Thanks to the now 200+ followers of this story. Now back to the fluff after all the angst of the last few chapters and Royal Reunion.
Three months later
The committee of love experts was finally almost ready for their biggest meeting to date. Christian held them up when Olaf got too distracted by a butterfly to look for him in hide and seek. But an hour delay wouldn't be so bad, if Joan could get things in order.
"Order! Order in the committee!" Joan said, banging the gavel Elsa just had to give her. Still, Anna, Kristoff and Christian had no choice but to come to the table.
"Good job as always, Joan," Anna said, getting a head start on sucking up.
"No, the greatest job, Joan," Kristoff topped. She was gonna have to do better than that to get her picks on the final cut.
"Thanks, Dad," Joan approved. "Okay…..we all know what we gotta do. Aunt Elsa spent a week with all 10 guys who wanna be King. We spent that week with them too. Now we gotta choose the five best guys for the next round."
"But Elsa gets the final say, of course," Anna reminded her. "This is just our recommendation. Even if a guy doesn't make our cut, for some reason, Elsa can still keep him alive. Then there's nothing anyone can do about it."
"If you're counting on Elsa to save your beloved Prince Goran, he's already lost," Kristoff bragged.
"Oh, like she's gonna bail your best buddy Sven out?" Anna challenged. "Just because he has our Sven's name, doesn't mean he's half the reindeer Sven is!"
"By that logic, just because Goran's country is the second largest chocolate supplier in the world, it isn't a sign of true love," Kristoff replied.
"Okay, let's keep the crazy talk to a minimum, or we'll never get through this meeting!" Anna quickly declared.
"Is Prince Jorgen gonna make it?" Christian asked. "He's just gotta! His brother was so nice when I was at the Western Isles, and he likes his brother!"
"He's an Isles prince. Let's keep him just above the bubble for now," Anna said wearily. "Maybe this'll go faster if we get the no brainers out of the way first."
"Didn't we agree that the no brainers are the most suspicious? Like other Isles princes?" Kristoff pointed out. "Sounds like a point against Goran off the bat."
"By that logic, minus one point for Sven," Anna shot back.
"Okay, if we're just gonna use our words against each other, we'll never get done!" Kristoff pouted.
"Mom, Dad, order!" Joan ordered, using the gavel to quiet them down too. When it worked, she said, "How about we vote Prince Caspar out first? We can all agree on that."
"Good – uh, greatest idea, Joan!" Anna agreed. "All he did was stay in the library with her, ugh!"
"Doesn't Aunt Elsa like the library?" Christian wondered.
"For reasons only the Gods will understand, yeah," Anna sighed. "But even Elsa doesn't stay there all the time anymore! Can you imagine Caspar enjoying himself at the ice palace? Or ice skating?"
"I can't ice skate either," Christian noted. This made him gasp, "Does that mean Aunt Elsa can't like me?"
"Well…." Joan couldn't resist getting into teasing sister mode.
"Joan, I have to overrule you here," Anna jumped in. "Of course Aunt Elsa loves you anyway," he assured Christian.
"Then can't she like him anyway?" Christian wondered. "Isn't this about what she likes? Not what we like?"
"Of course it is! It's just, um…." Joan scrambled to not be upstaged by her brother – or possibly be replaced as committee chairwoman. "Aunt Elsa needs a husband who can have fun too! Just like she does sometimes! Ha, gotcha!"
"But we're not picking a husband yet. Just the top five guys she'd like," Christian reminded them. "If they like boring stuff together, she's gotta like him too."
"Well, technically, but…." Joan thought hard again. When she had nothing, she objected, "Come on, can't you get your own gavel? You don't need to take mine!"
"No, Joan. For one thing, Elsa's very strict on lending gavels. Trust me," Anna sighed. "But Christian has a point on the other thing. This isn't about who we like best. It's about who Elsa likes best, and she seemed to like Caspar." After a pause, she added, "But not more than Goran! You gotta give me that!"
"Darn it, you gave me no choice," Kristoff conceded. "And Sven wasn't the biggest fan of Sven Jr either. I just thought they'd bond over time if he made the top five."
"He still could. Let's put him below the bubble for now," Anna compromised.
"Below the bubble, order up!" Joan agreed, smashing the gavel and getting back in control. "Okay, next order of business. Are we sure none of them have powers yet?"
"I'm telling you, five more seconds with Hokar, and he would have shot out fire, I swear!" Anna insisted again.
"He was so mad at you for breaking his ice figurines, his face turned red. There's a difference between that and having fire powers," Kristoff reminded her again.
"See, if Elsa waited to yell at him for five more seconds, I'd know that for sure!" Anna argued back. "But now we won't. Frankly, the possibility was the only thing keeping him in this."
"Anna, if Elsa found someone with powers just like her, great. But they're not in this bunch," Kristoff settled. "Besides, wouldn't that be taking the easy way out anyway? Doesn't it mean more if someone without powers, without that way too easy way in, can accept and love her anyway? Like we do?"
"Approved!" Joan agreed, banging the gavel.
"A good chairwoman waits to hear all arguments before ruling," Anna bought time.
"And yours is?" Kristoff asked after several seconds.
"Fine, do the gavel," Anna grumbled when she had nothing, and Joan happily obliged.
"So Caspar and Goran are in, Hokar's out, Jorgen's probably in, and Sven's probably out," Joan recapped. "What about the next five?"
"Don't let Karl in! Aunt Elsa looked so bored when they had dinner!" Christian argued.
"Well, she makes herself look bored at dinners and royal stuff for a living," Kristoff reminded him.
"No, she was using the really bored look. Right around the fifth time he talked about his country's furnaces. Or his 12'th Fire and Ice pun," Anna agreed. "If it's too obvious for her to get someone with powers, that's gotta be obvious infinity. I don't think Elsa looked ready to settle for that."
"Agreed!" Joan approved, but stopped herself halfway through from banging the gavel, remembering to wait for Kristoff's opinion. "Dad?"
"I didn't feel him. But he was still better than Sarin," Kristoff damned with faint praise. "Kicking Olaf's head off three times when he jumped out and said hi, I can get. I did it twice before I could hold back. Four is just bad news, and I could tell Elsa felt the same."
"Yeah, and then that time he missed and hit his flurry? By 'accident'?" Anna remembered. "Yep, he's gone."
"Then we can put Aaron in, right?" Christian requested. "He loved the ice palace! He oohed and ahhed more than me at Aunt Elsa's snow fireworks show too!"
"So we're choosing her husband based on oohs and ahhs?" Kristoff questioned. "If him, me and Elsa didn't have that all night debate on ice patterns, I'd probably poke holes in that."
"Okay, then Aaron's hole free!" Anna figured. "That leaves us with Lanford and Devin."
"Lanford was the first guy Aunt Elsa danced with," Joan swooned. "She sure liked that. When she got the hang of it, anyway."
"Right, but she really had it down pat with Devin," Kristoff remembered.
"But Lanford hung in there in that snowball fight," Joan counted.
"Then Devin knew when to let her win theirs," Kristoff answered.
"Lanford took off his gloves before he kissed Aunt Elsa's hand. That's solid dairy," Joan nearly got solidarity right.
"Devin got her on the cheek before he left home yesterday," Kristoff figured he won.
"Only because Lanford got it red and warm enough for him!" Joan argued.
"Oh, she was that red from her third hot chocolate cup that day, and you know it!" Kristoff scoffed.
"She only gets that warm after four cups, so there!" Joan shot back.
"All right, fine! Christian!" Kristoff turned to. "Tiebreaker vote, buddy. Do you agree with your cool, fun loving dad, or your annoying, bossy sister?"
"Hey!" Anna voiced. "Why can't I be the tiebreaker?"
"Um….yeah, what she said!" Christian dodged the pressure. "Let her vote for Devin! Oops…."
"Well, I vote for Lanford, so thanks a lot! Annoying, bossy power!" Anna showed solidarity with Joan.
"It's a 2-2 tie. And the chairwoman breaks the tie," Joan recalled, as Kristoff groaned over falling into the trap.
"So that's it, then. Caspar, Goran, Aaron, Jorgen and Lanford. That's our final five?" Kristoff worked out.
"I'm good on four of those. Four and a half, maybe," Anna settled on. "Christian, how about you?"
"Three or four," Christian finally answered. "But you guys know more about counting than me."
"Joan? You heard all the arguments," Anna said. "The councilwoman has the final say. Do we take this list to your Aunt Elsa?"
Joan was so eager to use the gavel, find the right guy for Aunt Elsa and boss around her parents for once – and her brother more than usual. Yet now that the serious part of the job was here, she hesitated to embrace it.
The whole idea of making recommendations that her aunt would use to find a husband – the father of her future cousins [and the King of Arendelle, she supposed] – didn't really weigh on her until now. She didn't even play with the gavel while she was thinking it over. That's how the committee knew this was serious.
"Aunt Elsa liked Devin," Joan admitted. "She doesn't need to like him more than Lanford yet. The guys she likes should all be there. I think she liked Sven just enough too."
"Yeah, I knew it!" Kristoff gloated. "Besides, it's always the least likable guys at first who win Queens! Or princesses sometimes!"
"You sure got me there," Anna admitted with some fondness. "But you thought Sven was the most likable guy. That means he'll turn out to be the bad guy, right?"
"So I can go ahead and put Goran under arrest, then," Kristoff retorted, which made Anna huff.
"You heard the chairwoman, we're not choosing favorites yet! Put them in the top….seven and we'll see who the big secret villain is," Anna dared.
"You're on, princess," Kristoff agreed, just as he and Anna looked super weird and googly eyed to their children.
"So it's okay that there's….more than five names?" Christian sidestepped doing the math.
"Aunt Elsa's never had more than one guy who really liked her," Joan remembered. "Seven's a better place to start than five."
"We'll just eliminate more people in the next round. Only the toughest are gonna survive that anyway," Anna reasoned. "As soon as we figure out what the next round is, they'll be in for it then!"
"Good. Then Goran, Jorgen, Aaron, Lanford, Devin, Caspar and Seven are still at the mercy of our laziness," Kristoff listed.
"Yeah, they are! Approved!" Joan banged her gavel anew. "Now we just gotta get Aunt Elsa to approve."
"Perfect. But until then, that's our last official business in here, right?" Anna made sure.
"Uh huh. Meeting done!" Joan announced. However, Anna got up so quickly that Joan forgot to use the gavel.
"Great! Now we can enjoy the rest of the day, no more work! Knock on wood. Whatever that means. But I like knocking, so I'll say weird words about it anytime," Anna said weirdly. Still, when she got to the room's door and performed her traditional knock, it seemed like a more normal Anna kind of weird.
Joan saw nothing suspicious about it, as she got up and headed to the door with the rest of the family. Anna didn't open it right away, however. "Should be long enough," Joan thought she heard her mother mumble, before she opened up.
However, the next word she and everyone else said – including the people on the other side of the door – was a lot louder.
"SURPRISE!"
Before Joan knew it, Elsa, Olaf, Kai, Gerda and many others came in, rolling what looked like a birthday cake into the room too.
One of those many others even looked like…. "Devin?" Joan questioned as the young prince of Strasburg seemed to be coming in. "But you were free to go yesterday!"
"Once I learned today was your 13'th birthday, I figured I could let the sea wait one more day for me," Devin answered.
"I knew you were smart!" Christian cheered.
"But how long were you out there?" Joan questioned. "You didn't….hear things? About you? Did you?"
"After all the time Olaf spent hugging and popping your balloons this morning, it's a wonder we can still hear anything," Elsa informed. "But don't worry. We didn't listen in on committee business. And no matter how your decision went, Devin still wanted to be here."
"You're still doing work for your aunt on your birthday. Big work, from what I hear. Or didn't hear out there," Devin recounted. "Your family knew you should have a big party when you were done, chairwoman. There's no way I wouldn't want to see how that worked."
"The other committee members didn't know you'd be here, though," Kristoff clarified. "That didn't influence our decision. As much as it would have made certain arguments pointless."
"Don't look at me, the birthday girl did the arguing!" Anna accidentally threw her daughter under the bus on her birthday.
"Not anymore!" Joan corrected. "You're in! You were in then, now you're super in!"
"Super!" Devin said with relief, smiling at Joan and then at Elsa.
"That's it, he's either super duper good or super duper evil. Calling it right now," Anna whispered to Kristoff.
"You'll say the same thing about whoever goes to Christian's birthday party. Calling that right now," Kristoff whispered back.
"Then no way Goran's coming. Or Jorgen, I guess. Ooh, I can watch Sven with the eyes of one of Elsa's ice hawks!" Anna got giddy.
"Let's put aside business and ice hawks till our daughter finally has her birthday, okay?" Kristoff asked.
"Wow, if you wanna put aside ice hawks….then it's approved," Anna smiled, reaching for Joan's gavel along the way – until Joan grabbed it and made her mother pout.
"It wouldn't be bad to influence her birthday wish, right?" Anna checked. "I was gonna hope she wished Elsa had someone with her at next year's birthday. But if no one's super shocking secret evil after all, it'll take care of itself. Right?"
"After we take care of cutting the chairwoman's birthday cake, probably," Kristoff figured.
"Right, right. We're technically not working for her now, but it's her birthday, so…." Anna finally took herself off the clock.
"Birthday hugs!" she said very unprofessionally to her birthday boss. The committee of love experts could now put aside their serious business, as Joan finally let herself do it too.
Yet everyone on the committee – including the Queen they would report to tomorrow morning, after all the cake, balloon games and loud noises faded into memory – dared to think as eventful as Joan's 13'th birthday was, her 14'th might be even better. Especially with more family guests.