Chapter 3: Come Home

It was a soldier posted on the parapet who alerted the palace of a rider approaching, fast and hard on a reindeer. Immediately, the order was given from the Queen herself to open up the gates and admit the travelers. Sven had run until his poor heart nearly gave out, pounding the final leg into the castle courtyard. Kristoff dismounted, leaping from his ride's back as Elsa rushed from the palace to throw her arms around him.

"Ah, news from the hill country. What says Marshmallow? Is Grand Pabbie well? How fares my Anna? I'll ask again, for nothing can be bad if she is well."

Kristoff plastered a smile to his face. "Then she is well and nothing can be bad. We should all be so fortunate." He cleared his throat, suddenly unable to hide the truth from his sister-in-law. "My wife is... laden, heavy with child. The little one is making her presence known, expected to bring tidings with her arrival soon. But... it is not clear whether Anna will live through the pains of labor."

Elsa's eyes were wide, frightened. Her alabaster skin was even more pale. "You are married? And she is... pregnant?" Kristoff nodded gravely. Elsa laughed weakly and glanced to the heavens. No mirth was in her voice.

"The stars are jealous that one so perfect dared to rule o'er them." And then, all at once, she let out a strangled cry, followed by a blast of ice that obliterated a nearby merchant's cart. Sven snorted nervously. "Then I defy you, stars!" Elsa screamed. "Go, Kristoff, get thee gone! Find Anna and bring her to me!"

Despite his heart alighting with hope, Kristoff was still wary. "I beseech you, my sister - Your Majesty... the Council..."

"The Council can go to hell!" Elsa snapped back at him, seething as she spun back to face him. "Hurry!"

Kristoff leapt back onto Sven, bowed gratefully to his Queen, and galloped away.


Sven made it back to the trolls with all deliberate speed, barely having time to catch his breath as Kristoff gathered Anna into his arms, before he was bearing his master and his mistress back to Arendelle. Throughout the journey, Kristoff did everything he could to get his wife's mind off the pain: singing to her the Ballad of Flemmingrad, reciting to her the story of her 19th Birthday when Elsa came down with - of all things! - a cold. It was deep night, with a clear sky full of stars, when the trio arrived back at the palace, Elsa waiting for them and backlit by the warm lights of the castle. The Queen raced into the courtyard as Kristoff dismounted, Anna cradled in his arms.

"I'm sorry... " Anna apologized, weeping, as Elsa finished kissing her and caressing her. "I left you. I didn't want to..."

"You never left me. Not where it mattered most," Elsa promised, pointing to her heart. She gestured towards the warmth of the castle. "This way." She guided her family into the Great Hall, where they were met by the Prime Minister.

"Your Majesty, what is the meaning of this? What do you mean by taking in peasantfolk off the streets?"

"This is not a peasant!" Elsa retorted. "It is the Princess, and she is due with child!"

The Prime Minister looked down at a shivering and moaning Anna blankly, apathetically. "Princess? This kingdom has no princess."

He should not have made such a statement, for in the next instant, Elsa had conjured an icicle the size of her arm and was now brandishing it like a sword under the Prime Minister's throat.

"Unfeeling, insolent wretch! You dare to deny your princess to me? Me? She has royal blood in her veins. Have my chambermaids attend to her now!"

Elsa put up Anna and Kristoff in her private chambers, her own servants flitting about preparing for Anna to go into childbirth. No one dared to cross their Queen or her commands. Elsa contented herself with holding Anna in her arms, stroking her head and murmuring sweet nothings in her ear. Anna lay on her sister's bed, her head in Kristoff's lap. The contractions came faster and faster, the midwife instructed her to push and she bore down, keeping her husband and her sister within her grip and sights.

"I... I love you!" Anna sobbed to both of them, and then with a final wrenching scream, she gave a mighty heave and felt the crowning baby slide out of her. The midwives whisked it away to clean it up. Anna settled back into the bedclothes and pillows, panting. Exhausted... but alive.

Kissing Anna's forehead, Elsa beckoned Kai, her Chief of Staff, forward. "Tell my Council to meet me in the hall outside my chambers."

"Yes, Your Grace."

Elsa kissed each of her family in turn, including her newborn niece, promising to return to them soon. Then she strode with purpose out into the hall, where her Council was waiting with trepidation.

"I am placing this family in my care hereafter," Elsa calmly informed them.

The Prime Minister was aghast. "They are peasants!"

"Anna and I share the same mother. She is my sister," Elsa said firmly.

"Half-sister," the Prime Minister qualified.

Elsa jutted out her chin in defiance. "Sister. We were raised together, in this castle, and I love her. I am the Queen. My word is law. Are we clear?" No response. "I am the Queen, and I asked you if we're clear!"

"Crystal," the Council murmured in unison.

Satisfied, Elsa swept back into her chambers. Stooping over the fireplace, she took out two items stolen from the Prime Minister's office; lighting a candle flame to them both, she watched them burn...


The sky was overcast as Elsa watched the bodies swaying from the gallows, the ropes creaking in the chilled winter breeze.

After purposefully leaking that the Council had turned against Princess Anna and cast her out in banishment, the kingdom's people had gone into an uproar, demanding justice. A failed coup d'état was the reason for such cruelty, it was claimed. No further details regarding the Council's treason were given, and so great was the people's rage that they did not ask for them. The trials were over and done with quickly: convicted of treason by putting a pregnant royal and thus the monarchy in jeapordy, the Council was sentenced to death.

Days before the execution, Elsa received word from the Captain of the Guard that a certain peasant had been found dead. A fire was ruled as the cause, it was said.

And when the birth of the little princess was announced soon thereafter, Arendelle rejoiced, for their persecuted Princess had returned and borne them an heir.

No one ever did discover the secret that had instigated such treachery...