We do not own 'Frozen' or any of its characters.

"Frozen Again: 'Love Never Ends"

Act IX

Chapter 21

"In Her Majesty's Service"

The HmNos Gler's streamlined speed did not disappoint its determined Captain, as he set the ship's course for the passage between Arendelle and the Portuguese Port of Lisbon, its capital city, where lay Queen Maria II's Imperial Palace in Mafra.

Adroit Kommander Hans Westergaard had directed his ship carefully across the treacherous Skaggerrak Straits, and down into the cold North Sea towards the rough English channel's more calm bay of Biscay.

The dutiful seaman had made extra careful selection of the sea route which King Agnarr had impressed upon his junior officer all the way to the dock.

'It must be crossed with all due diligence and safety first and foremost, for your shipload is far beyond irreplaceable.'

But Prince Hans needn't have been reminded of that obvious fact when his inspired eyes scan to where his singular fiancée stood out like a breathtaking beacon of beauty as Queen Elsa came up to the foredeck of the Gler to grace his view.

The windswept blonde would emerge from her state room cabin to fetch some stomach powder or soothing syrup medicine for her bilious ladies maid Johanne early each morning from the Gler's Sick Bay.

The rarely-traveled-beyond-Arendelle-courtyard ladies maid was courageously trying to shake off the initial waves of seasickness, and not wanting her dapper new husband Chancellor Esteban to know. So, proud Johanne waited until her newlywed hubby would go out for his bracing cold morning constitutional around the deck before she came crawling to her dear Queen Elsa just a few cabins down.

Elsa would sweetly shoulder her older friend's secret woes, and quietly go to fetch poor Johanne some stomach calming chopped ginger from the galley below when the stomach powders did not do the trick.

To Kommander Westergaard's delight, Queen Elsa would purposely make a quick stop between the ship's galley and the wheelhouse to get updates on the first leg of their voyage to Southwestern Europe from her handsome ship's captain personally.

After all, the domain of the Captain was defined by his authority on this oceanic vessel of he was sole leader. However, Kommander Westergaard was all too observant of the chain of command. That meant a very gifted passenger – namely the monarch Queen he had pledged to serve at the pleasure thereof— could choose to march onto the bridge and intrude on some of that authority.

In his role as the Prince Consort of the ruling monarch, the Danish Prince would have to become accustomed in bowing to his Queen's ultimate last word, husband or no.

But humble Hans was sure he'd be fine with that, as long as he was going to soon reap the rewards too.

Dreaming of that propitious day, Prince Hans was glad to have his capable lady's company. The Queen of the North Winter would send some cool winds in whatever direction her Vise Admiral specified. Soon the sagacious ship's Kommander felt it germane to utilize the 5th Spirit and her secret tag-along fiend Gale's wind chill speed to his sails' advantage.

The increase in the Gler's average nautical speed of eight knots to something more akin to ten or eleven augmented to make up time after the slow going start across the frozen cold, more dangerous Scandinavian waters.

Gentlemanly Kommander Westergaard later that night hosted the first dinner in the Captain's cabin with Queen Elsa, King Roland, Queen Miranda, Chancellor Esteban and Lady Flores, not forgetting to add an extra seat at the table for her suspicious brother, Councilor Kai and his cheerful wife, Gerda.

Gregarious Olaf, in the mess hall with the other crewmen, had volunteered to sing for the dinner entertainment, after the pleasant snowman had made fast friends with the Norwegian sailors. The noisy crowd of sailors had heard of their beautiful Queen's wintry magic wonder in the enchanted snowman, and had clambered to see him perform for their meal's entertainment.

Especially after the naïve, talkative snow creature innocently offered each of his new eager friends a personal meeting with their elegantly long-legged, scrumptious-looking royal ruler.

But not too close.

Keen Kommander Westergaard soon deciphered what the uproar in the ship's mess was about, after spying several of the roaming eyed seamen pacing the deck for the remainder of their meal time off. They were each in hope to be first in line for a deck stroll with the lovely pale Queen as lil' Olaf promised, but the rules were soon laid in silent reprimand from their superior officer's critical glare.

The usually mild mannered, amiable Vise Admiral's viridescent orbs appeared sea storm-worthy to any brazen crewmember. And their Kommander's disparaging glances threatening kitchen duty, between deck duty, or worse — resulted in even the burliest sailors crawling away, for even attempting to give Queen Elsa a sideways glance for the rest of the voyage.


"56.101° North. 9.555° East." From where he was standing on the deck again some deep nighttime hours later, Prince Hans' chilled lips murmur up to the sky to no one in particular.

Sensing he was not alone, the sly Dane smiles in the near pitch darkness.

That is, save for the pale moonlight that made the perfect condition for his purpose, as Hans studies one trained eye over his nautical telescope, gazing upward.

"Where do those coordinates point to exactly, my brilliant, handsome Prince?" As the attentively well studied daughter of a Naval officer herself, Elsa Bernadotte recognized the nautical latitude and longitude demarcation. It placed them somewhere in the vicinity of the Scandinavian North Sea.

Soft as a snowflake and sleek as glittering ice, Elsa slinks across the open deck of the HmNos Gler in her more liberated Ice Queen garb over to where the tall and dashing figure was standing on the otherwise empty deck alone.

"Kværndrup Township, Odense County, Egeskov Castle, Adelige Jomfruklosterets Kloster (Convent of Noble Maidens). There, one lonely boy spent endless empty hours dreaming of a beautiful little girl he was sure could change his horrid life and take him away from those stiflingly stagnant, damnable coordinates someday. Pardon my shipboard language." Hans obviously was in a dreamy mood this midnight as he keeps his eyes forward on the sea to the extreme left of them.

The Danish man brazenly bears the frosty, cold winds whipping across the ship's foredeck to gaze over the dark sea towards the place of his unhappy birth, as the ocean waves crash around both their deafened ears.

Hans still could not believe his good fortune was coming true, so much so that he dare not speak it more than in a whisper in the spellbound darkness.

"Well, did that lonely boy ever find that just as lonely and lost little girl?" Joining his quiet contemplative mood, Elsa whispers back, feeling deliciously wrapped inside her lover's fantasy reverie. Her cool, yet stabilizing arms embrace Hans' grey cloaked torso from behind, as both revel in the other's easy touch.

Chiding Gale for tease kissing wet breezes to her lover's side-burned features, Elsa masterfully weaves a verglas barrier around Hans' vulnerable front side to shield his face from the yet bitter, biting cold winds he was disregarding to his physical self.

"Yes. And she still takes my breath away." His entranced eyes finally break away from being fixated on the land of the Southern Isles to turn his head with a passionate vigor to capture Elsa's pleasantly surprised open mouth.

With a playfully gentle smooch, Hans' long and longing arms, fingers, lips and tongue all draw the platinum Queen towards his own eager body.

"Oh, Hans…huff…you're the one who takes…my…huff…breath away now." Completing her breathless sentence with a liberated laugh she sensed Gale was echoing, Elsa leans her head back to regain some small modicum of air to her lungs. The cool air rushes past in a quick speed whirl through her somehow tousled bun as the Gler surges forward, amply powered by the Winter Queen's ice wind of pure exhilaration.

"We aim to please." The Danish Prince brushes back his similarly mussed titian hair as he pulls Elsa ever closer to his chest for warmth. After enjoying the starstruck moment, Hans offers his arm to the pale skinned Queen for a moonlit stroll to show her his equipment – strictly up and up shipboard speaking - as they walked the deck side-by-side.

"See that twinkling star sparkle up there, min kæreste?" Hans suddenly says out of nowhere in a different mood and tone. "It's often called the 'North Star' for many a sailor, due to its position relevant to the earth's North Pole. It's sometimes called 'Polaris', for the North Star does not rise, nor does it set during the night. Keeping constant vigil, it remains continuously pulsating, light years distant. Either way, it's the brightest star in the nautical sky, and is easiest for sailors to spot practically from anywhere on the ocean. So we can find due north and chart the rest of the map from there." Hans points his instructive long fingers up to indeed the most luminous light in this especially dark night sky.

"There's the Monoceros (the unicorn). And over there the Pleiades (the seven sisters) star cluster. To the north of it is Taurus (the bull) and Aries (the ram) just above Orion (the Hunter) and the Crab nebula just there, and there." Hans' velvety voice was entrancing Elsa in an awestruck wonder of the vastness of the sky above that the God of the universe wove so intrinsically beautiful for them to view each night since the first day of Creation.

"But if you look to the declination -35° not so far away from Polaris, you can just make out a constellation in this shape." Experienced seamen and stargazer Prince Hans traces his gloved finger in several points, connecting the stars in gestures before quiet Elsa's fascinated eyes.

"I have been stargazing since I was a child at the convent. And when I became a young man and went to sea at the age of twelve, I began to seriously study the stars—their names and origins, their ecliptic glowing patterns, their cyclical courses through the heavens. On board ship, you can see the stars especially clearly, moreso than any place else on earth, perhaps because there are no ambient lights from street lamp nor building dome for miles and miles on end." Hans explains the vastness of the sea and the lonely solitude of the sailor's life that inexorably sculpted their quixotic frame of mind.

"'…What if that light
Sent to her through the wide transpicuous air,
To the terrestrial Moon be as a star,
Enlightening her by day, as she by night?'"

"But there is one luminescence up there in particular that always reminded me so much of you, min elsking." Hans diverts from his professorial astronomist tutelage to wax more the romantic poet as he quotes a passage from Milton's 17th century 'Paradise Lost'.

"What? Me?" Modest maiden Elsa blushes at her fiancé's complimentary turn of phrase unexpectedly directed personally to her.

"Her name is 'Columba' – the dove. The sixteenth century Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius based his discovery of this small little constellation on the observations of navigators of yore so much that he included it on his celestial globe in 1592. See the bright visible stars that construct her avian silhouette just south of the 'Greater dog' Canis større (Canis Major)? Plancius originally named it 'Columba Noachi' which translates from the Latin to 'Noah's Dove'. It refers to the legendary white dove who brought the olive branch back to Noah on the Ark to show God's promise of the great flood receding. As a boy, I always looked up at this time of year to see the extraordinary constellation visible at Denmark's latitude. I naively believed it was blinking up there just for me."

"Before I found out her official name, I called her 'Elsa,' envisioning it to be you, Elsa of Arendelle, my winter dove, who gave this lost, all at sea young boy the promise and hope of freedom someday." Hans' eyes lock with Elsa's for several meaningful seconds before he, suddenly self-conscious and feeling silly of his youthful fetishes, returns to his more scientific explanations.

"The distance of the constellation Columba had remained incalculable for centuries, mainly because the dove holding her olive branch is composed of so many various stars at disparate locations in the heavens. She features blue-white stars ranging from 260 light years away from her to orange hued ones as close as 87 light years hence. And the brightest star which serves as the tip of Columba's little beak holding that blessed olive branch, I named 'Elise', just for you. You, my Columba, my dove, who felt as far away and unattainable as the stars at that time, min hviddue {pronounce- "min viduen"} (my dove). So you must forgive me if I call you that every now and then, my dove." Hans whispers breathily in Elsa's ear, his arms wrapped around her back as they both were staring upwards at the blinking stars.

"Min hviddue? 'My dove'? So that is why you've called me that…You are so very romantic, Prince Hans. Shall I add stargazing astronomy to your vast list of abilities? You do never cease to amaze me with your knowledge of so many varied fields of study." Elsa compliments the blushing young man, so touched was he that she appreciated all of the studying he undertook in his adolescence, all to impress his real shining star someday.

"You flatter me, min hviddue. Show me how beautifully your wings can fly." A blushing red cheeked Hans, still unaccustomed to open flattery after so many years of being talked down to, suddenly twirls his ballerina Elsa in his deft arms.

Her iridescent pale ice blue cape flutters like the proverbial wings of his white dove as Hans proficiently spins Elsa upon her ever ready-to-dance ice heels to the winsome melody she brought to his Golden throated lips.

"'I have found my angel, with the dust of the stars in her eyes! We are dancing, we are flying. And she's taking me back to the skies…'"

Around and around the deck, the exquisitely in love dancers pirouette elegantly in rhythm with one another in the exciting dance to the song of the sea. The on deck dance aerobics left the pretty pair breathlessly laughing and enjoying each other's agreeable company out in the open, all alone.

Or so they thought.

"I still can't believe that Papa allowed me to travel to not only Portugal, but to the New World as well. I haven't pinched yet myself today to be sure it's true, and that I'm really here…with you." The lovely, exotic Queen giggles with a dreamy smile. The 5th Element really feeling in her element, Elsa glances around the ship's deck, deliriously happy.

She smiles to so comfortably fit on her young man's winning arm, while Hans escorted her around the top deck at a more languid pace.

The Gler looked so very different from when Elsa recalled that pitted battle with that evil pirate transformed into a sea monster beast who had captured Anna and hidden her suffering parents away for seven long, terrorized years.

But her heroic Hans could make anything possible it seemed.

The newly fitted steamship required a total re-design after its mainmast had been driven straight into the skewered cold heart of the sea monster Draugen by this same daring, gallant young Kommander.

"Eek!" Lost in her own thoughts, in a flutter of titillated sea breeze, Elsa squeals at a high pitch when her noble Prince takes the young woman at her word.

Cocky Prince Hans had lightly pinched the soft skin of the lady's tender rump with a flagrant hand at the side back of her formfitting Ice Queen dress.

"Hans Westergaard! I think stargazing has done something to your manners!" Shocked Elsa reprimands her fiancé for his wandering fingers, though she secretly didn't mind it as much as she thought she would.

"Well, you're the one who asked for it. I only live to obey your command now, my Queen." With a pursed lip shrug and smirk as he fake ruefully bows, Hans huskily rejoinders his Queen, his enticed eyes going all frisky upon his stunning lady whom he had just danced with in the pale moonlight, bringing endless euphoria to his spilling over heart.

Feigning coy injury back, Elsa gives Hans a snobbish little nose up in the air that he simply adored and perhaps saw as a challenge. Not about to take 'no' for an answer, he rather commandingly grasps her shoulders abruptly, pulling Elsa's supple form to his sinewy one that was hungry for more than just provisional sustenance on this glorious night of heady freedom…

Kommander Westergaard embraces his lovely lady who outshone the stars themselves so that no celestial body could compare to the real live female in his arms at his mercy.

Testing his limits in these unchartered smooth waters, Prince Hans was just about to say something else to further flirtatious effect. That was to be followed up by a simple fulfilling kiss good night that the redheaded Dane was smoothly moving in to grace his Queen Elsa with before these rampant emotions threatened to carry her away with him in the increasingly hot zephyr on the deck between them.

And every element of the willing lady's responding eyes and grasping hands around his desirable neck, toying with her favorite wisps of his sideburns, doth not protest…

"A-ahem!"

But that's when a deep cough interrupted the growingly passionate scene, reminding Hans of his station.

Out of nowhere in the steamship's deafening darkness, as the Gler cuts through the rushing waters of the suddenly choppy, warning North Sea, a large shadow's rotund form emerges upon the deck from the stairway down below.

"Pardon me, Kommander Westergaard. But it is well past time for the Queen to retire." Councilor Kai pronounces rather snobbishly from beneath the mountain of cloaks and scarves the big man beneath the fur-lined ear flap hat was clad in, to ward off the bracing cold of the sea he rather disliked.

But I cannot allow my sister Johanne to just leave our homeland without seeing that she is properly settled in this unsettled new land with her…ergh…husband.

"Oh, yes, it has grown rather late, Minister Kai. I'm so sorry for worrying you." Elsa guiltily withdraws from her Prince Hans' pervasive scent as her disappointed fiancé was mere seconds from tasting her cool lips again.

"Allow me to escort you safely back to your state room now, Your Majesty. I've given Gerda notice to await your presence there whilst Johanne is…unwell." With a haughty, smug look at Hans, the Arendelle Chief Minister of Affairs extends his gloved hand down the steps to escort Elsa to her lower berth where this proper chaperone believed she should remain for the rest of the night.

If that wolfish look on that young Dane's face is any judge on the dangerous matter.

"Then it appears I must bid you good night, my Queen. I hope you sleep well, min hviddue (my white dove)." With one eye on how vigilant Kai was tapping his foot impatiently at the top of the flight of steps leading down, Hans awards Elsa with a neat, gentlemanly bow and brushed kiss to the palm of her cool hand wearing his sparkling snowflake engagement ring.

"Good night, min rævstørre (my great fox). I will sleep well, knowing you have mapped my ship to your celestial command." Teasing her foxy red prince with the inside joke only they two would understand, Elsa responds in their secret constellation Latin nicknaming kind.

She laughs to her winsome fiancé in the frosty atmosphere he – with perhaps mischievous Gale's backing - made her feel rather hot in, nevertheless.

"Good night, min hviddue. We shall have another night to stargaze together. Perhaps when the sea is less capricious and we are left not so well guarded, my pristine beauty." The Prince of the Southern Isles whispers in a conspiring tone with a deep rumbling chuckle, which sizzles in the platinum blonde's titillated ear.

As Councilor Kai bows frigidly to the Vise Admiral of the Sjoforsvaret and leads Queen Elsa down below rather officiously, Prince Hans lets out a pent-up sigh.

He could sense the open antagonism written all over the older man's face staring down at the 13th-in-line Danish Prince that no doubt reflected the attitude of his King back home.

Elsa's age-old retainer simply must have taken this sheltering duty upon himself. Admiral Bernadotte would never have permitted my command of his ship to escort his daughter halfway around the world, without his presence, if he did not trust me with her.

Or would he? Perhaps to send spies upon the ship to lay one last trap of temptation before me? If only to ascertain my true worth as a gentleman…Maybe it's after I pass this final test will I be deemed truly fit to wed the Queen of Arendelle?

No, King Agnarr is a good man. I am certain I saw not only trust but…was that reliance on my care for his daughter in his eyes before we left dock? The Admiral has much on his mind and in his heart, and my animal passions betraying that confidence will not be the cause of further consternation. I must only hope this gut sentiment of something reformational afoot in Arendelle does not give my beautiful angel further angst upon our return.

Or am I overthinking everything in my glee at the lifelong dream so close at hand at that homecoming?

Take heed, Westergaard, of the pitfalls ahead of the perfect prize. Don't forget your ambitions always did exceed your station. That's how you plunged into trouble in the first place.

Expelling a deep breath in the bitterly cold air he intakes into his lungs, always guarded, ever-planning, clever Prince Hans paces the deck of the ship he had been named Kommander of, but with an irresolute stride.

'But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ' –James 1:6

I will not entertain your wicked doubts again on this journey, Deceiver. I will simply strive to comport myself on noble, virtuous behavior to avoid your lure, keeping my purity of love worthy for that favorable day.

Condemning himself for near indiscretions as well as suspicion, the dutiful young man abruptly stops midstride on the top starboard facing deck. Hans looks up to the twinkling constellation star he had once named 'Elsa' before stepping into the wheelhouse, more determined than distrusting.

There the ship's Kommander unexpectedly relieves the current drowsy coxswain of his duty to instead personally steer the ship himself alone. At full throttle high speed of almost 13 knots, the thirteenth in-line Danish seaman seemed in the mood to dare to conquer the elements himself tonight.

They too had a share in his special, pure 5th Spirit Elsa's intertwined destiny he wanted to both learn more and be so a part of. For perceptive of the elements swirling all around him, Hans had a definite feeling the Ice Queen's fellow elementals were never far from his dove's side.

But, as the wind gently blows through his hair over the steady ocean floor and its tamed sea waves above where a glimmering firelight faintly was dancing a constant beacon trail on the crests forward upon, at least they seemed sympathetic tonight.


"I hope I didn't keep you up, Gerda. I'm sorry for taking so long." Elsa speaks softly and lovingly as a smiling, quiet Gerda quickly begins preparing the young queen's hair for bedtime, loosening it from its braids and chignon into long flowing tresses.

"Oooh, not at all, Your Majesty! Eliana here has been telling Johanne and I fairy stories all the while! We've been quite comfortable and pleasant all around."

Eliana had been reading her bedtime stories until she fell asleep herself in the sweet lacy, pillow lined little bed that Gerda and Johanne had nestled for the snowgirl in the drawers at Elsa's bedside.

Tucking the small magic creature in, Johanne had volunteered to serve as the younger Queen's ladies' maid one last time on this journey that would take her to her new life with Chancellor Esteban in Avalor, as his Duchess.

As Gerda brushed Elsa's thick locks, she struck up a conversation with their charge.

"I wonder if we will see those lions and elephants or hippopotamus in Brazil, Your Majesty? I never thought I'd see the day I'd travel so far as to South America! Hee hee…and yet, maybe I'm not that surprised, after all. As a little girl, there were some new and exciting, Nordic animals I never seen before where I traveled far far north to meet the Snow Queen and rescue Kai… She trails off, apparently lost in thought of days of her youth when she noticed Elsa's dreamy, untired eyes.

Eyes in love. Gerda recognized, and smiles knowingly. "But enough about me, Your Majesty! I imagine Prince Hans has seen all these creatures and more on his travels about the globe!"

"Well, Gerda, lions and elephants aren't native to the South American continent. But there may be coatimundi, peccaries, capuchin monkeys and tapirs in Brazil. Perhaps Princess Valentina will know where we can take you to see some. And as for Prince Hans, I don't know about hippopotamus or elephants, but I had gleaned from every conversation with Prince Ferdinand that vicious crocodiles, venomous snakes and bloodthirsty tigers were encountered during their passage from India. Hans was said to be most heroic in warding off those dangerous beasts, though he is too modest to admit it to me, even in his letters." As she says that, Elsa smiles a lovestruck gaze upon the ivory cameo of her handsome man's profile, affixed with a lock of his unmistakably mahogany red hair.

She fingers it around her neck to be placed properly over her heart after Johanne aids her lady change in her purple nightwear.

"I'll be perfectly fine now—thanks to you both. Thank you for staying up so late for me, ladies. I'll be penning my letter to Anna as I promised her I would for a few minutes and then go right to sleep. You may both go now. Especially you, Johanne dear, while you're still feeling well. This is your honeymoon journey, after all, and you should be spending time with your new husband, not doting over me. Please don't worry so much about your queen, either of you. I ran the kitchen galley of a ship once upon a time, so I'm quite at home aboard ship. Do tell the Chancellor good night for me." With humored explanation, Elsa softly prompts with a nod to her ladies maid who blushes that the royal, younger female would sympathize with her personal, marital concerns.

"Thank you, my lady." Johanne curtsies to her kind ruler and heads to leave quietly by way of the connecting door. "You will make that young man a good wife someday soon." Johanne remarks at her charge's tender gaze up at the moonlight streaming through the porthole window that Johanne also recognized as true love.

"Will I?" Elsa mutters to herself as she sits at the quaint little desk at the other side of the room. With a smile, the lovely lady in the lilac lingerie uses her cryokinetics to open the desk's drawer. She easily ice magically lifts a single page from the numerous papers supplied by her sister Anna herself in that drawer full with all sorts of pencils and pens, ink pads and coloring art materials.

With a lilting soft giggle at her insistent and plucky younger sibling, Elsa opts to write with the Romanian invented fountain pen her ice magic chose from the desktop.

Her resourceful Prince Hans had gifted Elsa with that fountain pen at the start of this voyage. It used the latest, and quite remarkable, Parker ink self-filler with a screw-operated piston ink reservoir. That made this particular writing device perfect for this long sea journey where ink bottles might tip over at the rocking back and forth waves at any moment.

Elsa begins to write her letter in the free flowing ink's elegant script that she instantly cryo-cools to freeze dry without fear of smudging.

'My dearest Anna, I hope this letter finds you not feeling too ill and as contented and well back home in Arendelle with Papa and Mama as I am free as the sea breeze in my element at last right now.

This journey down the coast of the European continent has taken the Gler fluidly across many nautical miles already. It feels so incredibly wide open and free to be traveling on the calm blue waters and having no pressing dangers nor problems to face. Just the beautiful, endless blue waves where there seems to be no limits.

Now I see what Papa always found so calming about the sea.

I don't know quite how to expess it accurately, but as I can share with you anything in my heart, little sister, I feel quite at home and safe and secure here aboard ship with Prince Hans as her Kommander.

I suppose that's because I too possess the proud blood in my veins of our great seafaring race of people that Papa instilled in me since I was a little girl his love of the sea in ships and all who sail upon her.

Or perhaps it is my 5th Spirit call of glacial Ahtohallan and communing with Nokk the Water Spirit that I inherited from Mama's Northuldran heritage that gives the fathomless ocean its majestic lure to me now I no longer fear it.

But possibly…it's the memory of that time spent on board ship when I really met the man Hans Westergaard, and not only the façade of the dashing figure he groomed for me to see.

It was upon the sea where I truly saw my Prince's soul to be so kind and repentant and indeed selfless as we sailed the marvelous ocean blue the good Lord put on this earth to replenish our spirits.

With Hans and I thrown together like that, it was as if I was meant to discover my destiny to forgive Prince Hans so he could be instrumental in rescuing our kingdom and restoring our family.

God's plan for my life was already unfolding, I think, if I just embraced the courage to reopen that book and turn the pages to a chapter anew with receptive eyes of mercy…

And thus find the meaning of true love. That sweet reminiscence makes this so unforgettable a voyage for me now.

Forgive me for waxing a little poetic tonight, Anna, but I am enjoying this romantic, free and easy shipboard life immensely on this first part of our journey. I am picking up some hands-on steamship workings in the wheelhouse with its Captain and crew. (As you have probably noted from my previous night's missives, which I trust you will not be skipping around to read out of order first, Anna.)'

With a smirk, Elsa glances up to the stars above the ship's starboard facing window glass, pausing with the vague chastisement of her impatient sibling's tendencies to read the last pages of a novel first. If flutter budget Anna ever stopped flitting to pick one up, that is.

Over the crashing waves of the ship at full steam crossing, an arresting glimmer of light seemed to be shining back at her especially bright tonight.

'And one more thing, Anna. Did you know I've had a star named in my honor? Tonight, my Prince Hans introduced me to 'Columba Noachi' – 'Noah's Dove' in the Latin. It is a constellation of stars where the youngest Prince of the Southern Isles - who apparently was a boy astronomer, like Papa as well in his past - had plotted the course of one of the points of light of this stellar 'dove' for years.

Hans had dubbed the very tip of her beak – the brightest shining point of light on this constellation – 'Elsa', in hope to one day meet the such named modest princess you may be familiar with, Anna.

And here we are now on the deck of the Gler in the North Sea near Wesleton Great Britain, gazing up at that singular star whose name represents God's olive branch of peace, hope and fresh beginnings for mankind, together.

You must think me a silly, starstruck traveler of a penpal tonight, little sister! But this journey so far has been incredibly peaceful and calming for my spirit, too.

So, if you get the chance to be outside under the night sky before 'Noah's Dove' flies past our celestial quadrant in the next few weeks, look up to the northern polar night sky. There just below Canis Major, show Papa while he's star-charting on a clear night as he is wont to do, how you can see Hans' celestial 'Hviddue' (white dove) coming your way into view over Arendelle, with 'Elsa' being the bright lead point star of the constellation Columba Noachi.

I send with her all my love to you and Mama and Papa, Anna. I pray for the Lord to watch over you and all the good people of our kingdom while I'm away. God bless and keep you, my dearests.

Love, your encouraged, hopeful 'north star' named Elsa.'

Giggling at herself and all the whimsy her prince brought, the Queen of Arendelle then climbs into the bed in the state cabin. It had a full view of the stars over the sea they were quickly crossing, through a dainty curtained window where a tasteful portrait of her Papa, the stately Admiral of the fleet, hung above.

"Good night, Papa. See that twinkling beak of the constellation of the dove Columba Noachi up there? My Hans has named that star in my honor." Elsa smiles proudly that Hans, as a little boy even, cared for her that much to think of her as his stellar muse.

Thinking of the two men in her life, and how similar they were really with love of the sea and its guiding stars, Elsa blows out the candle on the lamp affixed to the wall over where an eye-mask snoozing Eliana the snowwoman had set up a dainty little bed of her own in its open drawer.

And thank you, Lord, for today, and the promise of the olive branch You created then. Thank you…for giving to me now a new hope for tomorrow…

"Sleep well, my Rævstørre." Donning her icy lavender négligée, Elsa whispers up to the Canis Major constellation of stars lying beneath her 'Noah's Dove' through her ship window.

Settling in her bed, Elsa gives a trusting squeeze to the ivory cameo around her neck, craning to glimpse the pair of star-crossed constellations doing a celestial dance together through the night sky.

Much like the unforgettable dance that she and her handsome Prince waltzed across the deck of this ship taking them on the first yard of this romantic voyage beneath the moonlit stars…


As if sensing some irresistible force of sisterly love call to her from across the miles, a young woman wrestles her pair of blue-green eyes open to gaze upward to the deep dark blue sky over her sleepyhead lying on a bevy of soft pillows.

Right on cue, several shades of the Northern Lights, which had been somewhat muted up to this point, illuminate in the sky above the cozy, open-air sleigh bed Princess Anna was rocking back-and-forth upon.

The light bursts caused Anna's groggy eyes to travel to the formation of stars exuding above her head in the shape of a winged bird in flight.

That constellation did seem to be burning especially bright this evening, Anna thought as she wipes away the drool escaping her mouth when one star particularly sparkles back down at her.

Its luminosity causes a soft smile to cross her pretty face as the ginger was snuggling herself into the mass of blankets and pillows. Her doting mother had piled the blankets high in the sleigh to line the reclining bench Kristoff had fashioned into a makeshift travel bed for his pregnant wife.

"I like to see you wake up smiling, Feistypants." A mellow voice murmurs contentedly from across the front of the bench seat of the in-motion sleigh.

The industrious mountainman/ carpenter/ jack of all hard-working trades had installed the lever-activated recliner to the passenger half of his Ice Harvester's sleigh's wooden bench.

Kristoff intuitively knew how his pregnant wife's characteristically little body was undergoing major physical changes. So they would require a respite every now and then on this stipulated to be slow and steady excursion up to see his Troll family for the New Year.

The blond was beyond glad that his usually stiff and stuffy father-in-law had surprisingly permitted a trying-not-to-be-too-disappointed Anna to set forth, just with Kristoff, right away on this road trip to visit her good friends, the Trolls, who had raised the boy.

I guess your dad would do anything to stop you from moping around the castle, wishing you were able to go to South America and waiting for Elsa's letters that aren't even posted yet.

Although, I had a weird feeling the King wanted to get us out of the palace…Almost like he was intending on heading somewhere on the sly without you or Elsa knowing…

While concerned, the soulful, psychic young man didn't dare delve too deep into the murky ice waters of his mysteriously preoccupied father-in-law's inner reasoning.

So…to keep your mind off all your folks…maybe you and I could use this trip as that second honeymoon I promised you when our first one was interrupted, Baby.

The musclebound mountain man muses to himself as he glances over to his sleepy bride while leading Sven and Svala down the path between the mountains and down into the Valley that led to Trollheiman.

When the wintry roads were clogged from either piles of huge snow drifts, Saami traders leading their wagons and reindeer herds through to the northern hills, or seasonal Ice Harvesters come down from the mountains to sell their potable goods, the flying reindeer team would make their sled soar above it all.

Yet even that was not quick enough for impatient Princess Anna, who was constantly pestering her safety-first husband to get a move on in this journey. But Kristoff had thoroughly promised his worrywart father-in-law, not to mention strict driving marshal General Mattias too, that he would not take any risks on this road trip.

Kristoff swore to them both he would avoid every bump and protruding rock that may have been in their pathway by going well under the 15 miles per hour speed limit.

Pushing her mass of frizzy ginger hair back from her face with uncoordinated fingers in a futile attempt to put up a pair of side braids to tie back her flowing coif, Princess Anna groans in frustration before giving up totally with an expended sigh.

The several weeks pregnant and feeling restless young woman peeks one eye up through the pitch black darkness of the deep night sky. Anna had been tossing and turning in her discomfited sleep, lying beneath the stars in the midsection of her husband's Royal Ice Harvester and Deliverer's larger delivery sleigh.

"Are we there yet?" Anna's sleepy voice murmurs over to her young husband who had kept gentle watch over her all through the night while he tirelessly directed Sven and his doe Svala down to the Valley of Living Rock.

"Yep, Baby. We'll be just about there in a few more minutes. It's good you took that long daytime nap because the Trolls will be sure awake when we get there." With an exhausted stretch to his overtaxed, flexing shoulder muscles that had been hunched over the reins driving all night, Kristoff explains.

His stiff with cold, gloved fingers reach out with a loving stroke of Anna's loose ginger locks as she sits up, pulling the reclined seat up to its regular passenger position in a yawning daze to speak to the driver.

"Hehehe. Maybe we should stop for a minute or two for you to get your hair in order first." Kristoff chuckles at the lopsided braid Anna had attempted to install in her naturally sticky-uppy bedhair.

"Does it look bad?" Anna asks, running a hand through the wild expanse of orangey frizz she was peering up to Kristoff through.

"No! You look great!" The more experienced in the ways of married life blond young man quickly covers up his near gaffe repeat. Kristoff had learned by now to give no hesitation in making remarks about his feisty lady's odd hairstyles. Not like he awkwardly did that first time they were in this geyser filled part of this country the man of nature was so at home in since his youth.

"I was just…thinking it might be a good idea to run a brush through your hair before my folks all wind up volunteering to fix it up for you. You know how they break into song and dance when they go at it about 'fixer-uppers'." As delicately put as possible, Kristoff tries to smooth over his close blunder with a quickly produced comb from his pocket to start to gently brush Anna's peculiar hair-do.

Kristoff's big hands, adept at handling his bride, easily undo her unkempt side braid as he maneuvers her petite body soothingly around in the stopped sleigh bench for her back to face him. He instinctively then gives her tense spine a firm, yet tender rub, rolling his practiced knuckles down her tickle bumps of vertebrae, much to Anna's sighing delight.

"Ooh, that's nice, Kristly. How did you know I needed a good, thorough massage?" Anna coos over her shoulder to her mate as she lets Kristoff's tender stroking lull she and her wild hair into a more tranquil state of ecstasy in the steamy hot geyser springs area they had just entered.

"Mmm…Come 'ere." She whispers coyly up to her unsuspecting hubby.

"Whoa-oh! Anna! Be careful! What are you doing?!" Kristoff gasps as he suddenly is pitched backward in the paused sleigh.

Somehow the feisty ginger, leaning over, had mischievously tempted Kristoff to move more towards her lowered side of the bench seat. Then she cunningly pulled the lever to set it back down to full reclined position, with an unbalanced Kristoff unwittingly launched back alongside her laughing form.

"I just wanted you to see how comfortable my reclining bed you made has been for me, my gorgeous studmuffin. After all, you were the one just thinking this should be our chance to make up for that first bungled honeymoon, weren't you, Kristly?" Anna fingers her man's heaving broad chest invitingly. {"And since this is your birthday – plus our seven and a half month anniversary - I thought we could celebrate those two essential occasions both right here while we're alone…"} Despite her tender chest, via their psi-link Anna inveigles her husband to cease his defensive struggling to get upright and rather just roll with lying beside her still burning desire to hold him close.

{"Essential?"} Vaguely recalling today was his own date of birth - for the down-to-earth, rugged mountaineer hardly ever considered the date Ragi informed him about a long time ago in his curious youth as that important - Kristoff snorts incredulously at the unassociated word. His perhaps unfounded, slight notion about her uneasy father safely tucked away for the time being, the Wind Whisperer did not have a problem with his every individual mind, heart and soul's deliberation being perused by his pretty little wife as he answers her back in kind. In fact the once loner immensely enjoyed having her so near to his every pulse.

Particularly now as she was coaxing him - physically and mentally - to touch her intimately with soft giggling sighs in his ear.

"Yup. Essential." Something about the emphasized way Anna's sweet mouth rolled the word 'essential' quite sensually off her tongue was beginning to do something to the big burly young man.

"Yeah, that's right. Seven moons since that hot day in July I first made you mine…" The distracted twenty-eight year old glances around to see the steaming hot spring release some of its own natural heat into the crisp, still air too.

"And it's your birthday, so..." Like two of the most precious, brightest gifts he'd ever received, Anna's shimmering blue-green eyes shine up at her man invitingly under the brilliant stars of this electrified polar night.

"I love you, Baby." Kristoff's powerful fingers involuntarily reach out to run through his wife's unbraided hair, remembering the thrill of when he first did it then, as the blond pulls is ginger's yearning body close for a soft nuzzled kiss to her neck.

His hands then trace along her slender back and shoulder blades, down her heaving ribcage and as yet still little stomach. In that way she loved his big thumbs massaging, gently, yet with force, Kristoff grasps at Anna's shapely hipbones, none too hidden under those tan leggings.

There his bride, his queen, his dream, his Anna had her arms around his neck, pulling her Kristoff to her with a hummed song of her love until they were contentedly lying side by side with him, both fully prone on the rhythmically swaying sleigh bed by now.

"There are still a few minutes before we get there, right, Kristly?" Slipping out of her dark burgundy cloak fully to act as further cushion beneath her, Anna lies on her back, facing the stars and the Northern Lights streaked sky above them. She gazes up to her husband's wanting eyes with that familiar glint of inviting passion that Kristoff recognized immediately.

"A few minutes…" As he was already removing some of his more cumbersome attire, Kristoff repeats her words huskily. With one deft hand over the edge of the sled, he nimbly unhitches the trying-not-to-be-curious reindeer pair to wander off to their own hot springs rendezvous.

{"If you're sure you're still okay with everything, Anna? I swear to take it easy…and real slow…and be gentle as possible. A-a-an-nd I want you to know that I don't need this…"} Kristoff psychically stutters with caution in his tone while his hands were automatically freeing the rest of Anna's clothes from her rustling skin in the warm hot springs' steamy seclusion in the darkness.

"But I do. I asked Mama already, and she said that our perfect little guy is safely tucked away and wouldn't mind sharing me with his big, strong daddy on our special, second honeymoon that you promised me. You don't have to worry, Kristly. Mama says we're supposed to bond still. It's good for the baby." A grown-up, mature woman now who understood her young man's anxieties and wished to alleviate them, Anna whispers, pulling her good-looking mate and his strong, magic fingers into her on the soft pillowed sleigh bed.

Kristoff blushes at the notion that his honest and open girl had discussed such a private matter with his queenly mother-in-law concerning their confidential…relations. But then again, he was glad for the veteran mother to impart to his wife such knowledge on feminine subjects he had absolutely no idea about.

"Besides. I forgot to pack any other birthday present for you." Genuine Anna's crooked, guilty smirk and beseeching eyes beneath the stars send every mental and physical reassurance she could give him that she was robust, healthy and required this wake-up call more than he knew.

Over the course of the past six years they had known each other, Anna had grown even more mature than he in unspoken ways that a sentimentally smiling Kristoff appreciated.

"After you, no doubt, mess it up more than it already is, you may fix my hair however you please to make me presentable to represent the Crown to our Rock and Fire Troll citizenry…Sir Kusto." Playfully getting him motivated with a nip of his red ear she just whispered into, Anna yanks off the badly embroidered knit yarn cap she'd just gifted her lover with at Christmas as she scruffs kristoff's thankfully loose, perfectly mussed coif.

Joyfully, the girl who had lived through so much sadness and heartache to overcome and grow with grace and dignity and wisdom in her new responsibilities, still wanted them to bring happiness to the world and each other as young and free spirits, madly in love and enjoying their lives together.

"So I'll wait, for a sign. I'll be your barber, 'cause you are mine!" Tossing his scruffy headed golden mane around, Kristoff belts out loudly in that sing-songy yoik manner Anna adored, but had Sven and Svala jump some meters away. The pleased Snow Prince was teasing his spirited beauty right back in melodious humored song set to his own mellow music. Familiar hands fluff through her unruly mane of undone braid curls as Kristoff hovered bodily over Anna who was aroused and energized now even more upon hearing his evocative voice serenading her under the entrancing moonlight.

The laughing so hard young couple lets themselves take pleasure in these precious moments together, hugging and kissing and cuddling and so much more like the young married lovers they still were, and always would be in their intertwined hearts full of incredible love.

All while treasuring the new miracle of life growing strong within because of that abiding love Anna and Kristoff shared, with unbreakable bonds of interdependent joy, too.

And yes, Princess Anna was Kristoff's greatest present and always would be throughout their lives, sparkling bright in this area of their homeland that was growing decidedly warmer due to the multiple geyser springs, steamy hot even at this time of the winter.


Sometime more than a few blissful minutes later…

"Hmm… I wonder how Elsa is doing…" Tying her laces back up her undone jacket sleeves, a dreamy Anna murmurs from where she was again comfortably lying on her husband's ingenious seat recliner in their slow-moving sleigh.

With a cat-who-ate-the-canary smirk on his no longer achy, decidedly manly features, safe driver Kristoff was back operating the reins in his driver's seat. He still carefully avoids any potholes or too many dips or ruts in the geyser strewn road that may jostle his not-so-delicate young bride.

Wistfully content and feeling much better, a humming Anna's pleased eyes were trained upward as she stares up to the pulsating grouping of stars above the stony landscape of Troll Valley.

{"She's fine and Gale's got her tucked in bed now, with Bruni in the lead while Nokk and Jordskjevelvet keep the waters tame."} Through their psychic link, the Spirit Whisperer responds to his mate after closing his eyes for a quick check of the mental imprint of Anna's beloved sister.

Elsa had agreed, before she left, to allow her gifted brother-in-law some small access to her mental signature's monitor, to keep an anxious Anna satisfied that her sister was safe whenever she was feeling lonely and wondering about her traveling best friend.

Perhaps it was through that open line in her subconscious that she sensed their sisterly bond to stare up at that particular star in that particular celestial location, where 'Noah's Dove' was pulsating down at her.

"I'm glad. What was she up to tonight?" Anna smiles with the idle query as she closes her eyes again. She imagined her big sister cozily lying in her nice big bed in the ship's stateroom that Anna had personally supplied with much ink and writing papers for Elsa to inscribe letters back home to her as often as she could.

{"She was just with Hans."} Kristoff made the mistake of adding that honest little factoid to his easily set-off wife who was still warily resentful of young Mr. Westergaard, and all his good fortune to be the one chosen to accompany Elsa on this long voyage to South America, without her.

I suppose I brought this all upon myself, dragging that jerky Red all the way back from India to be here with Els—

"What?!" Suddenly realizing what Kristoff just mentally stated to her, Anna freaks out at the unsavory thought, her eyes going wide as she sits straight up.

{"Hehehe. Calm down, 'with' like we just were, silly. He's keeping 'tame' too! Just 'with', as in simply stargazing together."} Her spontaneous reaction causes Kristoff to chuckle a tickle to Anna's wobbling with anger chin.

"Well. that Red just better behave himself on this trip, and not press his luck or, so help me, when he gets his skinny behind back here, I'll—"

YAWN!

Mid-empty-threat to her future brother-in-law (icksome!), a mumbling Anna begins to drift back to sleep on her inviting sleigh bed. Kristoff drives ever so slow and rhythmically, lulling her back to sleep with his sweetly calming, hummed tune as he drives into the still, quiet, dually occupied Troll village down in the Valley of the Trolls.

But just as Anna was closing her eyes, falling asleep again under the glimmering starlight, a cavalcade of other coruscating lights suddenly overtakes the bright stars above.

"Surprise! Surprise!" As colorful lights to match the aurora borealis begin to glow, Trolls from every corner of the Valley suddenly spring to life after they and their dormant rock forms shake the ground to roll up to greet their visitors, as one.

"Happy birthday!" One pudgy, sleepy-eyed Fire Troll boy had stayed up past his bedtime to greet some of the heroes of the Fire Troll liberation rebellion from that evil Djvælen King.

Little Gabbro had only learned so many non-latin words from his Rock Troll cousins in these past weeks of freedom from the underground labyrinth he had been raised as a slave, but he wanted to try them out nonetheless.

Several of the formerly enslaved Fire Troll cousins who had remained awake even after sunset for this special occasion had joined the Rock Troll crystal training novices to devise a welcoming party for Anna and Kristoff.

Once the Wind Whisperer had mentally accepted the elder Troll shaman's invitation to spend the New Year celebration up here with his expanded Troll family, the entire amalgamated village had been abuzz with anticipation.

The soft glow of each of the Fire Troll children's fiery tails were no longer possessed by the Devil's black lava crystals, instead they had been newly inducted to the Troll Crystal Club with their own troll crystal breads of orange and yellow hues tied around their necks.

The prismatic colors complement the rainbow of the Rock Troll girls' and boys' proudly earned AB crystals. Multicolored lighted hues of greens and purples and fuchsia pinks and blues that GranPabbie had been teaching the young novices how to project, now artistically illuminate their own creations to take shape above in the dark sky.

In dazzling rainbow lights overhead, the big, bold letters the Troll children had learned spelled their returning heroes' names in vibrant gratitude.

'THANK YOU, KRISTANNA!'

Side by side with their new friends of Rock Trolls, the Fire Troll children join the entire group in hummed chorus to encircle around the sleigh, holding up their newly earned friendship crystals to Anna and Kristoff proudly.

"How pretty! You kids are all so amazing!" Brightly smiling and applauding beside Kristoff, kid friendly Anna sits up in her sleigh to fully glimpse the spectrum of lights all shooting up into the deep of night sky like vacillating beacons of strobe spotlights at a rock concert.

"CUPCAKE!" The multitude of the blankly blinking older Rock Trolls in the audience call out in eager excitement as 'Kristoff's girl' hops down to the ground from the sled to get a better view of the awe-inspiring lightshow in her honor.

They, as one, lift Anna's surprised form and begin to pass her happily from Troll to Troll like the tossed jelly bean they always did to the healthy young human female who always enjoyed herself here.

The rowdy rough Trolls were all quite unaware the Arendelle princess' new, more delicate condition.

"No! Guys! Stop it! Don't be roughhousing Anna! You have to quit it! Leave her be!" Kristoff's normally mellow voice, even raised, still goes unnoticed in the Trolls' singing and dancing jubilation to see their favorite Princess.

"ENOUGH!" In a mighty bellow that cuts across the wind itself, Snow Prince Kristoff uses his developed Spirit Wind Whisperer prowess' urgent call to command all to stop still in their tracks.

The deep throated voice and mental forewarning that sliced through each and every head, instantly halts the raucous crowd that his poor pregnant wife had been unwittingly pulled into a crowd surfing fiasco.

All the wide-eyed Trolls' jaws drop in utter silence, with absolutely no movement as they were frozen in place to hear this new, protectively masculine side of their soft and mellow, beloved son, Kristoff.

The children's lightshow and hummed singing abruptly stops in their practiced places. Their lighted letters scatter in a mess overhead, with frightened looks of shock written all over the kids' blinking, upset faces that were just on the verge of scared tears.

"But, why, Kristoff? Anna always loves being passed around in a good Troll crowd wave." The mountainman's best friend growing up, Little Rock, was bold enough to ask as he moves through the stunned troll crowd. With a quizzical worried look, Little Rock had rolled right up to where his human 'brother' had rushed to gather up his woozy Princess into his more careful, tender embrace.

"That is precisely because our Princess Anna is with child and must be treated very gently from now on, my Trolls, so as not to disturb the fragile infant growing within her body." Just then, wise old GranPabbie unrolls from his cave structure shrine in his moss green cape alongside the female Fire Troll leader that Anna recognized as Elsa's dear friend whom Olaf named 'Bonnie'.

"The wee miracle of new human life must be allowed to develop safely and be nurtured properly as every living creature has the right to flourish unharmed and un-enslaved into this bright new world. Just as we have been fortunate enough and blessed by the Creator above to be welcomed back to find a place in this world as like newborn babes ourselves. And together, as kin to not only our cousin Trolls, but our fellow human race as well, we must tenderly welcome he –or she- into our extensive family, next year." In a grand speech, the mahogany skinned, small troll-like, angular being moves close to touch her pointed clawed hand to Anna's tightening stomach under Kristoff's grateful nodding watch.

"Well said." GranPabbie looks in grateful assent to his associate Troll leader's sentiment.

Boninite may have been a secluded, thrown away slave Nibelung for her entire lifetime up until now, but she possessed a bright mind full of goodness. Plus a curiosity now to well learn this country's new language in place of the ancient Latin tongue of old as Queen Elsa had generously begun to instruct her on their road adventure together in the North.

And through her heart's Tenerity of friendship, Elsa had taught Bonnie the wondrous ability to read. Through its unlocked knowledge, the intelligent Fire Troll girl had gleaned as much of the ways of this bright world under the sun as she could possibly soak up from significant books under GranPabbie's wise direction to become a wise leader herself now.

BLINK. BLINK.

"A BABY! OUR KRISTOFF IS GOING TO BE A DADDY! PRINCESS ANNA FIXED OUR FIXER-UPPER UP GOOD! WE'RE GOING TO BE GRANDTROLLS, CLIFF!"

Broadly smiling and nodding enthusiastically through her tears, Bulda breaks the rest of the Trolls' collected silence.

One after another, the grey rocky faces eerily transform from distraught upset into simultaneously humongous grins up at the human couple rather than merely staring at a ferociously defensive Kristoff and the little woman wrapped in his protective arms in confusion.

A toothy smiling Anna tries to peek out from the folds of her hubby's furry coat security to glimpse the Trolls' reaction to her impending birth's news.

"YEAH! ANNA'S GOING TO LAY A BABY ROCK FOR OUR KRISTOFF TO CRACK OPEN!" Unaware he was inappropriately scaring Anna with the bizarre mystery of Rock Troll childbirth, Kristoff's adopted Dad Cliff wasn't the only Troll father who rushes up to Kristoff with handshakes and hammers that bespoke the strange Troll birthing ritual.

And the celebration from that moment on increased tenfold with lights and sound and songs anew ringing through the Valley as never before.

The noisy, loud at times, non-politically correct always, but absolutely well-meaning and kindly Trolls start dancing and singing all around with lyrical joik songs in homage to their boy Kristoff and the sparkling girl he brought home named 'Anna.'

Why shouldn't there be festivity? Their precious 'Princess Cupcake' was going to give to them all the joy of rearing and raising and sharing the newest and most unique member of their family with one another since Kristoff came to them.

And they may not understand how it would be born, that hidden package of God's blessing, but for certain the baby would be included in their great love.

Kristoff and Anna's child, yet to come, would join their happy Troll clan with humankind in this happy New Year in which their races would now spend together in freedom and peace at last, as family.


Back out on the sea...

With the North wind's direction favorable thanks to a certain Queen of the Winter, plus the daring Captain's increase of knot speed in the still waters all through the night, it took only a few days of ship's travel to reach the English Channel.

At the Port of Weselton, the Gler would make a short port stop near the city of Dover on the southeast coast of the British island.

Vise Admiral Westergaard had deftly plotted the Gler's best course with a good working knowledge of the late December undercurrents and tides.

Chancellor Esteban and Councilor Kai found in common at last, to their mutual surprise, that they both approved of the young Kommander's good sense of nautical judgment.

All experienced seafarers on board agreed that the savvy Danish sailor at the helm of the ship was completely competent in his assessment of how to traverse the Channel.

The youthful man ably directed the Gler to proper knot speed and sail length in accommodation with the ever-changing seas as he takes the Gler into the English Channel to pass smoothly through its rough waters in this section of their coastal journey.

As Eliana quietly fixed her hair, Queen Elsa was well beyond impressed to watch her commanding man in action, through her state room's porthole window. With the wet English weather slicking back his red hair to make it decidedly darker, Prince Hans was making arrangements with the local, thick Cockney accented port master at the Dover port to purchase some extra barrels of coal to be loaded to the Gler's boiler room coal bunkers.

The Danish Prince was diplomatic as he made a request for the delivery of the fresh coal he wished to obtain to top off the ship's already brimming supply. Hans wanted to insure that the rest of the trip to Lisbon, about eight hundred and fifty nautical miles south from London, would have adequate steam pressure without having to make another stop for the fuel needed to keep up a swifter moving 10 to 12 knot voyage, when only 6-8 was calculated back home.

But Prince Hans was one to always push the envelope.

Leading the group of port coal stokers to help shovel the metric tons of new coal into the Gler's bunker, hands-on Hans was down there to review the capacity of the multiple boilers which kept the Gler running at top speed.

As he praised his men at the boilers for producing proper PSI of the hand fired furnaces thus far, Kommander Westergaard had gained his loyal crew's trust already through the sleepless hours they witnessed from him standing at the helm steering and plotting proper course, while at breaks he personally inspected the craft too.

And the Vise Admiral more than earned their respect for now pitching in with the hard work of shoveling coal by their side. Rather than simply sitting back luxuriously in his Captain's chair at the bridge like most other Royal Kommanders would, and relax to leave the hands-on ship's duty for their capable first mate and junior officers to fulfill, Prince Hans wanted to join in the work and genuinely earn the respect of his crewmates.

Hans Westergaard had learned through hard knocks in life that to gain anything worthwhile – including respect – one must to work very hard at it and put oneself into the shoes of another.

Or even the work boots of those thought to be 'lessers' under him.

Add a fair share of indecent charm that spoke a language to all around, Hans certainly would win almost any sailor over.

"Doesn't JustHans handle the coaling for the boiler neatly? Kinda makes my coal buttons want to pitch in too! I've had three of them attached to me all my life, so I know everything about coal! If Bruni can do it, so can I!"

Elsa, with warm cheeks, comes out of her early morning reverie of peeking down into the engine room deck to watch her jacketless, rolled up sleeves, open shirted young and vital Vise Admiral.

The Kommander of the Gler was getting right into the spirit of taking turns with the crew and shoveling coal into his steamship's coaling bunkers, feeding the hungry, red-hot furnace that the curious Fire Spirit was secretly stoking since the ship docked.

"Olaf! You can't go down there!" Panicking for her eager, frosty friend, the Ice Queen herself as feeling just a wee tad woozy from the steamy heat emanating from where her equally steaming hot fiancé had been assisting his men below deck.

The shipmen had been tirelessly working overtime for hours since last night's stop in Wesleton Port, shoveling the fresh coal supplies into their boiler and ship's coal bin hoppers that would keep the Gler on a nonstop early schedule to Portugal, then all the way to South America in less than the one and a half month time proposed.

"Olaf shouldn't be in that hot dirty place with those rough men. They may unintentionally harm him in their activity of shoveling all that coal they've been bringing in from the dock. And I'm not sure if Olaf's permafrost layer can keep up with that sweltering heat and steam rising from down there. He may start to melt." Elsa clutches her own constricted throat in distress for her snowfriend, catching wind of him as she had been strolling on the cool deck wearing her tall collared, purple velvet dress.

"I should go down there to collect him myself, but…" Elsa trails off talking to herself, her shy eyes diverging to where more than a few of the sailors and local English coalmen under Hans' command had gone shirtless with the rising heat of the coal they were stoking and storing in the steam engine room of the Gler while filling its deep well coal bunkers to full capacity.

"Allow me, Your Majesty. Just leave it in my hands." Chancellor Esteban, who seemed to appear out of nowhere, smiles encouragingly to the blushing queen. "But maybe I'd advise that you and your delicate sensibilities better leave for your cabin's safety. Before the men finish their job and tear off in all states of filth and undress en masse to head to that bathhouse at the port dock they've all been eyeing." Esteban may not have been in the company of sailors much, but it didn't take much for him to pick up the overwhelming desire coming from the sweaty, hard-working men down below once Kommander Westergaard informed them their job was almost completed.

"Oh, my! ahem… Yes. Thank you, Chancellor. Please see that Olaf is… all right. I leave it completely in your hands." Elsa was whispering by the end, disturbed by the mental picture so vividly described to her mind's indeed delicate sensibilities.

Yet the 'fragile' Ice Queen could not help but steal an inquisitive look back as she was leaving, furtively searching for a mane of red.

That tall, thin framed, utterly gorgeous Captain was wiping the manly sweat from his own noble brow, as Hans had just given the command for their collective hours of dirty work to come to a successful close.

That is, until an especially slushy snowman bounds up to Hans and succeeds in lifting one meager shovelful of three or four missed chunks of coal which Olaf had spied down on the ground.

"I'm an expert at coaling!" Olaf announces merrily in front of the roaring furnace with a wobbling away grin as his branchy hands hold up the coals to his Captain.

"Well done, Ensign." A chuckling Hans congratulates this most misshapen crewmen as his keen green eyes shoot up to catch a glimpse of a cool platinum mirage hovering over the gangway entrance high above the boiler furnace sending Olaf, and thusly Hans, an edifying cool breeze Gale was only to glad to rustle over him.

Kommander Westergaard stiffens, raising his hand for a quick salute at the edifying maiden until he glances down at himself, sweaty and barely dressed, uncombed hair filthy and askew, his hands caked under folds of so much dirt. The gentleman in him knew he was unacceptable to even share a salute wave with such a regal Queen.

Glancing in the new boiler's shiny metal plate, Hans' hands and face were soiled and streaked with black coal dust as Hans gives himself a self-effacing grimace at his unsightly visage.

The dapper gentleman in him hardly would have ever invited his finicky fiancée to see him in such a state. But what else could Hans do now beyond gaze at Elsa unpretentiously with a lilting laugh and bid 'good morning' to his love.

Though she was flustered, as Elsa rushes past a bewildered Prince James and Prince Hugo on the upper deck doing some morning sit up calisthenics with their trio of giggling females pretending not to be ridiculing their efforts, the Norwegian Queen could not be more pleased with her own man.

Elsa had always admired her father in his dashing role as svelte and fit naval officer. And the young Prince she had become betrothed to lived up to his Admiral's meritorious service in comparison. Hans seemed more than willing to step right into the thick of the action beside his men as Elsa had heard and remembered tales of her valiant Papa always cited as doing the same, therefore gaining the respect and admiration of his fleet.

How could she not fall in love with such a man who had the same convictions as her father? How could she not want to spend the rest of her life with such a noble man?

"Queen Elsa? Is anything the matter?" Considerate Princess Sofia pauses in her stroll under her sun parasol with the other girls to ask.

"Umm… The coaling is almost complete." Elsa breathlessly informs the quartet of young women. They were to be joined by their Queen for the morning stroll in which she persuaded them to get some early morning sun vitamin filled rays, rather than be cooped up below deck, mooning like silly schoolgirls.

"Then why are you blushing so violently? Hmm?" A smiling Princess Amber observes her Royal counterpart in an elbowed tease.

GULP!

"Many of the naval shipmen who had so diligently loaded the new coal just delivered to us from the dock, had become so dirty and exhausted in this overnight coaling. So the Vise Admiral decided to allow them a well-deserved luxury to join the local coal port stokers at a local bathing house just across the way." The Queen of Arendelle spills out all in one breath to the group of young women with a nod down towards the building on the edge of the British cobblestone street just a block or two beyond the pier where the Gler was docked.

"A bathhouse?!"

"Where?!"

"How thrilling!"

"More like scandalous!"

The four princesses' reactions were as varied as they were, although their curiosity in peeking over the ship's railing was all the same.

Sofia, Amber, Cleo and Hildegard's eyes all pop out to glimpse the indeed black coal dirt stained, shirtless – even in the chilled foggy English weather – strapping workmen of all shapes and ages and sizes that come streaming from the lower bilge deck of the damnation hot ship's furnace they had been coaling into for hours.

The princesses' early morning spying of the teams of filthy, colorful language speaking males, was discovered when Princess Hildey is jostled by Sofia and Amber trying to get a more advantageous view.

She drops her lacy blue parasol which the fair skinned royal young woman from Germany was using to shield much of the sun's rays from ruining her delicate complexion.

"Woo hoo, Boyos! Looks like we had a dishy audience!"

"Let's make it worth their price of admission! Hee hee hee hee!"

"Yeah! Hiya, girlys! Are you sights for these poor sailors' eyes!"

"Care to come down to get a better view of the merchandise?! We can teach you a lot more than those stuck up Royal toffs you're forced to keep company with, luscious ladies! Ha ha ha ha!"

Some even more sensational language emanates from the rowdy local British coal stokers, with more than a few of the emboldened younger Norwegian shipman of the Gler joining in the cackling taunts.

All were downright rude as they caught sight of the quintet of young, pretty faces staring down from over the railing at the exhausted men on their way to the bathhouse.

Despite the cool winter temperatures while making catcalls and whistles up to the five royal women, the hot, sweaty sailors begin a crude striptease in the most indecent way before the flustered Princesses, causing shy Cleo to shriek away with aghast Hildey not far behind, and proper Amber to unleash a stern reprimand down at the cackling 'common, low class demons' making such a ruckus in crude display before royal ladies.

"GENTLEMEN! Gentlemen, please! Please show these lovely ship passengers the courtesy and decorum expected of you that your honorable, respected Queen Victoria has made England renowned for, to all visitors throughout the world!" From the carriage watching in the street nearby, a foreign accented voice breaks through the boisterous gang of raucous men with its soft, commanding tone.

"You heard the man! I am appalled at such ill-manned behavior! I expect my ship's crewmen to give proper apology or face dire punishment in the brig!" In his most stern voice, Kommander Westergaard shows his fierce authority in a formidable reprimand to his sailors. His shirt collar already buttoned up and jacket on, Vise Admiral Westergaard, at the rear of the crowd of noisy seamen, too raises his mild voice to intercede on behalf of the women's honor.

"You are a little harsh with your men, Sir. If I may say, are you not very young to be captain of such a fine vessel? Though I must admire you for pitching in the workload with your crew." The tall, thin, dark haired, Germanic accented young man of royal deportment, steps out from his royal insignia carriage door to speak with the dirt-streak faced Hans, who was obviously in charge of at least some of these shame-faced sailors.

"I am no younger than the ruling Queen of my country. Nor you yours. Your Serene Highness? Am I not correct that it is you I am addressing under that cloak, Sir?" Self-consciously wiping the coal smut from his face with his handkerchief, Prince Hans airs his suspicion.

He had a feeling that the young man, thereabouts his age, sporting a svelte moustache and a thick wave fringe of hair tossed over one eye was none other than Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

"Ah, my wife's fame precedes me. Do I have the privilege to be speaking to the youngest Vice Admiral in the history of any Navy on the high seas, Vice Admiral Westergaard. You see? I have heard of you as well, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. Please, simply call me Albert." The breathy, soft-spoken young man awards Hans with a winning smile and courteous bow, along with an extended hand in friendship from beneath his vaguely concealed identity.

"Hans." The Danish Prince convivially accepts the like handshake and nods his familiar address to this disguised German husband of the recently crowned, young Queen Victoria of England.

"Fair cop, gov'nors. We didn't mean no wrong to the ladies. We'd like to convey our sincerest apologies, most terribly." The apparent designated spokesman of the group of seamen and cockney coalers humbly comes, hat in hand, up to Hans and Albert.

"Your words of contrition should be directed to these honorable ladies, who are wholly deserving of your respect and decency. Are they not?" Prince Hans insinuates with his reproofing eyes upward to where Princesses Sofia, Amber and Hildegaard were still on deck listening in curiosity, and now joined by Queen Elsa and Queen Miranda with an arm around a skittish Princess Cleo as well.

"Pardon us, Ma'ams."

"Sorry for that."

"No hard feelings, luvs."

Many of the made ashamed sailors and coalmen hang their heads, with hats in hands to give their best attempts at contrite apology up to where Sofia, Amber, Hildegaard nod in acceptance. Elsa gazes in amazed pride down upon her righteous Kommander who had informed those crude men how to treat a lady.

"Yeah! That's more like it, men! And after your bath, there'll be the lemonade and drinks for everyone as reward! Right, Captain?" Olaf offers from where he was right behind the Vise Admiral, after Hans had fished the clumsy snowman out of the coal bin, searching for his 3 coal buttons that had gone missing in the process.

Naïve Olaf had no idea that his innocent offer of lemonade and drinks to the worldly crowd of sailors and workmen was to be little more than a fruity soft drink, cocoa or tea which he was accustomed to.

But Prince Hans, exchanging a smirk of chagrin with Prince Albert - who was more than intrigued by the walking, talking, unmeltable magic snowman - was hardly that naively innocent to not recognize what temptation his loudmouthed, frozen friend had just offered the working-class men.

"Absolutely. In gratitude for your timely service, gentlemen, the Admiralty will gladly treat you to your refreshment after we all go to cleanse ourselves and cool off before returning to your duties." The Vise Admiral receives a rousing cheer from the satiated crowd of dockworkers who now wholeheartedly stream into the bathhouse, with the promise of free liquor to follow from the pub next door.

"But only watered down glasses for my ship's crew, Mr. Polen, or docked pay awaits their reward." The savvy Kommander mutters on the side to his trusted ship's purser, who quietly and dutifully held the ship's monetary doling out routine in his mature older hands.

"Aye-aye, Captain." The seasoned seamen Lieutenant Polen obeys his sagacious leader as he makes a beeline for the open twenty-four hours public tavern house just beside the Turkish bath to settle the hard drink watered down arrangements by way of the ship's cash stores that would be withheld from the local barman if he did not comply.

The Dane was worldly enough to know that a well run ship did not employ inebriated men in its hasty workings. Or anywhere near the vicinity of his precious passengers either.

"I don't suppose you care to join us, Your Highness?" Hans chuckles at the embarrassing situation he found himself in.

"No. I was just on my way to a small church down the street, to attend a meeting of the 'Society for the Extinction of Slavery' held by the American slave abolitionists, in an hour or so. That's when I saw this, how do you say? – ruckus. I am a great proponent of the social causes of our day, and the just equality of all people for the betterment of mankind is one dear to my heart." Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the 24-year-old Prince Consort of his beloved young wife Queen Victoria for almost three years, had become renowned already for his admiration and advocacy support to such just public causes.

And his banner could be no more noble for crucial topics such as slave abolition, education reform, child labor and safety, not to mention women's rights in the workplace that all were reshaping the continent's old ways.

Prince Albert firmly believed 'it was the duty of those who, under the blessings of Divine Providence, enjoy station, wealth, and education to assist those less fortunate than themselves.'

"Then, Albert, may my men who wish to, and I, join you at that most commendable chapel meeting once we are cleaned up? I, too, am interested in such important issues in other countries to learn further about, as we expand our horizons in the world beyond our small northern corner, on behalf of my betrothed, Queen Elsa. There's much I must pray for of the Good Lord's blessings to shine upon the rest of our journey of which I hold much responsibility." Hans candidly confers with his fellow handsome young prince, feeling some instant, weighty degree of camaraderie with the royal young man who was experiencing much the same situation as he.

As Princes, one already married to, one pledged to wed a Queen, they were both placed in a difficult arrangement with the question of male pride and dignity. Both Albert and Hans, upon being wed to their respective monarch Queens, would forever be 'husband', but never 'master' of the house of their wives, as the hierarch typical position males held in most other societies.

These charming Prince Consorts were still subjects under their rulers, and would be looked upon as such by all others, until the day they died.

"I am still learning that I must be not only my Queen's rock, but also her voice of conscience, in subtle unspoken ways when she is unsure. Or rather, when she is too sure. I feel it is my role to never let her forget God created her with a compassionate heart, before He made her to be monarch Queen." As they walk side by side to the church, Albert gives some of his experienced advice to the young prince about to be in the same position.

So with a smiling salute up to Elsa, whom he instinctively knew was watching, a coal smudged Prince Hans follows the bare chested dockworkers and several of his noisy crewmen into the Turkish bathhouse to cleanse their bodies and maybe afterwards, a few of their close-minded souls as well.


A short time after attending the rousing, anti-slavery meeting with Prince Albert and a handful of his willing, good Christian and social warrior shipmates, the Prince of Southern Isles found himself ushered into a public house for that full glass of lemony water which he instructed only could be offered to any members of his crew.

"Hiya, JustHansie-boy. Here, Have one on me." The wobbling on his pins, overzealous snowman had been ordering nonstop drinks for the coalers and crew and himself as well as he waited for Hans to return in the interim.

"He thinks he's drunk, Sir, but it's just sugar water." Whispering in Hans' ear, Mr. Polen the ship's purser stayed on in the pub as his captain directed, babysitting Olaf and the rest of the crew.

"Right. So, let us fill our final glasses, gentlemen, to liberty, to freedom, and to Her Majesty the Queen!" Prince Hans knew his local audience believed his toast to be an homage to their prominently imposing, royal young Queen of this wide spread British Empire where the sun never set.

But on whatever soil, whichever waters he was sailing, in his heart, those words would always and forever be only for one name that his lips would drink to.

"To the Queen!" Heavily accented British citizens' voices mingle in respect with the foreign sounding crowd of Norwegians who also raise their glasses and stand in honor tribute to the two female ruling monarchs to whom, by God's design, they were all in the service thereof.

"To the Queen." With a smile from his new royal friend, Prince Albert, Hans lifts his own glass with keen eyes that were sure saw the glint of sparkling ice dazzling in the sunlight in the view of his ship's foredeck overlooking the English Channel.

'She may be the Queen of the entire Empire, and I will never be its King, but she is still my wife, as God intended for me to watch over her. We may argue at times, but Victoria still looks to me for strength, for stability, for clarity to see subjects as an outsider would, now and then.

And at the end of every chaotic day she secretly waits for that affectionate embrace to know she is loved, and not alone to face the nation's struggles. Your Queen Elsa will need you, as much as you need her in the quiet and in the storm, to protect and cherish as every other normal couple would, more than either of you will ever know.'

Hans recalls his afternoon's poignant conversations with the deep thinking young Prince who preceded him to wed his Queen, and was kind enough to share guidance in what it took to being a Prince Consort in Her Majesty's service.

As together the gentlemen leave the public establishment, young Prince Albert brushes his infamous curled ebony lock of hair from his eyes and directs a flourishing bow up to Queen Elsa still waiting and watching them from on deck of the Gler.

With a bewildered glance to an encouraging Hans' smile, Elsa then modestly nods and blushes at the flattering attention from the dapper German Prince, as the other royal Princesses titter around her their approval of the pair of beautiful young men.


Min hviddue – My Dove

Min raevstorre – My Great Fox


Hello my dear Frozen Again friends!

Do you like the starry-eyed pet names Hans and Elsa are using these last chapters? I thought it a cute change to their normal monikers for each other.

Now, did you see we had a historical cameo from the most famous Prince of the Victorian era? I could not pass England by without giving a nod to a man I admired for years of his forward-thinking kindness and generosity, who really made a difference to the British monarchy in he real-life incredible love story between Victoria and Albert.

Have you seen the PBS drama series of their young lives and romance together? As a 'Dr. Who' fan, I followed to watch adorable Jenna Coleman (Clara) in anything – she's a great actress in period pieces as well as sci-fi! And her height of only 4' 11' made the popular actress the perfect fit for diminutive Queen Victoria. And as for the actor they chose for Prince Albert…Wow! Good-looking Tom Hughes blows me away with his believable skill at a German accent, while still retaining that breathy vulnerability that I think a true gentle man like Prince Albert deserves.

And the debonair moustache with chic sideburns is working for me on a man nowadays. Plus that beautiful, fair-minded soul seeking equality for all God's children so fitting in this celebrated month.

I recommend you catch an episode to see who I envision and hear as this episode's guest star of the Prince Consort of the most powerful woman in the world at that time for over 60 years of reign in this greatest real-life love story. Check it out if you're into classical period piece romance only the Brits can do proper.

Now, as for my Frozen Again, Victorian era love story…

Kristoff and Anna on a free and easy road trip to see the Rock Troll family was fun, eh? Especially that spur of the moment second honeymoon touch where the young lovers got a little frisky in that ingenious reclining sleigh bed. :) Just a sweet moment of marital bliss and reaffirmed romance showing Kristoff's unwavering support to keep Anna grounded with his love.

And wasn't Hans dreamy, first stargazing with her by night, then coaling with the men in the morning?

Elsa certainly is being swept off her feet in this amazing journey down the coast to Portugal with her gorgeous Kommander Westergaard before heading out to Brazil for Valentina's wedding to Alonso!

Portugal, first, eh…I think that be an important shore... Wonder what guest star(s) we'll encounter there?

Maybe someone more in the Disney Princess lineup…

We'll find out who, and some other riveting encounters for our romantic travelers next time in Frozen Again, my friends!

God bless you and the loves of your lives as we celebrate the day of sweets and flowers and romance to come!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Love and hugs,

Haruka

And if you don't have that someone special to cozy up to yet, remember that Jesus loves you with the greatest love of all!