Headnote:
This last chapter is absolutely my favorite one in this story, but aside from the title change, I added a 2024 extension that starts after Elsa mentions Eugene's captain. Please enjoy.
༺[❄]༻|o0o|༺[✸]༻
"I was just about ready to drop my sword and offer my life so that my daughter could live hers,
but then I saw your crocus flag flickering in the wind, and I couldn't get off my knees fast enough to run over to
who I thought was you standing on that pier. To my surprise, it wasn't you at all.
The person waiting for me at the end of the dock was your admiral. I don't want you to think I was any less grateful or relieved.
It's just that I was really hoping, after everything we've been through, that the very first person to run up to me on that pier
would be you."
― Eugene Fitzherbert (My Dearest Cousin)
The season in Elsa's face changed from a dreary winter to a dewy summer dawn, and her eyes, which didn't blink, were not the same twinklers of the chilblained demoiselle on coronation day. They were wise, they were alive, and they were seeping right through him.
"...Ah...ha..." A queer phenomenon thawed the most calloused parts of Eugene. It moved surely between the couloirs of his conscience without name or interruption, cascading into memories that canoed him back to the night in December of 1849, when a silhouette had materialized from the snow hours ahead of Corona's war with the Southern Isles before dispersing in the wake of two blinks.
The hands of that manifestation's creatress walked over each other on the back of her chair as she came around the table. Eugene was too ensorcelled by the stardust she was gowned in to process her progression, but he dimly realized that her bodice was closing the gap thirteen years had widened between them. What he didn't realize was how far back he was leaning until two skinny arms pulled him forward. A whimper gushed from Elsa's mouth as their bosoms collided. She perched her moist chin on his epaulet and held his shoulder blades with her palms, squeezing him against every grain of magic on her body.
With his chin tucked into the bevel between her shoulder and her neck, Eugene blinked dumbly at the glitter that blinked back at him from Elsa's nape. His heart stuttered when he felt the dimple in the corner of her mouth smiling against his skin, the sigh leaving her piping hot nose to fall into his hair, the briny tears kissing his neck, and the little jackhammer punching his ribs. His body felt all of her—all of her melting into butterflies and chrysanthemums and pollen-drunk summer mornings—like the hug had just allowed her to breathe, to be. He didn't, however, feel his eyes dripping despite the mess they were making on his cheeks.
—"I sincerely wanted to be the one running down that dock to pull you into my arms, Eugene..."—
By no volition of his own, the steel sutures of his grudge came undone in Elsa's arms. She expelled what sounded like another breath of uncontainable happiness before peeling her cheek off Eugene's neck. He looked all over her parting form with a strand of her hair pasted against his wet nose, taking in her crystal-studded scalp and backcombed bangs. The fingers that slid into his hands and held them like tulips were not the icicles journalists had ridiculed; their temperature was below seventy degrees, to be sure, but they carried the soothing coolness of a spring breeze. He looked at Elsa's face to look for Elsa.
Elsa's eyelashes, which were glued together by tears, feathered cheeks that held the same hue rosing her lips. Inch by inch, she hoisted her chin with the serenity of a saint raising her head from prayer, and then hoisted her lids at half-mast to bare her heart to Eugene. Like someone had shone a ray of sunlight through blue shards of glass, her eyes unleashed a kaleidoscope of emotions onto him. In their core quivered a cosmic concentration of love, a soggy collection of all the letters she'd never sent, the words she'd never written—words he'd longed to see with hands and eyes and a face that was actually real. And now that she was here—moving those scarlet appendages called lips—crying with tear-soaked cheeks that looked shinier than a lacquered table—he couldn't hear a single word she was saying.
It hurt to talk, so he didn't. Couldn't. His chest was flooded up to the ceiling with cold and warm feelings—unfamiliar and unforgettable feelings—feelings from a time when she had said that he mattered and was a king whom Rapunzel would've been proud of, a king whose side Arendelle would bulwark.
—"You don't have to repay me for anything in any lifetime; you are still my cousin before you are my ally, and Corona is still Arendelle's brother before he is her trade partner. All I've ever really wanted from you was for you to open up without shutting me out or hiding behind a false front that did more harm than good."—
Something hot and heavy tapped Eugene's top lip.
—"It's okay not to hide behind a joke after something traumatic has happened. It's okay to open your heart. It's okay to say that you can't take it anymore. 'It's okay to not be okay.'"—
Eugene could no longer tell if he was gazing into Elsa's eyes. The canvas they peered out of was fuzzy and misshapen behind the pall of tears soaking his beard, but he could feel her fingernails stripping his damp forelock off his cheek. He could feel her hands cupping his quivery jaw and smearing the tears under his eyes with their thumbs. He could feel the mucus that cottoned his nostrils skating down the groove of his mouth and settling inside the cleft.
Elsa inched closer, holding his eyes like a breath. His head ticked, lips bobbing in an attempt to speak. Her eyes rolled shut as her mouth pressed against his forehead the way a cloud would press against the sun.
—"Before you go to bed every night and after you wake up every morning, I want you to tell yourself that you are worth Frederic's crown; you are trying as hard as you can; you do have the strength to get through this; your existence does matter, and you have always deserved to be loved."—
Eugene shuddered. Cracked. Opened. Whimpered. Elsa's thumbs stroked his ears as she peeled her lips off his burning third eye and leaned back to see him.
He had to look at her mouth because he couldn't look at her eyes. Too much cored them—too much affection and security and vulnerability that he'd always wanted to see but couldn't now because...because...
—"Being taught from a young age that the world isn't safe isn't easy to abolish."—
Elsa continued to speak without sound as the cursive letters in his head spoke with smarminess.
—"But I hope you see now that my loyalty is undying."—
Yesteryear's yester fears demolished the couloirs of his conscience without warning or interruption, rolling over memories that oared him back to insomniac nights smothered by paranoia, regicides foaled by traitors, propaganda penciled by invaders, and the ineludible fear of trusting warm gazes ever again...
—"Here I am, trying to inspire in you the will to go on, and you blow me away with an unimaginable amount of passion and purpose that I wish I had when I was crowned. You truly have the capacity for devotion and valiance that surpasses so many princes on our continent's isles. I want you to hold onto that spirit and never let it go."—
His tears were too heavy and it hurt to breathe...
—"Eugene." Volume synced with Elsa's lips. "Eugene, look at me." She had to hold his head in order to keep it from going limp because his tears were too heavy and it hurt to breathe. "Look me in my eyes..."
Shaking, Eugene looked at Elsa's mouth. He looked at her mouth because he couldn't look at her eyes.
—"For as it is Arendelle's obligation to protect Corona from bane, it is my duty to devote my love and life to you, and thus I will stand in this indentureship until I have no life left to live."—
Elsa parted her lips to say—
"You lied," he filled in, chopping off her speech with the astonishment in his blubber.
Her lips stood open. Eugene looked up. Elsa was staring at him with the lifelessness of a vegetable. A tear surfaced and rolled down her cheek, painting it with a skid mark. His fingers wrapped around her wrists and pulled them down.
Elsa watched her hands sink as his face abandoned her palms, leaving them empty and alone. She looked back up at him in a panic. The whites of her eyes glistened like the insides of a seashell.
Eugene stepped back and melted into the shadows, shaking his head as he frowned at the soggy watercolors that were now becoming her face. "That whole t-time..."—he squinted—"you lied."
"No..." It was such a lonesome sound—such a paralytic, weak, and injured little whimper holding as much huskiness as it did faintness—that it was a wonder whether she was denying his accusation or hallucinating some other nightmare entirely.
With his voice shaking like a rope being walked on, more vitriol fountained from Eugene: "You said everything—...everything I needed to hear when I needed someone...and then stopped once you had everything you needed from me—"
"No, that's not — I-I didn't—..." Elsa squeezed her eyes shut. Wrinkles crowned the corners. "I never lied to you, I-I—"
"Not telling me that your plan all along was to force me into some—...sham wedding was you not lying to me?" If Eugene had been sound, he would've pelted his anger at her with more force, but his clogged pipes made every word a breaking dam. "You lied about having my back without Arendelle needing anything in return—"
"Eu-gene—"
"You lied about your whole...revulsion against getting married—"
"Eu-GENE—"
"And you lied about doing everything in your power to protect me and my daughter from them—"
"Eugene, I didn't LIE to you!" She was helpless from her own anger now; he could hear the bewilderment in her pants even though he couldn't see its projection on her face. "Would you just—"
"Why didn't you come back, then? You, you...y-you said that you were going to use your snow bees to come back, but you never did—"
"Just let me speak!" Her outburst was a thunderclap in its own right, leading Eugene to reread the ten-year-old mental note he'd made to stay away from Elsa if she ever became volatile. She appeared to have read the reason behind his silence because her sigh was shadowed by a softer approach. "Just..." Elsa surrendered her palms and relaxed her shoulders, opening her eyes as wide as she could make them. "Let—me—explain..."
Eugene's nostrils stood out and throbbed.
"...Please."
The water in his respiratory tract rose to his trachea, and he failed to moor his expression in the tide. He needed land. He needed an island. He needed to be alone. Walking away from Elsa provided a shoreline, but Elsa's voice harpooned him in the back:
"You can't, run from this, Eugene!"
His blood ran cold.
"...Neither of us can..."
The cold ran out of him. He didn't know how, or why, her descent from exasperation to desperation in two trembling sentences made him focus more on the gravity in her point than the gravity of his pain just then. He stopped staring into the void his thoughts had carved to look at the fate his reign had created.
This brumal replacement of Rapunzel's sunlight, who represented the bastille that would imprison him till death do them part, returned, halfheartedly, to the asperity that made her the queen. "But we both have explaining to do." Seven watery words, rough shore-slappers in their dispatch, and she'd canoed them away from war and into the harbor of a new treaty.
Eugene couldn't dock his thoughts or his emotions, and he blamed being stranded at sea on her, but there was no swimming around the whirlpool that was their wedding. They would be married whether he loved her or not. They would be sharing a lifetime whether he wanted her or not. Although he'd soldiered on, wept and ran sightlessly through this battlefield called sovereignty, Eugene didn't have a brave bone in his body. Nothing in the stars told him that he could survive this.
He docked his bottom on a chair by the table and slid his hands down the sides of his nose, sliding old tears off his face. The glittering sediments on his heart lines were an embarrassment to his dignity. He folded his fingers into his palms and squeezed them with his thumbs. Eugene's heart regressed whenever it felt gimleted, impelling him to run away from the stabber and cut off all emotional ties for the comfort that distance promised, but Corona's status made it to where he had no other choice except to depend on Elsa's favor.
"Kings do not run or hide," the ghost of his father-in-law thundered as it stood behind him. "They must weather whatever storm their crown has thrown their way."
Eugene opened his eyes and breathed, melting the illusion. "...Fine," he mumbled more to his father-in-law than to Elsa. He sat back with his arms akimbo and rolled his head up to her, expressionless. The tears still sheened his cheeks. "I'm listening..."
Elsa's chest sank and swelled like a sea wave that was gradually calming. Her lucent shoes pulled her towards him until their toes were at a comfortable distance. Eugene should have felt uneasy from having to look up at her, but the unease stemmed from beholding her. His gaze studied her dress before sitting back on her face. He gulped.
She was breathtaking, and he hated it. Unlike ten years ago, her beauty was enhanced by her making a scintillant art out of being herself, an unapologetic statement that gave society the other cheek, and acknowledging how beautiful that statement looked felt like a betrayal against Rapunzel.
In the way of a constant worrier, Elsa stood with her forefingers and thumbs joined at the nails below her navel. She was making a point not to look away from him, to his frustration, but there was effort in her gaze, as well as a little less softness than before. "Do you remember when I told you that I can't use my snow bees as often as I thought I could because the teleportation depletes my energy?"
Eugene's preoccupation drifted from the curve of her shoulders to the skin bared by her style of dress. He looked away, angrily tapping his fingernail against the table. "Something to that effect..."
"...Do you remember when I said to you that if my thoughts break the connection, I can't make contact?"
Eugene looked away from his guilt to look at the fingertips standing on the table. They glided towards him with the grace of a swan sailing across a lake. Small, shiny beads blinded him with quick flashes as the gown they were sewn on swayed with her hips. Caution and other conflictions made themselves visible in the tightness of his fists.
"I traveled to Corona eight times before and after the Petition for Marriage had been signed, but I only managed to reach your castle twice in all eight of those times. On both occasions, I found Isolde's room. I figured you'd be there because that's where you said you always tried to be at night." Elsa paused, both in speech and stride. "...When I got there, I saw her artwork on the walls and floor."
Eugene's thoughts changed direction.
Elsa presented her fist to Eugene ever so hesitantly. The fingers inside unfurled from the palm like a flower opening. "There were paintings of Rapunzel, you, and her...hugging under what looked like lanterns, as far as I could tell." Three blue snowflakes waltzed above the base of Elsa's hand. Their dendrites grew limbs and heads until they formed three recognizable people doing exactly what Isolde had painted.
The season in Eugene's face changed from a dreary winter to a dewy summer dawn...
"...And then, I saw you. Both of you, sleeping on a bed that was two sizes too small. You were only silhouettes at the time, but I could see the bed clearly. It was a pink castle bed with...lavender turrets and...cream stairs." A castle built by concentrated particles of snow dust replaced the first incarnation, adopting the architecture of the real thing.
Overwhelmed, Eugene's face pinkened.
"I don't exactly remember every color, but...I remember seeing Rapunzel's paintings on the wooden towers..." A warm smile could be heard and felt in Elsa's narration. "They were paintings of vines and pink roses planted by you, Rapunzel, her parents, Maximus, Pascal, and your pub friends. They looked like they had been painted with love..."
Eugene felt a tremor widen from his center like a ripple in a pond. Sunlight from an old memory ate his vision until it was all that he could see. Inside the sunlight flowered pink shoulders and the back of a brunette head. The hand that extended from a frilly sleeve guided a red paintbrush across a wooden turret. Echoing from what sounded akin to the bottom of a canyon was the wistful voice of Rapunzel, "I feel like I've already met Isolde in a dream..."
The flashback dried up, allowing Elsa's face to reblossom in Rapunzel's place. He couldn't see enough of it to loathe the transition. He couldn't see anything past the water running over his eyes and drowning out the world again. Eugene blinked, which was an action that only hatched more tears, and then degraded his gaze to his lap. Two splotches browned his pants.
Eugene's thumb and index finger lifted to squeeze his gritted eyelids, applying pressure against pressure to stop what was surging up. Then it exploded out. The second Elsa's hand touched his elbow pit, the uprush exploded out. Spasmodic contractions of the throat, the inability to catch his breath, the failure to fight the calcification in his lungs, the tsunami of tears—he couldn't weather any of it alone. He felt sick and helpless; he felt abandoned.
The anchor on his elbow pit graduated to his nape during the storm. Its presence was uncertain and timid as it rested there, perhaps because its admiral didn't know how much he would let her into his blizzard, but the coolness she distributed felt nice against his boiling skin. Eugene's breathing started to find its rhythm after his body started to lose its strength. Everything, from tears to tenacity, had been wrung out of him, and his mind was left with space, ache, and memories of what it felt like to have Rapunzel's head on his chest. Elsa's touch glissaded down his wrist and splayed over his knuckles to fill the lonely gaps between his fingers with her own.
Now he really looked at her.
Her blue, blue eyes danced back and forth across his brown ones as she sat on her haunches, reflecting his intense gaze like light from a mirror. "You're not alone," they said. "I'm here with you. I've always been..."—her grip tautened—"and I always will be."
Every muscle in Eugene's face worked to dam the groundswell in his chest. He drank down his anguish before looking at his knees. "I-I thought..." 'Speak. Start with something. Anything. Tell her.' "I thought that you n-never...you n-never..."
The fingers that were so tightly braided in his disentangled from them to squeeze his right hand. The palm that was so soothingly cooling his nape took hold of his left. Elsa's grip on both gave him the strength to look into her eyes.
Elsa pulled his hands closer to her chest and craned her neck, milking every syllable in her testimony, "I always...tried to come back for you, Eugene." She desperately searched his eyes for understanding. "I came back as many times as I possibly could. You have to believe that."
Three tears fell from his goatee and splashed against her wrist. "...I..." He blinked.
"..." Elsa's frown tightened.
"..." Eugene's frown receded. "...I..." He tried to pour everything that afflicted him into her eyes. "...I-I..." He was drowning in his own storm again, and couldn't hold the words long enough in his throat to get them out.
Elsa sighed before frowning at their plaited fingers. Her mouth reeled open and stayed open, showing the bottom row of her teeth. "Eugene..." She stroked the length of his thumbs with her thumbs.
He suddenly had the feeling that she was leaving him. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. When her fingers began to slip away like the cool water his body needed after so many years in the desert, he panicked. Without neither knowing nor thinking 'Why?' — he panicked.
The color in her nose bloomed redder than a rose, but she calmly regained control over her expression. Something had happened. Something had changed. "Before you and I go any further tonight...we need to talk about what happened yesterday, as well as your captain's reliability." Elsa returned his hands to his lap, refunding his sentiments.
"Wait." Eugene squeezed Elsa's fingers with more strength than she was prepared for.
Wide eyes swam back to his face, seeing the shadow of seriousness come over it.
"The letters you wrote," he whimpered with mucus in his heart, deaf to everything except his fear of drowning.
Elsa held her breath.
"All those letters you wrote…th-they…" He placed her hand in his palm to caress it with both of his. A tear fell between their fingers like a sun-drop falling from the sky of his eyes. "They helped me stay alive."
Elsa stared at him, echoing the words in her mind. His gaze was like a sunset, warm and fading away from her with every second of silence that deepened her speechlessness. The queen rowed her heart away from politics and into the sea of emotions rolling between them by making space for his loneliness. She leaned closer until she was holding the side of his head to look inside of him. The depth of her gaze opened the door to his soul.
Mucus that had been building in Eugene's chest gushed from his nose as he smiled at her shining eyes. His smile held more guilt than relief, as if he was forcing his voice to stay in the back of his throat. She gave him a smile of her own, holding only warmth in hers. Tears rained down his face. The cool fingers on his temple lowered to his cheek.
Eugene's shoulders bounced as soft sobs spilled from his mouth. "I'm sorry..."
Moved to tears, Elsa wrapped her arms around him and let him tuck his leaking nose into the curve of her neck. His large body enveloped hers with every pound of muscle that it contained. The little boy rippling underneath was tangible to her. Eugene Fitzherbert sobbed harder to let that boy out. Her body felt all of him—all of him shuddering and softening and revealing his wordless secrets to her—like the hug had just allowed him to breathe, to be.
"Stay," Elsa said firmly with eyes closed, referring to the openness of his heart. "Stay right here." Her palms pressed against the backs of his shoulders to bring more weight to her command. "Don't go anywhere else," she murmured.
The coronet on his head found a home on her cloak. They remained there, Elsa on her haunches and Eugene in his chair, with their silhouettes entangled beneath an awning of ice and wisteria. Elsa's dress sparkled like stars in the dark as Eugene melted against her. The trembling in his arms was reciprocated by the tightening of her embrace. She opened her eyes very slowly as his body temperature bled through hers; what at first felt warm like oatmeal became hotter than July.
After two minutes, Elsa said, "I'm so sorry about everything that's happened, Eugene." Her chin moved against the fabric shirting his shoulder as she spoke. She pulled back, separating her wet neck from his shiny face. "When I first saw the Union with Corona Act, I refused it." Elsa removed the embroidered napkin from their table to dry every inch of his countenance like a mother preening her child, even going so far as to hold his chin to complete her mission. "Then the Storting—"
Eugene touched her hand before it could continue its journey. "Elsa…" The fingers he held were uncurled by his own.
Elsa watched their fingers form a dovetail.
Eugene's other hand engulfed the one he was holding, allowing him to cradle it as though it was a precious jewel. "You can't be the world for everyone in it," he huskily admitted. The intensity in his eyes was beyond all the ugliness he had thrown her way. "I've tried."
A lopsided smile appeared on Elsa's face before fading. She looked down, shaking her head until she was ready to look inside of him again. Tears warmed her eyes as she did. "I made a promise to Rapunzel to take care of you."
Eugene's hard swallow was his response to her words.
Elsa swept his fringe out of his eyes before making a home for his cheek with her hand. "And that's exactly what I plan on doing."
The smile that Eugene made this time was gentle and genuine. He squeezed the fingers cupping his tear-stained face. Suddenly, leaves rustled in the distance. Elsa rose to her feet while Eugene stood up with his arm blocking the impending danger from her body.
"What're you doing?" Elsa hissed. She touched his elbow, feeling him lower it once he understood who their enemy was. "It's only Sigurd and Randolph."
"Please forgive us for the intrusion, Your Majesty." Their twin servers stepped onto the patio with two of the kindest smiles Elsa had ever seen. "Her Majesty wished to treat you to the best of Arendelle tonight." In their hands steamed lemon-roasted root vegetables, lamb, cabbage, and boiled potatoes all piled on top of two filigreed plates.
"Ah ha..." Eugene put his arm down, unaware of Elsa's momentary—if not unbidden—smile. "My...apologies, gentlemen. I just thought I…" He scanned the bushes and trees standing behind the twins.
"Saw something you didn't," Elsa finished.
Eugene's silence said that he wasn't sure if he agreed with her explanation. Then two squirrels jumped out of a tree and into a bush, extinguishing his inner fire. He sighed from the shoulders while an amused Elsa shook her head.
Eugene's face asked her, "And what're you sniggling at, little missy?"
Elsa was bold enough to keep smirking.
The twins placed Arendelle's national dish on the dining table, breaking the silent communication between Elsa and Eugene. Both brothers beamed at Eugene in a way that seemed to touch his heart. "We sincerely hope that you enjoy it, Your Majesty."
"Thank you," Eugene sincerely told them.
They reciprocated his gratitude by saying, "You're most welcome, Your Majesty."
Eugene continued to smile at them warmly.
"Sit," Elsa insisted, careful not to order him to do so. "Before it gets cold."
Eugene cleared his throat, glancing at her awkwardly. "Right. Of course."
The servers pulled out their chairs. Elsa and Eugene took their seats on opposite ends of the candlelit table, both giving each other two very different looks. Once seated, they scooted their chairs simultaneously. The king flattened the buffet napkin in his lap while the queen julienned his mutton for him.
"Try the carrots before you try the Fårikål," Elsa encouraged.
Eugene's ears almost wiggled at the sound of her offer. "Carrots?"
Elsa forced out a smile. "I had them roasted because I was told they were a favorite of yours. Try one."
Eugene popped a glazed carrot into his mouth. "Mm!" He blinked and exhaled through his nostrils, letting his eyes roll back into his head. "Mmm, this is stu-pen-dous." He held his napkin up to his mouth. "Who made this terrific entrée?"
"Ødger made it."
"My compliments to the chef."
The smile Elsa had been wearing for him began to melt away as she combed through the cod in her salad. She didn't have the heart to say what she needed to say because he seemed so at ease. She could even tell by his posture that he dreaded ruining his small heaven. A paradise was what she had tried to give him by decorating the garden, but paradise could only last for so long.
Elsa laid her salad fork down. Eugene slowly met her rising gaze, possibly knowing that she had something to say. She looked down and away, at war with herself on the inside.
"You should eat something first," Eugene softly recommended, "before it gets cold."
His perceptiveness wasn't what Elsa had expected. Although she was reluctant to fulfill his decree, she took a small bite of what was in front of her and sighed through her teeth. The taste of fish took a heavy weight off her bones by grounding her anxious spirit in her body. She opened her eyes to Eugene with a better head for the night's severity.
"I...already know about the Brotherhood, Elsa," Eugene said gravely.
Elsa showed her shock. "How did you...?"
"I found out about the mural tower before I left Corona," he included, misunderstanding the reason for her astonishment.
Elsa's forehead was now full of hard lines. "And what about their connection to the Southern Isles?"
"My moles told me that no mention of the Southern Isles has ever been made, so it's possible that they simply hoarded what was left behind from the invasion."
"For our sake, I hope that's true." Elsa squeezed her fingertips. Her agitation was upon her again.
"You alright?" Eugene questioned with more warmth than she ever thought she would hear from him. His hand sat across from hers on the table, inviting her to accept his support so that she wouldn't have to be alone with her thoughts.
Elsa's hand twitched before forming a fist. She wondered whether her dive into the troubles of their new world would be insensitive to his vulnerable state, but what seemed kinder was to tell Eugene what she knew now instead of waiting for the sun to rise. "It's just that..."
He waited patiently for her.
Elsa's fist relaxed into a loose curl due to the safety provided by his tender eyes. "It's just that evidently, one of your ministers is very keen on sharing your private conversations with journalists."
"What?" Eugene exhaled and spoke at the same time.
Here, Elsa paused. Regret crept up her throat. She stopped talking to think carefully about what she would say next. "Journalist J. Abelard allegedly had a conversation with a member of the King's Council."
Dread percolated through Eugene's voice as he asked, "What was it about?"
"Statements you had made in regards to the union. It was revealed during a public conference for Arendelle."
Surprise didn't reach his eyes, but he continued to look at her with the expression of a kicked dog. The thorn from the previous hour was sticking her in her side. Eugene's eyes shrank into slits as he squinted at her. She could tell by the way he was trying to read her that he was more concerned about her feelings than his own. Elsa's hand made a fist again.
Eugene's fingers curled into his palm as well. "Did he say who it was?"
Elsa shook her head, now staring at their faraway hands. "Not a word on it."
"And my captain? You mentioned something about him earlier."
"Yes. I found him rather..." Elsa looked for the words.
"Revolting?"
"Untrustworthy, like he was hiding something."
"Something as in?"
"A very unkind nature."
Eugene's displeasure took shape on his face. "Did he make you uncomfortable?"
"Occasionally...but I don't know how to put it into words." She didn't know why she was struggling to define him for Eugene. Her mouth was too dry to speak on all the things the captain had told her.
Eugene wiped his entire face with the base of his palm, noticeably angry. "I'll take care of him," he solemnly promised.
She nodded, scooping up more cilantro with her fork. The candles melted from the heat of the fire eating their wicks as Elsa and Eugene tried to eat. Conversation catered only to what was to be done about tomorrow's surprises. She had so much on her heart, but she kept suppressing what lied beneath it. Sitting formally across from Eugene, even after all the tears they had shared, made her lose her mettle.
There were questions she had about his encounter with the Brotherhood and several other subjects that had yet to be asked; there were confessions she harbored that had yet to be made. Elsa avoided all topics about Isolde's nursemaid in her hope that he would mention her on his own, but he never did. She called his name when the candles were close to dying. He answered her with his unbroken gaze.
"Before I say anything else, may I...have a moment with Isolde tonight?" she finally asked, fighting the urge to beg.
Eugene remained silent and distant.
Elsa leaned forward, throwing away propriety. "Please. To see her, at least. I won't disturb her rest or do anything of the sort."
"It's not that," Eugene began. His eyes were louder than her heart, but what they were saying to her was unclear. "There's something I have to tell you."
Elsa's fingernails dug into her palm. "I'm listening..."
"I managed to tell Anna tonight, but I haven't told you yet."
Elsa was growing afraid. "What is it?"
"My daughter...Isolde, she's..."
Elsa's nose wrinkled. Eugene, who had withdrawn from speaking like a man who had just remembered himself, nudged his head in the direction of Arendelle Castle. She looked up, catching sight of the housekeepers watching them. They gasped and pushed each other deeper into the hallways of the castle, shushing one another as they left. Eugene had been right to lower his voice, but now the air around them had grown cold.
"Take me to her," Elsa whispered. "Please."
Eugene nodded. "I will..."
Elsa stood up with one hand on her cartwheeling stomach. Eugene walked away from his seat and put on his gleaming coronet while she blew out their candles.
Up the staircase the two went, Elsa holding a freshly lit candelabrum while Eugene walked behind her. The night was thick with darkness that seemed to deepen with every step they took despite the many candles guiding them.
"You've been hiding your daughter away," Elsa mumbled without looking at Eugene. "Haven't you?"
"You'll understand what's been happening after we talk," he answered without anger.
Soft blue hues enveloped the hallway that led them to Eugene's bedchamber. He pulled down his door's lever little by little, suspending Elsa in time.
Behind the opening door stood a blonde maid with a book in her hands. The girl locked eyes with Elsa before gasping and curtsying, cutting off the static between their confused glares. "Your Majesty!"
Elsa, who had forgotten that she couldn't fold her hands with a candelabrum in one, decided to nod once with a tense smile. The girl was all of twenty years or less, no older than a spring lily, and every bit of pretty. Captain Hitler's portrait of Eugene had not revealed anything beyond his penchant for gossip, but the validity of Olaf's statements did not seem impossible to her. How she felt about such statements was another convolution entirely; one thing for certain was that she hoped to be free of having a jealous nursemaid burning her photographs at night.
"This is Gunnel," Eugene explained. "She's been Isolde's nursemaid for about a year now."
"Ah," Elsa said, having meant to say it in her head instead of to Gunnel's face. "Well, then..." Her tongue stopped moving as her shoulders raised with her inhale, adding to the suspense created by the empty mouth that smiled at the nursemaid. Elsa had lost track of her sentences faster than an old hound losing track of a fox. "I...hope that your journey wasn't too hard on you."
"It was unique," Gunnel started, "but Arendelle Castle has been warm."
Elsa didn't know whether she referred to the household or the castle's temperature, but she continued to smile at the young flower with strain.
Eugene, while eying Elsa, took hold of the conversation to tell Gunnel, "Give us a moment."
"Of course, Your Majesty." Gunnel picked up the hem of her dress. "It's time for me to retire for the night, anyway." She curtsied to Eugene and Elsa. "Goodnight, Your Majesties."
"Goodnight," Elsa said quickly in a nervous way, outpacing Eugene's similar remark.
The two watched Gunnel retreat until she was out of eyeshot. Eugene gave Elsa one long look before holding the door open to his bedchamber and welcoming her inside with his outstretched arm. The nervous queen accepted his invitation. She had half a mind to ask Eugene about the informalities she spotted during his exchange with Gunnel, but when she saw the sleeping tot on his bed, all of her thoughts went quiet. Elsa placed her candelabrum on Eugene's table to come closer to the sweet little thing before her. Chestnut hair that reached pink ankles nearly swallowed the rest of Princess Isolde's body as she slept like all the world around her was at peace.
Elsa gasped when the chubby-armed child wiped her eyes and whined before huffing. Back into her dreams she drifted, never making another sound.
"She's gorgeous, Eugene," Elsa whispered with her hands pressed against her bursting heart. "The most beautiful little girl I've ever laid eyes on." Her eyelashes wore tears. "The fact that I even get to say that is..." Elsa allowed her breathlessness to overwhelm her.
"Well...you'd be the first." Eugene was pressing on his palm anxiously.
Elsa empathized with his anxiety, but she was growing irritable. "Eugene, tell me what's wrong."
Eugene looked at her like a man who was being taken to the gallows. Gradually, he pulled back Isolde's blanket. The hands that touched Elsa's heart shook from the sight of the child's harelip. She covered her mouth to silence her gasp.
Eugene slid onto his bed and rested a loving hand on his daughter's head. He raised his sad eyes to Elsa's. "This is what I was trying to tell you about."
Elsa tried to slow her breathing. She held her elbows and shook her head tearfully, unable to wrap the latter around the poor work that had been performed on the child's face. "Who did this?"
"Dr. Friedrich," Eugene supplied. "He did as good of a job as he could, considering the rarity of doctors like him."
More questions crowded Elsa's mind, but the only one that clawed to the surface in a fury was this: "Why on Earth didn't you ever say anything to me about this when we were writing to each other?"
"I couldn't at the time," Eugene swore. "I was...too afraid of what would happen if I did."
Elsa suddenly understood what he was trying to say. "Who threatened you over this?" Her palms were tingling from anger, but she did her best to calm the magic.
"A coward by the name of, 'Leopold,'" Eugene revealed. "There was more fearmongering than there were carefully coded threats, but...overall, I was afraid for her back then, and submitting to that fear was the biggest mistake of my life." The scowl he made was nasty and hateful because his true enemy seemed to be himself.
"What did he say to you?" Elsa's voice grew too loud for Eugene, causing him to hush her with one finger against his lips.
"More than I can repeat right now," he half-whispered.
Seeing that he didn't want to discuss the details in front of his sleeping child, Elsa moved on to another matter that disturbed her: "Eugene, exactly how have you been hiding all of this from the rest of your household?"
Eugene squeezed the skin between his thumb and his forefinger before reaching into his belongings and pulling out a face veil made from pink lace. "Only a few people, like Gunnel, know about her."
Sadness intermixed with memories from her childhood seeped through Elsa's face as she uttered to herself, "You're concealing her..."
"I can't get her away from them," Eugene disclosed with desperation. "Her last nursemaid gave them to her as a Zarian gift, but she'll fly into the most violent rage I've ever seen if I don't give them to her."
"You have to stop doing what you're doing right now."
Eugene was taken aback by the panic in her tone.
"You have to stop enabling her," Elsa stressed. "You have to teach her to love herself for who she is―"
"Isolde isn't her face, Elsa," Eugene argued.
"Then show her that," she clarified. "You're her father, and it's your job to instill self-confidence in her. You can't let her run away from life. Encourage her. Embolden her."
Eugene didn't fight her like she expected him to. He studied her face and then studied his daughter's. Elsa hesitantly closed her mouth to allow him to pore over her speech.
"I've no intention of letting my daughter run away from everything life has to offer," he finally told her, "but she needs time to adjust to what this new one is giving her."
For that, Elsa had no answer beyond sitting beside Eugene and searching his heavy eyes. He searched hers in return, looking for an answer to the question asked by his own.
Elsa squinted sadly. She found the courage to place her hand on top of his and say with the softness of a palm caressing his cheek, "Allow me to help her through this."
Eugene's body eased. He looked at her mouth before looking at his lap and sighing. Elsa kept her hand on his without demanding anything from him. The sheer magnitude of the depression he carried brought out her own, but there was an unwritten letter in his gaze when he had looked at her, something he had perhaps tried to write in the past but never did. Elsa could feel all of the unwritten and lost letters filling the unspoken space between them.
Eugene turned his head toward her without making eye contact. "...I'm terrified," he whispered to her knees. The way his voice had changed gave her a reason to believe that he was talking now of the new life that would change them all.
"...As am I." Elsa opened her other hand to gesture to Isolde's sleeping body with her palm. "But this blessing helps."
Eugene gazed at his daughter lovingly; Elsa watched that love fill him, which filled her in turn.
"She has Rapunzel's face and your nose," she mentioned, saving what lightness she could.
The tremors of a tearful smile flickered across Eugene's lips. "Teh..." He thumbed a tear out of his eye. "She does, doesn't she?"
"Yes, she does." Elsa glanced at the bookcase behind them. "Wait just one moment." Her fingers left his knuckles to wrap around the body of a stuffed puffin sitting between "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Iliad." She handed the doll to Eugene, who blinked at it curiously. "His name is Sir Jorgenbjorgen. He's a great listener." The adult queen stroked her puffin's head. "Maybe Isolde can find a friend in him."
Eugene looked like he was about to chuckle at the toy before the laughter on his face turned into a wholehearted smile. He gave the same smile to Elsa. "...Thank you. Truly."
Elsa's crept upon her face like a breaking dawn. "You're more than welcome, Eugene."
The smile he was giving her began to soften at the corners.
Her eyes moved from his smile to the grandfather clock's hands. "It's late," she shared.
Eugene blinked at her as she stood up to grab her candelabrum and smooth out the wrinkles in her dress.
"We should turn in for the night." She had more to say, but Eugene was visibly exhausted, and so was she.
Eugene cleared his throat and patted his knees, rising to his feet.
Elsa paused to bend over Isolde's angelic form and whisper, "Goodnight, Sunflower." Her longing hand slipped off the mattress as she straightened her back. She didn't notice the expression Eugene was wearing as he stared at her. Besotted, she walked away from Isolde and into the moonlight.
Eugene saw her to his door, stopping to hold it open for her with Sir Jorgenbjorgen still in his hand.
Elsa faced him. "Goodnight, Eugene." Her small voice was as tender as his eyes, if only a little insecure.
"...Goodnight," he replied. Elsa's candlelight captured the face of a king looking deep inside of her the way she had looked deep inside of him.
She smiled one last time before seeing herself out. When the door clicked shut, she leaned her back against it to release a breath she had been holding.
Anna would have an earful tonight.
༺[❄]༻|o0o|༺[✸]༻
"I am writing to you on this morning, not only to tell you how sorry I am for being unable
to take you into my arms today, but to remind you that you are not and never will be alone.
My only hope is that you'll find it in your heart to forgive me for not taking the time to open mine until now.
I once tried very hard to get to know yours on a deeper level than what you allowed,
but over the years, I felt forced to avoid doing anything that might stir up trouble or cause you to feel more
uncomfortable than you already felt.
I understand how hard it is to be an open door in a ballroom full of people,
as well as how much easier it seems to lock yourself inside your own heart and shut the world out.
The part of me who understands the part of you who has fought with years of being afraid to be yourself
wants to commend you on how much you've sacrificed for Rapunzel and her parents."
― Queen Elsa (My Dearest Cousin)
Chapter Notes:
I took a risk by writing this extension on 5/24/24 because I wasn't sure if I could recapture the heart of UotC and the beloved cast. I also stopped writing in this style of prose, but I am happy to add something regardless of the final outcome. I've decided to leave UotC open to future updates in the years to come. There's no telling where my heart will be before or after Frozen 3, and a retelling of Frozen 2's elements wouldn't be hard to weave into this; I cannot promise it, but anything is possible.
For now, this is all I have of "Indentured." I want to thank betagyre and MiraNova23 again for giving me a chance to even add more content. You ladies made my summer. "Carry Me Anew," which is also on my profile page, is written as one alternative future of how this marriage could have unfolded emotionally.