Happy 2020, Everyone. I've missed you.

I wish I could tell you more about why I was gone and why I stayed away, but you don't want to hear all that muck, I'm sure. I'm back, more or less, after a harrowing year or so, where it was difficult for me to put fingers to keyboard, so to speak. Changes in perspective, changes in motivations, changes in relationships...they sneak up on you sometimes. Watching what is happening in the world around me, around us, seeing the best people have to offer, and the worst...it is very sobering. I find myself locked at home, unable to work, unable to do many things I normally would. It feels very confining.

But, one thing I can do, is write. And after seeing Frozen II and reminding myself that this story of mine, this whole endeavor is an act of love, first and foremost, it feels like the right time to return. So here I am.

As a bit of an authors note, I am well aware that my story deviates from the official canon of the second movie. I knew this would be the case before I ever started writing, and so, I will stay the course. I had a beginning, middle and end in mind well before Frozen II was ever conceptualized, so I see no reason to deviate from that course now. They have their story (and it is a wonderful story, powerful and fulfilling and engaging and beautiful in it's own right) and I have mine. The two can coexist, I am sure of that. I may borrow some of my favorite themes from the second film, but I will do my best to incorporate them as organically as I can, without changing the story at large. I thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

My beta, my best friend, thank you so much for your support. For all of you who stuck with me, wondering where all of this was going, I hope I won't let you down. I'll try not to.

So, where were we? Oh yes...the morning after. Here goes nothing...

An Invasion of Armies can be Resisted, but not an Idea whose Time has Come.

-Victor Hugo

Dawn found the two young women with slow, impatient trickles of light. The first was from a sizable hole near the ridge of the roof, as if a new ridge vent had opened in the night. The sunlight shown unfiltered and raw, a steady pinpoint of white which lazily crossed the room, almost the reversal of the shadow created by a sun dial.

Elsa had been watching it. Having slept the night through, she had awoken every so often to find Anna draped across her body, in one position or another, snoring softly. The spiderweb of her unkempt hair covered Elsa from shoulder to navel, it's softness delightful between her fingers. The queen hadn't the heart to wake her princess, not fully, so she was content to lounge and intermittently slumber as well, occasionally noting the time as the beam of light traced a slow line across the floor of the forge. The only concrete notation of time was Cloven, some distance away and strangely faint, which would strike the hour and punctuate the journey of the sun-beam.

A bit before ten o'clock, Anna stirred, her eyes glazed and lidded as she slowly peeled herself away from the warmth of her bunk-mate. She lifted her head and beheld her queen in the soft light of the forge, tinted green as the sun failed to penetrate the defensive block of ice which still stood in the door-frame beyond their bed.

"Good morning," Elsa hummed softly.

The princess yawned. "Hrrmmmnmnnn G'morn'in...hi..."

Elsa smiled . "Did you sleep well?"

Anna nodded like a silly, messy doll. "...was great! I had this great dream, y'know?"

"Oh? What was it?"

"Oh it'was amazing!" Anna grinned, rubbing her eyes, "see we had a fight, bad fight, lots of bad words. And I was angry and then you were angry and then...and then...I dunno, we were telling each other lots of secrets and you told me a BIG one about loving me and I said the same, cuz, ya know, why wouldn't I? And then we spent hours kissing and touching and we made love and it made...made me, you, made US, so happy...it was so vivid too. Such a great dream."

"Anna?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Open yours eyes, sweetheart..."

Anna did, though groggily, open her eyes, sitting up straight. And after about thirty seconds of blinking the sleep away and looking about, the princess seemed to straighten out, almost violently, her body stiff as pine-board as she took stock of the forge, the bed, the smell in the air...and the state of her big sister.

"Oh...OH. Oh, wow...!" Anna gasped, looking down at the pale, nude woman beneath her. "It actually...I mean, we actually...?!"

"We did...we have..." Elsa confirmed, a little unsure of why Anna was acting so shocked. "It wasn't a dream. It happened."

Anna let another wave of shock roll over her, placing her hand on Elsa's as the queen stroked her cheek. At first it seemed like the princess was accepting the comfort from her sister, but then morphed into Anna making sure that the hand on her face was actually there.

"It happened..." she whispered, fully awake and eyes wide with shock, "it was real."

"Yes," Elsa confirmed, somewhat anxious as she tried to ground her sibling, "it was real."

The shock left Anna, replaced with a smile so sudden and tremendous it threatened to slice the top of her head clean off. She sputtered, gasped and laughed aloud, reaching forward to clasp Elsa's head between her shaking hands, causing Elsa to yelp with surprise.

"It wasn't a dream!" Anna cried, ecstatic and bright, even as tears cleared twin paths down her dusty cheeks. "Ohhhh my GODS, it was real! It all really happened!"

"Yes, yes it did," Elsa confirmed, smiling but puzzled.

"You told me that you're in love with me!"

"Uh...I did, yes," Elsa nodded, red-cheeked with the memory.

"And I said the same to you!"

"Several times, yes," Elsa said, a laugh behind her confirmation.

"And we spent the night in each others arms and we're still here and...and...and you love me, don't you?! You actually told me?!"

"And I'll tell you again, since you seem so shell-shocked:," Elsa chided, bringing their foreheads together before placing a slow, calming kiss on Anna's quivering lips, "I Love You, Anna. With all my heart and all my soul, I Love You."

Anna collapsed forward, Elsa wrapping her up instinctively with her arms as her hair blanketed the two of them. Anna was shivering as she cried, happy and whole, her upper body practically welded to the woman beneath her as she emptied her eyes on Elsa's shoulder.

"I can't believe it!" Anna sobbed, smiling all the while, "This actually happened! Oh Elsa, I'm so happy! I've had dreams like this before, so real, so visceral and palpable, I could almost touch them! They would make me so happy, so serene...and then they would be be dashed to pieces as soon as I woke up! I'd still be locked out of your room, still feel distant or disconnected from you, or worse, feel so uneasy about what to do or say when you were around. It was worse than a night-terror sometimes. At least those kinds of dreams just made me feel fear, but the ones that made me happy? Only to know they weren't real? SO much worse...!"

She pulled back, looking at her lover through a veil of gnarled hair. "But you're here! I'm here! It all happened...Gods, it actually happened...!"

"Ssshhhh, sssshhhhh, it's OK Anna, it's OK," Elsa soothed, pushing Anna's hair out of her eyes and the tears from her smiling cheeks, "I know, I know, it's hard to imagine. But I promise you, it happened. I'm here, with you, it all happened. And I'm happy too. You have no idea how much so."

Anna laughed an ugly, stupid-happy laugh and kissed Elsa tightly, almost as if to steal her breath away. The queen accepted the kiss and hummed with pleasure as Anna slid upward along her body, so warm and soft and seemingly purpose-built to relieve the young monarch of her common sense. The two were so tightly interwoven it seemed impossible that they should ever separate, as difficult as dividing water into oxygen and hydrogen.

"I love you, Anna, I love you so..."

"I love you too, Elsa," Anna whispered back, soft and happy, "thank goodness...thank goodness..."

The two settled once again in a loving heap, a gnarly cluster of limbs and wandering kisses, oblivious to anything beyond a few inches of their periphery. Though the forge lay still and quiet, the two clung to one another, fierce and firm, as if the sea were threatening to surround and engulf them. The pitiful coals of the forge, gray and dull in their bed of ashes, sputtered and spit on the far end of the room, the only witness to the love between sister and sister.

"You've got smudges all over you," Anna observed, pulling back for breath and looking Elsa in her kiss-stained face.

"So have you," Elsa laughed, "this forge is filthy, even the bed is covered in soot."

"Didn't seem to bother us last night," Anna grinned.

"I don't think a lightening bolt would have dissuaded us last night," Elsa quipped, leaning back with a hand on her head as Anna rested her cheek upon her breast. "But we'll have to get Elgar some fresh linen's. It's the least I can do after what happened last night in the ball room."

Anna looked up quickly. "Something happened after I left?"

Elsa nodded, thinking back carefully before she answered. "He knew...at least, he knew enough to insist that you and I were making fools of ourselves. I'm not sure if he suspected that any of THIS would happen, but he practically fought me to a standstill with his own ruthless observation and logic."

"I hate it when he gets all 'get thee behind me' like that..." Anna huffed.

"So do I," Elsa said, gently pushing a lock of hair from Anna's brow, "but...I must admit, without his encouragement, I'm not sure what I would have done last night after you and Kristoff stormed out. Maybe I would have just gone to bed, angry and tired and so very upset at having wasted another chance to talk to you...and we would have been back where we started."

Here she tilted Anna's head upward, leaving a soft, possessive kiss on her lips, thrilling the princess with the need it communicated to her.

"I guess I owe him one," Elsa sighed, "another one, I suppose. It might have been rash and short-sighted...but I'm so glad he sent me on my way...here."

Anna hugged Elsa tightly, resting her head on her shoulder. "Maybe I owe him one, too."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Anna whispered to Elsa's ear, "deserved or not, I NEEDED last night. All of it. All of you. I needed it..."

"So did I..."

The hush of the room brought safety and seclusion for a few minutes more. Neither woman seemed ready to acknowledge the passage of time when embraced in one another. They seemed content with their almost paralyzing withdrawal from the world; it didn't seem to move, so why should they?

Suddenly, they had an audience.

SQUAAAWKK!

"Oh good grief, what is that?" Anna asked, burying her head deeper into her sister's arms.

SQUAAAWKK!

"Seems we have a spy among us..." Elsa sighed, rubbing her eyes and looking skyward.

The Atlantic gull was perched within the hole of the roof ridge, having pushed it's way into the forge. It cleaned it's feathers while occasionally dragging it's beak over the brace of wood above and beneath it, with the clap-clap-clap of flipper-feet ringing out along one of the many iron hook-rails nearest the ceiling.

SQUAAAAAWK!

"Ja, ja, vi forstår, master gull...give it a rest," Anna protested.

"How did he even get in here?" Elsa wondered aloud, before lifting a hand and gesturing with a puff of ice and snow, "SHOO!"

The gull got the hint. Besmirched with frost, the bird pushed it's way back from whence it came, it's calls growing softer in the distance as it glided away.

As if on cue, so too did Cloven, chiming in the tower as the hour struck ten.

"Oooohhhh...we have to get up, don't we?" Anna moaned, rubbing her face into Elsa's skin like a tired cat.

"The staff is probably frantic, looking all over for us," Elsa said, scrunching up her eyes as she considered, for the first time it seemed, just how much they would be missed, "I missed at least two meetings this morning and we haven't even spoken to Kristoff yet..."

"Kristoff?"

Elsa nodded, sadly but without hesitation. "I feel terrible about how things ended yesterday, and several days ago, especially. You, I, we should at least try to talk to him. I don't want things sour between us, not now...not when things are finally starting to feel good again."

Anna looked closely at her sister, smiling in manner most approving and admirable. "You DO like him, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Elsa said, matter-of-factly, "I never wanted to hurt him. You didn't either, right?"

"I'd sooner hurt myself," Anna confirmed.

"So we at least owe him something...reassurance, I don't know. But certainly not silence."

"Of course not," Anna said, raising herself up and stretching. It was here that she remembered her state of undress, not because of her own embarrassment, but because of how Elsa's gaze had suddenly gone glossy and serene, as if she were looking at a painting.

The princess smiled mischievously, covering herself with one arm as if self-conscious. "What's wrong?"

Elsa blinked. "What? No...nothing, nothing wrong."

"Buyers remorse?"

"I-I beg your pardon?" Elsa stammered.

"Do I look different in the pale morning light, sister dear?" Anna continued, enjoying the rise she was harvesting from her queen.

"W-What? No! I mean, I suppose, it's a different kind of light..." Elsa continued, before she caught on, "oh stop making fun of me! You know how I feel about all this!"

"Tell me again," Anna said, slowly and unabashedly revealing herself to Elsa once more, "tell me how you feel...tell me what I do to you..."

Elsa sighed heavily before arching her back and lifting herself into Anna's arms, pressing her body flush and her lips tight against the waiting skin of her young lover. She drank-in Anna's scent, her warmth, the trail of goose-flesh that Elsa could read like braille across her flesh.

"I'm in love with the Princess of Arendelle, my friend, my partner in crime, my sister," The queen confirmed again, relishing how Anna melted into her embrace, "and she is probably the most beautiful creature on this Earth. So when I look at her, I am reminded of every cherished moment we shared last night. Moments I hope to repeat again and again, as soon as possible and only with her."

Anna held Elsa's face to her collar-bone, dipping her chin until it rested atop Elsa's silver-white hair, humming with uncontrollable bliss. "Mmmmmm...good. This is all good. So happy we agree."

An unpleasant thought crossed her mind in that moment, forcing her to look straight ahead and take a deep, grounding breathe. "...but perhaps, when we speak with Kristoff, we keep this, and the...finer details, about last night, especially, to ourselves. Just...for now."

Elsa nodded into Anna's chest, muffled but understood. "I'm not even sure how we would begin to explain all of this to him."

"From a distance? Maybe? Or from behind a portcullis?"

"As delicately as possible, at least" Elsa said, pulling back, "when the time comes. And only when we are both comfortable. I promise."

"Me too."

The queen looked about the room unhappily, squeezing Anna once more as if she were a good luck charm, before tossing aside the covers. "We should get dressed...the morning is getting away from us..."

"Yeah, you're probably right..."

The princess rolled away, the first time she had left the queen in more than twelve hours, coming to her feet and scooping her disheveled garments from the floor in one motion. She seemed to falter slightly, leaning hard to the rear of the room, catching herself with an outstretched hand on the cool iron lip of the coal-forge.

Elsa noticed, concerned. "Are...you alright, sweetheart?"

"Ooo, yeah, I think," Anna confirmed, standing upright, "it's just a little...is it me, or is the floor a little off kilter?"

Elsa looked down before standing, gathering her blouse about her middle and wobbling slightly, using the dirty bed-frame as a balance point. She looked about, trying to find the source of her disorientation.

"Yes...it's almost as if the room is tilted. Very strange..."

The queen observed the coal pile, various farrier tools and weapons covering the walls as well as the framework of the room itself. Everything was at an angle, dipped sharply to the north, more or less, relative to what the level ground should have felt like beneath their feet. It felt almost as if the whole forge were sliding down hill.

"Elsa?" Anna asked, gesturing to her mangled clothes as she leaned against the bed of dying coals. "I promise not to make this a regular thing, but could you, help me, uh...dress?"

Elsa smiled and nodded. She first spun her magic around her own naked form, re-compiling her blouse and skirt into a modest dress, with a scarf of silk-smooth ice about her neck. Once fully dressed—and much to the disappointment of her sister, who's eyes had not left her for the duration of said dress-weaving—the queen gathered up Anna's training garb and remolded it about her body. Leggings and a short skirt, with heavy boots and a tunic sprayed with sea-crystals, complimented by a thick shall about her shoulders, adorned the young woman in a lovely combination of green and white. A pair of frozen tassels bound Anna's tresses in a modest braided ponytail, more or less taming her mane of glossy, dirty hair. The princess raised herself up on tip-toe, drinking in the sensation of the new garments as she crossed the short distance to the queen.

"Lovely choice," she said, looking Elsa over. "I've never thought of playing 'dress-up' as a form of foreplay before now, but we might need to consider it in the future?"

"Why is that?"

"Having you dress me up is almost as fun as having you undress me," Anna smiled, trailing her fingers about the soft, freshly-woven material.

Elsa giggled playfully and pulled Anna into another kiss, smiling to herself at the sound of the soft fibers and nuanced layers of ice sliding across each other. Anna gripped her close, indulging the taste and touch, before resting her head against that of the queen.

"One for the road?" Anna said.

"Yes," Elsa replied, "if only because we should probably keep this kind of thing private for a while yet. A long, long while."

"Phooey," Anna sighed, "but OK. Open the door, lets go back to reality then...stupid reality."

Elsa stifled a snort, taking Anna by the hand before gesturing to her door of plugged-ice, waving it away and revealing a shocking discovery on the other side.

"OW...OK, that's really bright!" Anna exclaimed.

In fact, it was blinding. The shattered light of day entered the forge not with a gentle twinkle, but with a blaring sear. The queen and princess shielded their eyes as they stepped through the door-frame, now suddenly free of of it's curled, shadowed entrance and exposed to the burning light of day.

CLICK...CLICK...CLICK...

"Elsa...what is this?"

The queen looked about, shocked and fascinated at her new surroundings.

Branches of emerald-green ice hung about on either side of the forge. Spiraling outward, thick as pier-posts and frighteningly transparent, the two observed their reflections in boughs of plantlike winter magic, expressed as branches in a massive tree. Beneath them, the trunk lay almost flat, holding the forge aloft and angled in it's grip, the sheer weight of the building causing a drastic lean to one side. The queen and her princess could walk upright, the tops of their heads barely scraped by massive leafs of pale jade. They appeared to be Rowan tree leaves, flat and spade-like, dangling like jewels in the pervasive light of the sun. They hung about in a massive canopy, growing outward and upward, adorning the tops of the branches well beyond the sight of either woman.

The forge, like a hastily placed tree-house, was dwarfed by the cascade of color and light, nestled in the thicker branches near the crown of the trunk. Elsa looked back, the building bathed in a wash of green and yellow, almost crushed by the grip of the magical pedestal beneath it.

"I did this?" Elsa asked, equal parts shocked and amazed.

"Do you remember doing it?" Anna asked, grasping of the branches and giving it an experimental tug, finding it strong enough to hold her weight.

"No, I have no memory of this," the queen admitted, "and I think something like this would get my attention."

Anna looked back, sheepish and smiling, releasing her branch as she did. "Unless...you didn't know?"

"What do you mean?"

The princess crept closer. "Maybe YOU didn't make this...maybe I MADE you."

The queen considered that. "You mean...when you, ehm...took your turn with me, last night?"

Anna shrugged, knotting her hands. "You did seem to enjoy it. And I thought the room was shaking a lot, but I always figured 'feeling the earth move' was just an expression."

"Not with me, apparently," Elsa thought aloud, kneeling on the super-dense pillar of ice beneath her feet. "I knew I had power, but THIS...this is ridiculous. This thing is larger than the courtyard."

"Much larger," Anna observed, tapping her knuckles together nervously. "Is this...is this going to happen every time?"

"Every time...?"

"Every time we...throw the rule-book out the window?"

Elsa rubbed her temples as she stood up. "Oh, Gods, I don't know. But if there's even a chance, our bedrooms might not survive the experience. At least the forge is in the castle grounds and not within the castle itself. I'm surprised the tree didn't uproot the wall surrounding the—"

She stopped, looking about, suddenly confused. "Wait, where is the wall? And the auxiliary stables? They sit right next to the forge, so why aren't they here too?"

Anna barely had a chance to look about, before the morning sky beyond the branches of the tree took her breath away.

The ocean was vast and blue, dotted and frosted with great ice caves and bergs. Under a surprisingly open and bright sky, the North Sea opened wide with the Atlantic yawning beyond it, rimmed and frigid wherever the water came within a kilometer of the shore. Great bergs drifted in the windless tide, white-caps seemed nonexistent upon the regal azure globe beyond the tiny kingdom, and the fjord, caked with snow and jammed with ice, stood tall and silent, the gateway to the wilds of the north-land.

It was stunning and captivating and totally impossible to witness from where the two women stood.

Anna jumped back several feet, grasping at the nearest green branch of ice.

"How are we this high up?!"

"I...I don't know!" Elsa said, joining Anna and holding fast. "It's impossible...isn't it?"

The two monarchs were suddenly very aware of their center of gravity. With vertigo pulling their stomachs down into the bottom of their shoes, the sisters did some fast calculations to determine that the splendid morning view was only possible because they were perched atop a massive tree of green-blue ice, some four-hundred meters tall. Beneath them, barely visible over the lip of the crown of the trunk, they could make out the village and harbor below, still locked-in by seven-hundred meters of ice and eerily silent, with dozens of wisps of smoke trailing upwards from a multitude of happily puffing chimneys. The explosion-scarred cliffs to the southeast, now dusted with snow, seemed so far away, barely coming halfway up the pillar of ice. The range of mountains to the northeast seemed suddenly approachable, no longer towering guardians but patient footmen, standing at attention just barely above the treetop. The castle, behind the tree and surrounded by thick, snaking roots, looked relatively unharmed, but the wall surrounding the castle grounds was smothered, the coils of cold foliage looping up and over the parapets, finding their way to the breakwater and nestling in the boulders which lay below.

Elsa sank to her knees, her hands spread on either side of her legs, looking as if she didn't believe the structure beneath her was real. "Ooooohhhh no...no no no NO, what...what have I done? What have WE done?!"

Anna, ever impressed and fascinated with what her sister and herself could accomplish, looked about with wide-eyed wonderment, even as she knelt beside her sister.

"WE made something incredible," Anna reassured, sliding her hand gently up and down Elsa's back and leaning close, "because we DID something incredible, together. Everyone expresses love in different ways. With you and me, well...we create...LIFE, sort of. Intricate and ice-based, admittedly, but still, something incredible."

Elsa smiled sadly. "Oh, Anna, I love how you grab for that silver lining. But I'm pretty sure THIS," she said, gesturing to the green-blue canopy, "doesn't happen when other people express their love to one another."

"Oh come on, last night was your first time and mine, right?" Anna said, a little cheerful, "So how would you know?"

Elsa rolled her eyes as the two walked toward the edge of the tree-crown. "Call it a hunch. I don't think the kingdom could survive this level of 'expression' every time a couple decides to make love."

"So there are some side effects..." Anna shrugged.

"SIDE EFFECTS?" Elsa said, clasping Anna's face between her palms. "Are you kidding me? This is an announcement! This is a fireworks display!"

"Last night was pretty intense," Anna chided, smiling playfully.

Elsa released her sister and threw her arms down dramatically. "UGH, will you please stop trying to cheer me up and let me worry about this?! This is serious!"

"I know it is," Anna replied sharply, emphasizing her point by placing her fists on her hips, "but freaking out isn't going to help, is it? It's done! We can't change it! The elephant in the room—or rather, the huge ice tree in the castle bailey—is hard to ignore at this point. So why stress yourself out over it?"

"Because it's my responsibility!" Elsa defended. "I can't just explain this away. Everyone in the village, hell, everyone within ten leagues, can see this thing! What do I tell everyone when we get down from here? How do I explain this away?"

"You can't I guess!" Anna said angrily, folding her arms and turning from the view. "It's so huge and obvious that no one can ignore it. So they won't! They can't ignore it, no matter how much you regret it!"

Elsa was about to raise her voice, but caught herself when she thought about what Anna said. It stuck in her ear like a thumb-tack, sharp and glaring.

"Regret?"

Anna seemed to ignore Elsa, hiding her face from the light of the sun.

"Did I say regret?" Elsa repeated, stepping closer. "I didn't say regret. Not once."

Anna shrugged gently. "Just because you didn't SAY it..."

Elsa crept closer, as if she were approaching a fawn in the wild. "But I didn't. So why do you...?"

Anna turned but backed away slightly, her voice and face clearly upset. "But you feel it, right? Regret? Over this? Over last night?"

Elsa's heart clenched. "What?! Oh, no, no no, sweetheart, please...that's not what I...I NEVER meant to imply..."

Anna looked down, not wanting to lose her composure. "Look, Elsa...what we did last night, it was...BEYOND amazing. I know it, I felt it. So did you, or least I'm pretty sure you did. So when we wake up and we find something like this, something we created together...I don't know, my immediate reaction isn't doom and gloom. It took me by surprise, sure, but I mean, LOOK at this thing! It's beautiful, isn't it? What we made, isn't it incredible?"

Elsa considered that, looking about her and thinking carefully. "Yes, I suppose. But the way I reacted? What I said?"

Anna finished Elsa's thought, uncomfortably but clearly. "It sounds like you regret what we created. Regret what we did to create it. This tree may not be what we expected, but I didn't expect ANY of last night to happen, either. But I'm glad it did, regardless of this 'announcement', as you called it."

Elsa took that in, clasping her hands as she approached her sister. Anna didn't retreat this time, choosing instead to let Elsa take her in her arms, though refusing to unfold her own. The queen rested her chin on Anna's head, sighing deeply as Anna's cold nose met her collar-bone.

"I regret nothing," said the Queen, returning the same strokes along Anna's back, "and I certainly don't regret making something so marvelous with you. I'll probably always be a worry-wart about what happens to our kingdom, but especially when something happens that I couldn't control. I just don't want something bad to happen, not to our people and especially not to you."

Anna grasped at Elsa's gown, pulling Elsa closer by her fingertips. "You can't control how you feel about me, right?"

"Nope. Totally hopeless," Elsa agreed.

"So...maybe not being in control is...OK, sometimes?" Anna asked hopefully.

Elsa nodded. "Perhaps. But that doesn't mean I want to make things more difficult by being careless. You and I have enough things to worry about without an edifice to our debauchery sitting in the middle of the castle grounds."

Anna snuggled closer, finally looking up. "Yeah, but no one ELSE knows that's what precipitated all this, right? Can't we, I dunno, spin this somehow?"

"Well we're going to have to come up with SOMETHING," Elsa said, looking toward to the tiny outline of the village below, "but I'm not sure what, exactly. We're kinda trapped up here. Even if I wave this tree away, what are we going to do? Disappear with it?"

Anna took a deep, lazy breath, thinking about her options. "We could take a little vacation maybe? Up to the citadel on the North Mountain? Leave Rapunzel and Eugene in charge?"

"Anna..."

"OK, OK, fine, but isn't there a way we can do this without raising suspicion? I mean, you could make a big hole in the middle of this thing and take us down a set of stairs, right?"

"Sure, but what good would that do? Half the village is probably camped out below, either waiting for an explanation or wondering where on earth the two of us are."

"They probably figured out this was, well, one of your creations, by now."

"Of course they have," Elsa said, releasing Anna and pacing a bit as she thought aloud, "but they will want context, as most reasonable people do."

Anna thought for a moment, clicking her heel on the ice beneath her. "What if we go down separately? Me first, then you? Just make a slide through the trunk that comes out under the root nearest the eastern wall. I'll reveal myself, say that I just got there, or maybe that I was up all night looking for you in the forest near the edge of the fjord. The you can thaw the tree and make your entrance. Tell everyone you had a nightmare, something like that. I'll stand by you, fawn over you, take you away into the castle to make sure you're OK...the village will understand, I'm sure."

Elsa considered that, her pacing methodical and steady. "I'd hate to outright lie to them. They have every reason to be concerned, I'm sure they would have questions. What then? More lies?"

Anna bit the inside of her cheek, eyes downcast. "I don't like it either. But what can we do? Stay here?"

"Well...the view is spectacular..." Elsa admitted, smiling sheepishly.

"Oh so it's OK for YOU to be silly and flippant, but not me, huh?" Anna chastised.

"Sorry. But no, we can't stay. Eventually someone will look for us up here, when they've checked everywhere else."

"Yeah but who would be brave enough to scale something like this just to look for—?"

KUH-THWAAAANNNGGGGG!

Both sisters jumped back at the ring of steel cleaving ice. Svart Tann landed not five feet away, piercing the green floor of the tree-crown and holding firm. A rope, slack at first, went taunt with a snap of fiber against frost, the hook biting hard. The sound of boot-falls came next, followed by a jovial, unmistakable timbre, ringing out through the clear morning air.

"HA! Knew it! This thing had to have a top floor! Took about an hour, but here...we...are..."

Kristoff pulled himself over the lip of the trunk, his face muffled by a silken blue and white scarf, a gift given to him by Anna a few months prior. His cheeks were red and his chest heaving, eyes growing ever wider as he planted his feet and beheld the Queen and her Princess. He barely had a moment to catch his breath, while Elsa raised a hand and dropped it under the weight of the surrounding irony.

"Aaaaand I rest my case," She said, straightening her gown out and standing tall. "Good morning, Kristoff."

The ice-master maintained his composure well. In the instant it took him to take everything around him in—the sidelong view of the forge, the Queen, the Princess, their brand new garb and the magnificent canopy of green-blue foliage above him—he had retrieved his ax and begun coiling the rope around his shoulder. He knelt as he performed the task, methodical and repetitive, looking up at the sisters as they fidgeted about each other, doing their best not to look directly at each other...or him.

"Good morning Elsa, Anna," he said, dry but friendly, "lovely day we're having, isn't it? Perfect for gardening."

"Or dendrology," Anna added with nervous laughter, "if you're in to all...that..."

"Difficult climb?" Elsa asked, trying to ease the tension.

"Oh not terribly," Kristoff reassured his queen, "this ax makes short work of ice, even yours, Elsa. Once I had it in my mind to get up here, it only took about an hour to prep and an hour to climb. Didn't even need ice-grips for my lobben."

"What put it in your mind to climb this thing anyway?" Anna asked.

The young man shrugged, looking down as he adjusted his footwear. "A couple of reasons. I might get to that later. But first things first...who wants to give me the bad news?"

Elsa swallowed. "Bad news?"

"Yes," Kristoff said, standing and walking toward the forge where it lay nestled among the icy branches, "the bad news. The news I know is coming."

He patted the door of the forge, listening to the hollow rattle of the timber. "Like, for example...how did this happen? Where did the tree come from? How did the forge get up here and, most important, how did YOU two get up here?"

Anna clacked her knuckles together, sucking her lips into her mouth as if she could swallow her face to avoid the question. Elsa could see how stressed Anna was and hated to see her rack her brain for some kind of explanation that would satisfy Kristoff. Anna saw the reassuring gaze of the queen and was suddenly terrified of saying the wrong thing and making the situation even worse.

The two minutes of silence was excruciating.

"Look, Anna, Elsa," Kristoff sighed, leaning against the door-frame, "it's probably none of my business. You don't want to tell me, you don't have to. But one of the reasons I climbed this thing was to make sure you two were alright. I was worried."

Elsa brightened. "You were?"

"Yeah, I was," Kristoff said, folding his arms, "call me crazy."

"How did you know we were up here?" Anna asked.

"I didn't, but it seemed logical, given that no one has seen you two since last night and then BOOM, giant ice-tree. They've been looking for you everywhere, both of you. I figured at least one of you might be up here...or both. I was afraid it might be both."

"You were?" Asked Anna.

"They are?" Elsa added.

The man shrugged. "Yes."

The sisters simultaneously grasped the back of their necks, looking upward with mounting stress. They seemed to be processing different bits of information for different reasons.

Kristoff seemed only focused on one.

"You told her, didn't you?"

Elsa turned back, straight as a board. "What?"

Kristoff, crossing his legs and dropping his chin, sucked his teeth briefly before repeating himself. "You told her. What you told me. Didn't you?"

Anna was paying closer attention now. The respective body languages of Elsa and Kristoff seemed to indicate a fight was coming, full-on or passive aggressive, she wasn't sure. But the idea of having this morning spoiled by further recrimination or exasperation was unacceptable to her.

She decided to head it off at the pass.

Guided by something she was barely aware of, the princess walked over to the queen, wrapped an arm around her middle and pulled her close. The maneuver was so effortlessly smooth that it shocked both of them: Elsa looked to her side for a moment, pink and worried, before she, too, simply closed her eyes and returned Anna's embrace, sidelong but firm, with a hum of approval.

Without saying a word, she had agreed with her sister: enough was enough.

"Yes, she did," Anna confirmed, proud and strangely serene, "and I told her."

Kristoff absorbed that. Waited. Took a breath. "You told her?"

"Yes, she did," Elsa said, "several times, in fact."

Kristoff let his arms rise and fall with probably the deepest breath he had ever taken, the cloud of vapor escaping his nose like the smoke of a brooding dragon. "So...the two of you? You both...?"

Elsa pulled Anna a little closer, almost as if to shield her. She had started this whole disaster, so she felt compelled to see it through, no matter what the outcome.

"I told her exactly what I told you, Kristoff, though perhaps in greater detail," the queen continued, "because it was time to tell her. I had no agenda, I had no plan, which was frightening in and of itself, but...it was time. She needed to know the truth, needed to see exactly what she meant to me. So, against my better judgment, but at the insistence of my heart...I told her."

"And it was what I needed," Anna added, "to hear, to see, to feel. It was a missing piece, one I wasn't even aware was missing. And when I finally understood, it gave me the courage I needed to admit what I was feeling as well. Strange as it sounds, knowing the truth brought the truth out of me, too. In a way that I never, EVER thought possible. But there it is."

Kristoff, basically un-moving up until this point, began tapping his fingertips upon his bicep, as if waiting for the punchline of an unfunny joke. The sisters could see it, probably feel it, but his unhappy monotone provided a bit of guidance.

"So let's here it then," he bid them, controlled but unsettled, "since I doubt you've told anyone else. Let me be the first."

The pair of young women looked at one another, somber and resolute, before offering Kristoff a brace of sad smiles as their hands entwined.

"I'm in love with Anna," Elsa confessed.

"And I'm in love with Elsa," Anna added, raising her shoulders and letting them drop, her smile just as shrugging, "we love each other. It couldn't be simpler. Or more complicated."

Kristoff remained where he was, implacable in demeanor and silent in observation. Here stood a man whose eyes might have been bigger than his stomach, having consumed far too much and found himself regretting it. Even the gentle sunlight and sprinkle of chartreuse sparkles about his person seemed incapable of lifting his spirits, having been weighed down by some unseen lead sinker, lashed to his heart.

The queen saw fit to lift that sinker, if only a little bit.

"...but we also love you," she added, without a trace of irony or mockery, "Anna especially, but I do, as well. So rather than prolong this charade or keep you in the dark, perhaps it is fitting that you are the first to know the truth. Our truth. In all it's ridiculous, poorly-timed glory, it seems. But I, for one, am tired of hurting the people I care about for selfish, poorly-justified reasons. So I won't. Not anymore. Not with you."

She walked closer, seemingly unafraid, with Anna at her side. Kristoff made no motion to retreat, watching silently as the two approached, appraising and waiting and saying nothing.

"I'm not sure I said this properly last time, so I will try again," Elsa said, choosing her words carefully, "because it needs to be said: I'm so sorry I lied to you, Kristoff, even if it was a lie of omission. It was never my intent to hurt you. It still isn't. And I am sorry if learning this new information has hurt you. That was not my intention."

"Or mine," Anna chimed in. "Elsa's right: I love you, Kristoff. You're a man who earns the love of the people around you and I'm no different. And if I hurt you, or if any of this hurts you, I am so, so sorry. I won't apologize for how I feel about Elsa, but I also know this isn't necessarily fair to you, either...getting saddled with all this, which you certainly didn't ask for. But I care too much about you to just pretend that this isn't important, or that you don't deserve to know. And now, you do."

The princess took a breath and straightened herself. "So. Thanks. For listening."

Kristoff waited for quite some time before responding. The sisters could see a multitude of emotions, reactions and questions cross his face, never settling for more than a moment before being replaced by something else. There seemed to be at least one more inquiry plaguing him, but he was finding it difficult to express. It was probably the frankness of the sisters that made him accept simplicity as his strongest course of action.

"And...the tree?" he asked. "What brought that about?"

Anna was chewing her own words in her mouth almost immediately. Trying to soften the blow, most likely; diplomacy and careful word choice definitely at the forefront of her mind.

Elsa just shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. But best to rip this stitch out quick and clean, rather than slow and painful.

"We spent the night together," said the Queen, laying a hand at her collar-bone and tightening her grip on Anna's arm, "and all that that implies. We aren't sure, but we believe the tree to be a side-effect or construct of everything we shared. We weren't even aware of the tree until we woke up an hour ago. Clearly, my abilities react to...powerful stimuli. That's the best explanation I can offer at this point."

Anna looked at Elsa like she had swallowed a watermelon whole. It was equal parts shocked and impressed, followed by a quirk of a smile that Elsa silently reveled in. It was easy to cause wonder with her powers, but Elsa adored bringing Anna astonishment with her words as well.

Kristoff blinked. Looked away. Blinked again. "I...see..."

Anna's voice was unapologetic but sympathetic. "Also not planned, I should say. In fact, I might have been the instigator, sort of. But it happened. We wanted it. We wanted each other. That was all there was to it."

The young man seemed spellbound. He barely moved, his fingers still tapping every so often as bits of information were processed, rejected, processed again and then, seemingly, understood, though with some level of difficulty.

Elsa cocked her head, her gaze full of concern. "Kristoff? Are you...alright?"

When he looked back at her, the Queen wasn't sure if she saw anger, hate, sadness or jealousy upon his face. For the first time since she had met him, the man seemed unreadable.

"I don't know. I really don't," he admitted, slowly and honestly.

Anna, for her part, remained quietly hopeful. She missed his easy smile, but understood that perhaps it had gone away for now. Nothing seemed quite so easy right now, for him.

"I suppose we're lucky you two weren't in the castle," Kristoff said, more or less thinking aloud. "Would have given the house carpenter a heart attack."

"I know, right?! We were just talking about that when we...first saw...this...thing," Anna chimed in, suddenly happy, before reading the room again and pulling herself back. Cheerful was probably an inappropriate default at this point.

"How do you feel?" Elsa asked carefully.

The man managed his speech directly as he spoke. "Again...hard to put into words. This whole morning has been a bit much; giant ice trees, frantic royalty, search parties and ice-scaling...a lot to handle in three hours."

Anna tried a less provocative method of questioning. "Is there anything we can do? To help you put it into words?"

Kristoff considered that, nodding his head as he thought. He seemed to picking and choosing from a list of options, none of which seemed more enticing than the other.

"I suppose I'm just overwhelmed," he said, slow and deliberate. "I never thought...never really pictured this, any of this, as a possibility. It's a lot to swallow."

Anna nodded, her beautiful eyes down-turned. "I guess it is. For all of us. It's a lot, all at once."

Elsa followed suit. "And we take responsibility for the fact that this isn't easy. But it's real. It's what we want...and I suppose, who we are."

"We may not be able to shout it from the rooftops," Anna admitted, "but since that probably isn't advisable anyway, we'll start with someone we trust and love: You."

The man was very slowly relaxing his body, even if the look on his face hadn't relaxed at all. He appraised the tree again, clearly fascinated, if somewhat forlorn. The splay of jovial, intermingled light-patterns seemed to mock his stern face as he drew another deep breath, exhaling his consternation in a thick fog.

"Shouting from the rooftops may have been more subtle than this..." he mused.

Anna shrugged, looking away. "It's one hell of an exclamation point, at least."

"Speaking of which...was as anyone hurt?" Elsa asked, trying to divert while still taking the situation seriously. "It was going to be the first thing I asked when we finally came down from here."

"No, no one was hurt," Kristoff answered, relieved to finally have a less awkward piece of information to respond to. "The stables were tipped over, but they were unoccupied at the time. Part of the breakwater barrier was 'uprooted', for lack of a better term, and one of the docks was crushed by the weight of the ice as the 'roots' settled next to the harbor. But no damage beyond repair and no injuries."

"And the villagers? Are they...freaking out?" Anna asked, trying to be as delicate with the word 'freaking' as she could.

Kristoff shrugged without unfolding his arms. "Mostly bewildered, awestruck, confused. The children seem fascinated with it. Everyone else was just a little surprised, I guess. Not the Yule-tree they were expecting."

"And...the household?" Elsa asked, hesitantly.

Kristoff finally relaxed his arms, scratching his head. "Gerda was the one that found me, after your aunt and uncle found her, looking for answers. She noticed that you two weren't at breakfast, but it was your extended family that noticed you weren't in your rooms. They summoned Andor, who was the first to tell us to look outside. I guess he was a little embarrassed that the town-folk had noticed the tree long before the watchmen had. Everyone in the castle was up and about in three minutes after that. The royal guard was dispatched and the castle grounds searched. When they came up empty, Eugene and Rapunzel took a sledge and a company of some fifty men to scour the immediate area surrounding the city. They're still out looking for you as we speak, probably moving further south by now, to cover more ground. Godehard and Frida gave orders that NO ONE was to touch the tree and that everyone was to proceed as quietly and discreetly as possible, until you were found. They asked if it were possible to scale the tree, without raising suspicion. If I managed to do so without YOU noticing, until I was right on top of you, I guess I was successful."

Here he paused, looking about, his amazement at the tree more obvious now. "I don't think the villagers know you're up here, or that you were missing at first. A few local community representatives were being summoned as I prepared my climbing gear. But everyone else in the castle? They've been having kittens, trying to figure out what happened to you two."

Elsa and Anna held on to each other for support. Suddenly their grand plan for playing this whole think off as a minor incident was looking less and less feasible. The city may not have been in an uproar, but the castle was. The sisters seemed unsure which scenario was worse.

"Also," Kristoff added, "Elgar has vanished. Again. And I don't mean he has retreated to his room. His carriage, horses, his footmen...all gone. It's what made your aunt and uncle so nervous at first, since you two seemed to disappear at the same time. I guess it's unrelated at this point, but probably something you should address after you come down from here. And...ya know, after reassuring everyone that you aren't missing or dead."

Anna's head swam, pressing the palm of her hand into her temple, before turning to Elsa. "Ooooh boy, THIS is going to be a fun afternoon. So...what now?"

"I have no idea," Elsa said, shaking her head, "but we can't stay up here and we're time-poor as it is. We need to get back and try to sort this out."

"How do we do that while being discrete?" Anna asked. "You can't just whisk this away without everyone noticing. All eyes are on this tree."

"And simply making the tree vanish may cause more damage to the courtyard and the forge," Elsa confirmed. "So...let's simplify this..."

With a wave of her hand, the core of the tree dipped inward and downwards, the greenish crystals calving and lowering out of sight in the shape of a near-perfect circular depression. Kristoff walked slowly closer, watching as a long spiral of stairs molded themselves into existence, spinning away into the depths of the tree and out of sight. A hand-rail sprung up and attached itself on either side of the stairs, coiling like a wine along the sheer 'wall' of the stairwell, complete with leaves and flower-bud accentuation.

"This will work until I can figure out how to safely remove our 'construct'," Elsa said, "and in the mean time, we should also dispatch a messenger to the south, to bring Eugene and Rapunzel back. I just hope they haven't gone too far from the kingdom; these lands are dangerous in mid-winter."

Kristoff suddenly perked up. His head turned, eyes alert, as if he were trying to track something. This caught Anna and Elsa's attention, watching as Kristoff slowly walked away from the stairwell and to the edge of the tree-crown once more, his head tilted.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

The two women went still, flexing their ears as well as holding their breath.

Sure enough, in the distance, coming in low over the foot-hills, was a noise. It was soft at first, but it gained strength and urgency as it came closer. It was almost a howl, but too steady for the bay of a hound or the rattle of wind.

It was a horn.

"I hear it," Anna said, pushing past the crystal leaves, "coming closer! A hunters horn!"

The trio looked down into the middle distance, finding it difficult to focus at first in the harsh, unfiltered sunlight. But soon, movement among the trees could be seen, perhaps half a mile out. Just swaying branches at first, but then the sound of hoof-beats, and heads of horses, then the helmets of soldiers and glint of armor. Ahead of them all, a sledge, pulled by two draft colts, running at full tilt northward, back toward the castle.

And in the driving seat, two young lovers, one at the reins, the other with her lips to a horn, blaring a single, ominous note over and over again, while Arendellian soldiers followed at double-quick pace behind them.

Eugene and Rapunzel, hauling hard over the frozen ground, looked tired, determined...and afraid.

"Something's wrong," Elsa said, clutching at her scarf. "Why do they look so scared?"

"They look like they've seen a ghost," Anna agreed.

"Or something worse," Kristoff said, looking away from the approaching group and toward the southern horizon. "Are you expecting guests?"

"No, why?" Anna said, following his gaze.

"Because unless the light is tricking me, I think you're about to have some more company for Yule. Look!"

Both women trained their eyes on the sea, straining against the shockingly bright sunlight. They squinted and scanned, before something stopped the sisters' breath in their throats.

Sixty or seventy kilometers away, just barely creeping over the curve of Earth, a line of strange clouds seemed to be growing larger. The only issue was that THESE clouds were far too uniform in size in shape, rigid, practically geometric in persuasion. They were tiny for the moment, but as the seconds ticked by, their size and number began to grow. Ten. Twenty. Close to fifty now, stacked in threes or fours, uniform and orderly, one set following behind the other.

They began to line the edge of the sea, like stacks of paper atop a printing press.

"Sails?" Anna said, hushed.

"Lots of them," Kristoff confirmed, his hand slowly resting atop his ax.

"And if we weren't atop this tree, we would never have seen them," Elsa said, her voice firm but wary as she looked back to Eugene and Rapunzel, barreling out of the woods. "They must have traveled all the way to the Bølgebryteren if they discovered this before we did."

"But who are they? Eugene and Rapunzel look almost panicked," Anna said.

Kristoff reached into his inner-coat and produced an old brass spyglass. Though small, it enhanced his vision enough for him to gain some baring as to what was headed towards them from the south.

"I don't recognize the flags or markings..." he admitted, handing the glass to Elsa. "But they don't look uniform. The big one looks more ornate than all the others."

The queen put the survey tool to her eye and spent a minute or two skimming the horizon. As she did, her mouth crept open, as if the information she gathered only served to dumbfound her further.

"Calibri...Florentine...Ludenor...RUSSLAND...!"

Anna caught on. "That many? From across the continent?"

"And those are just the ones I recognize," Elsa admitted, putting the glass back in Kristoff's hand. "The rest are behind the others and out of view...I can only guess at their origin."

Anna twisted her hands. "Maybe Rapunzel got a better look than we did?"

"Maybe we should ask them," Kristoff offered, shaking off the reverie and gesturing to the stairs, "and quickly, yes? Ladies, if you please?"

Elsa reached for Anna's hand, finding her grip gratefully returned, as the two spun and marched quickly for the center of the tree. The two had the same, brief impulse to look back at the forge-works, as if to acknowledge one last time the significance of the structure, before scurrying down the center of the tree trunk as fast as they could. With another brief look over his shoulder, the ice-master followed close behind, leaving the canopy of emerald light far behind him as he dove down after the queen and her princess.

The throne-room was in chaos. Soldiers stood at attention, flanking every entrance and exit, while multiple merchants, tradesmen, village council-members and local representatives filled the room, all talking and chatting at once. The sunlight caught the small clouds of dust which were kicked up into the vaulted ceiling, giving the chamber a cramped, unkempt atmosphere. Attendants and valets skittered about, bringing tea and breakfast materials to and from, attempting to feed and sustain the larger-than-average crowd for as long as was possible while they whispered among themselves. The whole affair was reminiscent of a trading post, with uneasy information being exchanged back an forth in place of goods and services.

At the head of the room, standing near and about the throne, the King and Queen of Corona paced, occasionally looking about to make sure that the measured cacophony in the room remained managed and orderly, but also doing what they could to garner information from those around them. This was proving difficult, since rumor and conjecture were being hoisted about the room like ribbons in a boutique.

"It's an omen, I'm sure it is! What else could explain it?" one man proposed.

"And what of the queen and princess? They have vanished! Has something happened to them?" asked a woman, her face red with worry.

"Don't be stupid, no one else controls the ice and snow like the queen," countered a boorish iron-worker.

"Maybe it's a gift? Something to do with yule?" offered a younger man.

"The point of which is...what? A giant green tree of ice to tower over the city? What does that have to do with yule?" asked a street sweeper.

"Maybe nothing, but the townspeople have questions. My fishermen are idle because of the ice-locked harbor, now they're spreading rumors," said a man in coveralls and thick oilskins.

"Well the children don't seem to mind. They're wondering if Elsa can make them all trees, to play under," said a school teacher, "since not much grows around here this time of year."

"Aren't we missing the point? The tree is here but the queen and princess are gone! Shouldn't we be out looking for them?"

TAM! TAM! TAM!

The rattle of a scabbard striking the wooden floor sent a hollow echo through the room. The effect was not immediate, but it was effective in bringing the room to a relative calm. Godehard, his eyes even and his crown sitting proud upon his brow, managed to draw the entirety of the rooms' attention to his wife and himself. His sword hung calmly at his side, the dust upon the carpet at his feet swirling about his sidearm.

"That is precisely what has been done," he said, firmly and reassuringly, keeping the timbre of his voice friendly but unassailable. "My wife and I have dispatched a search-party, with the blessing of commander Andor, as soon as the castle was inspected and no trace of their majesties could be found. I can assure you, save for a full scour of the countryside by the entirety of the Arendellian military, everything that can be done to find my nieces is being done."

One brave man, a local carpenter, spoke up at this information. "Well...why not the whole of the military? And the village militia as well? Wouldn't that cover more ground?"

"Perhaps, but such action would be ill advised at this point," Frida acknowledged, stepping forward to flank her husband. "Though we have no reason to suspect foul play at this juncture, it would be unwise to empty the city of it's primary defensive posture. My husband and I have spoken at length with the head of the household and the administrative staff. We asked for their council, in order to pursue the most prudent course of action, which included the contacting of local jurisdictions and their respective representatives, as well as other community leaders. While we must control information to a certain degree, it was strongly encouraged that we keep as many people involved as necessary...but not TOO many people. We invited you here so as to keep you informed of our actions in so far as we are able, as well as to assuage any trepidation you might have about this incident."

"Majesties, we mean no effrontery," said another woman, a glass-worker, "but how do you know there has been no foul play? How do you know that the queen and princess are just missing and not hurt? Or something worse?"

"We don't," Godehard said, shrugging his broad shoulders while also squaring them with the small crowd of people, "but we also have no proof that anything terrible has happened. The private apartments of their majesties were not forcibly entered, nothing of the treasury or armory seems to be missing or altered, there is no sign of struggle, no evidence of injury. But since neither of them can be found within the walls of the castle, I have dispatched my daughter and son to look for them, along with fifty of the best men-at-arms available to the crown. If their majesties are within one-hundred leagues of the village, we will find their trail, and, eventually, both sisters."

"And if not? What then? What if your daughter and son don't find them?!" a mason asked, high-strung and worried.

The Coronan king sighed loudly in frustration. "Then I shall take up the search myself! In the highly unlikely event that the princess and her husband are unsuccessful, I will ride twenty strong horses into the GROUND before even thinking of giving up! I'll not tolerate failure, not in the pursuit of your queen, your princess...my KIN. Is that in any way unclear?"

The room was visibly less rattled, less harried by uneasy tension. The guard detail at the periphery of the room, though standing at attention, were looking to the king with a silent admiration. There was a sincerity to his speech, one that was difficult to fabricate. They seemed to sense at least that much in his words.

"In the meantime," Frida added, her control and compassion for the group evident in her tone, "we would ask you to keep the village and countryside as calm and orderly as possible. The King and I hold no command over these lands, and after what happened during the summer, the last thing we wish is to give anyone the impression that the line of succession has been compromised in some way. As far as the two of us are concerned, Elsa is alive and well and remains the Queen of Arendelle, with her sister, Anna, also in good health and forever at her side. The same impression should be held by every member of this household and EVERY person in this room, especially. We would ask you to keep steady, remain vigilant...and trust that we shall resolve this issue as quickly and discreetly as humanly possible. Are there any questions?"

The room was understandably silent.

"Very well," Frida said, spreading her arms, "we thank you for your kind attention. Rest assured, as soon as we have acquired new information, we shall communicate it to you. This concludes our assembly."

The room slowly emptied. There were mutters of uncertainty and small comments about wanting to know what was and was not being said. But, as requested, the three dozen citizens filed out, leaving the room quiet and predominantly empty once again.

Save, of course, for the queen, her King and twenty royal guards.

Frida turned to the men and softly said "Gentlemen, thank you for your duty this morning, but my husband and I need some time to discuss a few things. Please, get something to eat and join the rest of your comrades. We have everything we need here."

"Ma'am," said the eldest corporal, offering a stiff bow before addressing his men, "Company, fall out! Report to second regiment."

The queen and king watched the last of their audience as it left, their boots fading into the distance as they exited on either side of the throne-room. They, too, left without answers, but duty bound to fulfill their assignments nonetheless.

Godehard finally slouched a bit, using his sword as a lean-to and pulling at his collar as he muttered to himself. "This is going to be a long day..."

Frida came closer. "I think we handled that well, considering. How can we offer reassurance when all we seem to have are unanswered questions? We're doing what must be done."

"That doesn't mean I'm LESS uneasy about this," Godehard said, running a gloved hand through his beard. "The two of them, vanishing in the night, in the middle of winter, with no note, no message...and that Vogelscheuche gehen, silent as harbor fog, also slipping away without anyone noticing...it's enough to make my blood run cold."

"We have no way of knowing if he is involved in this," Frida offered, touching her husbands epaulet.

"Or that he isn't," Godehard sighed, throwing a knowing glance around the room, "and if he is, what recourse would we have? Elgar could have spirited them seventy leagues away by now. Even if we knew his heading, it would take three days to free the Seelied from all the ice surrounding it in the harbor. It may be the fastest vessel in our fleet, but that margin for error is unacceptable."

"And if it comes to that, we'll blast the ship free with gunpowder!" Frida said, allowing her voice to rise a bit before correcting herself again. "Either way, just as you said...we will figure this out. No one is giving up."

Godehard allowed himself a deep breath, wrapping an arm around his wife as he collected his stress and buried it deep. For the moment, at least.

"Exactly. No one."

About a minute later, the sound of shuffling feet and skittering boots could be heard approaching the throne-room. It felt as if a small army was encroaching on the King and Queen, but their apprehension lessened as an attendant called out from the hall, "Presenting their Royal Highness's, Princess Rapunzel and Prince Eugene of Corona!"

Said royal couple burst through the doors, huffing and puffing and clearly a mess of sweat and determination. Even in traveling clothes, suitable for cold weather, the princess and her husband were red in the face, covered in small scratches and twigs and leaves, as if they had come hurtling out of the woods like twin hurricanes.

Godehard and Frida were practically on tiptoe as they approached their children.

"Mom! Dad!" Rapunzel gasped, her hands on her knees as her wool hat fell from her head, "You won't believe what we found!"

"Anna?"

"Elsa?!"

"Neither," Eugene said, kicking snow from his boots and wringing water from his hat.

The king and queen were confused. "So...what DID you see?" Frida asked.

"Oh, nothing much...except, ya know, Arendelle is being invaded..." Eugene said between puffs of breath.

"Eugene! We don't know if that's what we saw!" Rapunzel chastised him.

"What DID you see?" Godehard asked, his voice low and commanding and disinterested in any further tomfoolery.

Rapunzel was the first to regain her voice. "A flotilla. Fifteen or twenty ships total, we think, approaching from the southwest at speed, or at least as fast as the ice will allow. We saw them crest the horizon when we reached the southernmost coast of Arendelle. At first I thought it was some kind of glare on the ocean or a mirage, but as we watched, they kept getting bigger. Coming closer."

"How close?" Frida pushed, all business as well.

"Ten or twelve leagues, by now," Eugene confirmed, hands on his hips as he leaned backwards, stretching his spine until his hips popped slightly, "following the edge of the pack-ice, near as we can tell. The smaller craft are protecting the flagship, towards the middle of the group."

"How do you know it was the flagship?" Godehard pressed.

"Bigger than all the other ships. Taller, too," Rapunzel surmised, removing her winter coat and setting it on a chair to dry. "It was hard to tell at that distance, but it looked like a one-hundred twenty gunner, maybe bigger. Huge sails, bigger than anything I've yet seen. Makes the Seelied look like a prison galleon."

"Yeah, and the massive double-headed golden eagle on the mainsail seemed to scream out 'big boss ship' to me," Eugene said, "didn't even need my spyglass to see that much."

The king and queen turned to each other slowly, taking a moment to process all of that. They seemed inarticulate for a moment, considering something between them that they could not put into words.

"What is it?" Rapunzel asked,

"The Russland Empire. Here. In force," Godehard said, measured and speculative, "and it sounds like the Volkhov, the largest ship of the line IN the Russland navy, is leading the way."

"You know the ship?" Eugene inquired.

"Everyone knows it, at least everyone who's nation commands a navy of their own," Frida added. "It's arguably unmatched by anything else that floats. Not the fastest, but in terms of armament and firepower, she is a floating fortress. A double-hull, young oak reinforced with iron plating, five masts, usually outfitted with a crew of one-hundred thirty, plus another hundred morskiye pekhotintsy. Supposedly, during the battle of the Gairland Straights, it withstood bombardment from seven other brigs for almost three days, before sinking all of them with casual broadsides. It didn't even need to put-in for repairs...it just positioned itself along the Murmansk inlet, pounding any vessel that came within range."

"Officers of the Coronan Coastal Watch gave it a nickname," Godehard mused, "the Lachender Eber. A ship so big and brutish that it would eat up anything one could throw at it and come back for more. A true naval nightmare."

Rapunzel shivered a bit and not from the cold. "But I don't get it, why would the empire send a fleet HERE? Does Russland have some business with Arendelle? Or Emperor Rurikid? "

"Not all he ships are of Russland," came a soft but certain voice from the head of the room.

Everyone turned and looked. "Elsa!"

Indeed, the Queen and Princess, dirty-faced but still resplendent in their winter garb, had appeared in the throne-room without anyone noticing. Having slipped through a hidden passage behind the purple curtains hanging beneath the large bay windows, the pair were among their family once again, with Kristoff not more than a yard behind them, standing at the ready.

Everyone rounded on the trio, marching closer. The queen and king were upon their nieces in a second, followed by the exhausted young princess and her husband.

"Where on EARTH have you been?"

"We were so worried! We spent the morning riding out all over creation looking for you!"

"You two picked a heck of a time to vanish, ya know that?"

"Are you alright? Where did you go? What did you see?"

Godehard tried to cut through all the questions. "FIRSTLY...are either of you hurt?"

"No," the sisters said together.

"Thank Goodness," the large man said, embracing both women in a big bear hug. It surprised Elsa and Anna, but they returned the affection, however briefly it lasted.

"Secondly," the king said, "please don't EVER do that again," the king asked, fatherly and somewhat removed of decorum, "at least without telling SOMEONE. When queen and princess simply disappear in the middle of the night, it tends to cause great alarm for those who live within your nation, especially your castle."

"He's right," Frida added, "your house staff has been doing cartwheels trying to figure out what happened to the two of you."

"And I thought my days of reliving these flash-backs were done," Godehard inserted, his tone wavering slightly as he bowed his head, resting his hands on the shoulders of the sisters at arms length. "They were a little too vivid just now..."

"Flashbacks?" Anna asked, turning to a bewildered Kristoff and Elsa.

Frida and Rapunzel cleared their throats, with Rapunzel leaning into Eugene, a sort of reflex comfort action. He wrapped his arm around her, offering a steady lean-to as her memory swam a bit.

Elsa looked at her Aunt. "I'm afraid I don't understand..."

The queen's face softened and saddened all at once, her voice wistful. "The memories of what happened all those years ago...right after Rapunzel was christened. Right after she was taken from us. What happened when we found her missing, the alarm, the deployment of the guard, the reaction from the kingdom, the fallout, the unanswered questions..."

"...and the waiting," Godehard said, finally reclaiming his voice, "the hours and days and months and YEARS...of waiting, for something, anything, any news, about what happened to our daughter. Probably the worst part: the waiting and the lack of answers."

He stood tall, still keeping a soft grip on the two young women as he blinked away frustrating tears. "I'm not going to lecture you, but I really don't need a reminder of that time, of that fear, ever again. Alright?"

"Oh, Papa..." Rapunzel whispered, coming to offer her father a hug. He took it gladly, steadied by the reassuring presence of his daughter.

"Well I'm not going to lecture you either, but I'm still more than a little miffed by the vanishing act," Frida said, stepping closer with crossed arms, "so I need to know just what in heavens name called you two away, in the middle of the night, without so much as a 'goodbye' to anyone in this castle."

Elsa and Anna deflated, but retained a resolute posture. They looked to one another, to Kristoff as he waited behind the group, and back again, looking for answers that were suddenly scarce.

"It's...a rather complicated story," Elsa said, tapping her fingers on her uncles wrist from where it sat on her shoulder.

Anna, seeing the turning of wheels in her sisters head, decided that it would be quite disastrous to even attempt a full scale explanation.

So, even though it went against the grain of her nature, she thought up a perfectly well-reasoned, articulate and effective side-step.

"See, well...we had kind of a...tense conversation, the four of us, last night," Anna began, "that is, between Elsa, Kristoff, Lord Elgar and I. It started as an early exchange of Yule-tide gifts. But that led to a very unpleasant exchange, which lead to a fight, between Elsa and I, I mean. So I...well, I left, angry, and Elsa followed, because she didn't want to leave things unsaid or unfinished..."

"A fight about what?" Frida pushed.

It seemed as if Kristoff and Elsa were catching onto Anna's diplomatic weaving's, listening and filling in pieces as needed in their own heads. Neither of them seemed to like it, but at least they were wise to how this would have to go down.

"It was partly my fault," Kristoff said, stepping forward a bit, "I made some off-color comment about the gift Anna received, one I regretted immediately. Which made Elsa upset at me, then Anna upset at her...it was silly, really..."

"I somewhat overreacted," Anna added, "but still, it was enough to make me leave the room and storm off, but I didn't want to be followed to my room, so I went to the forge, to clear my head and adjust my gift so it was more manageable..."

"Essentially," Elsa interjected, trying to keep the edges of this tapestry from fraying further, "I followed Anna and the two of us had it out. Nice, big, passionate fight. I think it had been building up for a while...we hadn't really talked in a few days and we thought it was time to settle a few things. Some private things."

Kristoff visibly winced at the word 'private' but nodded his head in firm agreement. "Yeah, I didn't give it a second thought when they left. I figured it was time to hash-out whatever was bothering them. None of my business, I guess..."

Anna closed her eyes with a moment of regret before continuing. "And it must have been a long fight, because, well...we lost track of time. I was so exhausted from yelling that I had lost my appetite and just kinda settled into a chair next to the forge. It was was warm and quiet and I guess I just drifted off."

"We both did," Elsa added, giving Anna a sidelong glance, "and I felt so bad at putting her through such an ordeal that I didn't have the heart to move her. I'm sure at some point I found my way over to that wretchedly dirty cot that Elgar keeps in the forge, because that's where I woke up."

"Covered in coal dust," Anna layered, "she was filthy and so was I, so she whipped us up a new set of clothes from the old ones. That's when we kinda noticed that we'd slept in a bit..."

"More than a bit," Elsa shrugged.

Rapunzel was curious about an offhanded remark made by the sisters. "Elgar and you three exchanged gifts?"

Anna nodded. "Indeed, quite beautiful gifts, actually."

Frida arched her brow. "And lord Elgar? He didn't witness this fight, I take it?"

Elsa shook her braided but dirty hair. "No. It was private. No intrusions. In fact, I made a wall of ice within the entrance-way, to keep out any intrusions."

Godehard leaned back, eyes narrow but otherwise believing. "And the tree?"

"Tree?" Anna yelped softly.

"Yes dear, the giant green-blue behemoth in the bailey, creeping it's way toward the heavens," Frida clarified. "Was there a reason for that little creation?"

Elsa bit the inside of her cheek before she lied again. "Well...we aren't sure. I've been known to manifest things in my sleep, when I have less direct control over my abilities. It's possible I had a nightmare or just a very vivid dream...something which contributed to a subconscious creation."

Godehard seemed to accept that, even though he pulled at his beard with prolonged curiosity. "Is that a fact...have you ever created something like that before?"

Elsa didn't have to lie this time. "No...no, this was a first."

Rapunzel looked in the general direction of the tree, partly hidden from view by the corner of the castle. "Must have been something intense, to create something like that."

Anna stifled a grin, doing her best to look concerned rather than pleased. "It certainly took us by surprise. We didn't even notice until we came out of the forge and realized just how much the view had changed."

"The rest of the kingdom noticed, too," Eugene said, hands on his hips. "Hell of a way to wake up a village from their winter stupor."

Elsa sighed. "I know, and as soon as I can find a way to disintegrate the thing safely, I will. It's an unusually solid manifestation."

"Which seems to answer another question...I'm guessing Lord Elgar was not with you after your gift exchange?" Godehard asked.

"No, he wasn't," Anna confirmed. "In fact we have no idea what happened to him after the three of us left the throne-room. He never came back to the forge, where he spends most of his time. He wasn't in his apartment?"

"No. We searched for him, though not nearly as hard as we searched for you," Eugene added, "and we figured if he had anything to do with this, we would find you and his cart somewhere to the south. If he was heading back to Ludenor, he'd be heading southeast, so that's where we started our search."

"His cart is gone?" Anna asked, concerned.

"Everything of his is gone," Rapunzel nodded, "his cart, draft-horses, that huge stallion, both of his little minions...we thought perhaps he'd waited until the castle was sealed for the night before slipping away in the dark. The gate wasn't open, but it's possible he let himself out and his tracks were covered by snowfall. The weather didn't let up until just after sunrise."

Elsa recoiled a bit, hand on the back of her neck, looking tiredly at the ceiling for a moment before speaking. "If he has gone, he gave us no warning or any reason to believe that we had offered him some offense. He encouraged me to settle things with Anna, his words seemed earnest. It just doesn't make any sense..."

"No, it doesn't," Godehard said, offering his own puzzlement, "but for the time being, he is less of a concern, now that you two are safe and sound. Besides, we seem to have a far larger issue on the horizon."

"Literally," Eugene said.

"You saw them when you traveled south?" Kristoff asked.

"Actually the leader of the search party spotted them first," Rapunzel said, gesturing to the door behind her, "right as we rounded the cliffs nearest the coast. Made a big deal out of it, too, since the last time Arendelle had this many visitors was right after your coronation."

"And that had been planned," Elsa said, walking toward the middle of the room, thinking aloud, "but this, so far as I'm aware, was not. The Continental Coalition of Kingdoms doesn't meet for six months, and it certainly isn't meeting HERE, of all places. The Calibri Federation is hosting the next gathering."

"But you said you could see multiple represented nations?" Frida asked, "From atop the tree?"

"At least six or seven, maybe more," Anna said, joining her sister, "but for the life of me we can't figure out why they are coming...or why Russland seems to be leading them."

"IF Russland is leading them," Godehard interjected.

"What do you mean?" asked Elsa.

Godehard was pacing now, ever so slightly, in and out of the light softly streaming through the windows. "If the Emperor wished to simply send a representative, he has plenty of personnel, and sea-craft, for such a chore. His messenger fleet is surprisingly swift. He could have sent a diplomat or courier with little fanfare, if this was simply a matter of representation."

"But this seems different?" Rapunzel followed.

Godehard nodded. "Why send the flagship of the Imperial Navy? Especially a warship? Why this time of year? Why the massive entourage of multiple sister-nations?"

"And why is Ludenor among them?" Anna added, finding the rails beneath this train of thought.

The king nodded slowly. "There is something larger at hand here. I know the postal system in this part of the world is ghastly, but such a show of force should have been preceded by something...a notice, a decree, a declaration of some kind. The fact that you are only made aware of such maneuvers as they arrive ON YOUR DOORSTEP is telling. This may be far more insidious than we realize."

Elsa was struck with an unsettling memory. "The letter..."

"What letter?" said Frida.

Elsa hugged her sides slightly, her voice suddenly strained. "When we first arrived back in in Arendelle, after our journey north and our discovery of lord Elgar, I wrote a letter to King Ardent, explaining the situation and asking for clarification regarding Elgar's bonafides. I didn't mention anything untoward or sinister regarding Lord Elgar, I only wanted a little information, since there are more lords and barons and ministers and viceroys strewn about the collective nations than there are blades of grass in a field..."

She looked back to her Aunt and Uncle. "...but I never received a response. Nothing, not in five weeks or so. I thought maybe it had something to do with the letter arriving late or not at all, but the Sun Fury Owls are so reliable...it didn't make sense."

"Seems to be the theme of the morning," Kristoff added, his own stress harder to conceal.

The King and Queen of Corona let that sink in. They all did. For a minute or more, no one really said a thing. The collective brain-power in the room seemed to be stewing away, percolating, braising, looking for answers in the thick soup of information which swirled between them.

Frida spoke up first. "We may have more questions than answers right now, but for the moment, we need to address the issue right in front of us. Don't you agree, my queen?"

Elsa took a deep breath and snapped to attention, her gaze distant and detached. "Yes. Of course, you're right. Kristoff, how long until our 'guests' arrive?"

The ice-master gave it some thought. "They may push on to avoid another night stuck at sea. If they do, and the wind remains constant out of the southwest, maybe six or seven hours, max."

"Six or seven hours..." whispered the queen, the number less than stellar.

"Are they going to attack or something?" Rapunzel asked, bringing the obvious center stage.

Anna slowly shook her head. "I don't think so. At least, that seems unlikely. They aren't trying to hide their fleet-movements, they're approaching by daylight, hugging the coast. There have been no reports of ground-incursions or any hostile forces anywhere near the kingdom in more than a year, save for what happened during the summer. If this was an attack, they're giving us far too much notice and doing a poor job of catching us off guard."

"It's still suspicious as hell," Kristoff commented, "and with twenty vessels, they match the Arendellian fleet, ship for ship, even without the Volkhov in the middle of it all. This could still get dicey."

The king and queen of Corona looked to their eldest niece and gave her a firm glance, one they would reserve for any loved-one faced with a tough decision. Elsa took their meaning and, for better or worse, knew what to do. So she made her decision.

"Where are the men who accompanied you to the south?" Elsa asked her cousin.

Rapunzel gestured to the other side of the castle. "Meeting with Andor, reporting what we saw. I would imagine he's going to want to meet with you, too, pretty soon, now that we know you're OK. Captain Lusk is with him."

Elsa nodded, looking to her Aunt and Uncle. "The regional leaders you spoke to, did they have any inkling that a fleet was on it's way?"

Godehard thought for a moment. "No, at least none which made it obvious. For the moment, they seem to be in the dark. But that won't last."

Elsa nodded to that as well. "No, it won't. So we have to make this quick."

"Make what quick?" Anna asked.

"If their fleet has some hostile intent, we will know by the time they reach the shallows," Elsa declared, slowly walking between her family members. "It is customary for fleet commanders to send an envoy ashore, to state their business, ask for assistance or what have you. If in six hours time, when they are quite literally at the outskirts of our oceanic boarders, they do not send an envoy—or they send one with a clearly antagonistic declarative on their mind—we will have our answer. But if they do, and this is some other plot altogether, we shall have a new offensive to consider. One equally perilous, perhaps."

"The queen has a plan?" Frida asked, raising an approving eyebrow.

"More or less," Elsa agreed, facing the group, "and it is two-pronged. Anna, I need you, Kristoff, Eugene and Rapunzel to meet with our mesterkokk, Kai, Gerda, the hospitality staff and the groundsmen for the castle. Bring in the scullery-maids and footmen if need be; we'll need all the auxiliary servants. May as well muster the village carpenters guild, as many men as can be made available. Tell them to bring in fresh timber for the fireplaces, shovel the snow from the castle bridge and the docks. Tell the house-staff to dress the halls, fluff the curtains, dust the common-areas and prepare as many empty apartments as we can. The town-square is to be cleared as quickly as possible and the gates opened, so that we might better direct the influx of workers and attendants throughout the grounds. We have five hours to prepare a welcoming party, one that can receive as many as five-hundred guests. Break out the coal-reserves, the last of the Pinnekjøtt, Svinestek, fjellhare, fresh torsk, roll and fry as much lefse as possible. We'll offer bayer of course, but tell Kai to haul-up every bottle of mead in the second cooling locker beneath the kitchen if need be; the castle needs to be running at full-tilt to have any chance at making this deadline. I'll leave the details to you, but everything should look as welcoming and inviting as possible...while keeping the staff calm. Can you do that?"

Anna saluted, happy and willing to serve. "You can count on me, mon-capitaine!"

She turned to her Aunt and Uncle. "In the meantime, if you would, I'll need you two with me as I talk with Andor. We'll appraise him of the situation, get his opinion as to what our exposure is in the event that this encounter becomes violent. I'll disperse light infantry and tactical observers to the coastline to observe and report, if only to fully appraise ourselves of what our 'guests' are up to. We'll rouse the barracks and the village militia, stock and fortify the battlements, whatever we need to do in order to bring our defenses to bare...as quietly as we can. Maybe we'll frame it as a shake-down drill, I don't know, but holiday is officially suspended for the next forty-eight hours at minimum. If necessary, we'll bring the boilers to life in every harbor vessel and arm them with cannon. It will be a haphazard collection of point-defense weaponry, but it's better than nothing. Our greatest weapon in this part of the world is preparedness, and I don't intend to be caught unaware, if I can help it. Hopefully, all of this will be unnecessary...at least, I hope so."

The seven pairs of eyes met the queen's with resolve and understanding. For something thought of on the fly, this wasn't a bad plan. The queen just prayed it was enough.

"Any questions?" she asked.

Eugene cracked his knuckles. "Let's cook this goose."

"Several of them, in fact," Rapunzel added with a grin.

"Excellent," Elsa said, taking a deep breath. "Let's get started."

Godehard and Frida made their way from the room as Rapunzel and Eugene started commiserating with one another, their brains already stirring up ideas. Rapunzel was accustomed to doing all she could with very little to work with, so this seemed right up her alley. Elsa and Anna seemed encouraged by her enthusiasm, watching them as they exited towards the kitchen. Kristoff followed close behind, occasionally resting his hand atop his ax, his gaze thoughtful and ponderous as he looked back at the sisters.

The three exchanged an informative, knowing glance. The Queen and Princess thanked him quietly for 'playing his part' earlier.

He returned their stare with one of uncertainty, unhappiness and silent resolve. It never left his face, much to their disappointment, even as he turned and left the room.

Anna came close, now that the room was finally empty again. She took Elsa by the hand, dismissing caution, kissing her on the knuckles.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Elsa sighed deeply, leaning down to rest her forehead on Anna's, closing her eyes in tandem. "No. But I think this is all we can do for now, don't you?"

"Yes," Anna agreed, "but something else is bothering you, isn't it?"

Elsa nodded, shaking Anna's head in the process. "Even if this goes without a hitch, I'm sure Godehard is right; something else is at play here. We don't know what to expect, the kingdom may not react to this as calmly as we would like..."

"And Elgar is gone," Anna said, as if the realization had just come back to her. "How are we going to deal with that?"

Elsa shrugged. "For now, we aren't. The man can take care of himself. We have far larger issues to worry about. If an opportunity arises that will allow us to find and question him, we will. But for now, we have our duties. Fair?"

"Fair," Anna said, before leaning back and taking a quick look around the spartan room. Finding the sparseness sufficient, she leapt up on tip-toe and placed a slow, lingering kiss on her sister's lips, cupping her face in both hands and holding her close, refusing to let her go.

When she pulled back, Elsa was flummoxed but thoroughly steamed with happiness, her eyes partly lidded as she committed her sister's bold maneuver to memory.

"Just in case I don't get to give you one of those for a while," Anna said softly, pulling Elsa into a brief but tight hug.

Elsa nodded, shutting her eyes and hugging her back just as tight. "Oh, min sol og stjerner...thank you."

"For what?"

"For being everything I never knew I needed," Elsa whispered, holding her at arms length, "and so much more."

Anna smiled and nodded, taking a deep breath. "See you soon?"

Elsa reluctantly let go. "Soon as I can. Be quick, be smart...be careful."

"You too."

The sisters broke their embrace and spun on their heels, heading for opposite sides of the castle. They knew if either of them looked back, neither would have been able to leave. So they hurried away, saddled with unwanted purpose, doing what they could not to wince at the hollow sound of the doors closing behind them.

"Beautiful, isn't it, Captain?" Barden remarked, leaning forward on the polished, frosted wood of the starboard rail.

The sun was fading quickly in the southwest. Even though it was barely into the afternoon, the clouds once more obscured the replenishing light, with the curvature of the Earth swallowing up what remained. But for the time being, a few stubborn rays of orange and red peaked across the horizon, casting deep shadows to the north and east. The sails of the large vessel creaked and rattled, sodden and heavy with sea-ice, while masts groaned and deck-planks creaked. The lighting of lanterns strung along halyards added a bit of reprieve from the encroaching night, but it was the view of the coastline which kept every eye in the fleet transfixed.

"Never did enjoy the cold, myself," Rekcuff commented, leaning to one side of his page, his crutch digging hard into the sheet of ice which covered the deck, "but power such as the queens is formidable, at least with winter magic. Had I not seen it myself, I would not believe it."

A tree, nearly half a kilometer high, absorbed the last of the days dying light. It sat directly before the castle of Arendelle, as big around as the cutter beneath Rekcuff's feet, a massive blue-green signal-flare, stark and obvious against the surrounding cliffs of white and gray. Though it was still a league or so in the distance, it put all the other scenery to shame, naked and obvious and almost daring someone to approach it.

"The energy it took to create such a thing, the concentration, the control..." Barden mused, hands on his hips, "it's hard to fathom."

"Truly. A display of power most garish and bright," Rekcuff thought aloud, before, reaching into his breast-pocket for a collection of scrolls, "but speaking of fathoms, do we have the latest data from the Elkhart and the Stygian?"

"Yes sir," Barden agree, gesturing to the paperwork in the hand of his superior, "and you'll see it's predominantly what we expected. We're sitting at about thirty fathoms, picking up mostly shale and limestone with each kite test. Unfortunately, the ice-pack seems to be strangling the coast far to the north of the city. We cannot get any closer than seven or eight-hundred meters at best. The ice is simply too thick to punch through. We could easily take shelter in the fjords directly to the north or south, but that means traveling three or four leagues over land in order to make it back to the kingdom. Given the damage to some of the vessels already, perhaps it would be wise to take refuge among the inlets directly to the south as well—"

"No. We shall weigh anchor, here, and at staggered positions along the coast, encircling the harbor," Rekcuff stated, looking absentmindedly to the prow of the ship and back to his paperwork. "We'll have the Bayle, the Arbuthnot and the Quraishi take up a three-point flanking posture around the Volkhov, since their make and tonnage is sturdiest against this weather and the pack-ice. The rest of the fleet will shore-up their hulls as best as can be accomplished with tar and pitch and plaster, before canvasing their decks and hunkering down. No doubt it gets even colder here at night, especially on the ocean."

Barden was a little confused, but mostly dismayed. He thought his suggestion had been reasonable and tactful, but it was shot-down with little formality. His commander didn't even seem to consider his proposal.

"Sir, if I may," he began, hands behind his back, "such positioning might give the wrong...impression, so to speak."

"Oh? How so, man?"

"Well, if I may be so bold, we are here as an act of prevention and protection, not only on behalf of Ludenor, but also of Arendelle, are we not?"

"Indeed," Rekcuff confirmed.

"So would such a display not send the wrong message?" Barden reasoned. "We don't wish to look like a naval invasion. Encircling the harbor and the fjord may give the crown an unwarranted sense of entrapment. Given the multitude of abilities at the disposal of her majesty the Queen, pressing her into a corner, however abruptly and unintentionally, would seem tantamount to foolishness."

Rekcuff eyed the man slowly, unblinking and scathing, but saying nothing.

"If I were to be so bold, of course," Barden said, retreating ever so modestly.

The lopsided captain retook an interest in his charts and navigational readings, not looking up at he spoke, his tone even and absolute.

"You've seen their reconnaissance movements up and down the coast, I assume?" he asked the younger man.

Barden cleared his voice. "Ahem, yes...I have. They have been monitoring the fleet for the better part of three hours. We are unsure of the number, but we assume that at least fifty or sixty separate observation maneuvers have taken place. They are well appraised, by now, of our position and numbers."

Rekcuff nodded, gesturing toward the city with his charts, still not looking up. "And those lights strung across the harbor, the break-wall, the curtain wall, the corbel, the parapets, the ramparts, slowly increasing in number and visibility...what do you suppose those are?"

Barden tilted his head, the answer obvious. "Deployment of some kind, I'm sure. Her majesty is quickly but quietly preparing for whatever our visit may entail. Very prudent, as her nature and reputation would suggest. No panic, no sounding the alarm...at least not until she has a reason to sound one."

"And the tree, my boy," Rekcuff said, casually looking back to the icy construct, "what make you of that?"

This time, Barden had no answer.

"You said it yourself, good page," Rekcuff filled in, "the energy, the concentration, the control...it is a display of power. As you have so eloquently pointed out, the queen and princess know we are here, they have prepared their castle to 'receive' us, whatever that reception might imply, and she has greeted us, more or less, with an awe-inspiring masterpiece of projected power. We seem to be on even footing, for the moment."

He leaned close, getting in Barden's face. "So for now, we shall proceed as planned. Send word for the fleet to take up their positions as I instructed. Once we have more or less secured our vessels against the wind and cold, and if there are no objections from his imperial majesty or the other heads-of-state, we shall convene an envoy and entourage to approach the kingdom. Twenty marines and all interested parties who wish to participate may go ashore, yourself and I included. The olive branch of peace should be more than sufficient to put their fears to rest, even if there are close to seventy people behind it. Is that understood?"

Barden nodded most emphatically. "Yes, sir. Completely."

Here the captain looked back to the ice-pack and the nation beyond it, his smile crooked and his grip on his crutch iron-clad. His voice was still commanding, but it held a sense of anticipation and almost longing, carried away on the cold gusts of wind swirling about the ship.

"I wouldn't worry, dear boy," he commented, to Barden and himself, "they should have no reason to fear our intentions. After all, this isn't an invasion. It's merely...peacekeeping."

I hope everyone is keeping safe and healthy out there. These are trying times, frightening even. Anna and Elsa have their own obstacles to deal with, as do we all, it seems. In the meantime, please, take care of each other. That's all we can do. I'll be back soon, I hope.

-J