On the afternoon of the festival, Elsa completed her duties abnormally early, finding that there was rather little business to attend to as the entire kingdom prepared for a night of celebration. The queen had had a busy week, but on that day most of the responsibilities had actually fallen to Anna for a change as she put the finishing touches on the evening's plans.
Elsa finished reading the last of her allotted paperwork just after lunch, however, instead of leaving to check on how things were going with the princess, she stayed to her room, even closing her door for privacy - an uncommon occurrence since her return - before planting herself firmly in front of the mirror.
"I've got some time now," Elsa whispered to herself, but even she could tell that she sounded unsure.
She knew that she would have hours before Anna came to bother her about getting ready. Unfortunately, she still feared that it wouldn't be enough.
After all, Elsa had been struggling in the mirror ever since the coronation fiasco. Admittedly, between running the kingdom and spending time with Anna, the queen didn't find herself with much free time. The little time that she did have to dedicate to practicing in the mirror had turned out minimal results and there seemed to be no end in sight. A month after she had reassumed the throne, Elsa was still unable to find the words that she needed to say to herself.
Much less the ones that she needed to say to Anna.
"This is important," she reminded her reflected self and began.
She had settled on the first part of her apology just a few days before, directly following her conversation with Anna regarding the festival:
"I used to think that if I was able to control my powers then all of my problems would go away," she recited. "I thought that if I could just reach that certain point of control I would be healed - we would be healed. But I... I've reached that point now, and I realize that I was wrong."
Elsa inched closer to the mirror, her nose almost touching the surface. Her eyes were locked on themselves. They searched meticulously for any sign of weakness so that it could be eliminated.
"No matter how much I'm able to control myself in the present, I can't change the past," the queen continued, her frequency of blinking now trivializing her eyes' task. "I've done horrible things. I've hurt you and Arendelle in more ways than I can imagine. I've earned myself a guilt that follows me everywhere."
Elsa tried to allow the words to continue releasing from her plagued mind. This was the furthest that she had ever gotten. She was on the edge of something big, she felt. If she could just get the next few words out, then it would be easy from there..
"And I..."
It was no use. The queen choked, unable to keep going. She stumbled backwards.
"And I don't know how to get rid of it!" she shouted, turning her face up away from the mirror and only hoping afterward that the closed door would suffice to keep the noise from escaping her room. Elsa threw out an open hand, willing a chunk of weak, darkened ice towards the mirror. It stuck to the surface over her duplicated face, obscuring it beyond recognition just as she had intended.
Elsa took a few steps over and sat down on the edge of her bed, glaring at her warped reflection. "Why is this so hard?" she asked it. Even without much practice, her tutors had often praised her skills in composition, and the queen would be hard pressed to name instances where her mind had failed her before in translating its thoughts into words. Then again, it would be similarly difficult for her to name an essay or even declaration that she had written that held anywhere near the same importance as her current task.
After half a minute of contemplation, the queen waved her hand in the vague direction of the mirror and the out of place ice melted away. Her reflection returned, glimmering like the rest of the room in the midday sun that shone through the window.
Elsa rose from the bed and took the familiar five steps forward.
She tried to focus.
"I used to think that if I was able to control my powers then everything would go away," the queen started once more, her eyes studying themselves.
Anna arrived to the ice room shortly before the start of the festival, having only barely completed the preparations just as Elsa had expected. She found her sister again sitting on the bed across from the mirror but thought nothing of it, distracted instead by the reality of the Royal Festival's planning. The work had been quite a bit harder than she had expected, and the princess hated to admit it that she was tired before the party had even begun.
"Are you ready?" Anna asked as she entered the queen's quarters, her nevertheless upbeat voice catching Elsa off guard.
"I think so," Elsa sighed, standing up and moving to join her sister by the door. She was tired, too. It was early evening now and she had done nothing but work on formulating her apology for the entirety of the afternoon. Not that she had anything to show for it.
"You look gorgeous," Anna grinned, looking the queen up and down as she made her way over from the bed. Elsa had made a few alterations to her normal icy attire for the occasion, opting to remove the sleeves from the dress altogether and add a few new uneven, fringed layers of ice just above her hips, wrapping her waist in a mind-bendingly beautiful pattern. Her cape followed faithfully behind her, now thinner, darker, and decorated with so many intricate tracings that it almost looked like woven cloth.
"You're not so bad yourself," the queen commented. The princess was dressed in a lavish golden ball gown and it was plain to see that plenty of work had gone into making the outfit fit Anna perfectly in both size and feeling. In Anna's uncovered arms her sister could see her free spirit, in the dress's many yellows her capacity for love, and in the shoes' flat bottoms her clumsiness.
"Well, I didn't make my dress," Anna blushed.
"Believe me, you're making it now," Elsa laughed out. The sisters exchanged a warm smile that went right to work melting away their respective troubles, at least for the moment. Elsa couldn't bring herself to interrupt it.
"We've got about ten minutes before the celebration begins," Anna finally said.
"Then I guess we'll be ten minutes early-"
"It's not like there's a rush," the princess interrupted her sister on the way out the door, her voice high and nervous. She took each of the queen's hands in her own and half-spun her so that they were facing each other. "Look, I just wanted to say really quick that I'm really, really happy that you let me put on the festival," she said, blushing a little bit. "It, uh, it means a lot to me that we get to do this kind of stuff now."
Elsa smiled a graceful, measured smile. "Of course," she said.
"Thanks, Elsa," Anna pulled her sister into a firm hug that was reciprocated instantly.
The queen was well aware that the festival would make her uncomfortable. In fact, there was little she disliked more than unnecessary interaction with anyone that wasn't Anna or Olaf. In Elsa's eyes, the sacrifice was more than worth it. She would do anything to see her sister this happy.
"Let's go."
In addition to making sure that the entirety of the festival was properly functioning, Anna had taken it upon herself to plot out a detailed itinerary for the queen's night, covering everything from what she would be doing to who she would be talking to and even what she would be eating during the whole celebration. She had delegated the first significant chunk of time to socializing with the more respectable guests - upper-class Arendelliens, members of the Royal Guard, foreign dignitaries, and the like - in the ballroom of the castle, where Anna had arranged for Arendelle's very best musical talent to provide dancing music. The princess hoped to ease her sister into the celebration with such a start, if such a feat were possible.
The sisters entered the ballroom through a large interior door just a few minutes before the festival was formally set to begin. Remodeling the room was one of Elsa's first priorities as queen (considering the damage that she'd done to it during the coronation) and the reception to her design choices was universally positive among the guests that had already arrived. Only a few of them had even begun to dance while the vast majority busied themselves marveling at the elegantly sculpted ice columns lining the room or discussing amongst themselves how marvelous the chandelier's impossibly frozen skeleton looked against its candles.
But even the most enthusiastic of conversations ceased when the guests recognized the royal family's entrance.
Elsa's eyes flicked from face to face, trying to figure out why only the faint notes of a piano player's practice were left in the hall. Fear boiled up inside of her. She wondered if they were remembering. Remembering, perhaps, what had happened the last time that there had been guests in that very room.
Anna waved.
Suddenly, the whole crowd erupted in applause.
"Queen Elsa and Princess Anna are here! The festival has begun!" someone shouted, echoed by a few others as the message moved out of the ballroom and filtered into the courtyard.
"Look at their dresses!"
"The queen looks so grown up!"
"Wow, so that's her, huh?"
Elsa gulped and straightened her gaze, following Anna in curtseying to another most enthusiastic cheer.
"They all look so happy," the queen commented subtly to her sister.
"They are! Of course they are, why wouldn't they be?" Anna looked over, her honest confusion barely noticeable over sheer joy. "Oh, come on, come on, I want to show you something."
The princess took the lead in making their way to the back of the ballroom. The guests split apart before them, making sure that their path clear but invariably greeting the sisters as they passed.
"So nice to see you again, Queen Elsa. And, of course, Princess Anna," a woman who Elsa recognized vaguely from the coronation as a queen from a neighboring kingdom nodded in their direction.
"You too!" Anna said energetically, but didn't slow her pace.
Elsa, trailing just behind, returned the fellow queen's nod and smiled.
"Queen Elsa!" a large man that neither of the sisters recognized bellowed, stepping aside. "The Kingdom of Geralde is so very sorry to have missed your coronation. Prince Russ has sent you five of the finest horses in our land in the hope that you would forgive him!"
"Cool, thanks!" Anna kept moving.
"A gift really wasn't necessary. Our kingdom is grateful for your prince's generosity," Elsa told the man diplomatically just before her sister's pull on her arm dragged her forward.
After a few more similar less-than-formalities, the sisters finally broke free from the crowd near the back of the ballroom. They each stepped up onto the raised platform customarily reserved for the royal family to oversee proceedings. It, too, had been redone with Elsa switching out half of its traditional decorative drapes for nearly transparent, magical ones and flecking the red carpet with dots of un-melting snow.
But the queen started to become confused as she looked on at the platform from the perimeter. Something was different from how she remembered designing it.
"The throne," she said breathlessly. She remembered having revamped the royal throne - her father's originally - when she had done the rest of the ballroom. The queen recalled dumping enough magic on it for it to look at home even in her own room, but now she stared at an even larger, delicately carved, sturdy, comfortable-looking, and distinctly ice-free chair.
"What do you think?" Anna asked, sounding quite pleased with herself. "I had it put in this morning so you'd be surprised. I got Papa's moved up to the west gallery, right next to his old desk."
"I love it, Anna," Elsa turned to her sister, squeezing her hand. "Thank you."
"Eh, I dunno," the princess shrugged, the right half of her face still turned up into a wry smile, unable to hide the truth. "I just feel like it's missing something."
"No, it's perfect."
"No, I really think it's missing something," Anna winked. "Maybe something you could help me with?"
Elsa looked around. The ballroom was chock-full of people by then, most of them having started to dance now that the queen had arrived. She caught a few of the closer guests eyeing her, but they looked away before she could determine whether it was in suspicion or admiration or a mix of the two.
"There are all these people around," Elsa scolded her sister under her breath, hoping that no one was close enough to hear the suggestion. "Maybe later."
"Elsa, come on!"
"It wouldn't be proper."
"Who cares? It's not like it's going to hurt anybody."
The queen sighed, again stealing a glance over her shoulder at the distracted crowd.
"No one will even notice," Anna bit her lip, her eyes pleading. "Just do it real quick."
Soon enough, the princess was squealing with delight as her sister put her hands out in front of her. Elsa twirled her fingers in the air, oblivious to the quieting celebration behind her as she went to work on the new throne. An unexplainable energy left her body, manifesting itself in swirling masses of whiteness that dropped sideways onto the grand chair, spreading first along its deeply polished armrests, which somehow became smoother with their magical coating.
More of the crowd was watching now, and quite attentively. Next came the throne's cushion. Elsa gave it the same treatment as the carpet that she was standing on, gingerly snapping snowflakes and adding noise to the fluffy blue seat.
Finally, the queen arrived to the chair's back. It was narrow and stood perfectly perpendicular to its base, managing to look rather uncomfortable for such an extravagant work of art. Elsa effortlessly corrected the mistake, tossing ice with enough force to bend the backrest into a slightly more comfortable angle. The ice stuck to it, first moving restlessly in the center of the wood but splitting apart into two separate clumps when the queen threw her own hands apart. The clumps took shape on the top of the wooden frame, becoming two frozen, sleek branches around where Elsa's shoulders would be if she were to sit down. The throne was finished.
The cheers from the crowd were even louder than before.
"Amazing!"
"It's gorgeous! Do you think she'd do my throne?"
"I didn't really believe the stories, but this queen is the real deal!"
Elsa turned slowly, embarrassed by the fuss. "No one will notice, huh?" she said discreetly to her sister.
But Anna didn't answer. Glancing over at the princess, Elsa quickly realized that her sister wasn't paying attention to her or the crowd's exclamations. Instead, Anna was on her tiptoes, peering over the guests.
"Who are you looking for?" Elsa asked her.
"Um, no one," her sister said, trying unsuccessfully to sound innocent. "I was just, uh..." suddenly, Anna spied a familiar blond head among the others. "Kristoff! I'll be right back, okay? Stay here."
Before Elsa could protest, the princess had darted off of the raised platform and into the mass of people.
"This wasn't our agreement," the queen, now alone, muttered to herself. The crowd had already closed in around the platform, still watching her with mouths agape in wonderment. There were so many and they were wrapped around the slightly elevated platform so closely that Elsa could see no end to their numbers. She determined that it would be far too difficult and disruptive to chase Anna, but that wasn't to say that she didn't want to.
"A magnificent trick, Queen Elsa," one of the guests in the closest band around the platform shouted. "Maybe you could teach me how to do that one sometime!"
"I... I don't think it works like that," Elsa replied, quivering. The crowd laughed, but even that failed to soothe the queen. She looked around at each of the jubilant faces in turn.
She hoped that Anna would return soon.
Whereas the ballroom had been reserved for only the most prestigious guests, the princess had ordered for the Arendelle Castle courtyard to be open for everyone and, indeed, it seemed that no one in the kingdom wished to miss out on the mass invitation. Just outside of the ballroom doors, the terrace was nearly bursting at its seams with people packed tightly between its arches, its two frozen fountains, and the front gates.
In the center of the sea of heads, encircled by the few commoners not preoccupied by their tight interaction with each other, stood a cylindrical, wooden tower roughly six feet in diameter and stretching to a height three times that of the trio of guardsmen pressed against it by the crowd in their defense, filled with countless fireworks to be launched once darkness fell over the celebration. Atop the structure, a curious, spritely man hopped about - an older street magician whose shows Princess Anna had taken a liking to (mostly because they were the first she had ever seen).
At the edge of the crowd in the back of the courtyard, two guardsman stood on opposite sides of the huge archway into the ballroom. They were there more for ceremony than anything, glorified ushers assigned to verify that every guest coming in was up to the princess's dictated standards of nobility and class and, most importantly, had been issued a written invitation. On account of their trivial duties, the two guardsmen allowed their minds to wander whenever they could as they stood their posts, gazing upon the courtyard celebration.
They had both spent a lot of their time that evening watching the magician themselves. Anyone who paid attention to him noted that his antics were for the most part overshadowed by his dress, which consisted of endless frills and sequins, and with the ushers' tuned attentiveness it was plain to see that the performer's magic wasn't real.
Still, the two uniformed men standing at the edge of the crowd shifted uneasily every time he pulled an animal out of a not-so-hidden pocket in his clothing or split a deck of cards with carefully placed fingers.
Suddenly, the cheers from behind them swelled as a particularly loud man demanded that the queen perform some more magic. The guardsmen shared a fleeting, worried glance, their feelings conveyed only by their eyes. All members of the Royal Guard had been trained and practiced much not to show emotion while at work. Even with only their eyes, they both understood. They had both been thinking the same thing, after all.
Along with Isaac and a few others, the two ushers had been a part of the team sent to search for the missing William Daleon two days prior to the festival, ordered by the princess herself following Kristoff's delivery the Daleons' Farmstead. They had returned to Arendelle proper late the night before, having found the farmer relatively quickly.
It wasn't as if it had taken them much detective work. One of the Daleons' sleds was found crashed just a little bit off of the trail, having cut through a rather dense, perilously hilly wood along the straightest (albeit unpaved) path to the castle from the farmstead. The sled looked to have accidentally flipped over some time ago, its wood rotted and splintered and its frame lacking wheels.
Before long, the search party had tipped the cart back upright. That's when they discovered a hidden, broken, and dead William Daleon underneath.
There was no conclusive evidence as none of the guardsmen were medically trained, however suspicions spread amongst the men from the moment that the body had been discovered. Its thorough decomposition and the sled's wheel-less nature caused strange although not entirely unfamiliar fears to creep up within the guardsmen.
When the rescue party returned and a fellow guardsman reminded his comrades that the farmer was said to have first went missing during the queen's winter, the once doubted rumors were all but confirmed.
By the start of the festival, not a member of the Guard hadn't heard about the farmer that Queen Elsa's winter had killed.
All of them knew that Arendelle's recovery from the unexpected storm would be hard and was as of yet incomplete, but no one had ever been reported dead on account of the queen's magic.
So the ushers tried their best to avoid looking at the street performer, to ignore the enthusiastic cheers in the ballroom behind them.
Ever since finding William Daleon, they hated thinking about magic. Whenever they did, their minds never failed to drift back to the wrecked cart and its most unfortunate passenger.
The tired men kept their eyes level and tried to forget, watching the sun set over the carnival that was the courtyard's share of the festival.
They were trying so hard to be distracted, however, that the ushers nearly missed it when an older woman in a dusty, plain dress broke off from the rest of the commoners and dashed towards them, setting a speedy course for the ballroom. Fortunately, one of them was pulled from his trance enough by her unexpected approach that he managed to throw out an open hand and stop the welcome but unwelcome guest in her tracks.
"Do you have an invitation?" he asked her sternly, angling his head so that his cap kept the setting sun out of his eyes.
"An invitation?" Dee Daleon's throat sounded dry, though her cheeks were wet and flushed. It occurred to the guardsman as he inspected her that the mysterious woman was either ill, had been crying, or quite possibly both.
"Can't go in here without an invitation," the other, larger guard spoke now and one could almost hear the suspicion in his words. Any Arendellien in their right mind would know that no commoners would be admitted to the ballroom.
"I need to see the queen."
The two men looked at each other, having another silent conversation with their eyes alone. They had been ordered not to let anyone in who didn't have an invitation.
"No invitation, no admission," they decided in unison.
"Can't you make an exception?"
"We're not allowed."
"Please?" Dee pleaded, looking as if she were ready to tear up again at any moment.
The guardsmen once again conferenced in a quick glance. Orders were orders.
"Sorry, ma'am. We can't."
At those two words, Dee bowed her head and growled. It was soft, but it was still undeniably a growl.
"Ma'am?" the more muscular guard stepped forward and started to kneel, thinking the widow hurt.
She saw what she thought to be an opportunity and took it.
In what was an astonishingly quick moment considering her age and density, Dee had produced a thin kitchen knife from a fold in her dress, thrown her right shoulder in front of her, and charged for the guardsman with a battle cry of a grunt.
"Hey!" his companion shouted, though his cry was drowned out by the continuing cheers for the queen within the ballroom and the random chatter without. He left his own post, darting just behind the assailant.
The other guardsman was not so quick to react.
There were three thuds: a first when the burly woman crashed into his side, a second when the impulse propelled them both into the doorframe, and a third when the two of them were knocked off of their feet by the impact. The kitchen knife clattered to the ground beside theme unused, having dropped out of Dee's reckless and misplaced hand upon impact.
The widow ended up in the burly guardsman's lap, seeming to be hurt more by the tackle than her target. "I'm sorry," she whimpered, crawling off of the man and cradling her reddened face in her hands, now a blubbering mess of a woman sprawled out on the brick floor beneath the archway.
The minimally injured usher blinked and rubbed his back, still quite confused. It was only when he saw the stand-in dagger near his feet that he began to grasp the gravity of the situation. Needless to say, he stood up in a hurry.
Another wordless conversation. Had that knife been intended for the queen? Naturally, neither of them knew the answer.
Nervously, they looked around but found that no one had so much as noticed the altercation. Everyone inside of the ballroom was too busy pestering Elsa. Everyone outside was too busy trying to figure out how to breathe in such close quarters.
"She needs to be taken to the dungeon," the guardsman who had been spared the widow's blow said. "No need to stop the celebration. I'm not sure if we could, anyway. Whoever's in charge down there tonight will deal with her. I think it's Isaac, poor guy. Are you alright?"
"I think so."
"Good. Here, I'll take her."
The proactive usher knelt down and helped the sobbing widow to her feet with cautious footing and a firm grip on each of her forearms. Once it became clear that Dee would be no more trouble, he led her gently into the ballroom, inconspicuously pushing her along through the nearest interior door.
Back at his post, the remaining guardsman noticed the knife on the ground again.
"And she thought she could get away with that?" he snickered, picking it up and shoving it carefully into a pocket. The usher then looked out over the courtyard infused with newfound vigilance, giving his back a final thoughtful rub with one hand.
"Won't you treat us to some more magic, Queen Elsa?"
In the back of the ballroom, the queen could barely see Anna, Kristoff, and another vaguely familiar man standing together in the center of the hall behind the suffocating crowd. She, like the rest of the noisy and crowded inner party, was completely oblivious to the plight at the door.
The queen had resisted the advances of her guests so far, politely throwing out a few quick jokes and weak excuses at their persistent demands for spectacle, but her patience was wearing thin. She hadn't agreed to the attend the festival as entertainment, she had agreed to attend the festival with her sister. Elsa waved desperately for Anna to rejoin her on the platform.
"Oh, she's not looking too good up there," Anna raised her eyebrows. "What do you say we go and rescue her? Come on," she said to the young man beside her.
A member of the Arendelle Royal Guard, he had come to the ballroom in his uniform, just nice enough not to look out of place among the other, predominately royal guests. It helped that Anna had personally ordered for him to come to the ballroom clean-shaven and with a fresh, short haircut.
Unfortunately, although the man had long practiced the stoicism becoming of a guardsman, there was little that his well-groomed exterior could do to cover for the purely physical signs of his present nervousness. His upper lip quivered regardless of his shaving status. His forehead sweat under the trimmed black bangs.
"What, no thanks for tracking him down?" Kristoff asked.
"I think that falls within your duties as ice master," Anna answered, turning up her nose.
"Definitely not."
"Oh," the princess said. "Thanks, then. Wait here for me, I'll be right back. Let's go, Martin."
"Yes, Princess Anna," the guardsman tipped his head in a perfectly polite nod and allowed the princess to lead him through the crowd, which seemed to split and make a path for her even though all eyes were still on the platform in the opposite direction of their appraoch.
"So, have you ever met Elsa before?"
"Met? No, well, I wouldn't say we've met. I've been the night guard for her wing a couple of times."
"Oh, good, you'll have something to talk about."
"Right," Martin started in his relatively high-pitched voice. "Listen, Princess Anna, there's something that I must tell you before we proceed."
"What is it?" Anna stopped amidst the dense crowd, about halfway back to the platform. She turned and for the first time looked the guardsman over, quickly noticing the movement under his nose and the sweat on his brow.
"Well-"
"There's no need to be nervous," Anna giggled a bit in interruption. "You're dancing with my sister Elsa, not Queen Elsa, okay? Don't be afraid... Wait. You do know how to dance, right? I kind of just assumed when I picked you, I mean, you looked like you would be a guy who knows how to dance, since you're always so proper all the time and-"
"It's not that," Martin interrupted, quickly adding on a, "Princess Anna," as not to be rude. "It's that search that you sent Isaac and the others out on the other day. They returned late last night. I've been assigned to report their findings to you."
"And?" Anna prompted.
"They found him."
"Really? Great!" the princess grinned. "You know, you had me scared there for a second."
"They found him dead," Martin continued.
"What?"
"He was in the forest to the west of the castle trapped under a flipped sled," the guardsman said, stopping himself in order to test for a reaction. "I hear it looked like a nasty crash."
"That's terrible," Anna said simply, hanging on the last word. Her face had grown worried, not at all the epitome of relief that it had been just before.
Martin took that as a sign that she suspected it, too.
"The other guardsmen are afraid, Princess Anna," he stated bravely.
"Huh?"
"Finding the farmer shook the search party quite a bit, and I'm sure that the stories that they told the others about it upon their return are even worse than the real account. There's not a member of the Guard who doesn't know the name and fate of William Daleon, and they're afraid."
"Wait, what are they afraid of again?"
Martin gulped and looked helplessly over at the princess. "The captain said that the farmer went missing on a trip for supplies through Queen Elsa's winter."
Suddenly, Anna understood the young man's unusual nervous tells.
"I thought you said he was found in a crashed sled?"
"He was. The search party reported that the sled was wheel-less and dilapidated," Martin continued. "They suspect that he's been dead nearly as long as he's been missing. They suspect that he was killed by the harshness of the storm-"
"Elsa would never hurt anyone on purpose," Anna interrupted, assuring the guardsman in a whisper, looking around to make sure no one around them had heard their discussion. Luckily, they were all still focused on the queen ahead, although their patience for her to perform another trick was finally waning. "Never."
Martin nodded but was obviously still unconvinced. The search party had come home too disturbed. The evidence was too overwhelming. He, like his comrades, found himself scared by the powers that had ended the farmer's life - no matter who they belonged to.
"Just dance with my sister," Anna pleaded. "I know you'll have a great time. I mean, I think I know you will. Please?"
Martin nodded again. "Of course, Princess Anna."
"Um, you can't tell her about the search party, though," the princess added, quieter. "Don't even mention it. Like I said, she would never hurt anyone. If she knew that there was even a chance that she had..."
The guardsman gave a third and final nod, but this time he did not speak.
And so it came to be that as Anna led Martin up onto the platform and to the queen, all three participating parties were decidedly uncomfortable with the situation.