Sixty years later…

The thrill of discovery is evident, the boy's intonation excited and melodic. "Queen Mother," his small voice calls across the library, "I didn't know you had a fairy tale!"

Faded blue eyes blink open, only to immediately squint in the beams of afternoon sun streaming brightly across her face and slight frame. Elsa had dozed off in the chaise lounge nestled in the corner alcove, a recent habit of hers which she blamed on her advanced age. Elsa's hands and needlepoint lay abandoned in her lap. The sound of her great-grandson's voice startles her slightly, causing frail fingers to curl in surprise around the frame and thread.

"I'm sorry," her lips twist, frowning. "What was that, Christian?"

Fairy Tale?

"The Snow Queen?" A flash of red hair stops before her. Christian Hans Adgar Westergård II, the future Crown-Prince of Arendelle, smiles, "Is that really you?"

Elsa's powers had weaken to nothing over the last ten years, the boy remembering nothing of her magic, knowing her only as his great-grandmother.

Her eyes catch the crisp leather binding of the book held in his hands, evidence that few had read the story held to the paper. His eyes were confused. She knew one day someone would find the ridiculous tale after Hans had convinced her not to freeze it and shatter the blasted bit of fiction into a billion tiny pieces after it arrived.

The book was a gift from Hans' horrible mother (God rest her soul) to their first born child – a daughter, Märtha. Anna's darling little Kristoffer, ten years at the time, insisted upon reading it and he loved the story. There were characters named Gerda and Kai (Like OUR Gerda and Kai! Right here in our castle!), trolls with a magic mirror that Kristoff claimed could very well be real, and even a beautiful Snow Queen who was a truly Evil Queen (Just like in our games, Aunt Elsa!). And the author's name sounded like Hans-Kristoff-Anna-Sven. Said quickly. Which Kristoffer, in a manner only a ten-year-old boy could possibly manage, did repeatedly.

So Elsa couldn't very well destroy the book at that point. It sat hidden on a shelf, in the back of her personal collection of children's fairy tales, collecting dust.

Christian himself had become an avid reader over the last year, a sharp mind so much like her late husband, thirsty for knowledge and quick witted. Elsa spent many afternoons in the library with him, truthfully napping while the boy satisfied his curiosity among the expanse of shelves that held her personal collections.

"Yes, I am the Snow Queen," Elsa says, her voice now weaken at the age of one and ninety. She clears her throat slightly, "Sort of."

The young lad frowned as he studied the first page. "I don't understand."

"Your Great-great-grandmother, Queen Alessandra of the Southern Isles, commissioned the collection of fairy tales to gift to your grandmother at her christening." Elsa smiled at the memory. Her Märtha had been a beautiful baby, a perfect Princess plump and quick to smile with pink cheeks, strawberry-blonde locks akin to Anna. And completely un-magical. "Later, when Märtha was older, she did not like the story of the Snow Queen. She…" Elsa searched for the right way to phrase it, "….wanted the author to have written the Snow Queen in the story more like me. "

Truthfully Märtha had cried when she was read the story years later, upsetting Hans terribly, leaving him to pen a very nasty letter to the author, making it abundantly clear that he was to accept the request for an audience with Queen Elsa of Arendelle and explain why he had written the Snow Queen in such a manner. (Evidently his portrayal of the Snow Queen was at the request of Queen Alessandra…and he took license to make literary use of the rumors that surrounded Elsa's actions at the time of her coronation to concoct the children' fairy tale.) That prompted another letter from Hans to his Queen mother, scolding her for making his Fair Princess cry.

Hans adored his little girl to no end and as fate would have it, she was to be their only child. As Märtha grew he remained as fiercely protective a father as any daughter would know, wanting only the best for her and her future as the sovereign ruler of Arendelle. The finest tutors were brought to the castle for her education, from the far and wide, something that Elsa had wished she had the luxury of as a child. In addition, Hans had spent years carefully cultivating a relationship with Prince Maurice's nephew, Prince Adam – near Märtha's age, just a year her elder. Many summers were spent visiting the French countryside and Paris, Hans exploring Europe with the young Monarchs, or with Adam a guest in Arendelle with his Uncle Maurice (and friend Phillipe). Elsa and Hans had truthfully adored the idea of a future union between Arendelle and France, uniting friends into family as well as Kingdoms, if that was indeed what the children chose. Somehow over the years, Hans had naïvely refused to acknowledge to himself that such a betrothal would be the start of his darling little girl becoming a woman…until it happened. So when Prince Adam presented himself formally to ask for what had been set into motion practically at the Crown Princess Märtha's birth, Hans was devastated. And in his furiousness (at himself, he reflected later, rather embarrassed of his actions), Hans challenged the Prince to a duel.

Swords.

Grass before breakfast.

Märtha was livid, ready to kill her father for the absurd display. Rumors spread that there would be an elopement that very night, something about a French Prince being spotted on the ridge of a rooftop near her open window. Thankfully Anna managed to intercede on Elsa's behalf, convincing Märtha not to be so impulsive, simply give her Father some time. (Elsa had to tease Anna later regarding her ability to be so rational regarding matters of the heart, Märtha so much like an Anna at eighteen years of age in the moment. Anna pointed out proudly that there was no 'Eternal Winter' this time.)

("Why is it called "grass before breakfast"?" Kristoff asked, watching Hans slice blades of the lawn in practice while they awaited the arrival of the French Prince. The question had given Hans pause, "I don't know." The two men had become fast friends over the years, quite unexpectedly, thus Kristoff couldn't let Hans 'make a fool of himself' without his support.)

The young Prince had shown for the duel, bringing only his physician with him.

Hans was so tickled by that he conceded to cancelling the whole affair and granted permission for Prince Adam to discuss with Märtha the possibility of a future union between Arendelle and France.

(It was a beautiful wedding, and Hans managed to walk the bride down the aisle without making another fuss over the matter. Although Maurice mocked him relentlessly.)

Elsa looks at the young boy before her, so much like her Hans must have been as a child (Hans adored the young man, too). Hans' death last winter had been something she truly hadn't recovered from…how she longed to be with him once more.

"So…this isn't your tale?" Christian says slowly to Elsa, flipping through the pages. He stops at the illustrations to study them intently.

"No, not really. " Elsa says kindly, "There are certain elements of it, I suppose, that from a certain point of view may be mine. My actual story is quite personal, and not one meant for a children's book."

There was a flash of deviousness in Christian's expression, "Because you are the Evil Queen and you don't want anyone to know?"

Elsa sometimes wonders if Hans is somehow channeling himself through the poor child. She rolls her eyes.

His grin spreads.

A soft laugh escapes as she concedes, "At one point, perhaps. But as William Shakespeare pointed out; all the world is a stage, and the men and women only players. We have our entrances, and our exits. And in one's life, a man may play many parts."

"Really?" he says, amazed.

"Someone may have perceived me or my actions as those of someone playing the part of an Evil Queen, or playing the part an Icy Sorceress, or simply the part of a scared young woman too afraid of herself and her magic to be honest with those that loved her. Who allowed fear to be her enemy."

Christian comes beside her, wrapping his small hand over hers, "Are you afraid now? Of how the world may remember you?"

"No. Because those that know me, and love me, know the truth." Elsa smiles. "The truth is simply that I lived. And for me, and my Heroic Prince, it was truly a happily ever after – something not to be reduced simply to a fairy tale."