Of all the gatherings between countries, this was the last one Elsa wanted to be hosting. It was midday in the market and townspeople and dignitaries alike had begun to flock an hour earlier. Neighboring and far-off countries had boats piled up in the fjord. The two royals places themselves in an open area near the shop stalls, kebabs in hand, one half-eaten and the other one unfortunately untouched. St Patrick's day always brought the rowdiest of crowds and this year was proving itself to be one of the most chaotic that Arendelle has seen. Though it was out of fun and celebration, Elsa couldn't see past the destructive brutes loitering around the dock's edge. Anna could tell from her sister's fidgety fingers to her firm frown that she was in need of a distraction. Now.

"Hey, psst. Elsa." The girl to her right, whose gritted teeth and stormy eyes were concentrated on a playful brawl between three large men, didn't look up until Anna nudged her. "Psssst!"

Elsa turned and met her sister's gaze, then sighed and closed her eyes.

"I apologize for being so put off, I just worry." She shook her head lightly. "These big informal parties always have an incident of some kind. Last time, someone permanently changed the appearance of the market when they rammed through three stalls. And that was only Easter."

Anna rubbed Elsa's back in comfort. "Well, hey, why don't we try to keep your mind off of this kinda stuff with a little game?"

Elsa's curiosity piqued. "What did you have in mind?"

"Back when we weren't..." Anna started, then retracted her words, "when we didn't... uh," a hand tucked hair behind her ear. She flopped her hands between herself and Elsa in a circular motion, her kebab dangled. "B-back in those years where..." Anna's mental malfunction ended as Elsa placed her warm hand on her shoulder. They shared a smile.

"I was lonely a lot. And lonely led to just like, ample amounts of boredom. Boredom as far as the eye could see. I tried a lot of games, a lot of mind stuff since I didn't have anyone to play wi-" she stopped her train of thought there and took a jarringly audible breath to restart, again, "anyway, one of my favorite ways to entertain myself was to play this little game I like to call 'people watching'."

"A game where we watch people? Then what were we doing before?" The corners of Elsa's mouth went up as Anna's went down.

"Okay, okay. Pay attention."Anna's eyes narrowed- mostly to squint, and slightly at Elsa. "Ah, you see that guy over there, next to the flower stand?"

"The one picking his nose?" Elsa's eyes narrowed, entirely because the man in question wiped what he'd found from his nose on a nearby flower pot.

"That's the one. He, um," she pondered aloud. Elsa took this as a chance for her first bite of the kebab, tangy and salty and just as delicious as the sign said it'd be. She enjoyed it for only a moment, as Anna continued her thought,"Every morning, as soon as he wakes up, he drinks six glasses of milk."

Elsa's head whipped around. "Six- milk?" She swallowed with a loud gulp.

"Yeah. He just chugs them. Through the rest of his day too, he drinks like, a pail and a half. And then, right before bed, as he's tucking himself in after reading..."

Elsa had been leaning in more and more as the story progressed, so Anna only had to whisper:

"...He chugs six more glasses."

"Unbelievable!" She laughed. An incredulous Elsa looked at Anna through crinkling eyes. "And he told you all this?"

"Nope." Anna leaned back into the relaxed state she'd had before. "I made it all up."

"You- what? No way. I've seen battle plans less intricate than that." That implied more than it meant, as some battle plans she'd seen as queen were only tiny variations of the phrase "destroy all the bad guys".

Anna was glad she could impress her sister with something she came up with on her own, though I'm never that fast thinking about it. Maybe Elsa brings it out in me. With that thought prominent, she took her last bite of kebab and stretched her arms out, cockiness in full swing. "We're just getting started. See that little girl near the dock?" She punctuated with a point of her kebab-less stick.

Elsa looked around on the left, bobbed her head, even raised herself onto her tippy toes to peer over the crowd. She struggled and faced the complete opposite way that Anna had pointed. Anna watched her a tad more before muttering, "no, you're-" and held the older girl's face, gently tilting it to the right, "-she's over... there."

A girl, no older than eight, stood alone with a paper bag in her tight grasp. She leaned against a fence post and gazed far off on the hills, a sense of adventure and wonder reflecting off her young face.

"She runs an illegal underground blueberry cultivation ring."

Elsa was once again caught off guard and jerked her head, bringing Anna's hands along. "What on- what?"

Anna smiled and brought her hands to her own hips. "That bag she's carrying is full of blueberry bush seeds. She's scoping out a real nice place to plant them because she's too young to own any land." Arms crossed confidently as a story formed in her mind. "Yup, she goes and plants the seeds in an unused bit of farmland, lets the farmer take care of it only for him to discover that once it grows, it's not the plant he put there himself! But because blueberries are so, y'know, yummy, care is taken anyway. She'll harvest them before the farmers have a chance and sell them herself. She's stinkin' rich."

"I thought you said there was a whole illegal ring?"

"Well, she's got some business partners. Some muscle. She's mostly the brains."

"You believe that girl," Elsa pointed with her food, "that one right there, is some sort of chaotic mastermind?"

"She could be. Though, she's doing all of this for her blueberry-loving grandma. She wanted to buy her a nice house on the hills, those very same hills where she first illegally planted blueberries. Sadly, her grandma went missing a year ago, leaving only a note," Anna took a deep breath and let out the oldest, crackliest voice she could muster: "out to buy blueberries, sweetie"

Elsa, mouth agape with intrigue, was fascinated by Anna's quick wit. She was eager to hear more of what Anna could whip up, though she also wanted to prove her own worth. "Alright," she bit and chewed another piece, "I think I understand the game now." Anna's eyebrows tauntingly raised, an unmistakable "oh, do you now" resounding in their mocking tilt.

Elsa's face responded with a mocking eyebrow quirk of her own and she said around the food in her mouth, "there's an older woman heading this way through the town, over there. Do you see her?"

Anna nodded. "She's too has a bag in her hand, also full of blueberry seeds." Elsa swallowed and continued, slowly, annunciating every letter purposefully. "She's the girl's grandma."

Anna gasped suddenly and smiled fully. "Wow! How wholesome are you!"

"You think so?" Elsa's face brightened. Anna nodded furiously. Anna's face had been taken over by a strong combination of pride from Elsa's swift answer and admiration from how clever that answer had been. She stared, maybe long, maybe lingering, and only moved on when Elsa's eyes glimpsed into her own.

"Ooh, okay, there's a very tall guy over on the left," she dramatically dragged out the words so Elsa wouldn't make a mistake like last time, to which Elsa rolled her eyes, "who's eating... something on a stick." Elsa took the last bite of her own something on a stick.

Elsa followed her sister's eyes and nodded, "I see him."

"Yeah. He's a vampire."

"A vampi- wait, that's ridiculous, Anna." Elsa's eyebrows furrowed. She chewed. "It's daytime. He'd die out here in the sun." Chew.

"Ah, shoot, you're right. Okay, so he's a werewolf. Or a ghost or something."

"Why do you think that?"

"He's so, I dunno. Standoffish. Like he has a secret. Like, a big secret."

"Funny you say that." Elsa raised her eyebrows. "He's actually one of our guards."

Surprise lined Anna's face. "Oh. Well," a squeaky pitch highlighted the embarrassment in her voice, "I've never noticed him. Maybe he really is a creature-type, disguising himself to fit in among us people."

Elsa nodded along with Anna's words. "You know, he is a little strange. He's always on the job, even when he's off duty. I've seen him during lunches, eating by himself. Perhaps he doesn't fit in."

"Or maybe he's keeping his distance because he's a ghost or a werewolf or something."

They laughed together, Elsa first and her infectious chuckles threw Anna into a fit of giggles.

The market didn't seem so crowded, then.

Elsa heard rustling in the middle of the night and not long after, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It's Anna, fully dressed and standing beside her.

"I've decided that he's probably a werewolf."

The air was fair and temperature toasty as they climbed up stairs carved directly into the mountain. They'd discussed briefly how to figure out if he wasn't human- "we could shoot him with a silver bullet like they do in the books!" "Or, we could, you know, not shoot him at all." -before deciding on a stakeout of the guard tower. Anna mentioned that Odin's Peak had an excellent overview of the castle and guard post, so they snuck out and headed there.

"It's a full moon out. Did you decide he's a werewolf because it's the most convenient theory to test out?"

"Perhaps."

They kept a good pace up the stairs, Anna hummed a stakeout-like theme song. They raced for the last half and got to the top before too long. Elsa, once she made it up there and after gloating about being first, couldn't believe how stunning the view was. Anna trailed along, hands on her knees as she huffed and puffed, "this is, no doubt, the most exercise I've gotten since the last time I tried to chase you up a mountain."

Elsa was entranced though. She hadn't seen such a gorgeous image in her kingdom and had all the time in the world to stare. Anna, who was only a few steps behind Elsa, had thought the same thing. It struck Anna that once upon a time, she was proposed to in this exact spot and she said yes.

"I know we have a mission, but... would you like to stay here all night?"

Scratch that, twice.

The mission was easily forgotten, and the girls talked and talked until they fell asleep, shoulder to shoulder. A wolf howled in the distance. It went unheard.

I truly enjoyed writing this chapter. Thank you for reading this!