation of joy, and sounded about to launch into an immediate party planning session, but Helene cut him off.
"Gentlemen, I am tired. Excuse me, please." And before Anna had time to think or move, her mother had risen and come to the door and opened it, revealing Anna standing there with a crimson face.
"Anna - dear - what -" Helene began, but Anna was off and running down the corridor before her mother could even begin.
Away. She had to get away.