Early September, 1851
The Queen's Private Study of Linnea Castle
Arendelle
"You do not understand the... the position you have put me in, Annalei! I am queen, it is my job to enforce the laws I create! And that extends to not just my court, but my own family! If I bend the rules for you, I will have to bend the rules for everyone, and that is the last thing I will do! I cannot appear weak to my council-"
"I'm not asking you to bend the rules for me, Lise." Anna whispered from her seat upon the sofa, watching as her sister paced. Milla was sitting on the floor with Sof in her lap, playing with a teddy bear Victoria and Albert had given the baby during the family's visit in England back in April, while Annes and Anja played a game of Jacks not far away. Hans sat at his wife's desk, quietly listening as he watched his wife pace. This argument had been going on for the last hour and a half, with Anna only giving quiet, muttered one word answers- which only seemed to annoy her sister, who would then snap in response. The fifth time his wife turned to pace back towards him, he'd decided was enough, and spoke up.
"Let them."
"I'm sorry?" Elsa stopped. "Say that again, Johannes?"
He sighed, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. "Let them. They are not even acknowledging what this is between them, so let them have this. It is innocent, Eliza. Something as innocent as infatuation will not go anywhere, so allow them this time to experience this."
"I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me how to handle a problem that has arisen within my court, Johannes?" She moved towards him, cocking her head to the side, gaze narrowed. Green eyes glanced at Anna before turning back to his wife.
"I'm suggesting, that you allow Annalei and Lord Bismarck this chance to experience-"
"What, a courtship?" She turned on her sister, braid tumbling from where it had been wrapped and pinned atop her head. "Is that what you wish for with Lord Bismarck, Annalei? A courtship?"
"No! No, Lise, I just... I enjoy Lord Bismarck's company and he enjoys mine. We wish to spend time together... regardless of... whether it goes anywhere or not. Please?" Anna stood, going to her sister. Elsa closed her eyes, inhaling sharply.
"Anna, I cannot bend the rules for you without bending them for the rest of my court!"
"I'm not the rest of your court, I'm your sister!"
"You may." Both women turned to him, stunned. "Spend some time with Lord Bismarck, Anna. Get to know him, as you want to. Regardless of where it goes, it will be a good experience for you, to be in the company of another man besides myself. And it will help you gain an understanding of how councils are run, so when you marry, if you must ever face a council, you will have some understanding."
"You cannot be ser-"
"It will not lead to marriage, Eliza. They are merely friends, look at it that way. Personally, if you want my honest opinion, I believe this is infatuation on both their parts and nothing more. They know it cannot go anywhere, and so they will consider this an innocent experiment." Anna nodded furiously at her brother-in-law's pointed remark, but her sister wasn't buying it.
"Experiment?" His wife spit, raising her eyebrows. "In what?"
He shrugged. "In whatever they wish this to be."
The queen narrowed her gaze. "Thank you, Hans." Anna whispered; her sister turned, glaring at her, before turning back to her husband. Anna swallowed; she recognized the tell-tale crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the pull of her mouth into a thin line, the slight wrinkle of her nose, all signs pointing towards-
She jumped, the small bust of Aristotle shattering as it was dashed upon the hardwood floor before them; no one was even aware the queen had moved towards the mantel where it sat. Silence fell, the children turned towards the noise. "Okay, come on, little ones, let's go down to the kitchens. I bet Vera's got fresh cookies ready to be tasted. Does that sound good? Come on, all of you." The princess quickly scooped Sofia up from Milla's lap, and gently nudged the older children towards the door of the study once they'd stood.
"What about Mama and Papa?" Annes asked, and his aunt bit her lip before speaking.
"They will-"
"Of course, I'm angry, Johannes!"
"They will join us in a few minutes, Annes. Come on." She sighed; Elsa was prone to temper tantrums- something Agnarr and Iduna could never fully break the young Queen of, no matter how hard they tried. Perhaps it was her place as the firstborn, as the hereditary heir, as the Crown Princess, that drove Elsa to continually dole out temper tantrums when she was displeased or agitated like St. Nicholas gave out gifts at Jul. Once outside the study door, Anna handed the children off to one of the maids and requested they be taken down to the kitchens for cookies before returning to the nursery, and then turned back, pressing her ear against the closed door. She jumped when she felt someone behind her, turning to find Lord Bismarck staring at her confused.
"Is everything okay, Your Highness?"
"Shh." She held a finger to her lips, before returning her ear to the wood. After a moment, Lord Bismarck joined her, and they listened quietly.
"What brought about this argument?"
She glanced at him, biting her lip. "My brother-in-law said something in favor of us and against her as a way to quell her fears, and my sister has taken it wrong."
"You have invented a new type of stupid, Johannes!"
"Elisabeth-"
"A damage you may never be able to undo kind of stupid. An open all the cages in the zoo kind of stupid. Clearly, you didn't think this through, kind of stupid! You do not rule Arendelle, Johannes! I do! You do not make decisions that will impact my country and my court- and my sister and Lord Bismarck are members of my court! Mine! This decision will not impact your court, it will impact mine! If I allow whatever this is between them, then it will be looked at as favoritism among my council and it will be harder for me to get anything done in regards to moving my country forward! How do you not understand that?!"
"And I rule the Isles! You think I don't understand the difficulties of having to balance family and court, Eliza? Every decision I make I make with our children in mind! How laws would impact them and if those laws would be good for my people!"
"And I make decisions to impact my people, Johannes! Do not tell me how to run my court or my council or how to guide my sister or raise my children! You are not King!"
"It was a suggestion, Elisabeth! I care about Annelise just as much as you do! And they are my children as well! Don't you dare try to say that you have singlehandedly raised our sons and daughters, especially when you know it's not true!"
"I might as well have! You are not here! You are here sporadically, and then you return to the Isles! You seem to care more about the Isles than our children! Milla asks me constantly when Papa will return, and when we're going back to the Halsten and how long we're going to be there, and I don't know what to tell her! How do I tell her that her Papa is more concerned with the Southern Isles than he is about her and her siblings? How, Johannes? You tell me and I will tell her!"
"Eliza, if it wasn't for that law, I would be by your side and never leave, you know that-"
"I know." Anna pulled away, hearing the crackle of ice as the temperature dropped and the doorknob froze; she could see her breath and quickly rubbed her shoulders before returning to the door. "You think I don't? You think I don't know what it's like to sit upon a throne alone? I do it every day, Johannes. I wake up dreaming of you by my side, wishing you were here, only to find myself alone in bed every morning. I see you in our children and my heart breaks, because though I have them, I don't have you. You were supposed to be my king! Just as I was supposed to be your queen! That is what we talked about all those years ago! That is what we planned! Not this... this... cursed half-life of a marriage, stealing moments when we can and hiding under the guise of politics."
"Then take it up with your Goddamned council, Elisabeth!" Anna glanced at Lord Bismarck. She'd heard her sister and brother-in-law argue before, but they had never raised their voices like this and it worried her. "They are the reason I can't rule by your side! That law put into place is what's keeping us from ruling Arendelle and the Southern Isles together!"
"I can't, Hans! They will never let me-"
"You are the Queen! The council bends to your will, not the other way around! God, Elisabeth, I don't even recognize you anymore! Where is the woman who stood up to her council when Camilla was born? And who chased after and went into battle against Weselton? When did you become so meek and helpless? Was it after our children came into the world? Is that what does it? Does motherhood make you weak? Because from what I can see-"
The very distinctive sound of skin striking skin rang out, and Anna gasped softly, looking up as Lord Bismarck took her hand, squeezing gently in reassurance. "How dare you." Elsa's voice was low, dangerous. Crackling could be heard, and Anna looked down, to see the ice spreading beneath the door, reaching out into the hallway they stood in. "You don't understand the hell I went through to bring your children into this world! The absolute pain and agony, so bad at times I begged for death because it seemed more merciful than childbirth! You can't possibly comprehend what I went through for you to bring your children- our children- into the world; they came from me, from my womb, Johannes. You merely contributed to their creation. You are partially responsible for their existence, I am responsible for their arrival in the world. I carried them, I gave birth to them, I suffered through hours- days!- of endless pain and difficult labor to expel them from my body, not you! Me! You may be their father, but I am their mother! They come from me! They are my dynasty, my legacy, my empire! Mine! I am the mother of the greatest empire Arendelle will have ever seen; you have merely contributed to it."
Silence fell as the clock struck the hour, and after a moment, Hans spoke, weighing his words. "Well, now I know where your loyalties lie. Not to me or our marriage or our family, but to Arendelle and Arendelle alone. Had I realized this long ago, I never would have accepted."
"What? What are you talking about?"
They heard him stop and turn back; clearly he'd been heading towards the door. "Come now, Elisabeth, you know very well. This marriage was a means to an end, a way for you to expand your empire without having to search outside the Isles. You're not a stupid woman, you're far too brilliant for your own good."
"Is that what you think?" Her voice was choked with tears; Anna swallowed thickly. Clearly, this argument had been building for years, and her simple request had been the flint that struck the match to set it alight. "What you truly think, Johannes? That this marriage was simply to produce children? How dare you think such a thing, let alone say it. You know for a fact that isn't true. This is not the War of Castilian Succession or the succession crisis that followed years after it, nor is it the battle between the White Rose and the Red for the throne of all England. You know that. You know this marriage was never about children or creating an empire."
"But it seems to be for you, Elisabeth." His voice was firm yet soft. "What happened to you? When did you become so concerned about power that you would put our family to the side? Our marriage? Elisabeth, I love you, but right now I don't know you. I don't know the woman standing before me. Where is the girl a fell in love with? What happened to her? The woman I exchanged vows with on the Vinterrose nearly ten years ago? Where did she go? I want her back. Her ideals and her happiness and her ability to look at everything and still smile through the heartache of our separation. Give her back to me, please, I beg of you. Or if you can't, tell me where she is so I can find her and bring her home!"
"She's right here, Johannes," The queen's voice was choked with tears, and Anna reached up to wipe her own away. "She never left, she just grew up. She had no choice. She's watched you walk away because you had to and been powerless to stop you, no matter how much she wants to." Silence. "All I want is for you to come home."
"I am home, Elisabeth."
"I mean permanently. I want to wake up to you every morning and go to bed with you every night. I don't want stolen kisses and secret getaways anymore, Johannes, I just want you. You and our children." She sniffled. "I look... I look at Victoria and Albert and... I detest them, because they have the one thing I don't. They are never from each others' sides, regardless of her duties as queen. They are always in their children's lives and are never parted for long. They don't know the strain of separation or the pain of watching you sail back to the Isles and knowing I must not follow... knowing that you're leaving me behind again." She broke down then, her words becoming muffled as she buried her face in her hands.
"And I beg you and beg you not to leave me and yet you walk away again and again and I have nothing but letters for comfort. I don't want letters anymore, Johannes, I want you. You and our children, that's all I want, that's all I've ever wanted." The ice continued to stretch across the floor and up the walls, coating the ceiling and spreading out, pulsing blue to reflect the pain she was feeling. "I just want you home, in my arms every night, by my side every morning, nothing more, nothing less... from the moment of our marriage, I've wanted you home."
"I am home, Elisabeth. Doesn't matter whether I'm across the Southern Sea or here in Arendelle; wherever you are, I am too. Even if I can't be in person, I am in your heart."
"I don't want you in my heart anymore, I want you in my arms."
"I am in your arms, Elisabeth, don't you see that? I'm right here."
Silence fell, and Anna backed up. If she knew her sister and brother-in-law, then Hans had kissed her to quiet her, to calm her, and comfort her. "Your Highness?" She turned to Lord Bismarck, surprised as he reached up to gently brush her tears away. After a moment, Anna threw her arms around his neck; stunned, he carefully wrapped her in a hug, looking up at the sound of crackling, to see the ice overhead slowly melting away.