To Your Majesty the Queen,
So I guess it's safe to say that this standoff marks a standstill in our relationship. The way you responded wasn't at all what I was expecting, but it revealed a great deal. I believed you when you said your accident, priorities, and guilt had a lot to do with your circumvention. I am completely at fault for not taking those complications into consideration, but it's hard to do that when I don't know the whole story. I'm nonetheless not totally convinced by your explanation because you got unnecessarily defensive about Aloysius, for one thing.
If I offended you or hurt you in any shape or form, then I apologize for my part for the umpteenth time. Hurting you wasn't what I set out to do, but it almost seems unavoidable at this point. To make it easier on ourselves, we don't have to get into it again about trust, your manipulative ex-fiancé, or conditional family bonding. I see now that those topics are sore spots. Our convictions about the middle subject will most likely never mesh.
What we should do is focus on staying statesmanlike without letting our "relationship" get in the way of what's important. We've clearly been losing sight of the most crucial rapport here, which is the one (or lack thereof) between the Crowns of Arendelle and Corona. Aside from not having any time for myself, I almost didn't write to you at all because I felt like I needed to step away from this overemotional intermission we've been having before one or both of us imploded. I'm already worn out from arguing with my own council. Since you haven't written to me again, I can only assume that you're taking the same break.
Whatever you've done with Aloysius, Kasimir, Hans, and the rest of that family is something I'm sure you already did before I sat down to finish this letter. Your ships are still coming and your sailors are still saying you haven't set foot in the Southern Isles or Norrlind, so I know you aren't physically in harm's way. I naturally would have liked to stop you from going through with your evermore heavily shrouded plans by writing long paragraphs of rage to dissuade you, but my common sense reminded me that I can't keep losing my head over a situation I'm powerless in. I can only respect your choice and pray that you know what you're doing this time around; just fill me in on the details whenever you get a chance, because you at least owe me that much.
My mystery woman was more of a swindler than a suitress, and it actually took me a few months to find your letter underneath all the book-length love notes she's been sending me. My council arrived at the delusional conclusion that my daughter is unfit to take the throne, so having another child with another princess to secure another alliance was their idea of a backup plan. But as you and I both know, no women in their right minds are lining up at my door to have children with my DNA ― or so I thought. Lady Luck unfortunately proved me wrong by dropping herself on my desk in the middle of April. Fatima, the childless Queen Dowager of Setúball, wrote me a schmaltzy letter that gradually transitioned into hundreds of schmaltzy letters about her undying love for me.
She and I are ― or were ― rather good acquaintances. Before I became who I am today, Setúball was one of the first kingdoms I ever negotiated with, so I had a decent reputation in her court. Her then-husband asked us to restrict our interaction to banquets "or else" because she had become smitten with me. She thankfully never acted upon her unrequited feelings or snubbed Rapunzel in the process. She never discriminated against me because of my background, either.
When Fatima reached out to me just recently, she honestly didn't sound like an opportunist. She went on and on about securing a good future for my country. My council thought Setúball was sincere. The conditions her parliament revealed after grooming my ministers into the idea of a personal union ended up revealing the opposite, so my men ultimately dropped the engagement. It's a good thing that I'm used to con artists by now.
The past few months have been kinder to Corona. Flares are still coming and going, but we've created an even more organized health care system now that our herbalists know what they're doing, and the livestock have been under tighter supervision. Crops are slowly bringing some hope back to the kingdom. Rugen itself is still struggling in some parts. For this reason, we need Chatho to ship another load of inoculations before October.
It'll take another year of remissions and relapses before certain people can truly call themselves better, but more inoculations would be helpful. Lastly, I really do want to mention how sorry I am for upsetting you so much with my March letter to the point where you got hurt so badly. Epic ice fleet aside, I won't give you any more reasons to go making emotional decisions like that again. We can leave the negotiations to our representatives. They'd like that.
From Corona,
XIX of September, 1849
King Eugene