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She was up early that morning.
There was work to be done, as always, and she needed to carve out private time, for today especially. She quietly padded into the hallway, the faint light from passing windows catching the orange diamond on her left ring finger. Her bare feet made quiet, careful steps until she reached the still pristine ivory door to their bedroom.
One whole year.
Anna had ordered a new bedchamber to be built as soon as Kristoff and her had started planning their wedding. A new chapter in her life was beginning. She was ready to leave her childhood bedroom, saving it for the children they would someday have, for one that was built specifically for the two of them. “It will be perfect,” she had gushed to him while squeezing his hands. “A place just for us, where we can wake up next to each other every morning, be all alone together.” She loved how his cheeks grew red at the remark, loved his shy smile as he leant in and brushed her nose with his.
Her heart clutched at the memory. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, she slowly turned the knob. She took in the spotless blue walls, the dark oak furniture, the yellow and green patterned rugs. It had the outdoorsy feel she and Kristoff had wanted, complete with a window overlooking the distant mountains across from the bed.
The bed with the olive green spread.
The bed with the ridiculous mass of pillows against the headboard.
The bed that had never been slept in, and as far as she was concerned, never would be.
She tried not to come here too often, only when she had reached her highest peaks of longing for him, when she needed to escape to the fantasy that had been all too close to becoming her blissful, joyous reality.
She still resided in the bedroom she had grown up in, plagued by recurring dreams of walking down the aisle of the cathedral to his waiting form: polished, hands folded, staring at her, smiling so wide she could see the crinkles around his eyes. But the serene setting always began to rapidly disintegrate into blackness, and she would run, reach for him, try to say something with no words coming out, and then he was gone, and she was swallowed in darkness. She had woken up shrieking his name much more often than she cared to admit, and the servants would rush in, hold her, desperately attempt to comfort her.
Anna was grateful for her staff’s empathy and willingness to listen, for her sister who visited nearly every other day for the first few months and managed to both assist with her royal duties and be a shoulder to cry on. Nevertheless, she always was careful not to pour the emotional baggage too heavily on Elsa, or the servants, or an already miserable Sven, or Olaf who was always trying to get her to smile. She would force one more often than not for him. For Elsa and Sven and Mattias. For her people. She held it together throughout her days. Being the ruler of a kingdom didn’t allow much time for her to wallow in grief and misery, even with her sister’s help.
It was only when she returned to her room at night, the same one she had nearly finished packing up a year ago. Only when she closed the door and found herself deprived of a waiting pair of large, warm arms to wrap around her after a long day. Only when she was met with silence instead of lute strummings and soft humming. Only then would she break down.
Anna shook her head, bringing herself back to the moment. She tread along the polished wood floor, Lightly running her hand along the nearby wall. They hadn’t gotten to the decorating stage, so the room was chillingly bare aside from the furniture. She stared at the large dresser by the window, knowing full well every drawer was empty. Except the bottom one. She wrapped her arms around her lightly shaking body and thought about how much she hated the dead silence of their bedroom.
Her legs collapsed underneath her as she reached the front of the dresser. She gripped the cool metal handles on either side of the bottom drawer and pulled on it with trembling hands. She felt her breath hitch at the sight of the box. Her eyes began to well the second she lifted it in her hands. She forced herself to stand and make her unsteady way to the foot of their bed, sitting crossed legged and propped up against it. Her fingers gripped the lid of the box, now sat in front of her. With a swift breath, she inhaled the forming cries and threw the lid off.
She needed him.
Her vision grew blurry with tears. She smoothed her hands along the well-worn wool, lifting it and pulling it into her lap. She blinked rapidly before unfolding one sleeve. Her hand slid in the opening and she rubbed the material between her fingers. After a long moment, she unfolded the sweater completely, lifting it and pulling it on over her nightgown. Her arms found the too-large sleeves and slipped into them, and she was surrounded in the piney, sweaty mountain-air scent that still clung to it as it had to him. The smell of the outdoors had seemed to be permanently imprinted on his skin no matter how long he had lived in the castle. The collar of the sweater slid off one shoulder, and her tiny frame drowned in the abundance of wool. The fabric was so heavy on her arms, even more so when she rolled up the sleeves into tight cuffs to free her hands. She still slept in one of his day-shirts most nights, even after it lost his scent, but the material was so much lighter.
She turned her attention back to the box, to the items the sweater had laid on top of. Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now, but she barely cared, she only blinked to clear her vision to look at the single photograph she delicately took between her thumb and forefinger.
“One hour,” he had said to her. “You get this for one hour.” He was smiling playfully, and she knew she had to take advantage of his distinguished look while she could.
She had dragged him to get their photograph taken after the statue unveiling. The image depicted them standing as straight as possible, both trying so hard to pull off the regal look their outfits suggested. Their big, dopey, so very in love-smiles completely ruined it, though. He was holding up her hand proudly in his so her engagement ring was showing. She smiled in spite of herself as she absently traced a finger over the image, staring at his lopsided grin, at his gleaming eyes, at the overwhelming joy on her own face. She laid it down on the floor beside the box, picking up the unevenly folded letter that had rested in alongside it. It was from him, delivered through Gale when he went to the mountains for the first time after her coronation. She insisted that he still kept his position as Ice Master and Deliverer even when he became her consort. She knew how much he loved it. Everything was going well until the third trip...
It was a simple, straightforward letter. He had never been eloquent, but it was his all the same:
Everything’s going well. I should be back by tomorrow as long as it doesn’t snow too hard. I can’t wait! Sven says “hi.” Tell Olaf we both do.
I love you,
Kristoff
She loved his clunky handwriting, the way his Ts and Fs were stylized as capitals, perfectly imperfect like so many other things she loved about him. It was the only letter she’d received from him. The second trip was quicker, just like the third was supposed to be.
Supposed to be.
It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make any goddamn sense. He had done that job since he was a child. Over the years he had been in her life, he would sometimes come back with injuries that she fussed over profusely, but never anything serious. He was too smart, too strong, too good…
She had been in the middle of a fitting for the dress that now sat unfinished in the sewing room storage closet the morning Sven ran back to the castle in a panic, all alone.
One of the guards had come knocking, murmured something to the seamstress when she opened the door. Suddenly, she was back, carefully but swiftly removing her work from Anna’s form, telling her she had to get dressed. Something had happened, the woman kept muttering, but she wouldn’t tell the young queen what, even as she grew ever more frantic. It was only after she was fully redressed that she finally muttered,
“It’s your fiancé, your majesty.”
She only remembered bits and pieces after that. She remembered rushing to the waiting guards at the bottom of the stairwell. She remembered pleading,
“Where is he? Take me to him! I need to see him!”
She remembered Elsa arriving, enveloping her in a tight hug. She remembered when the members of the royal guard returned to the castle with a distraught Sven in tow. She remembered pushing past everyone to look inside the wagon one of the horses was towing.
She remembered screaming. Dear God, she remembered screaming. She didn’t stop when two people took her by the arms and pulled her away. She didn’t stop when Elsa took her into her arms once again and whispered soothing words. She only stopped when she passed out.
An avalanche.
A damn Avalanche.
So out of the blue, so quick, so, so stupid.
Anna shook more and more with each item she lifted and carefully explored with her fingertips: his favorite embroidered sash, an invitation to their wedding with its flowered border and big, swoopy print.
She was practically choking on her sobs by the time she reached for the final item resting on the bottom of the box. No one knew she had kept his old hat after the Great Thaw. He had gotten all-new winter clothes after he was given his new position, so he never had reason to ask about it. He had no idea that she stored it in her nightstand and took it out whenever he was away on one of his trips, brought it to her nose, absently ran a finger along the few golden strands trapped in the inside fabric.
Now, she kept it here.
She clutched it to her chest, idling the bobble with her fingers and remembering when they first met. He kept covering his face with it, trying to sleep, trying to get her to leave him alone, and she just kept refusing until he gave in. He would come to make playful remarks about her stubborn hotheadedness. She was his Fiestypants.
Something that could have been a laugh or a sob erupted from her throat, and she twisted her hand into the leather of the hat. He had hastily put it on her head as she was freezing, as she laid in his warm, reassuring arms…
Through tears and against her better judgement, she turned it rightside up over her lap, watching the blurry, golden items spill out. Her engagement ring had remained firmly on her finger, no matter how often her sister or her staff or visiting dignitaries would glance down at it with a stare so full of pity that it was impossible for her not to notice. It pained herto see sometimes, because she could still see him beaming up at her as he presented it to her, never breaking eye contact; she could still feel his large hands lifting her off the ground in ecstasy after he slid it on her finger. She knew, though, that it would hurt far worse for her to look at her hand and see nothing at all.
The two other rings now nestled in the bunched-up fabric that spilled onto her thighs had been finished the night before Sven rushed back to the castle. Now, a year later, she was alone. She messily wiped at her face with the baggy sleeve on her left arm before extending her fingers, taking the simple, gold band from her lap with her right hand. Before she could stop herself, she had slid it on above her engagement ring. She stared at her left hand, played pretend.
But there was one more.
In a shaking palm she lifted the matching, but much larger gold band. Her throat was raw, searing in pain with every cry. She ached for Kristoff’s arms, for his sturdy chest, for his heartbeat, his voice. She willed with all her might for him to suddenly appear, hold her, tell her that he was back and okay and would never leave her again.
She clutched Kristoff’s wedding ring so tight in her left hand, against the metal of her own rings, that her knuckles began to turn white. She glanced up, looked around her. This was wrong. This was not meant to be a room so filled with pain. She was supposed to be residing here, with him. They were supposed to be happy, hopeful, madly in love and so very alive.
The painful reality she rarely allowed herself to think about wormed its way to the forefront of her mind: she would have to marry, eventually. She would have to bear an heir. She would have to settle for one of the royal suitors from one of the neighboring kingdoms that would at some point reach out about possible marriage arrangements.
And maybe there was someone out there she could be content with having as a husband, someone who she could get along with and talk to and who would be a decent father. But he wouldn’t make her heart flutter, wouldn’t make her eyes light up, wouldn’t make her gut burn with passion and longing. She would have to tell him so, make sure he was still alright with being in a marriage as mere companions rather than a true couple. She hated knowing that that was the best she could offer someone willing to spend their life with her. She hated the utter unfairness she would be subjecting them to, because any man willing to be with her under those conditions deserved so much better, someone who could truly love them. She couldn’t. Would never be able to because there was only one man she would ever want and if it were not mandatory that she continue the bloodline, she would never marry anybody else at all.
Her eyes darted over to the photograph, to him with his dopey grin and broad shoulders, the man who would never be her husband, the one who’s presence she would never be in again as long as she lived. She somehow ended up curled on the floor, still clutching the ring with her left hand, whispering his name over and over like a prayer. The too-big sweater was pooled around her body and she had her nose buried in the drooping material around the collar, feverishly taking in that all too familiar, comforting scent.
She didn’t know how long she laid there until she felt a gentle hand on her arm. For whatever reason, a powerful surge of hope, of relief went through her, just for a split second.
“Kristoff...”
But reality quickly crashed back down onto her. The hand was far too small and cool.
“Oh, Anna…” her sister’s voice broke.
She should have already known she would visit today, just as she should have known this was the first place she would come to look for her.
She let Elsa pull her into a seated position, let her put her arms around her, let her rest her chin on her shoulder as she began to cry along with her. Anna sniveled, loud and ugly, burying her face into her older sister’s shoulder and clinging desperately to her back.
It had been a long, hard year.