NOTE: This is the story of how Elsa and Anna's parents got engaged. Initially, I had named them Alphonse and Emilia, but since the runes on their memorial stone markers showed Agðar (English: Agdar) for the King and Iðunn (English: Idun) for the Queen, I changed their names to those. I made up the name of the kingdom where the Queen came from, though. Additionally, the phrase below about lying back and thinking about duty was coined from the phrase "close your eyes and think of England". Thank you for reading this and I look forward to your reviews. Lastly, many thanks to nothingnothingtralala for beta-reading this.

DISCLAIMER: Frozen is the property of Disney. I do not own anything, except the original characters in this fanfiction. Disney also owns the King and Queen of Arendelle.

She had prepared for this day ever since she became old enough to understand her duty as the only princess of Buckland—a pawn for her father's political and military ambitions. The King of Buckland was not a bad father—he had promised to find her a good match, but he was an ambitious king first and foremost. As such, Princess Idun had known she would be betrothed at seventeen years old. To whom, however, was a mystery.

Until today.

She was normally an obedient, biddable sort, content to follow orders and be a good girl. Her younger brother, the Crown Prince Richard, was the hellion of the family. There were threats to send him to military school for his rowdy behavior, but then again, he was only eight years old.

Idun decided to borrow some of her younger brother's rebelliousness and sneak downstairs to her father's study. Her curiosity got the better of her; try as she might to remind herself that her duty was for the good of Buckland, she didn't think she could stand it if she got engaged to someone older, like her cousin. She had gotten married last year, and her husband looked like he was older than her by a two dozen years.

Idun cringed. What if her fiancé was at least twice her age? Thirty-four sounded really old. And what if he's fat and balding?

I don't know if I can lie back and think of Buckland when the time comes for me to do my duty, if my fiancé's like that, she thought, glancing around furtively as she made her way to her father's study. The meeting with the visitors from Arendelle had begun an hour ago. She knew she should wait until she was called, but she was dying of curiosity and wanted a glimpse of her would-be fiancé.

Another thought washed over her like cold water—if this betrothal did push through, she would become the queen of Arendelle. Queen? That was a sobering thought. She wasn't even sure she was good enough at being a princess.

No wonder Papa's keen on marrying me off to the prince, she realized, her mind racing to recall her geography lessons. He was heir to a prosperous kingdom surrounded by wilderness. King Bertram would have normally ignored a country like Arendelle, but its lush forests and bountiful ice had caught his attention. The timber from Arendelle's forests and ice from its mountains would be valuable to Buckland's steadily growing army. Some tension had sparked between Buckland and Weselton when each country vied for a possible marriage alliance with Arendelle, but Weselton found itself out of the race when its candidate died from a freak accident.

As such, Princess Idun had emerged as the only candidate left. She winced, feeling bad for her former rival and remembering her earlier apprehensions toward her yet-unseen fiancé. What's his name again? Agdar? Oh no—that sounds like a forty-year-old's name. No, it's positively archaic! He's probably older than Papa!

Then again, so's my name, Idun realized. Oh Mama, why did you have to be so fond of Northern stories when you were pregnant with me?

Shaking off her consternation, she quickened her pace then slowed down as she approached the door of her father's study. Taking a deep breath, she opened the heavy oak doors a crack, hoping that the people inside didn't hear the hinges creaking, and peeked.

Further out into her field of vision was her father, King Bertram—tall and dark-haired, with a closely-cropped beard. He was speaking to a man with copper hair shot with silver around the temples and a neat mustache and goatee—that must be King Raimond of Arendelle. Across King Bertram was a young man with an aristocratic profile, perhaps around twenty to twenty-five years of age. She surmised he must be the Crown Prince Agdar, since his hair was the same shade as King Raimond's.

Idun raised an intrigued eyebrow and decided he didn't look half-bad—handsome, really, even if she thought his nose was a little too big for his face. He carried himself with quiet confidence, and his dark royal uniform, crimson sash, and gray trousers lent a dashing air about him.

So absorbed was she in trying to make out what the men were saying that she never noticed her brat of a brother sneaking up behind her.

"Boo!"

There was a scream of surprise, some cussing, high-pitched hysterical laughter, the pitter-patter of feet, and a crash. It turned out that she had flung open the heavy doors after Richard startled her, and the commotion caused her father to knock over the nearby vase from the Far East that stood as tall as him.

The vase broke.

And there was silence.

Clapping a hand over her mouth, she raised her eyes to see her father with his jaw hanging open at the sight of many broken pieces of porcelain by his feet and King Raimond and his son wearing identical expressions of surprise on their faces.

Idun gulped. Oh boy, she was in HUGE trouble now. As in condemned-to-being-an-old-maid trouble. A small part of her brain that still functioned tried to reassure her that that wasn't so bad.

Right?

Somehow, she found her voice. "Papa, I am so sorry for the interruption," she babbled. "I was just passing by, and then I remembered that—and then—" she gestured helplessly with her hands, feeling doom press more heavily on her as her father's eyes narrowed.

"And then you decided to spy on us," King Bertram finished for his daughter. The meeting had gone smoothly, with the two kings about to finalize their agreement with a handshake.

Until his daughter had caused that unfortunate interruption.

Idun swallowed her fear and looked appealingly at King Raimond and Prince Agdar. She wasn't sure about their expressions—their initial surprise gave way to poker faces—but was that a spark of amusement in the prince's green eyes? She hoped it was.

Agdar felt just as unsure about the girl before him. Her face was flushed with embarrassment from the ruckus she had caused. She was wringing her hands nervously—he could tell she was thinking that she had botched the agreement between their fathers with her spying. Perhaps she felt a mixture of embarrassment and trepidation—the former because of the way her blue eyes widened comically, almost taking up half her face as she stumbled into the room, and the latter because she seemed unready for the duties of marriage and becoming the future queen of Arendelle.

He, on the other hand, was ready to do his duty as its crown prince. His duty besides becoming a good king was to sire an heir so that the Arendahl line would continue, as it has for over a hundred generations. It was a point of pride for his family and it was a tradition he'd sworn he would not break.

Agdar took his measure of the princess as discreetly as possible. He saw that she was certainly beautiful, with some of her dark hair plaited in a French braid and some flowing freely down her shoulders, clear blue eyes that reminded him of Arendelle's Lake Tor, a delicate nose, and smooth, porcelain skin. She wore a purple high-waisted gown typically worn by young women her age. What of her personality though? Her mortification made it hard for him to figure her out, and he was usually good at sizing up someone's personality based on his first impression. He supposed her self-control was lacking, considering what she'd just done. But then again, marriage was a very serious matter and he didn't blame her for being overly curious about it. It concerned the rest of her life, after all. Besides, she was still young. A yearlong engagement was more than enough time for her to be molded into the queen he wanted for Arendelle.

It looked like she was starting to recover from her gaffe because the blush on her cheeks was starting to recede. She stood straight and poised, schooling her features into an expression of regret. "My apologies, Papa, Your Majesty, Your Highness, for the disturbance I have caused," she said smoothly after clearing her throat. "I was passing by when I remembered today's significance, and I admit that curiosity got the better of me. I am sorry for acting in a manner not befitting a princess. Rest assured that it will not happen again."

King Bertram sighed. "Let's get this mess out of the way before anything else, all right? Idun, go and have Peter clean this up, please."

"Right away, Papa." With that, Princess Idun curtsied and left the room, her steps hurried yet graceful. Agdar found himself staring after her.

"Where were we? Ah, yes, you were about to give me your answer about a possible betrothal between your son and my daughter. What say you, King Raimond? Shall we seal this accord?"

King Raimond looked at his son. "Well?"

"Yes." Agdar nodded his assent, and then realized belatedly what he'd just done. He was now engaged to Princess Idun of Buckland.

"You agreed to the engagement quickly enough," King Raimond observed in low, measured tones as soon as the door of Agdar's room swung shut. Because the meeting about the betrothal had ended well, King Bertram had invited the royals of Arendelle to spend a week in his realm. King Bertram had reasoned that it would be a good way for Agdar and Idun to get to know each other a little better before announcing their engagement. "Why?"

Agdar raised his eyebrows. "Because Buckland would be a useful ally to Arendelle," he answered, surprised that his father was asking a question with such an obvious answer. "Aren't you happy we secured an alliance with Buckland? I've always said Arendelle needed strong allies, and Buckland's well on its way to becoming one."

Raimond made a noise of agreement, stroking his goatee. "That you did," he murmured, looking at his son speculatively. "I didn't expect you to agree to marry Princess Idun so readily though, with that mishap. I remember how persnickety you were when we first started looking for possible brides for you. I would have thought you would go for that Weselton girl, may the gods rest her soul. She had a rather sizable dowry, didn't she?"

"Yes." Agdar didn't voice his thought that he felt a little relieved he didn't have to pen a letter explaining why he wasn't interested in marrying the Lady Camilla of Weselton. He was truly sorry that she died—falling and breaking your neck while sleepwalking was such a bizarre way to go—but the Duke's eagerness at getting his hands on Arendelle's resources and his heir and nephew Lord Beverville's obsequiousness had set his teeth on edge. Weselton was a good trading partner, and no more.

"Agdar," Raimond began, "I do not doubt your instincts—in fact, you've been quite astute whenever I left you to your own devices. I just find it a little out of character for you to make a decision that quickly." Then Raimond smiled slowly, as if an idea just dawned on him. "Oh, but she's a beauty, isn't she?" he said, raising an eyebrow at his son.

Agdar shot his father an exasperated look. "Surely you know it takes more than just a pretty face to turn my head, Father," he retorted.

"Ah, my boy," Raimond chortled, "you may have inherited your mother's mile-wide practical streak, but there's a romantic hiding behind that dutiful façade of yours. Don't even bother denying it because us Arendahls have always been romantics. She was just as persnickety as you, always shooting me down back then, but I won her over eventually. Remember—"

"Yes, yes, our family motto, love will thaw. I know. You've told me hundreds of times how you eventually won Mother's hand. Or should I say, how you wore her down."

"Oh, you wound me, son!" Raimond clutched at his chest exaggeratingly. "You make it sound like my pursuit of your mother was such a bad thing! If it hadn't been for my persistence, you wouldn't even be here right now."

"Touché." Agdar loved and admired his father, but sometimes the over-the-top theatrics got on his nerves. It was precisely King Raimond's gregarious nature that endeared him to Arendelle's populace, along with his common touch. Agdar, knowing he was his mother's son with his seriousness and cautiousness, nevertheless aspired to become a good king like his father. He knew he wasn't going to achieve it the way Raimond did and had decided that his first step in doing so was to have Arendelle allied in some way with a strong country like Buckland.

"On a serious note," Raimond continued, "I don't want you to marry for the sake of duty. I hope you chose Princess Idun because you saw something in her that you liked—and I don't mean her father's troops. Get to know her and decide, with your heart and mind in agreement, if you still want to marry her or not."

"Wouldn't that invite Buckland to declare war on us if I break off my engagement with the princess?" Agdar pointed out.

"Well…yes," Raimond admitted. "But if it comes to that, I'm sure I can smooth things over. Bertram may be an ambitious windbag sometimes, but family is important to him. I'm sure he wouldn't do anything that would cause his only daughter misery."

"Thank you," Agdar said dryly. It seemed to go over Raimond's head that he just implied his son would be a bad husband.

Agdar wisely decided to keep his mouth shut to avoid giving his father any more ideas.

Idun was reading A Treatise on the History of Arendelle when a knock on her door broke her concentration. She had been fully absorbed over the mysterious origins of the family she was going to marry into—oral history and legends said that the gods had blessed the line of Arngrim Arendahl, and as such it remained unbroken. She placed a bookmark on the page she was reading and called out "coming!", groping with her feet for her slippers. "Who is it?"

"It's me."

Papa. She swallowed nervously. Surely he wouldn't subject her to a sermon at this time of the night. She glanced at the clock—good, it's already nine in the evening—hurrying to her door and fumbled with the lock.

"Doing some reading?" her father inquired mildly, gesturing at the book she clutched at her chest. She nodded hesitantly.

Good, he's not mad—at least, I don't think he is, Idun thought, searching his face for any hint of displeasure at her behavior earlier.

"Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Oh! Right. Sorry. About this and earlier." She stepped aside to let him in.

King Bertram looked at his daughter closely, examining in her girlish features that were starting to take a more womanly cast. He wondered if he made the right decision in betrothing her with Raimond's boy—as young men, they had talked idly about a possible marriage alliance, but he never thought about it seriously until he saw the potential in it. Idun seemed so young, which she'd highlighted earlier with that stunt she pulled.

As if to prove the point further, Idun started shuffling her feet under Bertram's scrutiny. "Um, Papa?" she prompted hesitantly. "Is there something you wished to speak to me about?

"Hmm? Ah yes, it's about your engagement with Prince Agdar—"

"I'm sorry for spying on you, I really am! I was just curious what he looked like and how old he was because Agdar was such a stuffy name and I thought he was older than you and I didn't want to marry an old geezer like what Catherine did—"

"Idun." His firm tone put a stop to her torrent of words. "A word of advice: do NOT tell Agdar what you think of his name. At least, not until the two of you have been married for some years and you've already grown comfortable with one another."

"Along with telling him that I think his face still needs to grow with his nose?" she added cheekily to defuse the situation. Without sounding insufferably arrogant, she knew when she could wrap her father around her little finger, and right now there were telltale signs that she could. He had this way of scrunching up his eyebrows when he worried about his children, which gave her the idea that he wasn't angry at her.

"Especially that," Bertram deadpanned, though there was a hint of amusement in his tone. "Anyway, I also wanted to tell you that King Raimond and Prince Agdar will be staying with us for a week, so I expect you to be on your best behavior. I also want you to get to know him a little bit and for you to let him do the same to you. If all went well this week between the two of you, I will announce your engagement."

Engagement. The word rang in her ears. A part of her remained in disbelief that in time, she would be wed to a man she barely knew. Why had she agreed to it? She wasn't a thing to be given away—she was her own person!

"Idun?" Bertram's gentle voice snapped her out of her dark thoughts. "Are you all right?"

Idun took a deep, calming breath before answering him. "No," she said honestly. "It's just starting to sink in that I'm going to be given away to a man I don't even know, to live with him in a place I haven't even been to, like I'm some kind of bargaining chip." She regretted her words when Bertram flinched in response, but that was the awful truth, no matter how much one looked at it.

After an awkward pause, Bertram began to speak. "I don't know how much you heard, but Agdar suggested making this a yearlong engagement. It will give you plenty of time to decide if you want to be married to him or not."

"That was considerate of him," Idun commented, sitting on her bed. She sighed, realizing how petulant she must have sounded. "I didn't mean to be whiny about the—my engagement, Papa. I know how important it is for us to be allies with Arendelle, but I just…" she trailed off and bit her lip. She tried to find the words to make her father understand that she knew the implications of her engagement, but she couldn't help that she felt scared despite the years she spent in getting used to the idea. Catherine, two days before her wedding, seemed placid enough to accept her fate. Why couldn't she? She was lucky that Agdar met her initial requirements for a fiancé despite his name and nose.

Bertram sat beside Idun and took her hands in his, squeezing them reassuringly. She guessed he noted how clammy her hands were and saw a flash of worry cross his face. Her father was not a man of words, but she could read him well enough—the way his eyes roved told her that he was searching for something to say to her. Deciding to put her father out of his misery, she said, "Well, I'll make nice with him tomorrow," she said, pulling her hands away. "I've been reading about Arendelle so I'll have something to talk about with him. But what was your impression of him, Papa?"

"He seemed like a nice enough young man," Bertram replied, looking relieved that they had moved on to a safer topic. "More serious compared to his father though." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Actually, that might be a good thing—he could be a good balance for you."

"Wow, I didn't think you'd play at being a matchmaker," Idun teased. "Thanks, Papa. I feel a little better about this whole engagement thing." She hugged him, finding comfort at her father's warm, solid arms. She closed her eyes and cherished the moment.

After all, whether she liked it or not, it was only a matter of time before another man would replace the one who held her in his arms.