Chapter Sixty Three

Dawn

ANNA

Truthfully, Anna didn't know why she was up so early. Maybe it was because she was restless and hadn't gotten much sleep. Who could blame her? They were going to be facing a war from two armies the next day. That would have been enough to send anyone into hysterics, but no, not Anna. She was surprised that she had held on to her sanity for this long…thus far.

After urging Elsa off to find Janus, she herself had tried to find Kristoff in his room. However, she found it empty. He had left her a brief handwritten note, telling her that he had travelled up with Matthias and his forces to oversee the preparations and the encampment at the coast road.

She was impressed. For someone who claimed he wanted nothing to do with being a ruler or anyone in a position of power, he was really immersing himself in his role as an overseer of the military. Maybe Kristoff really has a natural talent for commanding the army and he doesn't even know it.

The few hours she had spent tossing and turning in her bed had passed torturously slow, Too much was on her mind. For starters, she was still plagued with the knowledge that Will Daltrey, the nerdy teenager who never wanted anything to do with the Warriors, had given his life to save his friends and thousands more from sure death.

Anna resolved to make sure a proper funeral was held for him once this was over. That is, if she wasn't rotting somewhere in a ditch with her guts spilled out in the middle of a battlefield after tomorrow.

It was now the wee hours of the morning, and no one in the castle had stirred yet. Down at the encampment of the Arendellian Divisions, it was an entirely different story. The soldiers would be already up and making their final preparations, and Anna wanted to be there to provide morale support for the people who would be charing out into the battlefield later. After all, some of them were bound to die out there in service of their queen, and she felt like she owed it to them to at least be there with them.

Knowing that she would most likely get sweaty and dirty later on in the day, Anna dressed in a functional, knee length black dress with gold trimmings, purple cloak and gold pants with boots. Even though she had to keep mobile, she still had to keep up appearances in front of her own troops later.

She had no idea what seeing their queen dressed in functional clothes right before the battle would do to the soldiers' morale, though she wasn't sure it was really relevant. Would they really be worrying about what I wear when their lives are on the line at any given point?

Nonetheless, Anna dressed and tied her hair in a double braid back style, and went off in search for her sister. When she didn't find her sister in her old bedroom, Anna couldn't help but let a wolfish grin form on her face. So Elsa finally decided to spend the night with her new man. Good for her.

There was only one other place she could possibly be. Anna walked to the southern wing of the castle where she had given the Warriors the finest suites to spend the night, and came to Prometh-Janus' room. It was still weird thinking that the once scary, mysterious mercenary who now had a name and a face. And incidentally was Elsa's lover too. Some things never changed? Well this one did.

Anna pushed open the door, and light from the lamp in the corridor flooded into the shadowy room. Two figures stirred instantly, and Anna flinched.

"Oh!" She gawked and turned away awkwardly but it was too late. The damage was done. Damn it. She had seen it all.

To put it bluntly, the two figures were both very naked. Elsa was snuggled up against Janus, the sheets crumpled and pushed aside while the two of them lay comfortably and entirely bare-bodied on the queen sized bed. But not anymore.

"Anna!" Elsa squealed in a shrill voice as she desperately reached to grasp at the sheets that were a tad too far away.

Janus had slipped away into the shadows somewhere.

"My bad!" Anna squeaked, hands flying over her eyes. Despite her best efforts, her lifelong habit of not knocking before entering had manifested itself at the worst possible time.

"Seriously, Anna?!" Elsa hissed as she finally succeeded at covering herself up.

"I'm sorry! Really! Force of habit." Anna tried to think of something else - anything else - but the image of her sister and her lover both naked had been seared horribly into her mind. Oh boy.

Elsa herself was at a loss for what to say. Her usually pale face had gone the colour of beetroot in embarrassment, her eyes averted away from Anna's. She stole a glance behind her to find Janus had vanished.

"Can I talk to you? Outside?" Anna said, her hands still cupped over her eyes animatedly.

Elsa obliged quickly, throwing a fluffy white bathrobe over herself in place of the bedsheets. Barefoot, she pattered out of Janus' room quickly, neglecting to put on her boots in a hurry to leave "the scene of her crime".

Anna waited till the door was closed before waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "Mmmn, looks like someone's been a naughty girl."

"It's…" Elsa stuttered in a fluster. "It's not what it looks like."

"Sure it isn't." Anna giggled.

Elsa glared at her. "It's not funny, Anna."

"You're right," Anna gasped. "It's not. I'm sorry. It's just that when I said you should go find Janus, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

Elsa pulled the fluffy bathrobe more securely over herself and scowled. "And what did you have in mind?"

"Talk. A few kisses maybe. But that-" Anna gestured at the room beyond the closed door. "I didn't think you would actually take my suggestion - a joke by the way - and spend the night with him. This is far better than I could have hoped for."

Elsa continued to scowl, and if her icy cold stare could kill, Anna was sure that she would have been frozen to death by now.

"I mean, even I have never seen you naked before, and you've opened yourself up to him?" Anna grinned and quickly added, "Not that I'm jealous."

Elsa balked and her cheeks coloured further. "Don't say it like that!"

"No, no, don't take it the wrong way." Anna said hurriedly and whistled. "It's good progress, Elsa! I never knew you were this bold. Damn."

"Look, you came to tell me something important, didn't you?"

"Right." Anna drew herself up and tried her hardest to keep a straight face. "I'm going up to the hills to rendezvous with Kristoff and the rest of the League. We're going over the battle plan so everyone's on the same page. I thought you would want to come."

Elsa stared at her crossly with tired eyes, the mascara dried and still smeared on her face from the night before. "What time is it?"

"Half past six." Anna replied. "I'm going to round up the others too."

Her sister sighed. "Alright. Give me ten minutes to take a bath and get ready. I'll meet you out front."

JANUS

The moment the light from the corridor had streamed into the room, Janus had stirred instantly and moved with a reflex action. Too many times he had been ambushed by his enemies who had tracked him to his lodging, and he was all too seasoned and prepared for an eventuality like this one.

Only this time was different, he was realising belatedly as he heard Elsa squeal in shock as her sister stood in the doorway gawking at the full glory of their nudity. Janus let out an inaudible groan as he blended in with the shadows. He was still naked as well, and he was certain that the queen, Elsa's sister, had caught them both in bed together.

What was I thinking? He berated himself as he heard Elsa hiss at her sister while grabbing the bedsheets to cover herself up in a hurry. Getting intimate with Elsa and sleeping with her? I'm a killer and Elsa…she's so much better than me. She…deserves so much better.

He couldn't help but feel inadequate for Elsa. She was a princess and such an angel of light. She really did deserve so much better than him. But it was more complicated than that, as Elsa had told him. She did love him for who he really was, regardless of his past, which befuddled him considerably. And it wasn't often that someone left him at a loss for long.

She really did love him, otherwise she wouldn't have opened herself up to him, both emotionally and physically. That was not to say that Janus didn't enjoy the intimacy he had shared with Elsa. No, on the contrary, it was the happiest and most content he had been in his life, as far as he could remember.

Janus had always known that he loved her. It had started as a soft spot for her when she had been a prisoner of Ingrid Grendstav in Swynvort, and then when she had seen through his mask of cold ruthlessness, he had begun to take a real liking to her. Affection even.

It had grown since then, and now that they were finally reunited and on the same side, there was nothing more that he wanted than to be with her, to snuggle in bed with her, to make her happy. I guess I owe it to her to try, since she's willing to overlook my past. That was what made her so special, and the only woman he had ever loved too. She saw the best in him, and it was slowly turning him into a better man too.

The door closed and the light from the corridor was snuffed out once again. Janus watched as Elsa, swathed in a fluffy white bathrobe, trudged back to the bed and collapsed into it, burying her face in her pillow. He took a moment to gaze upon her beauty. The voluminous platinum blonde hair. The smooth, untainted skin, and the perfect curves of her body. What have I done to deserve her?

Elsa groaned, her angelic voice muffled by the pillow.

Janus took a step out of the darkness towards her. "Are you alright?"

Elsa lifted her head and squinted her eyes. "Depends on your definition," Elsa rubbed her eyes. "How does getting caught by my sister sound?"

"Hmmn." So Queen Anna did see them together. Not the best impression to make on the queen.

"Anna's never going to let me hear the end of this." Elsa sighed.

And then came the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he considered a horrible possibility that she had just been with him because she had been drunk the night before.

"Elsa." He began quietly as he stood in front of the bed.

She looked up at him with sleepy blue eyes.

"I…I have to ask." He said slowly.

Now confused, Elsa pushed herself up on her elbows and tilted her head, hair falling across her mascara-smeared face. "What's wrong?"

"Last night," he continued. "What we had together, I need to know if…"

Elsa sighed, a little irritably and rolled her eyes. "I already told you, I wasn't drunk. I knew exactly what we were doing."

The horrid feeling in his stomach vanished instantaneously, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Then what we had…it was-"

"Real?" Elsa smiled a little. "Of course it was, Janus. How could you think otherwise?"

Janus sat down on his side of the bed. "No, it's just that-"

"I love you, Janus." She gazed at him. "And I'll be the first to admit that I'm not usually one to express my emotions or be so open with someone else. The fact that I'm here with you…it means something. And I want to explore that."

There it was. All the confirmation he needed that sealed the deal for him. Janus laid back down beside her, as she shifted on her side.

He kissed her on the forehead. "After the battle's over, then."

"I'm loving this new burst of confidence in you. Where's it coming from?"

"We'll make it." Janus said. "I know we will."

Elsa looked a little uncertain, and he couldn't blame her, for she had never been on a battlefield before and didn't know what to expect. Janus on the other hand, had been in a few mercenary wars in his short but eventful career thus far, and held a fair bit more confidence than she did, at least in this instance.

Pensively, she looked up at him with her beautiful blue eyes. "How can you be so sure?"

Janus didn't know how to answer that for certain. There was no guarantee in actual fact, that they would survive, but - Instead, he put his arms around her and pulled her close.

Elsa rested the side of her head on his neck and put a cold hand on his bare chest. He flinched ever so slightly from her icy touch, but got used to it quickly. His fingers trailed languidly down from her collarbone, to her chest, and down to the lace on her bathrobe that held it together, and loosened it.

The bathrobe fell open, and Elsa shrugged out of it as she remained snuggled up to him, and sighed. He placed a hand on her chest, feeling her heart hammering away rapidly which told him of her fear of the battle ahead.

"Don't worry," He said quietly, pushing the hair away from her face and kissed her on the lips. "We'll make it."

She closed her eyes and pressed into the kiss, staying there with him for what stretched into a pleasant eternity. And finally she pulled away, kicking away the sheets and walking across the suite.

"I have to get ready. Anna wants us to move out to the hills to rendezvous with the rest of the League and the army." Elsa paused in her tracks and turned round to look at Janus. "Are you coming?"

"Of course." He said quickly. "How could I not?"

"It's just that…" she ran a hand through her hair. "It's not your fight. You don't have to risk-"

"Of course I'm coming." He stood up. "It's my fight now."

She nodded, looking almost relieved. "I'm going to take a bath."

"I'll…" Janus trailed off. Was she hinting to him to join her? Or was he just imagining things? He shook his head. They would have time for that later...much later. "I'll just prepare my gear."

She nodded again, her expression unreadable, and closed the bathroom door behind her.

Janus sighed and walked over to the desk where he had laid his new supplies and equipment the night before. He glanced at himself in the mirror. For once in his life, even though a battle loomed large in front of him, he was finally content and emotionally in a good place.