16 years ago today, the staff and people of Arendelle weren't prepared for balls, celebrations or opening the gates. Today, the preparation's for Queen Elsa's 37'th birthday ball ran like absolute clockwork, huge guest list and all.
Huge suitor list and all as well.
"I'm telling you, this is it!" Anna exclaimed again to the love experts committee, as the Great Hall underwent a final checkup. "One of them's gonna sweep Elsa off her feet for good tonight! Odds are one of the seven will!"
"They haven't figured out how yet. But one of them will magically get it right tonight?" Kristoff questioned.
"Stranger things have happened," Anna pointed out. Both of them knew they were in no position to question that.
"If things are actually normal, what then?" Kristoff wondered. "On the off chance she doesn't fall in love in one night?"
"She's close with a few of them, I know it! You do too!" Anna insisted. "And we're being fair in giving the bottom feeders one more chance! They have extra reason to go all out, get great gifts, dance and kiss Elsa's butt off and prove us wrong! Maybe enough to show true love!"
"What do you think, chairwoman?" Kristoff asked Joan. "You think we're gonna see true love tonight?"
Joan looked around at the extravagant setting, at her family, and at Elsa and the suitors in her mind's eye. It all led her to one obvious conclusion. "No."
"No?" Christian was the first to show surprise. "But she's gotta!"
"Hold on, if she doesn't find love, it's not her fault," Anna stressed. "You think they're all going to mess up? Where did you get that from? Do you have intel on their gifts or dance moves? I knew Caspar couldn't have too many moves, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt! I wanted to give all of them benefits!"
"They don't need benefits, they need Aunt Elsa to love them. But she doesn't," Joan pointed out.
"We know that. But it's gotta work here!" Anna urged. "Look, falling in love means getting to know them first. Some people….skip that step the first time, but not Elsa. Now that she knows them, odds are she'll either fall in love with one of them in a crisis, or on a romantic night. I'd rather take my chances with a romantic night, and so would Elsa."
"So if it doesn't work, we'll be in a crisis?" Christian asked.
"We might as well! If one of them doesn't pull it off soon, those council people will bug Elsa to get it over with! And marry someone she doesn't love! This committee was supposed to stop that from happening!" Anna reminded.
"So we're forcing Aunt Elsa to fall in love now?" Joan wondered.
"Like they're forcing her to get married! I get it!" Christian cheered, but then stopped. "Wait, I don't wanna get that…"
"I don't either!" Anna stated. "Joan, we're not doing it like that. We want her to be happy and be in love! They don't!"
"You're not objecting because you still want to be her heir?" Kristoff asked. "Right?"
"I don't…." Joan tried to find the right words for them, but she couldn't even find the right words for herself. It was like those two vocabulary lessons a month were for nothing. Like she always knew they were.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe it's true love," Joan conceded. "It won't be if we mess up the ball early. Can me and Christian go out and play?"
"Well….just because me and your father can't, it shouldn't stop you," Anna smiled. "Go on, get all the 'I'm gonna wreck the ball' games out of your system in the garden."
"When did we make games like that?" Christian wondered.
"I'm sure we got a few lying around in the garden," Joan explained, taking her brother's hand. "See you at the ball, Mom and Dad."
"Okay, I love you! Lots of love in this room already, that's gotta be a sign!" Anna cheered as her children left the hall.
On their way out of the castle, they weren't planning on going past the dressing room. But when they did, they couldn't help but look through the open door, where Elsa was in front of a mirror. She had her regular queen outfit on, but she was also conjuring up ice dresses to wear over it, practicing her look for tonight.
After she made three dresses in a row cover her out of thin air, before making them evaporate, Joan and Christian couldn't contain their oohs and ahhs. "Aunt Elsa, you're gonna look so….blue. A pretty blue," Christian added.
"Aw, thank you. That's just about what I was going for," Elsa smiled as the kids came in. "I know I'm not supposed to be the one to impress them. But perhaps I can inspire them that extra little bit. I have control over that much tonight, at least."
That last choice of words made the kids feel uneasy again. "Aunt Elsa, are you okay?" Christian asked. "Joan thinks we're forcing you to fall in love tonight."
"Joan also hates tattletales. Go ahead and blab that too," Joan frowned.
"But you just did, so I don't gotta," Christian nitpicked.
"Okay, the tattletale floodgates are open, so there's no point hiding things now," Elsa laid down. "Joan, where did you get the idea I'm being forced?"
"Well….I know you don't love those guys. Even Caspar," Joan admitted.
"I like him and several of them a great deal. I can even let the parts I don't like about the others slide," Elsa informed. "They're all going to do a lot to impress me tonight. Maybe I'll be impressed enough to fall in love."
"You don't believe it that!" Joan objected. "You don't think love works that way! You're just pretending! So you are being forced!"
"Better I do a little forcing now than a lot later, if tonight doesn't work. Then the forcing will come from the council, the people, you…." Elsa stopped herself.
"Me?" Joan gasped. "I'm forcing you?"
"I didn't mean it like that…." Elsa promised.
"But I am the love committee chairwoman," Joan recalled. "I didn't even want the job! Not at first! I wanted to be your heir, but then you…." Now Joan couldn't finish.
"Joan, don't think like that," Elsa hoped. "You've done an amazing job as chairwoman. This isn't the committee's fault at all. I'm the one that's trying to find real love. This ball is as good a chance as any so far. Plus I'm due to have some good luck on my birthday, right?"
Elsa put on a smile to reassure her niece and nephew. On the surface, Joan bought it. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it's true love," she repeated, although only Christian knew she was repeating herself.
"Are you gonna ask her to go and play now?" Christian asked.
"You should go and play. Have some fun before things get too fancy," Elsa said.
"Do you wanna play with us, Aunt Elsa? Before you get too fancy?" Christian offered.
"I would if I could. There's too much to get myself ready for. Not just the dresses," Elsa admitted.
"Okay," Joan actually agreed. "We'll play tomorrow, all right?"
"Of course we will, sweetheart," Elsa agreed. "But we'll see each other tonight first. I can't wait to see you two dressed up too." Joan and Christian smiled – although Christian's smile looked bigger – and headed off, likely to get extra dirty before they had to get clean and proper.
Not for the first time – and not for the first birthday - Elsa envied that kind of freedom from the rest of the royal family.
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"It's all my fault," Joan said instead of getting dirty in the garden.
"Huh?" Christian looked away from the flowers to see his sad sister.
"Aunt Elsa started looking for suitors so I wouldn't be her heir. Then I got to run the committee," Joan recapped. "Now she's gonna pick someone she doesn't love yet because of me."
"Because you ran the committee, or because you wanna be Queen?" Christian couldn't figure.
"Both," Joan answered simply. "What was I thinking? I don't know the first thing about love. Not Mom and Dad love. And Queen stuff looks really hard too. Even without council people forcing you to get married. Like we're forcing her now."
"So can't we make her stop?" Christian asked, like it was that simple. "We can make it her second birthday present!"
"Then they'll make her get married anyway! Even if we stop!" Joan reminded her.
"How can they make her? She's the Queen, she's got ice magic! Can't she just make them shut up?" Christian figured.
"Apparently you can't do that when you're Queen," Joan sighed.
"I don't understand," Christian showed.
"It's a good thing you don't have to," Joan shared.
"What does that mean? I can understand stuff!" Christian insisted.
"I'm the one that gets to be heir after Mom, not you!" Joan argued. "Just be glad you don't have to care about this stuff! I'm glad one of us doesn't have to!"
"You don't have to too! Isn't that why Aunt Elsa doesn't want you to be Queen?" Christian proposed.
Every once in a while, Christian could have the simplest explanations to complex problems - despite seeming simple every other once in a while. The blame could go to Anna for that one.
Before Joan knew what or who to blame for whatever she was upset with next, someone came into the garden. It looked like it was one of the royal guards, although he looked new too.
"Prince Christian, Princess Joan. The ball's about to start," the guard said. "I've been instructed to get you to your dressing rooms."
"Yes, sir," Christian remembered to be polite around the guards.
"Okay," Joan said with less enthusiasm for once. Yet she got up and followed them out of the garden.
"Actually….I know I shouldn't say this. I'm new, so maybe I don't know the protocol for surprises around here," the guard explained. "But Queen Elsa set up new dressing rooms for you, with new clothes and everything. It's her way of thanking you for all your help with her suitors."
"But it's her birthday. We don't get big gifts like that till our birthday," Christian nitpicked.
"Well, she loves you two too much to follow the rules. At least on this issue," the guard told them.
"Well….she does love us a lot," Joan reasoned.
"Exactly. But let me at least put blindfolds on you. Keep it some kind of a surprise," the guard proposed. "I'll lead you over there, take the blindfolds off and you'll get to see all your new outfits. Does that sound good?"
"It sounds better than most stuff lately," Christian smiled.
"That it does," the guard said as he took out a blindfold and went to Joan. "Remember, no peeking."
Joan closed her eyes, despite how redundant it would be in a second.
But it wasn't her eyes that were shut a second later.
It was her mouth.
By the time she opened her eyes, the guard had wrapped the blindfold around her head and mouth, and tied it tight so she couldn't scream. Not so anyone would hear her, at least.
For his part, Christian was too shocked to scream. Or do anything. But when the guard finished tying things up and wrapped his right arm around her, it hit him. "Joan!" he started to yell. "Mom! Dad! Aunt Elsa!"
"Not another word!" the 'guard' whispered harshly, as his left hand took what looked like a small baton out of his pocket. He held it against Joan's head, which stopped her from kicking around. "I'll use this now if you don't quiet down. You're supposed to be the quiet one anyway."
Joan tried to say something through the blindfold, but Christian couldn't make it out. In any case, if he talked or tried to answer, Joan was gonna get hurt. With no choice, he had to quiet down, so he put his hand over his mouth.
"That's better," the man said. And yet he struck the top of Joan's head with the baton anyway, knocking her out cold.
"Joan!" Christian screamed again, forgetting his orders – especially now that they meant nothing. He rushed to her, but the man put her down and grabbed him instead.
"Now that she's out for a while, I can get you ready," the man said, putting his right hand over Christian's mouth and reaching for another blindfold in his pocket. Yet Christian kept trying to break free anyway.
"Come on, you're supposed to be the still one too!" he urged. He was right, and yet the danger to her sister gave Christian more adrenaline, and more of a need to be brave, than ever before. It was enough to make him bite the man's finger down hard, causing him to let go.
With his freedom obtained, Christian rushed over to try and get Joan. But right before he could try to get her up, the man picked up the baton and flung it – connecting with the back of Christian's head. This brought him down enough for the man to get up and pick Joan back up.
"Fine. I don't have time for this," the man conceded. "They're not gonna pay as much for the spare anyway. The big money was always gonna come for her."
As he explained this, he used his other blindfold as an actual blindfold on Joan. Now that her eyes and mouth were tied shut, and she was still unconscious, the man flung her over his shoulder and took off while he still could.
It took another few seconds for Christian to get himself up and rub the back of his head. It took another minute for Christian to try and chase after the man, before he realized he was long gone. It took another 90 seconds before he found a guard he actually knew, to tell him what had happened.
It was all about four minutes too late. By the time the news came down to the royal family – and by the time they found the knocked out guard the kidnapper stole his clothes from – Joan was nowhere on the castle grounds. And nowhere else anyone could see.
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When the knocked guard finished telling his story, and when Christian explained he heard something about ransom, Elsa made her first steady movements in several minutes. However, she wasn't steady with calm movements.
She marched to the Great Hall, where her seven suitors were all together. "Which one of you did this?" Elsa immediately accused.
"Did what? Did….this?" Devin asked.
"Don't!" Elsa snapped. "I see how this works. You all needed one great, grand gesture to win my hand. You probably wouldn't do it with a romantic ball, so you try the next best thing. A manufactured crisis! Arrange the kidnapping of a niece or nephew or two, then you make yourself the big rescuer, and I get too stupid to figure it out until you're King of Arendelle! It's the oldest trick in the book!"
"Elsa, you're not serious…." Caspar hoped.
"You seem extra concerned that I am. Did your family not train you well enough to lie for them?" Elsa argued. "Being too weak to stand up to them isn't an excuse! Not for this!"
"They're overbearing, not….kidnappers!" Caspar tried to make her understand.
"Maybe," Elsa appeared to calm down. "Truth is….it might be more of your style!" she moved on to Lanford. "I know you like rough styles! Regardless of whether others do or not!"
"Hey, I stopped before I took more of your dress off! Doesn't that get me off the top of the suspect list?" Lanford argued in a panic – before realizing what he actually said.
"Fine, you might be too obvious a suspect," Elsa admitted, then went right back to being furious. "But one of you isn't! Or maybe you made deals with each other! One of you gets land and profit and the other gets me, is that it?! There's the second oldest trick!"
"Elsa…." Anna tried to speak up over the growing wind and ice.
"Just admit it, and I might not do to you what I almost did to those assassins 16 years ago!" Elsa promised/threatened. "This time I won't let an actual monster hold me back! Or are you working with those old monsters too?!"
"Elsa, this is madness, you have no proof!" Goran urged. "Don't lose control like this!"
"I already did," Elsa hissed. "I dared to believe I could get romantic love….deserve love….and this is what comes of it?! This is what I let happen because of it?! Well, I learned my lesson already, thank you! NOW GIVE ME MY NIECE BACK!"
"Elsa!" Anna screamed, before the other half of the ballroom could freeze. "Stop it, please! Just stop it!"
"Why?!" Elsa urged. "Why aren't you using your right hook with me?! It's your daughter!"
"I know! But I can't keep it together and find her if you can't!" Anna started to cry. "I need someone to try, or I won't! I can't….and then there's Christian…." She gestured to an already trembling Christian nearby.
Elsa's frightening frown lessened a little, as Anna kept shivering and almost crying. "I'll kill them myself if it was them, but we don't know! I just know I can't get through this if you can't….none of us can! Please….just conceal it! For me!"
At that point, Anna knew she'd gone too far.
Asking her to do exactly what she'd done for 13 miserable years – on this day, and on this crisis, of all things – had to be too far.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry….I didn't mean to use those words….I didn't mean you couldn't, I, I didn't…." she rambled worse than ever, because she was on the brink of tears worse than ever.
And yet through all those near tears, Anna could see the ice begin to melt. And Elsa begin to melt. And the suitors' overwhelming fear begin to melt as well.
When Anna could finally wipe her eyes clear, she could see Elsa looking somewhat calm again. Yet it wasn't the kind of calm she had in actual calm moments. It was more like the forced calm from….that day. That moment in this room. Before Anna forced Elsa to have enough.
"The party's over," Elsa drove it home further. "Close the gates. Seal off the city and everywhere else nearby. If they're even still here." With that, Elsa got herself out of the ballroom and no one tried to stop her, unlike 16 years ago.
It didn't mean that some didn't wish they'd tried. "Aunt Elsa!" Christian spoke up, then started to rush after her. Or he would have, if Anna didn't grab him.
"No!" she yelled, then cringed, knowing now this wasn't the first time he'd been grabbed against his will tonight. "I, I….don't go. Not alone. He might not be working alone."
"I'll take him," Kristoff finally got the will to talk.
"No, they might be waiting for you too! They know they'll get double for you!" Anna pleaded, not knowing what else to do.
"Everyone should probably get some space and calm down. Get a straight head, like you asked her to do," Sven offered.
"You're not off the right hook list yet, pal, so tread lighter than that!" Anna now threatened him, before snapping out of it. "See? This is what I'm talking…." she couldn't finish, as Kai got to her before she broke down too hard.
"You two should go check on the Queen. Then come right back," Kai told Kristoff and Christian. "I'll make sure the Queen's orders are followed to the letter. We'll find the princess, no matter how far she's gone."
"Thank you," was all Kristoff could will himself to say. With the limited power he had left, he picked up his son, held on tight and carried him out of the hall.
Anna stayed in Kai's arms, wishing she could be carried back into Joan's. The suitors stayed frozen in place, still thankful they weren't literally frozen yet.
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Kristoff and Christian got to Elsa's door minutes later. It was closed – and with one wiggle of the doorknob, Kristoff realized it was locked.
With one touch of the door itself, Kristoff realized it must be half frozen by now. While this should have made him more determined to get in and snap Elsa out of it, he didn't want to be in a giant ice cube if Joan saw him again.
When she did. Right.
"Aunt Elsa?" Christian asked the door. It might have been too quiet for her to hear him. But before he knocked on the door more loudly, he and Kristoff could hear her.
"Why couldn't you have played with her?" they heard. "Why did you care more about dresses and suitors? Why did you shut her out today? Why can't you stop shutting out the people you love most on your birthday? If she freezes too….if there's no act of true love this time…."
As the door frosted further, Kristoff and Christian now heard sobs along with the words, "Why can't you stop taking Anna's loved ones away on your birthday? Stop letting them go….don't let her go, please….I'll never have a birthday again if you'll just bring her back…."
Regardless of who or what she was praying to, she soon sobbed too hard to keep praying any longer. Sobbing behind a locked, closed door while others were struggling not to cry too. Again.
And once again, on the other side of the door, someone – two people this time, actually – were losing that battle as well.
Once again, all of them were too weak and scared to open up and fight it off together. At least right now.
Sorry about that, folks.