Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen

Rating: for mild swearing and some innuendo.

A/n: this was originally a oneshot. At least, my original idea was a oneshot. Unlike all my previous "was a oneshot but ended up chaptered" stories, this isn't a oneshot because I realised the story was going to be long - it's a oneshot because I went on a tangent and ended up writing an almost completely different (and much lengthier) story to the one I originally intended to write: I first realised I'd gone too far to revert to my original idea when I hit 24,000 words and wasn't anywhere near done with my tangent (by way of context - in the original story, Elsa was going to be well into her seventies by the end. She gets nowhere near that in this). However, I retained a few things from my original idea, including the numbering. Yes, there is a theme to the numbering and yes, the order in this chapter is correct - there is no "4". The numbering - and the original story (and also, logically, the story I actually wrote) - were both inspired by Shadowfax321 who said I should write a feelgood story for Elsa. This being said, the tangent is not as cheery as the original idea was. Anyhow, enough about that - I hope you enjoy this chapter and, if you are so inclined, the remaining chapters when they are published. Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

A Change of Clothes

A) Threads

1) Night

The bell tower sounds the third hour. Anna yawns and stretches.

"Is it really three o'clock?" She yawns again. "Maybe I should go to bed."

She looks reluctant though. Elsa opens her mouth to tell her to stay but a yawn escapes her too. Anna giggles; Elsa tries to imprint the sound into her memory. She'd forgotten how much she missed Anna's giggle.

"Looks like you need your beauty sleep too."

Elsa smiles ruefully (and even that feels a little odd). "I do. I have a meeting at eight with Isleiv. I've barely looked at the papers."

"You should have said! I wouldn't have kept you up if I'd known."

Anna looks stricken. Elsa tries to smile to show that it's OK. "You didn't keep me up," she says. "I wanted to talk to you."

Pink tinges Anna's cheeks. "I wanted to talk too. I missed it, you know. Like when we were little and we'd talk about anything for hours."

"And then Mother or Father would bang on the door and tell us to sleep," Elsa adds, smiling at the memory. "So we'd whisper instead."

Anna laughs. "Yeah. All the teachers and servants would ask why we were so tired the next day so you'd start talking really loudly so everyone would think you were more awake, until Father asked you to stop." As Elsa laughs, she says, "What happened, Elsa? How'd it all … change?"

It's only the second night after … everything. They've spent their days chatting about very little because it's such a big topic – but they've followed each other around constantly, each of them reluctant to let the other out of her sight. Last night, Elsa even stayed in the same room as Anna, pretending to sleep, because Anna was scared Elsa would run away again, and Elsa wanted to reassure herself that Anna was Anna and not ice.

"Elsa?"

Her instinct – and it has to be instinct because she shouldn't feel this way now – is to avoid the question. But she can't. She can't now. She promised Anna. But how does she describe everything that happened? Where does she even start?

As she opens and closes her mouth, Anna raises a hand.

"Don't worry," she says, smiling. "It's a long story, isn't it? Let's get some sleep and you can tell me tomorrow instead."

Elsa smiles gratefully and nods. She stands up and walks to the door of Anna's bedroom. "Goodnight, Anna."

"Night, Elsa." With no hesitation whatsoever, she hugs Elsa, her cheek pressing briefly into Elsa's shoulder, and then lets go. "Love you."

Elsa can feel the spot on her shoulder tingle as she says, "Love you too."

2) Tomorrow

They don't get through the whole story, or even through a quarter of it because Anna goes on tangents that may be instinctively calculated while Elsa simply evades questions: she suspects these might be habits that are too deeply ingrained in them. But they get somewhere and that helps.

As they hug goodnight, Anna says, "How's the rest of it going?"

Elsa thinks of everything she doesn't know. Before the ice thawed, her only real plans for her reign were to keep the kingdom afloat without anyone learning what she was. But now that she's nearly killed the entire country, she feels she ought to do something bigger, something better, something that would absolve her – if only she knew what. Though from a preliminary discussion with a few of her ministers, she suspects that whatever happens next, it's going to be hard.

She says, "It'll go."

"That good, huh?"

"I'll soon find out."

That's neutral enough, she thinks, not to count as a lie.

0(i)) Awkward

She decides, early on, that for her first change, her policies won't just be her opinion tempered by ministers. People should have a say in some of it. In her new policies. When she thinks of them. The doors are open and that means she has to listen. She will do things differently to before and the old Elsa would never have done it this way.

So she decides to invite nobles to meet with her because they are surely the most qualified to know about issues in her kingdom – why else would her father have drawn many of his ministers from them, and why else would they be so wealthy? The first meetings, however, are awkward (although she doesn't know if it's defeatist or not that she isn't surprised that they're awkward). Many of the younger nobles aren't sure why she wants their opinion on anything and the older ones are trying to hide their surprise. For her part, she tries to encourage them to speak, but it sounds stilted. She ends up telling them what she wants them to do, at which point the more conservative nobles summon the courage to kick up a fuss, so she tries to placate them. She doesn't know if she achieves anything on that first day except the realisation that she is a queen at twenty-one with no clear direction to take the country in and apparently no idea how to speak to anyone without either threatening them or being walked all over. Everything she wants to say just stops at her lips and the feelings from before – grey, dark, overwhelming, remote, terrified – creep in before she can stop them.

At least Anna doesn't ask her how it's going that evening.

3) Stronger

She leans out of her window, watching Anna meet Kristoff in the yard. They embrace and he gives her a swift peck on the lips. Hand in hand, they walk out of the castle grounds and onto the road to the city.

"Penny for your thoughts, Majesty?"

She jumps and freezes the windowsill. Face flaming, she concentrates and reverses the effects before turning around to face the speaker. Gerda, to her credit, doesn't look at all perturbed by the accidental vandalism. She and Kai are two of the only people who never seem bothered by Elsa using her power for anything other than creating ice rinks.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't see you there."

"Well, I'd hope not, given I was behind you." As Elsa blushes, Gerda chuckles. "Watching your sister again, Majesty?"

"How do you … are you spying on me?" She doesn't know whether to feel indignant or not. The old Elsa would have been. Not loudly, perhaps, but she would have made it icily clear that her privacy was to be respected. But she still doesn't know how this new Elsa is supposed to do things.

Gerda raises an eyebrow but there's something uncertain in her expression. Maybe Elsa isn't the only one who isn't entirely sure how to deal with the new her.

"No, your Majesty," she says finally. "But I see things."

And now Elsa feels bad. The old Elsa wouldn't have felt bad.

That isn't true. In the depths of the night, the look on Gerda's face would have replayed constantly in her mind, and she'd have passed it off as a nightmare.

"I just … I worry about her, I suppose," Elsa says. "This is all so new to her. I don't want her to get hurt."

Gerda purses her lips. "I think that's the best thing that could happen to her."

"…What?"

"Not a big hurt, not like that nasty prince. But she's spent so much time in the castle – she's never really known what it is to be hurt in the ways the world hurts people. She's never had the chance to grow past it and grow strong from it."

"Anna's strong. And it's not like she had an easy life."

"She's strong in some ways but less so in others, and it's those ways that could drag her down." Gerda looks at her and smiles. "It's the same for you, if you don't mind me saying, Majesty. There are some things you've never experienced either."

"I imagine there are a lot of things I've never experienced that I'm still not going to do. Jumping into a pit of boiling lava for example."

Gerda chuckles. "You're just like your father sometimes."

Elsa doesn't know how to respond to that. She loves her father, and knows that he did everything he could to be a good ruler, but sometimes, she thinks that maybe he…

Gerda shuffles over and pulls Elsa into her arms. "There, there," she says, ignoring Elsa's sudden stillness. "I didn't mean anything by it. Just an observation, dear." She moves back from Elsa, though she keeps her hands on Elsa's shoulders. Despite the difference in height, Elsa feels as though she's seven again. "Perhaps you should go too, your Majesty."

She's still a little dazed. "Go where?"

"Out. Into the city. Get to know how it works. Have your own experiences."

She knows her breath hitches. She wants to go outside. She wants to see what it is she's doing all of this for. What she would have died for, out there on the fjord.

And yet, if she goes out there…

She's not scared. She just doesn't want to rush anything.

"I have work to do."

"Does it need to be done today? By you?"

"Well…"

"You can't live your whole life in the castle, you know," Gerda says, and her eyes are no longer twinkling. "You can take one day to yourself, Majesty. You could go out there and meet the people. See more of the city. Get some time to be you."

The way Gerda's looking at her makes her heart pound. Gerda is one of the few servants who knows how Elsa grew up, even if she didn't know the exact reason for it. And she thinks Gerda might be the only one who watches Elsa for-

If Elsa had let her – if she hadn't been so damned scared and so focused on being perfect and competent – she would have stepped in as a second mother after her own parents died. She barely knew Elsa compared to how well she knew Anna but she'd made it clear several times that she would be there for her.

It's too late for that now – she's not someone who can just let friendly old maids into her life. But she's not the same girl who pushed Gerda away years ago, or she doesn't think she is. She is … she is…

She is someone who can listen to Gerda. That's all she needs to know.

"I … I think I'd like that," she says.

Gerda smiles. "Excellent," she says before Elsa can take it back. "If anyone comes looking for you, I'll say you'll be back in the evening."

"Thanks, Gerda." She hesitates before leaning over and hugging the older woman, because she thinks she can do that too. "Really."

Gerda hugs back. "Any time, Majesty."

5) Thief

The first time she goes into the city, she dresses as she normally does. Everyone recognises her and everyone goes out of their way to be polite to her. People openly gawk. She wants to strike up a friendly conversation but every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out. More than once, she wishes Anna were with her. Anna is brilliant at these kinds of things.

Eventually, she manages to have a conversation with some shopkeepers, but they speak slowly, careful to agree with anything she says. Their eyes constantly glance at her hands and she gets the distinct impression that they're waiting for her to leave. So she does, and she's stupidly proud of herself that she doesn't freeze anything until she's in her room.

For a few weeks after that, she doesn't go to the city alone. She goes a few times with Anna, and that's fine because Anna is disarming and friendly, and people are suddenly happy for Elsa to play the indulgent big sister. She goes a few times with nobles and ministers on official business and she's expected to act properly then so she barely says anything anyway. She gets good at all of this play acting. It sometimes makes her wonder if she's changed at all.

She tries not to talk about any of this with Anna because it sounds so stupid (what is she complaining about? That people she's only just met don't want to be her friend?) but that feels counter-intuitive because she's not supposed to lie anymore. So, instead, what comes out are mumbled half-truths, hinting at her unease and isolation, which turn to questions about Anna. Questions and questions and questions which maybe would alarm Anna if she'd had the chance to know Elsa better before now.

With all of her work, and the expectations, and the self-control, and the having to fix Arendelle and not really knowing what to do or where she's going but not being allowed to tell anyone that she doesn't have the answer, she feels, if anything, more trapped than she did before she went to the city. She sits in meetings with nobles who seem to think what they want is the most important thing and are icily polite to her; or walks past servants who flinch away from her; or sits up late into the night, and starts to think longingly of the North Mountain, with its endless space and silence. She could go up there, live in that castle with Marshmallow and just … be.

But isolating herself is something the old Elsa would have done and she's not that girl anymore.

Besides, Marshmallow won't let anyone come within ten feet of the castle without shouting at them.

She decides to compromise. If her issue is being trapped then she'll go back into the city but she'll go in disguise – that way, she'll be alone and free and with people. As long as she doesn't freeze anything or disclose her proposed reforms of the law of easements, she'll be fine. She repeats this to herself as she sneaks out of the castle and all the way into the city, dressed in the first dress she finds in her wardrobe that doesn't look too gaudy, with a dark wig and a pair of fake glasses, hoping she doesn't run into anybody she actually knows.

It turns out that when you're not the Queen, the city is surprisingly overwhelming. There are people everywhere. They push and they shove and they shout and they swear and it's fascinating. Nobles aren't like this. At least, they're not like this in front of Elsa.

She doesn't start a conversation with anyone but a few people (mostly men) start conversations with her. It's actually not that hard to get into the flow of it, as long as she's careful about what she says. Some of the conversations are creepy and uncomfortable but most are cheerful and leave her with a small smile on her face.

By the end of the day, she's in a good mood. She decides to take a shortcut back to the castle. At least, it would be a shortcut if she could remember where this alley leads. After about half a minute, it becomes apparent that the alley won't take her closer to the castle and she is debating which way to go when a hand reaches out from the shadows and grabs her arm.

And lets go.

"Your arm is freezing!"

Elsa's heart is hammering – more with the effort of not freezing the grabber than with the fact of being grabbed – as she rubs her arm.

"Maybe you shouldn't have grabbed it then," she mutters, still focusing on not freezing anyone.

"Well if I'd known it'd be that cold, I wouldn't have, would I?"

That makes her pause. She peers at the shadows. "Is that, uh, is that your only qualm with grabbing someone's arm?"

She can't quite see the grabber but she can see their shoulders shrug in the darkness. "I gotta eat, don't I?"

"You were going to eat my arm?"

"What? No!" The grabber actually sounds outraged. "I was gonna steal from you, wasn't I?"

"Steal what?"

"Well, the jewels on that dress for starters."

Elsa puts a finger to the jewels, small but present on the skirt of the dress. It hadn't even occurred to her that someone might want them for money. That someone would try to grab her and hurt her for them. The thought makes her shiver. "And you couldn't just ask?" she says coldly.

There's a scoffing noise from the shadows. "Oh, just ask, the lady says. Sure. I shoulda just gone up to you and asked if you'd pretty please let me have those jewels for free. D'you know how often that works?"

"No. How often does that work?"

There's a pause.

"You don't get out much, do you?"

Elsa grins despite herself. Her unease at the situation is starting to wane with each comment the would-be thief makes.

"I'm not being entirely serious," she says, although she mostly was. She plays the thief's first words over in her head and frowns as their meaning hits her. "Do you really have nothing to eat?"

"Not much." Another shrug. "I can get by for another day or so. Something'll turn up. It usually does."

She hesitates and then hates herself for it. She isn't hesitating because she doesn't want to help. She's hesitating because she's heard the warnings and cautionary tales, of scammers and thieves who just won't get jobs. Of how handing money over to a street thief or beggar is the same as buying them drugs and alcohol.

It's a lot easier to believe all of that when she isn't faced with a shadowed figure who, if she peers into the darkness, looks a lot thinner than a person should.

She concentrates to make herself another ice dress underneath the normal one. Then she starts to undo the clasp at the back of the normal dress.

"What, uh, what are you doing? Lady, there are children nearby."

She nearly laughs at the thought of a thief giving her lessons on morality and ethics.

"I've got something on underneath. Hold on." She wriggles out of the dress. "For you. Take the jewels off as you want but use them to buy food."

The shadowed figure moves backwards one step. "You, uh, you serious?"

"You can't possibly be saying no. You were just about to forcibly remove the jewels from me!"

"I, uh, you know, I don't actually have a weapon on me. I was kinda hoping the threat of me would be enough. Though now that I think about it, that seems like a fairly stupid idea since you'd have been walking round naked then. Or I thought you'd be." A pause. "I'm kinda new to this mugging game." Another pause. "Hey, this isn't a trick, is it? You gonna call the soldiers on me?"

She isn't sure that she followed all of that. "No," she says in answer to the last question. "If I did that, I'd have to explain why I'm here."

"Why's that a problem? You not allowed to walk down alleys?"

"Not … well, yes. But no."

"Right. Anyone ever tell you that you're crazy?"

It's obviously a jocular, surprised comment but it catches her off guard. Because people do whisper that and she can't exactly blame them, not when she has the same thoughts herself. After all, nobody sane responds to their sister's engagement by freezing an entire country. Then there are the thoughts and feelings that have plagued her since before her parents died, thoughts that would be so easy to give in to: that everything is hopeless, that she's hopeless, that she will always be trapped and alone. And then moments where everything is just dull and empty, and it feels like she's watching from the sidelines.

She can feel her amusement fading fast.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, alright? I mean, I'm sorry for the crazy comment and for trying to mug you. I just … wow. This is generous. And totally, totally not crazy." There's a pause and then, in a quiet voice, the thief says, "Please don't cry."

She looks directly into the shadows of the alley. "Huh?"

"You just … you look so … lost." There's a moment of hesitation and then a thin, grimy figure steps into the fading light for the first time. She sees the thinness and the dirt, of course, and even a scar, but what strikes Elsa the most is that the thief's eyes and mouth and expression are filled with concern. "C'mon, come here."

Then, to her absolute astonishment, the thief hugs her.

"You're not crazy, alright? No more than the rest of us. Even if your arm is freezing." Elsa takes a step backwards out of the startlingly warm embrace, still holding the dress out because she doesn't know what to say. The thief hesitates but she gestures again. Slender fingers – surprisingly slender fingers – curl into the cloth.

"That should be worth a fair bit of money," Elsa says. "Don't... I can't stop you from doing whatever you want with that money but-"

The thief seems to be looking at her properly. "This dress is a little … wet. And your dress is cold. Like, ice cold. Are … you're not … I mean, there's no way you're-"

"Don't. We were having such a good conversation." She tries to smile, fully aware that that conversation has ended. The thief is openly gaping at her. There's something about that gaze that makes it hard to look away. "Seriously. I just wanted to…"

The thief grins then. It's a surprisingly nice grin, despite the strange scar that cuts through it. "Alright then. Nothing more's being said. But if you ever need a favour down here, shout for Rik."

"Rik?" She tastes the name on her lips. "Is that short for something?"

"Yep. But I never go by my full name so there's no point giving it to you."

"OK." She shrugs. "Then I'm … you can't really shorten Elsa."

"Elle?"

"Fine. I'm Elle."

"Then thanks, Elle. I mean it. This … an amount like this could change my life. Will change my life. Honestly."

Rik hugs her again before disappearing into the shadows. Elsa looks down at her dress. The grime from those surprisingly slender fingers has made its way onto the ice.

She could clean it up but, somehow, it looks better this way.

0(ii)) Actually

She's meeting the nobles with whom she discusses social policy – she split the nobles into "committees" about a month ago, mainly to make it look like she was doing something. It's been an easy job for them so far because she's been so distracted by other things that she's not really put much thought into it, and has been guided by them. It's mainly been keeping the status quo.

But this time, at the end of the meeting, when Marquess Elbert says, "Does anyone else have anything they want to raise?" she thinks of Rik the thief and that grimy face and bony shoulders. And how she's sitting here, maintaining the status quo and how, for Rik, that status quo might mean starvation. And how, if there's one person who could ensure that people like Rik never need to mug anyone just for food, surely, it's her.

She hears herself say, "Actually…"

6) Problem

There's a knock on her door.

"Sis? Can I talk to you?"

Elsa opens the door. Anna is twisting from foot to foot which Elsa is beginning to recognise as a sign that she's anxious.

"Yes, of course. Come in." She opens her door and Anna obediently walks in. The first time Anna came in, she barely managed to hide her shock at how bare Elsa's room is. Now she barely spares the lack of decoration and the water-marked items a second glance as she sits on Elsa's carpet. She could sit on a chair or the bed but she seems to like the carpet. Elsa plops down next to her. "What's wrong?" she says, trying to keep the nervousness out of her voice. They've had a lot of conversations but few that are very deep.

To her guilty relief, Anna begins to tell her about an argument she's had with Kristoff. She speaks quickly, often getting distracted by tangents, which makes it difficult for Elsa to keep up, but by the end of it, she thinks she has a grasp on the situation. It doesn't sound like it's a potential relationship-ending argument. Anna just wants to know which of them is in the right.

"And don't spare my feelings," Anna says. "Though I'm totally right."

For a few seconds, Elsa can't think of what to say. She isn't good at things like this – she can barely decide what she should say to people, let alone what people should say to each other.

Still. Anna needs her. Anna trusts her. And she has to say something because she suspects she's beginning to look gormless now.

"I don't think you should have said it when you did," she says slowly, "but I think you're right. Kristoff was being rude to the stall owner."

"Ha! Knew it!"

"But you could have waited to tell him so in private."

"Oh." She pulls a face. "She just looked so upset that I kinda felt I had to say something. But what should I do now?"

Elsa has no idea whatsoever.

"You could apologise to him but tell him you still think he was being rude."

"Do I have to apologise?"

"I'd imagine that's up to you. But it might make him realise he was being rude."

"I guess. I just hate apologising to him. He's always so smug about it." She sighs and then grins. "Oh well. I gotta do what I gotta do. Thanks, sis. I knew I could count on you." She twists and hugs Elsa. "I'm glad we're talking to each other again. It feels nice, you know?"

"Yes." Elsa looks at Anna and feels a little stab of envy. Anna always seems so sure of herself and when she isn't, she has no qualms asking for help. Elsa wishes she had even one-tenth of that self-confidence.

"You OK?"

"Yes." Elsa smiles. "I'm glad you came, Anna. I'm glad I could help."

0(iii)) Child

She walks up the North Mountain with the same amount of trepidation she always has. This won't end well. It never ends well. This is her third visit since the Thaw, and the other two ended before they could really begin.

Marshmallow is angry. He is full of hatred and anger and an intense desire to guard his home. She doesn't know if he hates her because she made him, or because she is the only one who is ever there to hate.

She's told Anna about these visits and Anna thinks her mad to return, and mad not to use her power. But she has to come here. She made Marshmallow. In a funny sort of way, he's like her child. So she will not force him to be someone. Not anymore.

But every time she's gone up, he's gotten so angry that she has eventually left him in the isolation he so clearly desires.

Still, she goes, tentatively knocking on the doors of the ice palace. After a couple of minutes, the doors open and she looks up at the grimace of the giant snowman. And braces herself.

Nothing.

"Hi, Marshmallow," she says. "Do you mind if I come in?"

He just looks at her. At least he hasn't bellowed.

Much as it hurts, she probably deserves this hatred.

"Why?"

His voice, when he isn't shouting, is deep and almost makes her think of ice blocks grinding together.

"I want to know how you are."

"Why?" Behind the deep voice and grinding tones, she thinks he could sound curious.

"I care about you," she says, though it somehow sounds insincere when she says it aloud. Until the Thaw, she'd barely spoken any of her feelings about anyone or anything aloud, and now she wonders how people can articulate them so well. Words never seem enough to express what she's thinking. "I want to check that you're OK."

"Why?"

It's becoming unnerving now.

"Because I made you," she says. "Because I want to know you. Because you're … because I'm responsible for you."

She can't bring herself to say she needs to know he's OK for her sake. And saying she loves him just sounds strange.

He stares at her for a few seconds. "I'm OK."

She coughs. "Um. Good."

After a few more seconds, he says, "Enter."

She walks in, feeling for the first time in a long time that something might be going right after all.

7) Soup

It's nearly six months after the coronation (not that she's counting or anything), and about four after her encounter with Rik, when she decides to venture to the Arendelle docks.

She hates ships. It's not simple enough to say that she hates them in the same way that Anna hates sprouts because it feels more complex than that; and she supposes she doesn't hate them as much as she hates Hans because ships are inanimate and he was fully aware of every pain he inflicted. But she does hate them and that's her main reason for avoiding the docks until now.

She goes because she promised herself she would. She hasn't been able to stop thinking about her encounter with Rik: it seems ridiculous that some people have nothing to eat but she can walk around in a dress that, according to her very angry royal dressmaker, is worth enough to feed half of Arendelle. Since then, she's looked into passing laws, commissioning studies, or even donating money but – like everything she tries – it's slow. The nobles display more confidence than ever in their meetings and are trying to gain her support for their own factions; the ministers remind her that there are other problems in Arendelle, many caused by her freezing the entire country; and at the end of the day, she doesn't know where to focus her attention without becoming so narrow-minded that she forgets everything else. Her father did not leave the country in a good state.

The docks are the roughest part of Arendelle. She's seen the figures and read the reports. Comparatively high crime rates, low income, poor housing, constant food shortages (not helped by her recent destruction of much of Arendelle's crops). Certainly not a place for the Queen to go alone. But she has to go because she has to see it past the books and reports. Prove to her ministers that she knows what she's talking about and prove to herself that this is something she can work on. And because the old Elsa would have relied on those books, and her parents would have quoted those figures, and that's not going to be her. Not anymore.

So she goes, dressed in the wig, glasses and as plain a dress as she could find. She even slathers her face in make-up, trying to make her skin seem like it sees the sun on a more than monthly basis. It's not like the last time she went into the city in disguise. The looks she attracts here aren't friendly: she finds herself crossing her arms across her chest even though she could freeze everyone in place. She can occasionally feel hands looking for a purse she doesn't have. And the people she sees aren't well put-together like the nobles she knows so well – their hair is lank and grubby; their skin is dark but not from genetics or sunlight; they are thin but not in the way the noble ladies say is attractive.

It's especially difficult to look at the children.

She isn't wandering anywhere in particular but after a couple of hours she notices a lot of people heading in a certain direction, so she follows. She can't say that she's used to the sights of the docks, and she doesn't want to go too near the water, but it doesn't feel quite as bad as it did a few hours ago. At least she knows that she could probably defend herself.

The people are queuing for something inside an old warehouse. She tries to see what but when she heads for the door, people assume she's cutting the queue. She can always duck out once she's inside, she reasons, so she stands and waits, letting the conversation of the residents of Arendelle's docks wash over her. It's funny but, at heart, they sound similar to the conversations of the nobles at the parties she now has to attend.

She's so focused on the conversations that she doesn't realise how far along the queue she is until she hears the clatter of wood on wood. Startled, she looks around. The warehouse is filled with tables and benches, and bowls upon those tables and people upon those benches. Curious, she steps out of the line and heads towards the wall, hoping to get a better look.

At the front of the queue, there's another table. People behind the table give people in the queue bowls. Once they have a bowl, each person moves along, where more people ladle something out of a vat. Something that smells tasty. As she leans forwards, she sees-

It's so surprising, she nearly freezes the wall behind her.

"Hey, hey, lady, you coming back or what?"

She jumps again and really does freeze the patch of wall behind her this time. "Huh?"

The man who was behind her in the queue gestures impatiently as she hurriedly tries to get rid of the ice. "You gonna take your place or what?"

"No, I, uh, changed my mind. You go."

The man shrugs but she can feel people looking at her, presumably wondering why anyone would come to a soup kitchen and not eat soup. She ignores them but as she finally succeeds in getting rid of the ice, one of the women from behind the table walks – or limps, rather, because she has a slight limp – over to her, concern plain on her face. Once in front of Elsa, she softly says, "It's OK. It doesn't cost anything."

"I know. I … it's OK." She tries to think of a reason for her being in here that won't sound stupid or wrong. "I … I think I can get my own dinner today. Really. I just … I don't know why I came in here."

"It's a safe place, you know. If you're looking for somewhere to sleep-"

"No, no, I … I don't need somewhere to sleep. I just…" She looks at her hands, hoping for some inspiration from them. She hasn't got gloves on: they should be inspiring, damn it.

"Hey, Borni." At the sound of that voice, her eyes widen and she stares rather pointedly at her traitor hands. "Why've you cornered this la- El … Elle?"

She closes her eyes for a bit longer than a standard blink as she looks up at one very surprised thief. "Hi, Rik."

The woman – Borni – looks between them. "You know her?"

Rik nods. There's a smile on the thief's face, even over the surprise. "Elle's … Elle's the reason this was possible. She's kinda like my sponsor, isn't she?"

Elsa can feel her cheeks warm. "I think that's an exaggeration." She pauses as the thief's words sink in. "Wait, you started this?"

"Yeah, I did and nah, it's not." Rik slings an arm that is not dark from grime around her shoulders. In fact, now that she looks at the thief properly (and she has to because most people avoid touching her and if she thinks about that-), she can see what she missed before – brown hair that's no longer lank, framing a thin face and sparkling green eyes; jagged edges on the strange scar that cuts through the right-hand side of a sunny grin; features and skin that suggest a heritage that might not originate in Arendelle, or might be mixed; and a face that, actually, isn't that much older than hers. "Elle met me when I was at that proper low – you know the one, a few months back – and she helped me. She gave me what I needed to start this up. In fact…"

"What?"

"Everyone! Everyone, listen up!" Elsa's eyes widen in horror as people turn in their direction. "I want you all to meet Elle. She inspired me to do this when I was at my worst and gave me the money for it. Give her a round of applause everyone, 'cause you don't meet a lady like her every day."

"Maybe you should marry her," someone yells and everyone laughs, though whether it's at the statement or how inappropriate that would be, she can't tell. Her face burns even more.

Rik, however, is not fazed. "Maybe I should. But where's that round of applause I asked for, hey?"

Elsa doesn't think her face can burn any more as people start to clap and cheer for her. She actually buries her head in her hands with embarrassment. It gets even worse when someone comes up to her and hugs her, saying it's part of the applause but then whispering a thank you into her ear. Others join in, and soon she's buried under a pile of well-wishers, silently glad that she didn't make an ice dress, until Borni rescues her.

Afterwards, Rik escorts her out, arm around her back, which makes her feel alert and … alert, just alert. They face each other, and she can't help thinking that the thief's eyes sparkle in the flickering torch light.

"So did you know I was here?"

She shakes her head. "I had no idea. I was just in the docks to look around. I followed people and… Did you really use that dress for this?"

Rik shrugs with shoulders that don't seem as bony as they did a few months ago. "D'you know how much that dress was worth?"

"Enough to feed half of Arendelle, apparently, though I think that's hyperbole." She smiles. "It turns out that, despite what I thought when I saw it, it was actually one of the more expensive dresses I own. Owned. The dressmaker had a fit when she found out I'd, uh, lost it in a river."

"Is that where the rumour that you like to go skinny-dipping comes from?"

"Quite possibly," Elsa says and they both laugh. "I just … I didn't think you'd use it to do something like this."

"Well … I mean, it was more money than I knew what to do with, wasn't it?" To her astonishment, Rik actually looks a little shy. "And this place was abandoned for so long that I thought … why not? You gave me money when I was down on my luck and said I should buy food so I did, didn't I? But it's totally not crazy."

They laugh again. It feels comfortable – more comfortable than Elsa has felt for a while, in fact.

"So, Elle, I gotta ask," Rik says. "Is it true you sold loads of your really posh dresses? And that you're talking about making laws about the housing and food down here?"

"You know about that?"

"We got ears, you know. It's just … don't you got more important things to do?"

She thinks of all of the topics her nobles want her to discuss – some of which are pressing but many of which are aimed at furthering their own interests, and says, "More important than people in my own country?"

Rik grins. "Fair point. But 's nice, you know? You don't expect nobles to do stuff like this. Where I was born…"

"I don't see why we shouldn't," she says, feeling more certain of each word as it comes out. "We all live here, don't we? And from what I've seen today…" She looks around. "Besides, a noble didn't give you that dress – Elle isn't anyone."

"Apart from an investor now."

"Yes, thanks for that."

"Eh, you'd attract attention anyway."

"Because I don't fit in?"

"What makes you think you don't?"

"Well, I guess … I guess I'm … better nourished. And my clothes…"

Rik gives her an assessing look, fingers tracing the corner of that strange scar. "You do look better off than the rest of us but that doesn't mean you are. You know why Borni came over to you?"

"Presumably because people don't tend to change their minds about free soup?"

"Sort of. She thought you mighta run outta an abusive relationship and heard about us, but then gotten too nervous to take the soup. She thought you mighta had nowhere else to go."

She's so surprised by this assessment that she can only say, rather stupidly, "But I don't have any bruises."

"Maybe not that she could see. But you … you kinda carry yourself like someone who's been beaten, you know? And abuse isn't always … you can't always see it."

Elsa doesn't know what to say to that.

"Anyway, 's not what I was thinking, was it? I was thinking more 'cause you look…"

"Huh?"

"Nothing." And to her surprise, Rik looks away before looking back at her. "Anyway, you staying or going? If you're going, gimme a minute to check everyone's alright and I'll walk you outta here."

"I can make my own way."

But Rik only smiles, eyes sparkling with humour. "Lady, not everyone down here's as nice as me when they go grabbing. And you can't have that many dresses to give away. Er, can you?"

She laughs. "No." She feels something inside her soften – and she can't deny that she's been enjoying their conversation. "If you want to walk me out," she says, "I won't say no."

8) Present

They talk for the entire walk back, about random things, mainly. She's enjoying herself – Rik is quite funny, once she gets her head around the strange accent and dialect. She almost feels relaxed. It's strange.

As they reach the edge of the district, Rik says, "Happy birthday, by the way."

She looks at the thief. "Huh?"

"Your birthday's in two days, isn't it? Pretty sure there's a country-wide celebration. C'mon, stop looking so surprised. We all gotta grow old, right?"

She doesn't know why she thought Rik wouldn't know her birthday. Maybe it's because she doesn't usually do anything for it. The thought of the party she has to throw in two days is a little intimidating.

She shakes her head. "Sorry. I … thanks, Rik."

"Expecting anything nice for it?"

"I'm sure Anna will think of something. And probably lots of nobles will give me things that I will be very grateful for and will never use again. That's what happened on previous birthdays and I didn't even meet the nobles." She pulls a face. She doesn't like receiving presents. It rarely feels like she deserves it and she finds it hard to accept things from other people – it feels almost as though she's in someone else's debt. Losing control, she supposes, though maybe not everything in her life is linked to that. Maybe this is just a weird quirk of her personality. "I bet it's all ice themed too."

Normally, she wouldn't dare be so ungrateful but she's beginning to get a sense of her companion's humour and she's proven right – Rik chuckles. "Feel free to sell 'em and give us the proceeds, lady. Bet they're worth loads."

"That's … that's actually quite a good idea."

"What, really? I was joking."

"I know but now that I think about it, what else am I going to do with one hundred handmade snowglobes?"

She's rewarded with another chuckle. "Shake 'em all?"

"And then what? It loses its appeal after a while, I imagine."

Rik grins. "Fair enough. But won't the nobles get offended?"

"How would they know where I put the snowglobes or whatever?" She has a strange feeling now – sort of giggly and hysterical and something else. "I'll say they're in my room."

"Is your room that big?"

"No, but they don't know that." She's grinning, even though it isn't that funny. Maybe it's a delayed reaction and she's just relieved that she got through the docks in one piece. The things she's coming out with surely must be. "I'm the Queen. I'll pretend I have two bedrooms or something."

"You don't?"

"What would I do with two bedrooms?"

"Sell one and give us the proceeds?"

She laughs. On impulse, she leans over and hugs the thief, part of her marvelling at how freely she's hugging someone who is partly a stranger, and part of her feeling alarmed at how thin that stranger is. There must be something in the air.

"I'll think about it. But, more seriously, I like the idea. With the birthday presents I mean. I don't need that much stuff – it really would do me a favour."

"If you insist," Rik says, looking mildly bemused behind that sunny grin, "but next time, I'll get you a present. You better not sell that off."

Alarm flares inside her because they might be having a friendly conversation and laughing and joking but they're still strangers, aren't they? "You don't have to-"

"Course I don't have to. I want to. That's the point of a present, isn't it?" Rik's eyes are full of laughter now. "I like you. And I like to give presents to people I like for their birthdays. When I can."

She hesitates and then nods, thinking that there may well not be a next time and even if there is, the thief will probably forget anyway. "Alright," she says. "Thanks."