Work Text:
A strip of ice aligned perfectly to reflect the sun, blinding as Elsa approached Ahtohallan on the Nokk. What was she going to learn? She didn’t like having to come with an agenda in mind, knowing there was something important.
Most years she was able to come as she felt like it, reliving pleasant memories, coming to terms with things she might wish were different, but never needing to confront real problems.
The sun would be setting soon, and as far north as they were, the night would last months, not hours. She needed to find out what was wrong.
The memories generally came only when she slipped away from a group, the unsolicited memories, at least. She avoided conjuring memories around others if she didn’t know what the result would be. It was too risky, and usually what she could learn wasn’t worth very much.
Most memories, most of the time, weren’t worth causing trouble over. People got embarrassed by things that didn’t really matter, and everyone had things they would rather forget. When she first realized what she could do, she had allowed herself to see too many things. She usually said nothing, but she knew too much.
She had been a slip of a girl, that’s what Anna sometimes overheard the servants saying when she was younger. She was headstrong, hardly ever paying attention to advice. That’s how it had happened, right? She ignored the level headed advice she had been given, and was going to use Hans to escape.
But then she had been the one who had been used.
She tried not to think about the past, because it all worked out in the end, didn’t it? She was in charge now, and had been for some time. Her past mistakes were just that, past.
Lars thought about it often ever since he had learned the truth. Strip away his facade. Be his real self. But he knew that was a lie. It wasn’t his real self if he hadn’t thought about it before. It wasn’t like he had previously had dark, secret desires.
Telling the truth about himself was as close to a secret desire as he got. Once he had gotten that out of the way and told her, it was freeing. She didn’t care. And he could relax. That was that. He wondered why he had kept it secret for so long.
A slip of paper slid out from the envelope, smaller than the letter paper. Lars read it before the rest. It was written in runes, which was certainly unusual. It was, like the normal letter in the envelope, from John. He didn’t know John knew runes. Even in Arendelle, most people never bothered to learn them.
Lars read the note: John had started to suspect sabotage from the Southern Isles. No wonder he had written in runes. If anyone had intercepted the letter, anything else would be easily read. But what could he do about this? What could be done?
Lars wondered if he’d seen too much at this point. Part of him wanted to go back to Boston, quit his post, and live out a quiet family life in obscurity. That would be the sensible thing to do, wouldn’t it?
He had seen so much, though, and he wished he didn’t feel the sense of responsibility to anything beyond his immediate family. How much of their safety and happiness was he risking following these foolish leads?
He told himself they were safe where they were, but he was starting to wonder if they really were. Was any place safe?
Frederick looked toward the strip of land separating the harbor from the open ocean. The town was nondescript, much like all the others along that particular stretch of coastline. He wasn’t sure why he had this feeling of dread. The weather was beautiful, the town was picturesque. They would be stopping for the day to get more supplies, then they would sail on.
He had mentioned his worries to the captain. He didn’t dismiss him out of hand, but as they discussed possible concerns, they could think of nothing worth actually investigating. The crew, the town, the weather. Nothing amiss.
Frederick went ashore at the small port. Nearby, a merchant ship captain was discussing a slip with the local insurance agent for the cargo he was taking on board. Frederick wondered if the navy vessels were insured; he’d never thought to ask. If he was going to move up any more in rank, he would need to know these things.
Across the square, the shops were opening. The day was about as beautiful as it could be this early in the spring. Only a few crocuses were blooming, and the trees had only a few buds. Such a beautiful day.
The dreams--were they dreams? Frederick wasn’t always sure. Some were nightmares full of torture, horrible images, awful creatures, like medieval paintings of Hell.
Then there were the dreams he wished could last longer. He wanted to stay in these dreams where he was a child again, running barefoot through a mountain meadow, or climbing somewhere, or playing music with his family. Some dreams, he was older, talking to the sailors on that first trip to Corona, learning how everything worked, feeling the wind, smelling the salt in the air.
He could never go back; it was time to wake up.
It was torture for Anna, waiting for word on their son. There had been survivors, and perhaps he was one of them. They couldn’t say. There had been injuries, terrible injuries, and whispers that some would have been better off killed. She couldn’t imagine thinking that.
This was why she hadn’t wanted him to join. Things like this happened too often. No matter how many times they assured her that most remained safe, and that she was hearing every story from around the world, it didn’t help. And now this. At some point, she would forgive herself, but not yet.
Anna wished she could simply strip away all her worries and fears like the bandages she was staring at. Here was her son, lying here bloody and battered. If Kristoff weren’t standing right behind her, she would have thought it was him lying there, the two looked so alike.
She didn’t know what to do. There had been a few bruises and cuts before, even some broken bones, but nothing like this. She wasn’t sure she could touch him at all without making something worse. She wanted to be able to speak to him, but was glad he was asleep.
Kristoff tried to keep the thoughts buried. Physical pain didn’t really bother him, at least when it was happening to him. Some of the things he had gone through when he was younger, others would consider torture: the cold, the hours of strenuous labor, the hunger. That was just life.
But watching those he cared about suffering, was close to unbearable. He had to do something to keep from thinking too long about those times. It was terrifying to think about any of them suffering. He had to do what he could, but sometimes there was simply nothing to do.
This wasn’t something he needed to do, stripping the old paint on his wagon. Even so, he took a certain pride in still maintaining some things himself after all these years. It was relaxing. There was a predictability about it, and he had control.
There wasn’t very much he could control. The world was a big place, and disasters happened, and nobody, not even the most powerful people from the most powerful countries, could control that. Magic couldn’t cure everything, either. There were limits. He knew that from an early age.
But he could make his sled look brand new.
He wanted to hold on to the good memories. The good times could slip away at any moment.
His children were growing up. They needed to be allowed to make mistakes, as much as it broke his heart sometimes, and as much as it felt like it had been his own mistakes at the root of their problems. But they were mostly doing well, all of them.
He wasn’t sure if he was always clear about that. Sometimes, trying to avoid sounding too judgmental for their mistakes, he had also forgotten to tell them he was proud of them, too.
Rapunzel had let it slip her mind. Or perhaps she didn’t want to admit that there was even a problem. There had been no news from her son for several weeks even though he had been traveling on official royal business. He had been busy, and he could be forgetful. But the ambassador sent regular telegraphs to the foreign minister, and surely they would let her know if anything was wrong.
But he hadn’t. The telegraph lines had been down, and they didn’t want to worry her about technical details like that. But there was no word from the ambassador.
She was ready to strip him of his title and all his privileges. He swore up and down that he hadn’t meant to hide anything; he had honestly thought the Crown Princess would not want to be bothered with minutia like whether or not the telegraph system was functioning.
She wanted to believe him. As much as she wanted to have someone to blame right now, sometimes things simply happened. It was, in fact, not this man’s job to be in touch with the ambassadors, and the foreign minister did not worry himself about the functioning of the telegraph system.
“What are you doing awake at this hour?” Eugene asked her, barely suppressing a yawn.
“Going through the correspondence from the Ambassador,” she replied. “I need to know when he last wrote.”
“Can’t you just ask the foreign minister? Really, it’s late, we’re not young any more, and it will be torture in the morning.”
“No. The telegraph has been down, and nobody told me, and he didn’t think to tell me that there weren’t any letters from the Ambassador, either. Something is going on.”
“They need to communicate better, but that can wait for morning.”
“Henry hasn’t written, either.”
Henry went to strip away a little bit of paint from the corner. He never liked that color. He really didn’t know what they were thinking, decorating the rooms of the embassy this way. They claimed it was supposed to look like the palace back in Corona, but it didn’t. It was ridiculous and gaudy.
Part of him wanted to discover some amazing fresco underneath the layer of paint, but he could tell it was just wood and plaster. It was rather disappointing how ordinary things were, sometimes. He wanted the rest of this trip to be ordinary like that.
Henry sat in his cell. Did any of this count as torture? He couldn’t be sure. Torture was the medieval machines in the exhibits; little better than traveling carnivals. People would pay to see these contraptions, usually recently built, mostly inventive, rarely historical.
Hardly anyone had laid a finger on him since he got here. His food was plain but adequate. He was usually hungry, but he knew this was because he had been used to larger portions, and perhaps he shouldn’t be indulging so much.
On the other hand, the things they told him, he began to lose hope.
The guard would slip him nicer food now and then. That was good of him. Henry had lost count of the days he had been here. It must have been a week already. If there was an international scandal, they hadn’t told him about it. Perhaps they were preparing for some kind of exchange.
How was any of this benefiting them? That was the most confusing part to him. Surely they wouldn’t simply hold him like a common prisoner if they didn’t have some kind of plan in place. Of course, there was the infighting. Maybe there was no plan.
What was this memory Ahtohallan was showing her? She hadn’t asked for it. There was Prince Henry, the son and heir of Princess Rapunzel, being taken away by guards in uniform to be interrogated. Elsa knew he had traveled there a few times on official business. Her niece Inga made no secret of being annoyed by the frequent absences.
Perhaps he had traveled there recently, but what kind of trouble was he getting himself into? And how bad must it be if Ahtohallan was showing her a memory she hadn’t requested. That only happened when something was seriously wrong. Torture?
Inga looked up at the ceiling, the same ceiling she had been looking at every night for a week now. This was torture. They didn’t know where Henry was, and she didn’t know if it even mattered if she was here.
And yet she couldn’t go home. Not now. Not knowing the tiny scraps she had managed to learn. She had to stay until she knew for certain. Perhaps she could come out of hiding and force their hand, whoever they were. There were too many questions, too many unknowns.
For now, this limbo of not knowing would simply continue.
Inga stripped off everything she was wearing as quickly as she could, not bothering to put it anywhere. The servants would be here in a moment, anyway. She told herself it was just some mud from the river, but she really had no idea what was in the river in a city this size. She had never desired a bath quite so much as she did this one. She was sure the lady’s maid would chastise her for starting the bath on her own, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t helpless. She was going to wash this filth off now.
The water was warm and relaxing. Inga had even allowed the servants to change it out after she had scrubbed herself thoroughly.
Lars hadn’t meant for the carriage to be so close to the river, which was no better than an open sewer, but the usual route had been closed off, and they had to walk back. The road was wet and slick, and she quickly slipped into a shallow puddle from the heavy rains the day before.
But she had her bath, so that was washed away. She was clean. It was time to focus on the real problems.