Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

·´¯`·.¸[☀]༻♕༺[☀]¸.·´¯`·

It was not every sunrise that a notorious thief found himself tying the knot with a beloved princess, but the first blush of August 18th was dovetailed with connubial bliss in the Chapel of Corona. Ruddy cheeks and curly wigs swarmed the ribboned pews under the arcade. The sun grinned against plumed helmets that winked with its reflection from the nave. Eugene Fitzherbert stood on the altar with a nutcracker's fineness, nervous yet over the moon about ending his life to begin theirs. Daughters, young and old, ginger and brunette, some wearing wealth and others wearing hardship, flapped their mothers' skirts to get them to feast their eyes upon the narthex.

There, in the sunlit entrance, smiled the equator of Eugene's world. He held back happy tears as adoration filled his chest with love anew. His soulmate was gowned in sunlight and silk as pure as her own heart, which was a raiment he loved more than silk itself. Her brave hands held a waterfall of Stargazer and Easter lilies under her bosom. On her hazel head flashed the burnished fate that had brought them together.

Like the tiara of sunshine she always was in his blue sky, she curled her arm around her father's and floated down the aisle with grace, inspiring the canaries in Eugene's rib cage to sing hymeneals. Never had she appeared more majestic than when she flowed from the vestibule and into the chapel's holy kernel; those who enskied her were amazed to watch her beauty shine outwards like the tiara she wore. Upon her ascension to the altar, the princess turned and faced her best friend.

Eugene's heart sprouted wings. He had to readjust his grip on his wrist to stop both hands from flinging back her veil and drawing her into a kiss that said:

"From the very first moment that I laid eyes on you as you enchanted a whole kingdom with your magic, I knew that I had found my best friend and my new dream. I have fallen in love with you over, and over, and over since that moment. You're the strongest and most positive person I've ever met, if not the most noble person I've ever met. Even in the darkest times, you thrive like a magic golden flower. With you, I feel appreciated and accepted for who I really am.

You've shown me what living really means and what type of man I can be, as well as the type of man I want to become for myself and our little us...or us-es. Your arms aren't just my favorite place to be on Earth, they're the warmest home I've ever had. You're my better half, my hero, the very sunshine that feeds me Vitamin D and serotonin, and I still can't believe that I'm actually getting to marry you, Rapunzel. I promise to be loyal to you, to uplift and support you, to guide and challenge you, to protect and pamper you, to annoy and comfort you, and to love every inch of you with every inch of me."

A smile touched the lips behind the lace veil. Tears smiled behind Eugene's eyes. To keep the waterworks at bay, he rehearsed the vows in his head as he poured his love into her concealed countenance.

"Dearly Beloved," the bishop hummed, "we are gathered here today to celebrate the joining of Elsa and Eugene in marriage."

A dolly-zoom effect pulled the background away from Eugene and homed in on his face. His small pupils jumped to the bishop. "What?"

The bishop went on like the script for this scene had already been rewritten: "To Your feet thy fealty brings, redeemed, reborn, and transformed―"

Eugene breathlessly looked back at his wife-to-be. "Rapunzel...?!" The hands he had been fettering were freed from their clasp to ruck up her veil. "Ra-pun-zel―...!"

Underneath the lifted lace hung Queen Elsa's head.

"―two outlaws who have rinsed themselves of their crimes through their indentureship to Your kingdoms," the bishop finished.

Eugene's fingers fell open, staggering back, shaking. Elsa's eyelashes, which were glued together by tears, feathered cheeks that held the same hue rosing her lips and eyelids. The rest of her was whiter than death. Inch by inch, Rapunzel's impostor hoisted her chin with the bravery of a shipwrecked prisoner facing her punishment in the name of honor. Then she hoisted her lids at half-mast to bare her misery to Eugene.

(―Bah-dump―)

...This isn't happening…

Oxygen stopped being pipelined to Eugene's brain. The voice trapped inside his skull told him to breathebreathebreathe you have to breatheeugene, to get―the―heck out of here and find Rapunzel, but his limbs didn't belong to him anymore. A power beyond his authority in the kingdom of his bones had colonized them, and there was no escaping it.

...Th-Th-This can't actually―

Saliva was peeled off Elsa's lips by her parting them, but a whimper tumbled out of her mouth in speech's place. Her chest rose with her breath as her gaze slumped to Eugene's throat. His eyes echoed the movement, finding themselves gorging on what was unmistakably a hangman's knot.

―be HAPPENING!

Eugene could neither articulate his terror nor move his body to do away with the nemesis. The only muscles he could command were the six in his eyeballs that piloted his panic to the hand holding the end of the rope.

"Let's get this over with, Rider."

...H'wha...?!

The Captain of the Guard's mustache smiled at him from the bottom of the altar. In next to nothing, Eugene was gagged and bound from behind by two Coronan soldiers.

"Mmrph!" Eugene's tongue pushed back against the gag's bite, his throat bobbing with trapped oxygen. "H-Hmph!" Tears that had once been born from happiness now blinded his vision with fear.

Wh-Why is this...h-happen'ning?

Double images floated together and drifted apart in a distorted dance, seesawing.

Rap-pun...zel...Rapunzel, where...where are you, Rapunzel?!

Elsa's response to Eugene's growing sedation was hyperventilation.

Elsa...El-Elsa, please...! I'm begging you! Y-You hafta help me!

There was no objection, no rescue, no succor provided by her at all―just some powerless display of submission to the injustice that rendered her even more useless to him than he.

Wh-Why aren't you h-helping me?! Why aren't any of you helping me?!

The bishop turned to the silent audience with a breezy smile. "Who giveth this monster to be married to this thief?"

"I," baaed a character Eugene had never heard before.

He searched, stretching the blood vessels in his eyes as he did, and landed on King Agnarr's face. The skin of a man who had died at sea enfleshed the monarch; his lips were so blue as to be purple, and his fingertips were so purple as to be red. Pea crabs and algae necklaced his pruny throat. A thin trail of sea foam bubbled up from the corner of his closed lips and ran down the side of his chin, pitter-pattering against his shoe in a sudsy rope of spit. Eugene hollered against his own teeth, but much like the bishop, the king was bespelled by the ceremony and little else.

"After a drumfire of unfortunate events," the bishop crooned, "the kingdom of Corona was ravaged by the Great Famine and the Bovi Fever in 1847."

Eighteen...?! Wh-What're you―

"The lives of those who fell at the hands of the Southern Isles will forever remain in our hearts."

Are you out of your mind?! Everyone's right here!

"Henceforth, a union has been negotiated between the delegations of Corona and Arendelle to reinstate Corona and forestall enemy invasion."

Darnnit, I...I can't keep my eyes for open much longer...

Eugene weepingly looked for deliverance in Rapunzel's parents. The sternness that annealed their visages augured a wicked fate. Corona's once fine people, who were no longer healthy or merry neither in body nor heart, looked upon his suffering without ruth. All they projected was the callosity of bystanders who were inured to public executions. Eugene's eyelids clamped shut, pressing tears against the hoods until they escaped down his goatee.

"In 1846, Queen Rapunzel closed her eyes for the very last time."

Eugene's bloodshot eyes jumped open. His lungs shrank. His grey matter eroded.

...Rapunzel...

"Her Late Majesty suffered child loss during her season as Crown Princess."

No, th-that's...that's a l-lie! She's―

"In 1846, pregnancy complications compromised her last expectancy to a degree in correspondence with her late mother's―"

―You're LYING! That never happened! We're not even MARRIED yet―

"―during her short reign, but it was childbirth that ultimately took her life."

She wouldn't―...she'd n-never...

He was sobbing now, sobbing even though he was the only one who could hear it.

Rapunzel wouldn't leave me here all alone...

"In acknowledgment of Arendelle's just and reasonable cause, the Bishop of Arendelle has granted a dispensation of affinity laws in favor of the Oath of Ruth. The oath allows the societies of Arendelle and Corona to covenant that if a married woman passes away, her kinswoman may marry the widower and produce offspring for her. If a woman leaves young children behind in her marriage, her kinswoman may marry the widower and raise up her offspring for her."

Air turned into arsine with each evil verse that obliterated whatever was left of Eugene.

"Collaterally, the marriage between Princess Anna and her consort is a morganatic union, in which neither the spouse who entered with nothing nor any of his children will chair Arendelle. Queen Elsa is therefore obligated to fulfill her responsibilities in favor of the Storting's statutes. In keeping with the conditions of Arendelle's Foreign Marriage Act, King Eugene and Queen Elsa will co-reign for as long as the marriage lasts. The faces of both monarchs will appear on coins with a single crown of sun and snowflake middled between them, legal contracts will bear shared signatories for the duration of Queen Elsa's lifetime, and the Arendelle crocus will be dimidiated with the Corona sun on the union flag."

Eugene's chest felt hard as if it was filling up with grout and tar. He didn't expect or want to keep the topic flowing in this direction. He wanted to escape the responsibility of living. He wanted his wife. According to the damp, fluttering eyelashes of Queen Elsa, who all but kept her head forward like a celestial priestess, the supporting actress in this nightmare was fighting the exact same desire, if not the very iceberg in her throat.

"Should Her Majesty leave us during childbirth, then unlike in Old Corona, King Eugene will be appointed regent. This conjugality between Queen Elsa of Arendelle and King Eugene of Corona, united with the prospective conjugality between the Storting and the People's Council, will reward the contract between Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert with preservation, prosperity, and posterity."

Trembling and crying without sound, Eugene transferred his waterlogged attention to Elsa's hands. The infamous death-dealers were sealed inside iron gibbets that struck him with nausea. Where the lilies went alongside his true love was foregrounded on his catalog of concerns when he noticed the hand holding Elsa's chains.

"Elsa is preferable, of course."

...But it can't be...

The arm of Prince Hans tugged, snapping the chains straight.

Elsa's side hit his chest with an―"Oof!"―following the impact.

Hans wrestled her face still by hollowing her cheeks with his pointer and his thumb. He grinned at the sound of her grunts. His nose wandered down the path that trailed from Elsa's temple vein to her throbbing eyelid. The smirk on his mouth tickled her eyelash as he purred, "Wouldn't you agree, Flynn Rider?" When the moment came for him to smile at Eugene, Hans's face took on the features of every last one of his demented brothers.

A familiar feeling hit Eugene right in the throat―a feeling that screamed he had always hated this family and would sooner see them persecuted than redeemed in the nave of any church. Eugene wriggled madly inside the dungeon of his skeleton, but his ivory bars refused to rattle. With the docility of a circus animal, Elsa did nothing except hide inside the refuge behind her eyelids until Hans unhanded her for good.

With the blissfulness of a blind officiant, the bishop did nothing to acknowledge the carnival of madness except continue forth in his own merry little way: "No matter what challenges you face, you will now face them together, and no matter how much you suffer, you will now suffer together."

Hans and King Agnarr shared the duty of unclasping Elsa's gibbets, both removing each with the polite smiles of relatives meeting each other for the first time.

The bishop's bible closed with the sound of a death knell. "You may kiss the bride."

Funeral music wailed from a rather ominous organ. The player wasn't facing Eugene, but Eugene knew by memory that the melody was not one of Hook Hand's études. Elsa, who was also crying without sound, stepped forward in her lace bridal gown to deliver the coup de grâce. She freed Eugene of his binds to push the noose up and over his head, making his hair point at the ceiling. His legs shook as the rope slithered into a pile on the floor.

She removed the gag in his mouth.

Don't do this...

Eugene couldn't tell if he was gazing into her eyes; the canvas they peered out of was fuzzy and misshapen behind the pall of tears soaking his beard, but he could feel her icy fingernails stripping his wet forelock off his cheek.

You don't have to do this...!

He could feel her cupping his jaw and smearing away the tears under his eyes with her thumbs.

El-Elsa...

He could feel the mucus that cottoned his nostrils skating down the groove of his mouth and settling inside the cleft. Elsa inched closer, holding his eyes like a breath. His head ticked, lips bobbing in an attempt to beg. Her eyes rolled shut as her mouth pressed against his like snow pressing against the earth. Frost percolated through her kiss and crawled across his heart with the sting of one hundred needles heated by fire.

The atmosphere around Eugene bent into an altar of icicles jutting from the belly of Elsa's ice castle. He wept louder, feeling the air in his lungs crystallize into snowflakes.

Elsa pulled away with such slowness that the queen did not seem to be the queen anymore. "Once to numb you from the cold," she whispered, breath pluming out of her mouth in a chilly fog that curled under Eugene's eyes. Her center finger reached up and traced the vein pulsating on his temple. "Another to make you forget..."

Eugene felt the pressure of her jaws bearing down on him again. He could feel every sharp blade of rime between his teeth, every chandelier of ice on the roof of his mouth, and every drop of salt leaving his eye. Elsa's hands squeezed his face as she inhaled both his soul and his identity. Cold palms dropped from his face to his torso before pressing flat against his stomach, but he didn't have the sobriety to be alarmed. The painful sensation of rime growing on his arteries was numbing his bloodstream at lightning speed.

And then his sense of self slipped.

Waned.

He didn't have a name or a past. The letters of Rapunzel's name grew foggier, the pronunciation of it unfathomable. The R went first; then the a and the p, the u and the n, the z, the e...the l...until there was nothing left. Nothing but a snowflake blinking in the dark like a star, where a quasar of its sisters awaited him. The quasar opened under his feet, widening from the center to reveal the mouth of a black hole.

And he...

f
e
l
l

a
l
l

t
h
e

w
a
y

d
o
w
n

.

.

.

.

―THUD―

"Your Majesty...?!"

"Your Majesty!"

"Can you hear me, Your Majesty?!"

"Wake up, Your Majesty!"

"Your Majesty, please open your eyes!"

With a deep suction from his lungs, Eugene opened his flying eyes to the pages hovering over him with a chandelier haloing their heads. Sweat beaded his nose. Tears stung his ears. Gloved hands patted his damp face over and over.

From a pair of blurry lips spat, "Help His Majesty to his feet!"

Several men, all hijacked by anxiety, attempted to pull Eugene onto his bare feet. Eugene trembled like a beaten child as his aching back left the cold wooden floor of his bedchamber. He grunted, held his face, shook his head, and then reexamined his wide-eyed company. The aged faces surrounding him anchored his awareness to the present: it was 1851, and Rapunzel was dead. Eugene bit his quivering bottom lip as more hot tears dampened his cheeks. 

He broke free from the crowd's hands and hobbled to the window of his bedchamber, sweating and panting as he looked upon his warworn kingdom.

Before he could fall to his feet, his steward came into the room with an emotionless message to deliver, "It is time for the Royal Assent Ceremony, Your Majesty."

Chapter Text

༺ ☀ ༻

"A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions,
and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader,
but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent."

― Douglas MacArthur

The prologue to a man's disaster had no foreword or preamble, but Eugene's read as written:

༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻

THE  UNION with CORONA

We the STORTING of ARENDELLE,
In order to preserve Corona with Nordic leadership,
maintain domestic harmony between citizens,
provide financial equality to taxpayers,
and retain Civil Liberties for Ourselves and Our kingdoms,
have ratified the following body of articles for the consanguineous marriage between
ARENDELLE, the Bride of Corona, and CORONA, the Bridegroom of Arendelle
as first devised in the "Treaty of Union" by Her nominated commissioners on February 10, 1851. 

༺ ❅ ༻ 

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ Preservation of Interests ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

༺๑{ Article I: Legislative }๑༻

( Section 1 ) 

All legislative Powers within the United Kingdom(s) of Arendelle and Corona shall be employed by the Storting, which houses 169 peers. The Storting shall be hereof and forever after entitled to:

• Collect taxes from the provinces of Corona; 

• Withdraw money from the Treasury of Corona; 

• Preside over Corona's transactions with foreign countries; 

• Remove nugatory financial policies to reduce Corona's debt; 

• Export copper, gold, and any minerals or natural resources mined or extracted from Corona; 

• Calendarize Corona's compensations for Arendelle's expenditures; 

• Rehab the castle of Corona;

• Declare War with the allegiance of Corona (response will be mandatory); 

• Create all Laws for Corona;

( Section 2 ) 

• The Supreme Court of Corona (i.e. People's Court) shall be superintended by Arendelle's Highest Court (i.e. Høyesterett);

• The Privy Council of Corona (i.e. King's Council) shall be replaced by Arendelle's Council of State (i.e. Statsrådet);

• The Cabinet of Corona (i.e. Council of the Realm) shall be merged into Arendelle's Council of State (i.e., Statsrådet);

• The Parliament of Corona (i.e. People's Council) shall be abolished after five peers and bishops have been elected into the Parliament of Arendelle (i.e. Storting);

( Section 3 ) 

• No money shall be drawn from the Treasury of Arendelle by Corona;

• Corona shall not enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation with another country whilst still in union with Arendelle;

• Corona shall not engage in War unless invaded;

• Corona shall not keep warships in times of Peace;

• Corona shall not keep arsenal in times of Peace; 

༺๑{ Article II: Migrant Rights }๑༻

( Section 1 )

Coronan diaspora shall have a de facto Right of Abode, thus:

• Disease-free sojourners shall be allowed into Arendelle;

• Disease-free internal migrants shall be allowed to live in Arendelle (with limitations on monthly influx);

The Høyre of Blood (Right of Blood) Act permits a halvdel to become a citizen of Arendelle, thus:

• Citizenship shall not be given to Coronan diaspora unless the peoples have parentage or grandparentage from the Nordic equivalent.

With the exception of halvdeler and nobility, diaspora will be deported if:

• Laws are broken;

• Hate Speech is printed.

༺๑{ Article III: Head of State }๑༻

( Section 1 )

Articles 77–79 in the Constitution of 1814 grant the sovereign the right to withhold royal assent from any Bill passed by the Storting, whilst Article 78 allows the monarch's veto to be overridden by the Storting if two thirds support any Bill.  

༺๑{ Article IV: Mode of Amendment }๑༻

( Section 1 )

• The Act must be countersigned before March 25th by High Councillor Liebermann, Deputy High Councillor Steiner, King Eugene of Corona, and the First Lord of the King's Council, Hänel Constantine.

• Amendments may be proposed to the Preservation of Interests after March 25th.

༺ ❄ ༻

Signed, on behalf of the Storting, by

Magnus Lagabøte (Chairman)

Kolbein Stoltenberg (Deputy Chairman)

❅༄ Queen Elsa (Head of State)

Baldor Håakonsson (Prime Minister)

༺ ☼ ༻

Signed, on behalf of the People's Council, by

Sigwalt Liebermann (High Councillor)

Matthias Steiner (Deputy H. Councillor)

✸༄ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(Head of State)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(First Lord)

'Is it possible to unread something that just caused brain cancer?' Eugene wondered as his breath thinned.

"Your Majesty?"

Eugene's soggy vision panned to his left. Staring at him with the face of a dragon was none other than the First Lord of his advisory body, a troglodytic lot he'd like to suspend for autographing this indenture.

"Since the assembly has almost come to a close, have you reached your resolve?" whispered Lord Constantine. 

Eugene examined him for a moment, trying to calculate how many brain cells the reptile might have lost, before scanning the room like a helpless orphan in the middle of a corn market. The Renaissance hall they were sardined into, supported by diamond vaults and dirty caryatids, was crawling bureaucrats puttering around in jerkins and doublets. The greater number, however, watched him with crossed arms, high chins, and even higher expectations. Among these captious politicians stood twenty commissioners, the only men of their nationality that the room possessed. The first swayed his body to and fro as he held his hat down in front of him, flicking an annoyed eye from one man to another before lazily fluttering both back open to Eugene.

A part of the king wanted to fan his neck with his collar and comment on the climate in the room, but the other part was too hot from his own body temperature to form functional sentences.

Like a sparrow sandwiched between two storks, the commissioner standing across from Eugene held his lips in a fixed grin before parting his teeth to sing, "This has been a most delightful season for politics, Your Majesty."

Eugene rolled his eyes as he drank from his goblet.

"Each commissioner put their best foot forward to accommodate each other's needs with little to no controversy."

Eugene grunted in his mind, 'Typical lying politician.'

For months, Corona's delegation had been unable to co-sign a treaty with Arendelle because of clanging interests in self-preservation following Corona's wars with Late Blight, the Bovi Fever, and the Southern Isles. As liberal as Arendelle was, the kingdom's conservative commissioners had stated that they dreaded the risk of Corona's immigrants collapsing Arendelle's economy after the Acts of Union were passed. The overall fear of losing independence and cultural identity had stopped both sides from trudging forward. With Corona's bellies growling louder for change, it was either the hunger in Corona's government that had moved them into the uncomfortable intimacy bulletined on this bondage contract or some backstage foul-play that Eugene didn't know about. Such an environment made it impossible for him to dwell on nightmares or tears that had to be swallowed every day; what he needed to get through the morning was his mask paired with a goblet of wine, both of which he had at present.

The commissioner added, "It is all because Arendelle has maintained one of the highest standards of commercial success on the continent, so the country is more than able to mother its dilapidated cousin as the large kingdom it's become."

Eugene's eyebrow almost reached his hairline. "You don't say."

"And, if I may state such, Arendelle admires His Majesty for making reformations in a kingdom with such an outmoded system. Poor, illegitimate, and orphaned children were either illiterate or blocked from the same civil rights bestowed upon the upperclassmen in Corona's bygone days. It is a great thing, a great thing indeed, to have a king who can relate to the oppression of the baseborn. He, compared to noblemen, would know how they feel."

Eugene stared at him blankly. He folded his hands on the table of his dais and opened his mouth with a long pause before clamping his teeth shut, forcing a smile, and then blinking once. "Thank you, Lord―d'ah..." He stopped to chew the corner of his mouth and twirl his thumbs, gradually rotating his head into the direction of his adviser without looking at him.

The mentor grumbled behind a scroll, "Minister Morgenstierne."

'It'll take me till Thursday to get that out.' Eugene popped his head up with a bigger grin. "Minister Morgen―...stierne, for that lovely sentiment. I guarantee you that your soliloquies were greatly appreciated by every man in the room who held their breaths and rubbed their eyes just to stay awake for it during recess―"

The man stopped smiling to blink at his shoes in confusion and offense.

―"BUT...I can't snaffle all the credit. After all, if it weren't for my...trusty 'Knights of the Round Table,'"―Eugene looked at his advisory body with caricatured affection―"I wouldn't have made it this far in one 'stroke-free' piece."

At the table from which the King's Council headed, Lord Constantine and the others pretended to leaf through packets as they swapped approved bills like ants passing rocks down the line. Eugene's smirk twitched. He longed to set their pants on fire.

"To some degree, Your Majesty," chirped the commissioner. "In the end, you have still accomplished much alone as a diplomat."

Eugene sent his flat look and stiff smile to Minister Morgenstierne before theatrically breaking posture to shrug and carol, "Well, you learn a few things about the clockwork of everyday 'kith and kin' when you're born on the lowest rung of the social ladder."

The commissioner did not respond to his backhanded slap; he simply grinned like a scarecrow. "Humbly articulated, Your Majesty."

"Why thank you, Minister. I'd have to say so myself." Common sense, if not expertise, told Eugene that this grifter was another con artist trying to butter him up for a signature. Even that swordfish nose of his reminded him of a beastlier animal's: one with red hair, chimpanzee sideburns, teacup handle ears, and a sociopathic love for unstitching people's sutures through interpersonal terrorism.

"Your Majesty..." Lord Constantine touched Eugene's elbow. Evidently understanding that the king's inappropriate nonchalance was masking a stratospheric level of contempt, the elder endeavored to bring him back to his formalities by asking, "Are you ready to resume?" 

Eugene's blasé smile froze in place like cogwheels grinding to a halt in a clock. He leaned away from the elder to adjust his golden sash, keeping his eyes down as his men watched him. He had the uneasy feeling of seawater salting his throat from their choice to board the sinking ship that was this union. "Rocking the boat" was by no means his "modus operandi," but his conscience could not allow any vessel to hit an iceberg with him on it.

When no answer spurted from Eugene's blowhole, Lord Constantine bellowed in place of the king, "The assembly has recommenced."

There was little change in noise patterns other than the babel of voices shushing others. Arendelle's commissioners, who all lined the columns like teeth on a fork, chaired the front row for better earshot. The hall's balconies corbeled coughing representatives of the People's Council and snoring deputies from the Council of the Realm. A tragically bored Clerk of Chamber Operations stood by the dais. Eugene saw no human eyes looking back at him from the other ends of all those snouts; he only saw dark marbles flashing in the wooden sockets of cobwebbed puppets.

"Delegates of Arendelle and Corona"―Lord Constantine trailed off to pat his pockets for his lorgnette; once he found the spectacles, he flipped them open from the handle and peered through the lenses like an owl―"at the...consequence of time sensitivity, the Union with Corona Act was classified as an urgent matter of importance by both parliaments as of yestermorning. In response, the King's Council has agreed to schedule His Majesty's written declaration in Rhine Hall for the recording and historicization of the date, time, and place of his assent."

Yet there was a war in the king's heart that historians would never caption. Eugene eyed the artist painting the Royal Assent Ceremony for commemoration. He began to wonder what his face looked like on the canvas. Did the painter capture the nausea bluing his complexion or did he stick to characterizing him as another monarch with his face aglow with wisdom, peace, and heavenly sunlight?

"At dawn, the Clerk of the People's Council delivered the Union with Corona Act to King Eugene from the commissioners of Arendelle, but His Majesty petitioned to reserve assent until seven o'clock this morning. He shall now announce whether he will grant or withhold assent."

Eugene stared at Constantine like a Neanderthal who had just seen a mammoth give birth. Constantine lowered his lorgnette to give him an expectant look. After clearing his throat once or thrice, Eugene ironed the front of his doublet with his palm and lowered the indenture to fold both shaky hands on top of it. He stopped to glance at one signature in particular:

Signed, on behalf of the Storting, by

❅༄ Queen Elsa (Head of State)

The sophisticated letters were yoked together by a single glyph of glinting frost. Eugene shook his head and smiled scornfully as he huffed through his nose.

"May the blight of Corona and Queen Elsa's philanthropy guide your decision," yodeled an anonymous invitee.

Eugene dragged his gaze through every Arendellian commissioner in the room before frowning at the paper with a jutting chin. The old him wanted to be passive-aggressively honest about how the monarchical world seemed to underestimate his intelligence, but for the sake of Corona, the new him had to defer to discretion.

"And with...that being said, does the delegation of Arendelle have His Majesty's consent for the union to take effect?" asked Constantine.

Eugene thumbed his nose and lifted his glum face to his audience. When he got to his feet, his forehead wore the wrinkles of resolution. Everyone in the hall held pendulous expressions. Politicians ocularly belittled him to the degree expressed by scowling and thrusting their lips forward as if they were working some nasty taste out of their mouths. Cottiers stood behind armored troops who were there to prevent riots. Servants sat in glassless windowsills with their scaly feet dangling over the traceried stonework. Wives in coifs, grandfathers in tunics, and orphans who came to hear about immigration rights made up the remainder.

As the beholder of all this congregated hope, Eugene became syntactically challenged all over again. "I..."―his fingers flexed―"hereby"―he harrumphed and steeled his nerves, but his voice ruptured like a blood vessel on the verdict―"withhold Royal Assent."

Breaths flew backwards and eyes swelled. Blue and red as they too turned, the commissioners of Arendelle did not feud or rally, but Eugene prepared himself for an earthquake. He had done the best of the worst: shown a defiance that could've caused a coup of the royal throne.

"Rattlesnake!" Townsfolk uprooted from their passive reposes to sling colorful vocabulary and rotten potatoes.

"Blessings from the Sun! He has come to his people and set them free from the Cold North's domination!" Patriots sang Corona's national canticle to praise King Eugene.

The almost dreamy quality of this tragicomedy made Eugene feel like he was standing outside of himself, segregated between the real world and the world he thought he reigned while his spirit watched a character wearing his face be heckled on stage.

"He's ended us all!"

Eugene returned to his body to hear the state of his heart. The poor beast was thrashing around in its cage, desperate to break free and set sail for another life. The other half of it, however, was determined to do what must be done.

"You have spat on Kind Frederic's throne!"

Eugene aimed to speak like a king among laymen so that no word would trigger resentment or betray perturbation: "I will"―he squeezed his eye shut and drew his shoulders up to his ears after a potato grazed his scalp―"m-most respectfully ask...for full―"

The commotion was trampled by the sound of hooves and whinnies. Arendellian horsemen in green uniforms and tall shako hats came tearing through the mob to herd people with their neighing steeds. Children scattered like pearls from a broken necklace as Arendelle's personnel formed a line with Corona's to block all flailing hands from the lancet windows, but the miscommunication between authority and civilian led to what looked like the beginning of violence.

A frown wrinkled Eugene's forehead as he spectated these ongoings with darting pupils and squinting eyes until the latter doubled in size. He scooted between bodies and moved shoulders aside to approach the impending disaster, shakily telling Arendelle's men to―"Stand down!"―but his weak voice made no interceptions. The king turned his sights to a Coronan officer who was standing in front of the window to oversee the coercion.

"Listen to me!" Eugene blubbered. "This is completely unnecessary! Tell them to fall back before someone gets hurt!" Once again, his decree fell on deaf ears, but he was becoming increasingly aware that this goblin was only pretending to ignore him.

The agenda of a law enforcer, which was to act on behalf of the civilian's safety, seemed eliminated from him in exchange for tyrannical gaiety. When the king leaped out of the window to lay a hand on his epaulet, the creature on the other end of that shoulder turned to reveal the mug of Flynn Rider's ex-pursuer, and Eugene, in that moment, had been unprepared for it.

The captain's eyes did not even allow themselves to be startled or subservient; they remained blacker than an empty fireplace with a mountain of glowing ashes that had not been doused. He stared Eugene down like he was waiting to saw his teeth together and growl, "Riiii―der?"

Eugene released the tension in his shoulders as he glared at the chief for as long as their reunion permitted. The captain raised and opened his hand to order the cavalrymen to halt. Coronan stallions reared up to meet his platform in a matter of seconds. One trotted out from behind the last, and with it came the queue of Arendellian riders who regarded the king without salute or hail. Having realized their role in the chaos, Corona's horsemen yanked their steeds still in the sovereign's presence.

Agronomists and orphans immigrated to the streets with empty hopes and stomachs. Not bothering to slick back his blowing bangs, Eugene slowly peeled his gaze off his challenger's sneer. When he finally flicked it away to march back to the window and climb inside, the hall's attendants were already evacuating the aisles. Doors flung back and kicked the walls until dust snowed from the entablatures. Wooden figurines of Rapunzel and her parents clattered to the floor in the aftermath of their ebullition.

Neither Constantine nor the guards scrambled to regain order. They allowed the crooked line of men to outstrip each other as they decamped with their foul words against the new king's name.

Chapter Text

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"The marriage was concluded for no fleshy consideration,
but in order to remedy the disorders of this kingdom (...)" 

 ― Ruy Gómez de Silva

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

As at the closing of a bad stage play, it took awhile for Eugene to recover from this walkout. He had prepared for an earthquake, but he had no defenses against this mudslide. By the time he was able to circle back to his table with Rapunzel's figurine in hand, he was only fit to pick up Arendelle's indenture and wear his knuckles down to the meat with his teeth.

"I'd heard that the successor to the Crown Matrimonial of Corona was a tightrope walker who peregrinated through risky endeavors for shock value, but I didn't think it true until now."

The words were an attack on Eugene's character. The amount of animus in their ammunition, alongside the gay pleasure of the shooter taking his aim, made Eugene peek over his sunken eyebrows to meet the speaker's face. What he landed on was an Arendellian man with facial features falling far below the standard of beauty. 

The sinister cad shimmied his hat down onto his scalp and turned with one look of leave-taking. "Arendelle is a constitutional monarchy, but Corona seems to have a parliament that still gives its king some absolutism."

Eugene raised his chin with mettle in his heart. After spewing what he had to spew, the commissioner bade him adieu, and the king was left alone with the piranhas in his council.

"Do you understand the deleterious effects of what you have done?" Lord Constantine's glare burned holes into the table. "The brinkmanship you have crusaded for today will not only make you an adversary of our parliament, but a rival of Arendelle's. Is that something you can grasp?"

It was silent for an eon. A torn banner with "MaY HeAveN SaVe YoU" in Old Norse runes dangled from King Frederic's statue before rippling earthwards like a river dragon and hitting the floor.

"...I have a cerebral handle on all of it, Constantine," Eugene replied. He didn't smirk, joke, or serenade them. His head hung from his shoulders with the hunched back of a brooder, and his fingertips were joined together in a triangle, the forehead having gone all dark from despair. "But I'm trying to optimize our opportunities by giving us more legroom."

Constantine frowned at the teeth marks crowning Eugene's knuckles. "Our parliament signed this because the Treaty of Union, which is a reflection of its interests, was already signed by its delegation―"

"A treaty I never saw."

"Because your signature is not required for treaty agreements. You still don't know your role. For nearly six years―"

"It hasn't been anywhere near six―"

―"an approximation of twelve thousand Nordic vessels have shipped food and naval units into the ports of Corona. It is therefore my responsibility to remind His Majesty that our villages will be as bald as Weselton's head without this union."

"And I have to disagree with that metaphor, along with those ballpark figures." Eugene's neutrality had expired, his reservations all forgotten, and the pussyfooter he'd been impersonating had finally resigned. "We may not have skyrocketing quotas for trade,"―he dug his finger into the table and scanned his council with a pleading face―"but we've stockpiled more resources from our own land this year than we did last year, so we can't give all the credit to Arendelle."

"Our stability has been erratic."

"Constantine, if there was a problem with equilibrium, then it's because Corona's food prices were astronomical." Eugene's voice was slow, stale, and scathing. "The old High Councillor was going behind our backs to do dirty―and not to mention costly―deals with the Southern Isles, so prices were made higher than any peasant could afford while our parliamentarians ate just fine."

Another minister attempted to strong-arm him into accepting hopelessness: "Yet you call it affordable to withhold assent and pick faults with the only nation that will aid us after we've been able to contribute nothing to any other? And this, in part, because of who and what you are?"

Something cold and small rolled down the winding staircase of Eugene's stomach like a stone dropping into a lake.

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, but is it not true that your past looms over Corona like a dark cloud? You've done deeds far and wide for the kingdom, but to the world abroad, you are still inappropriate for the throne."

Eugene's eyes were back to their low slants, looking out of the corners with little shifts of uncertainty. "...Then ask yourself this," he said without sass, facing the minister with the rigidity of a king. "Why should the Storting want an 'inappropriate' king without having an ulterior motive?"

"Because you are the queen's relative. You are the legal guardian of her first cousin removed. Unless you abdicate or declare war against Arendelle, her ethics prevent Arendelle from usurping your throne."

Eugene's rationale measured these probabilities with qualmishness instead of animosity, but Elsa's "ethics" were not one pound less problematic.

"Excuse me for just a moment," Constantine said, tearing through the invisible curtain they had pulled between themselves. "I believe Corona has done well to uphold silence when questioned by foreigners about the 'Flynn Rider' alias having any affiliation with the orphaned 'Eugene Fitzherbert.'"

"Well, look, Lord Constantine! You know we've put our necks out there―you particularly―about how this Hans character is the pinkest pig of his kind, but―"

"Prince Hans's smear campaign is a piddling example of empty sensationalism, Minister Ødegård. The dispensations on record only provide the Letters of Pardon that excused the king's illegitimate birth. There has been no distribution of any other record, so the prince's readers were driven by scandal-hunger and prejudice against His Majesty's unfortunate background."

Inferiority demolished Eugene's confidence for the thousandth time.

"Empty sensationalism is enough to ruin one's reputation," Minister Ødegård sparred. "Therefore it is widely known that it has contributed to our loss of trade partners. It's no coincidence that not a single ally beyond Arendelle came to our defense against the Southern Isles, so there is no 'legroom' to reject Arendelle's offers―not when the entire world knows we barely have enough to offer ourselves."

"And that's where you hit the nail right on the head, Minister Ødegård." Eugene lifted his head to show the bags under his eyes. "We barely have enough to offer ourselves, and because we don't, we can't meet the demands in this Act of Union without starving the poor first."

"Of course he speaks for the poor," someone spat, but Constantine tried to mop away all traces of the spittle by overlapping it with his own input:

"Is His Majesty implying that Arendelle's goal is to wipe out Corona?"

Eugene put his hands up and sat back. “Now, I'm not saying that, but if they bleed us dry, then the poor in Corona will all immigrate to Arendelle for more resources. The xenophobic forecast in Article II, however, implies that less than fifteen percent would get admission, and that remaining percentage? Will either curl up and die on Arendelle's border or keel over and die in Corona."

Minister Ødegård was unconvinced. "Arendelle can't be that absurd. Draining a struggling country won't boon their profits. How do you know these policies won't be put into effect until Corona is on its feet?"

Eugene pressed his thumb against the heel of his eyebrow. "With all due respect, those are exactly the questions Sigwalt Liebermann should've asked before signing it." If he was asking these questions before they were, then it was because his safety mechanisms were in cahoots with his logic. "Let me add that regardless of whether we 'get back on our feet' or not, these clauses aren't going to help us stay on them."

"You are sailing for Arendelle tomorrow," Constantine tabled. "Wouldn't it be best to sign it today and then propose amendments afterwards?"

Perhaps it was just a trick of the light, or perhaps he just wasn't putting his finger on it, but to Eugene, these "group protestations" were as staged as their sworn allegiance to him. "Oh, I can guarantee you―"

The ministers perked up like seagulls.

"―that I won't be signing anything without seeing a new set of clauses first."

Their silence honed into a cutlass against his jugular, but Eugene chucked another log into the bonfire: "I don't buy for one second that everyone in the People's Council gave a show of hands for it, so I want to get to the bottom of whether there were any bought votes or omitted oppositions before we move forward. Once we weed out the turncoats, we'll draft a new Treaty of Union with Arendelle."

This disclosure seemed to deliver shock waves because a cry of disgust exploded from Minister Ødegård's lips before he could remember his position as the king's subordinate. "For how long do you plan on being irresponsibly leery of your subjects?!" he shouted.

Eugene unleashed an overdramatic exhale from his chest, which annoyed his watchers. He then pretended to twiddle the thumbs on his stomach as he "reflected" upon the minister's words with a dimpled chin. "Let's see here...for how long do―I―plan―on being irresponsible?" He elevated one eyebrow and cocked his head. "Well, as our parliament just so happens to rather eloquently put it, the king's powers allow the king to stop an unforeseen crisis from happening, and that is exactly what I, as the king, am doing."

One of the ministers grunted to another about his accession being a mistake. In truth, a helpless part of Eugene agreed with them.

"This is not the time for you to use them―"

"This is the perfect time for me to use them," Eugene interjected, glaring at his consultants now. "And with that in mind, I'm going to write a letter to Arendelle's delegation about why I vetoed their 'interests.' We'll be in Arendelle for a while, so the People's Council will have more than enough time to find a new middle ground with the Storting. The delegations of both parliaments can use my letter as a point of reference."

"Then His Majesty does not wish to veto the union, but to veto the Preservation of Interests," Constantine translated.

"Bingo. I want 2, 6, 8, and 9 in Article I, Section 1 removed with 1, 2, and 4 in Section 2, and 1 with 3-5 in Section 3."

"It pains us to say that you still don't understand government." Holding a smoke pipe between his fingers, Eugene's adviser combed the hair out of his eyes with the back of his thumb and sighed. "Your way will force two parliaments to squabble over the Act before the actual wedding."

"Precisely the issue!" Minister Ødegård piggybacked his point. "There's reality and there's just trashing it, and you don't want to understand the reality of our limitations. While His Majesty has spent his freedoms giving handouts to peasants, we've spent ours breathing and eating Arendelle's politics."

Eugene parted his fingers to let the paper sail back down onto the desk. "Let me try this again with a little more...ardor." After resting his ink quill a little cynically, he issued his statement with more flatness than a mathematician explaining geometry to his pupils, "I'm not co-signing an installment plan when the 'Terms of Use' read like a snow-job, and if we can't get a fair deal before the wedding, then the wedding will be getting a new date."

"What in God's name is a 'snow job'? I always need a word-finder for your idiolect."

Eugene opened his folded hands at the thumbs as he rambled, "A crooked deal, a swindle―you can just about take your pick from the 'Western Thesaurus,' Ødegård."

"The nerve of you...!" The discussion between minister and king somersaulted into a verbal sword fight, yet it was Ødegård who struck Eugene with a low blow: "Your peasant breeding will hold this country hostage."

Eugene's ego bled. "Aw'right." He cleared his throat with a fist to his mouth before shimmying down into the chair with sashaying shoulders. "I'm going to add a caption here and lemme just make sure that we're all on the same page about me being Corona's subjugator. Says in Article I, Section 1: 'The Storting of Arendelle shall be hereof and forever after entitled to withdraw money from the Treasury of Corona,'―BUT―'No money shall be drawn from the Treasury of Arendelle by Corona.'"

Once again, Minister Ødegård's counterblow came down on him with the force of Excalibur, "Naturally, yet you allow hesitation to stroke their impatience!"

"Please don't scream," Eugene asked dryly. "I like my tympanic membranes just fine."

"How else should I react? Any courtroom would agree that Arendelle needs compensation, so they can't have us taking more funds!"

"You know..." ―Eugene's eyes scrolled down the indenture with a flint-hearted smirk―"I'll bet someone up there promised you a chair at the Storting's lunch table, didn't they?"

The face in the bed of dark circles seemed to deform into a feral cat's. Hatred swelled in the man's face like snake venom in a wound, pinching the center with lines and veins until they resembled brackets above his nose. "..."

Eugene tapped his chin before looking up with a mock expression of undivided attention. "...I'm sorry. Were you saying something?"

Minister Ødegård draped his arm over the back of his chair, flicked his hand without talking, and then looked at the wall.

"Happy to hear it. Now, where were we? Ah! Right here at the not-so-cryptically stated: 'The Storting of Arendelle shall be entitled to declare war with the allegiance of Corona,' but Corona can't 'engage in war unless invaded, keep warships,' or 'arsenal,' but that's, you know, fine by us for some plausible reason that I just have yet to figure out..."

"Your Majesty―"

"Haaang on, almost finished." Eugene was laying this on thick because he was angry, but his ire was the type of ire that would never build into an outburst, only patronization.

"Your Majesty, you've never signed an Act of Union." Lord Constantine watched him through the blue wreaths of smoke curling up from his pipe in filigree shapes. "Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the losses and gains of forming a union."

Eugene waved the tobacco clouds away. "I may be unfamiliar with the P's and Q's, but I'm not unfamiliar with losses and gains. Partnership doesn't mean getting the short end of the stick unless it's a con. Proportional to what I just read, the goal of the Act isn't to unite parliaments. It's to muzzle Corona's legislators and make the people reliant on Arendelle's―"

"As we are," Constantine hectored.

Blink. Blink. "I beg your pardon?"

"Have you not consulted Queen Elsa behind the council's back through letters for over two years?"

"..." Eugene stopped chewing his top lip and raised an asking eyebrow. "What's the real direction your narrative is taking here, Constantine?"

"That it was you who agreed that the endless supply of largess had been made possible by her. It was we who agreed that the only way to secure Corona's future was this union, so you know very well that we've been reliant already."

"...I can vouch for that, but once again, this was supposed to be a union, not vassalage. The whole synopsis about unions solving economic problems is watery on its own. Parliament is only asking for someone else to perform clean-up duty because Corona has been more concerned with short-term needs than trusting any of my ideas for retrenchment. With all the gerrymandering, 'bloodline' rights, and legal surgery talked about in this Act, the long-term side effects of that auction are what I'm worried about."

"That condescension is why the public will flagellate you," returned Minister Ødegård. "When Arendelle's royal navy escorts us to their capital tomorrow, this story will have reached the shore before we do, and it'll have spread like wildfire."

Eugene leaned back in his chair to massage his eyelids and sigh. When he felt composed enough to respond, he surrendered his palms and mumbled wearily, "Look, I'm not trying to sound insensitive, or unconscious, or ungrateful...because I'm not." The king leaned across the desk and uttered, very huskily, while watching the impact each word made, "But what makes you think that the king of any country would be able to sleep at night after signing this?"

No one flogged him.

"Now, I know I'm not my father-in-law, and I know I'm not Rapunzel"―his voice wobbled―"and I know most of you think I shouldn't have a crown on my head, but I made a promise to them to take care of Corona the absolute best way I knew how, and today I have to reconcile with the fact that my best hasn't been good enough." That sentence almost burned his mouth. "If...the parliament wants Rapunzel's cousin to share custody, then I can't keep her from that even if I tried, but it has to be done right for everyone involved."

"...Your Majesty," Constantine began, "this all comes down to one concern of mine, and that concern is this: just because the Storting might listen to changes does not mean that they will enact them. Politicians don't owe it to you or us to act in Corona's favor."

"Then that's the gamble we should get riled up about taking, because it'll either be all or nothing, or nothing for all if we don't."

Constantine leaned forward, causing shadows to eclipse his face. "And if Arendelle should refuse your gamble...will you refuse Arendelle and starve us all?"

The ball rolled into Constantine's court.

"...I know how a good deal works," Eugene said to reassure himself. "If the Storting wants reimbursement, it'll buckle at the knees."

Minister Ødegård climbed back into the conversation's window by inquiring, "Then you believe Queen Elsa is trustworthy since you must think your affinity is what will prevent Arendelle's stationed soldiers from threatening us into a union? Or have you forgotten that their fleets are still here?"

Eugene's face cracked like a vase.

"How long will it take for those spontoons protecting us from the Southern Isles to turn against us?"

Again Eugene was struck by the thunderbolts in their fusillade. His iris caught the castle of clouds tenting Corona's coast. Cornered by his own paranoia, he deflated the debate with a petition: "Let's...discharge for the morning and reassemble for the letter at twelve o'clock...alright?"

The ministers countersigned it by nodding their heads in tight-lipped compliance.

Chapter Text

༺ ☀ ༻

"Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness grows,
you will notice that you also lie to yourself."

― Miguel Ruiz

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

Lord Constantine hobbled up from his chair with a packet of signed laws under his arm. "Twelve o'clock it is, gentlemen," he echoed. No sooner had such an agreement been reached did Constantine, who was the most passive senior of the group, turn with the swirl of his cape like a clergyman preparing to reschedule his retirement plan.

Minister Ødegård waved his hand in dismissal of Eugene's ineptitude and joined the bevy of men without a fuss. The instant they waddled off the dais, Eugene expelled the sigh of a warrior who had just been told that the war for peace had come to an end. He clapped his hands over his face to wipe the sweat glistening under his eyes, lethargic from having spoken so much about other people's lives. It had taken much less time than he expected to remind him of his placement in the world. Like the Count of Monte Cristo, he could never be totally accepted by society no matter how many amethysts he owned, and in his desperation to survive such reminders, his emotional residence was forever marooned on some lonely island that no alienator could burn.

'Thirteen years ago, that used to be the plan for a reason.' Eugene rubbed his nose and endeavored to concentrate on his next move by thinking about his letter instead of his self-pity.

―"Have you not consulted Queen Elsa behind the council's back through letters for over two years?"

“...” Eugene's wide eyes darted to the side. He dove into his congested drawer, wrestling out a locked box of frost-kissed letters from Arendelle. The stream of "come on, come on, come on" spluttering out of his mouth was briefly interrupted by the action of him licking his thumb as he flicked through the old stack to check for stolen papers. At the bottom of one letter shimmered:

From Arendelle,
XXV of December, 1849
Your Majesty's most loyal subject, who has been from the beginning, and will be to her end,
Queen Elsa

Eugene stared at the glittering font with his finger pressed against his temple. He began to leaf through pages that gave him paper cuts as he drank, rereading words from days long gone: 

“You have to let yourself feel, Eugene, and you have to share those feelings with someone.” 

Grief burned his throat. Eugene lowered Queen Elsa’s letter to dig the heels of his palms into his eyelids. He had been safeguarding this packet ever since Rapunzel had left him all alone. His wine-soaked mind vignetted memories of long nights spent howling her name as he swam through bedsheets that wrapped around him like anacondas. Eugene swallowed more wine until he shook from the bones, only setting down his goblet to focus on the lies in front of him: 

“Everything you wrote is everything I had told myself on the morning of my coronation, but unlike that scared twenty-one-year-old, I'm confident that you won't fall apart if you remember to lean on the support system she never did. What I was essentially saying in my first letter was that you don't have to be ‘that buttress’ alone, and my offer still stands.” 

Eugene turned the letter over. Contact with Elsa had stayed limited to the condolences she would pen, but he realized―with a renewed inkling of the worst―that it hadn't taken long for her condolences to transition into negotiations. It also hadn't taken long for her to distinguish her communication style from her sister’s; however "chummier" and more energetic, Anna's vocabulary was a squiggle away from an alphabet circus. Sharp u's favored v's while springy n's somehow trampolined into m's, and instead of writing traditional English, she used the Nordic style of dotting or slashing phoneme characters with diacritics. The queen meshed perfect text with legible calligraphy, but at the time, he couldn't tell what had been mere protocol between in-laws and what inferred real kinship on her end. 

Elsa's lexicon had this way of being maternally warm and hospitable―so much so that you'd think you were pen-palling with the Saint of the Sun―yet impersonally polite at the same time. He, on his own reticent part, had only entertained their letters for business, not bonding. He had made strategies for famine relief, seen the success in Arendelle's graceful rise to prosperity, and consulted its rich queen to bite her secrets. Within less than a year, his "master plan for retrenchment" had been wholly influenced by her guidance. He should've reached out sooner, he'd thought, instead of circling her from the outpost.

Every recommendation Elsa had given to him incorporated objectivity with integrity instead of opportunism and imposition, and it was here where he found his cerebral equal. Between the dying flowers of Corona's health, his sanity, and Elsa’s safety, their business relations had blossomed into something he grew to nurture with gardening gloves. Time had watered the soil with what seemed like good tidings. From 1847 to 1850, Elsa had appeared to him from the fog of life as someone―the only one―who understood the tribulations of being an outlaw in Crown society. Her wisdom, compassion, and sensitivity had sledgehammered his oyster and broken it into three parts.

The more the world had turned its back on the death of his people, the more she became a lifeline he couldn't afford to snip. The more Hans's ugliest brother had victimized her by trying to force her into marriage, the more protective he became; this was the power of her manipulation in Eugene's eyes. The Southern Isles had done everything from secretly poisoning him to openly poisoning his reputation, yet her "unconditional" loyalty to Corona stood tall and unbent. He specifically remembered her writing, “Just continue to keep sight of your purpose and the man who swore he wouldn't break his promise to my cousin.” His heart had soaked it up like a sponge, moved even more than before to hold onto Rapunzel's dreams for his reign.

As starvation and the Bovi Fever had depopulated Corona in 1847, ships docked with food and inoculations from Arendelle. When King Ragnar of the Southern Isles had risen and fallen against his sword, fleets docked as well. Arendelle's squadron had been two sunsets too late, and there was no magical savioress aboard, but his message response was embarrassingly dewy, with here and there a line of sappy gratitude, the discovery of his high councillor's betrayal, the sincerity of his promise to repay her, and the vehemence of his parliament's firestorm against his idea for tax retrenchment. She had coyly stressed that no payments should be made between consanguineous kingdoms, advising him to try his hand at brokering a middle ground between his legislators instead. He had clumsily thanked her, shy of his own uncomfortable warmth; she had received it with the motherliness of hers.

And now all that warmth he had for her was gone. The matter of Isolde was another point of tension—

"Pardon me―"

Eugene shot up like a wooden plank and mowed the letters off the table.

“...” His interrupter stared at him with their palm hovering over the lorgnette by his elbow. "No need for theatrics, Your Majesty." Constantine blinked. "I had simply forgotten my spectacles."

"..." Eugene snatched his lips into his mouth before allowing them to pop free. "Oh." He forced an apologetic smile. "Can't forget those specs! Eheh..."

"Unfortunately not." Constantine reached for his bifocals and cleaned them with his cape. He minded the grandfather clock. It was twenty minutes to nine. The nobleman bowed to the king before heading to the door.

Eugene removed the tall crown from his aching scalp―

"Oh, and Your Majesty― "

The thunder in his voice threw Eugene into such a storm that he juggled the headgear between all ten fingers before shoving it back onto his head.

"Is it possible that you harbor some hint of paranoia?" Constantine questioned, not seeming interested in any of Eugene's quirks as he watched the crown sink like a slanted cathedral, but rather choosing to catapult them back into the shenanigans of the previous conference.

Eugene, although a little irritated by having to step over this dead horse, fixed his crown with a subtle pout. "Well, if evolution developed that sixth sense to protect any and all homo sapiens from danger, then my answer is yes: I feel paranoid."

"Let me rephrase my question."

"Please, there's...really no need―"

"Do you think Queen Elsa is the one 'snowing' you?"

‘Why are we even having this conversation?’ "Constantine, you know how I work."

"Of course."

"And you know I don't like fostering dependency― "

"That much is known, but unless your monotonous delivery is leading up to your point, then it doesn't answer my question. I'll commend you on your perseverance, because you have faced this monarchy instead of turning the other cheek. You tend to experientially―instead of emotionally―assess the pros and cons of tight situations, and focus on drawing out what is useful in dead ends. You also know the world isn't fair, and that most law-makers don't play by the rules."

Eugene started to bitterly reminisce on Minister Ødegård’s jabs. ‘Perks of being a thief, no?’

"So while I don't believe there was any intentional selfishness on your part, I do think that your conduct here today has been disrespectful towards the queen."

‘This again.’

"She's gone to bat for Corona for a long time and collected debt in the process. The Storting and its constitutional monarchy could just as well be twisting her arm behind her back."

Eugene's tongue stabbed the pocket of his cheek. His expressionless features began sinking together, becoming sad and puppy-like, and ultimately giving up its sardonic mask by dropping into regret.

During his pensive walk toward the dais, Eugene noticed that Constantine’s nose was pointing at the object on his table. "They knocked her over, didn't they?" 

Eugene felt his eyebrows draw together as a surge of weakness toppled his ego from its throne. He looked at the wooden figurine resting behind his ink quill. His shaking fingers slipped under its body and flipped it over in order to bring its face to the level of his eyes. Rapunzel's chipped visage grinned back at him, having been stepped on and kicked around by the shoes of uproarious men. Eugene rubbed the back of his neck to distract himself from the damp pressure pushing against his eyes in Constantine's presence, but the advisor said nothing.

With a shaky thumb, Eugene nudged the clumps of dirt out of Rapunzel’s emerald corneas. He passed that same digit over her lips and smiled. 

 "Eugene..." Constantine came near. "How are you feeling about the less political part of this, Eugene?"

It took some gulping, but Eugene showed Constantine his crying eyes. The widower looked down again, shaking his head with the quick wag of his eyebrows. He stopped shaking it to look up at him with a stony smile as tears slipped down his cheeks. "What'd you want me to say...?" He shrugged his shoulder. "I'm marrying my wife's cousin to save an entire kingdom from falling apart..." He was losing air with every word that was wrung out of him by his own tears.

Constantine nodded grievously. Eugene felt the urge to weep in his arms and throw the crown at the floor, screaming, “What’d you want from me?!” Instead, he worked to dry his face and find his wine. Constantine stared at him with an unreadable expression. 

"...But, this isn't about romance." Eugene chopped the air with his hand while the other wiped his nose, the bass in his voice finally returning. "This isn't about an emotional relationship, and it's not about me, her, or us. We don't have to be... touchy-feely or, get all romantic. It's just a custody deal," he said as though he was memorizing a lecture for oration. "The marriage part of it will be for show, and the titles 'husband and wife' will just be corsages to wear to the ballrooms. And...that's fair. That's fine. I can do that..." He kept squinting as he spoke, trying to find his words, trying to be comfortable with his stipulations, but his voice was crumbling. "It's just...all a matter of how the Foreign Marriage Act materializes in our lives."

"Technically, it's all a matter of how your veto of their Act of Union pans out."

"...And that as well."

Constantine cast him a grave look. "Eugene, everything you did in your adulthood was against the virtues of high society...but here you are. You've somehow become a beacon of knighthood, grossing your legacy as Corona's unlikely hero, serving the king as his best negotiator, and proving how much there is to be exalted in a once misguided pauper. Yet Minister Ødegård raised a fair point: is it possible that your appeal is also your handicap? And if so, would it be best to tell Elsa about why you have that handicap?"

"Alright! I get it! I'm not exactly the most popular king in the yearbook―"

"Well, there I beg to differ. Women love you, orphans idolize you, and peasants relate to you; we can all agree that your character is chummy and charming. As the grantee to the Crown Matrimonial, you are...misplaced."

"...Thank you, Constantine. I feel a bit better," Eugene lied.

"Please do not lose confidence because of it. Simply remember that you have more to prove now than ever before." After folding his body into a bow, Constantine turned around. "And please don't forget to finish volume thirty of 'The Tangled Tales of Rapunzel' when time allows some leisure. Your marriage to Elsa will give you an abundance of it after the wedding that we hopefully still have."

The elder's afterword dinned in Eugene's ears as the doors roared shut. In one haggard movement, the king seized his crown and lifted it, causing the mop of hair atop his head to stand up like hay. He studied in his hands the glinting symbol of divinity that captained and enslaved him. The teeth wore rubies, diamonds, and sapphires with a four inch height all mounted on the frame of a bronze fringe, but it was no prize. Eugene stroked the center diamond with his thumb; in its kaleidoscopic reflection, he saw his hangdog face frowning back at him.

The only thing he could do―and this, because of his ineptitude―was look at each and every one of his splintered selves in the polygonal mirror. 

...Eugene dug his thumbs into his eyelids with shaking shoulders.

There should've been someone else to take up the spear and shield of Prince Hector in this Iliad.

‘I just want my wife.’

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"We cannot forgive ourselves for not being perfect.
The result is that we wear (...) social masks to keep others from noticing this."

― Miguel Ruiz

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

"The Storting of Arendelle says Corona is a rather backwards country," cawed Kai, who stood like a sultan in the garden with a tower of plates in his hands. "Officers apparently don armor instead of aiguillettes, and court apparel still smacks of the Cavalier Era."

The tubby Master of the Household, who'd been demoted to plate-holder before daybreak, was dressed in gay attire for the grand welcoming at forenoon. His yellow and white blazer made a fine deviation from his usual stodgy coats of green, but a change in gear could not change a posh conviction, for his nose was still to the geese when he quacked about industrialization.

"It has even been written that bicycles are deemed 'exotic' by their bishops because the kingdom is so behindhand in modern development," he continued.

Gossip's oily devices, however, were not greasing the ears of his recipient.

"H'okay, h'okay―here we go..."

Kai cracked an eye open without lowering his beak. The crystal sockets of an ice sculpture glared back at him with slivers of sunlight blinking off their rims. Chiseled locks of hair framed one cheek in a perfect "C," accentuating the beefy cupid's bow of a mouth. The triangular nose, square jaw, and monumentally triangular chest conveyed the ideal figure of a king. 

"...Stiff," drawled the haughty tone of an unimpressed critic.

Kai found it superb in all areas of anatomy, but the artist judged the art with a mind for irrational perfectionism and nothing else. Elsa's eyes narrowed into their own triangles as she smashed her cheek against her knuckles and pouted in contemplation. With a twirl of the finger, she dissolved it down to a new model, but every revision made the nose too pointy―the nostrils too equine―and the bearded chin started to resemble a banana instead of a goatee.

"It bears an astonishing likeness to the real thing, Your Majesty," Kai fibbed.

He watched her eyebrows curl in embarrassment while the curve of her lips jitterbugged with amusement. The old fellow felt a seismic urge to let his dimples show, too; whenever one of those rueful smiles made a guest appearance on Elsa's muzzle, it would infect the nearest host with its charm. She raised the bridge of her finger to her chin and gave the model one last evaluation. Upon flicking her hand, her decision was thus concluded, and both critics watched the sculpture ebb down to a miniature tornado of snowflakes until it was no more.

"...It really was quite impressive," Kai muttered in loss.

Elsa's eyes gentled. "I can't even remember what he looks like," she confessed with an ashamed smile. Her voice was divided between chuckling pity and whispered regret.

Heartburn stormed his chest. The queen looked for all the world like a wilted crocus flower in a glade. One hand fisted the silk shawl around her shoulders as it fluttered in the breeze like window curtains, adding gloominess to the anemic face and blonde sunlight that brightened every flyaway in her tousled hair. Said vision was by all means angelic and decrepit in one gander. She was so beautiful, yet so aged by her perceived culpability before it had been time for her to grow old.

"I think you've made a splendid simulation, Your Majesty," he encouraged.

But as part and parcel of Elsa's character, her confession had been more of a private reflection than a reply, so it was of no surprise to him when a sigh from the pharynx ended with her going back to being all spinning wheels and neurosis as she flitted from table to table like a blue jay in a cricket field.

"Does Her Majesty know what hour the king shall grace us in?"

Elsa flung open the last tablecloth and let it float down around the furniture like a parachute. "Well," she exhaled, "if he departed at noon on the 20th like we planned,"―the sheet's wrinkles were smoothed out by her palms―"then he should be here no earlier than seven o'clock."

Kai sidestepped the maidens cascading into the garden with fluted vases. Elsa dropped a sunflower into each at locomotive speed, only pausing to rearrange a petal or two as the women moved down the line. Within reasonable proximity marched an army of footmen who lowered chairs in front of tables. The seclusion of the last table's location, together with the frozen beads swaying from the birch trees overhead, suggested that it was reserved for King Eugene and Her Majesty. Banners displaying Corona's sun rays embraced by the dendrites in her snowflake symbolized the marriage that had yet to be formalized.

Pacing up and down at the heels of the handlers was Queen Elsa herself, who wrung her fingers and peeked over epaulets to point out where an ornament should be placed, at which angle of the sun it should be facing, and to what degree, only to make such corrections in private. Red with second-hand embarrassment, Kai abstained from shaking his head. Her machinery could be, in a word, horrifying. At only five in the morning, she was a rock-ribbed workhorse in full swing, indefatigably orchestrating ambiance and details without a thought to her own health. Her commitments seemed, to him, motivated half by genuine dedication to the cause, and half by the desire to distract herself from the cause.

"Her...Majesty met the king as Prince Eugene at coronation, did she not?" Kai inquired, knowing only that the man was eight years her senior―a chap shoring his forties from what was grapevined―and therefore not her coeval.

A flashback of the relative sizing up Prince Hans from the lip of his wine glass screened in Elsa's mind. "Not quite," she downplayed. She sanded her hands up and down her legs as she scuttled across the garden to hover one pair of wiggling fingers over a box of cutlery. "We saw one another, but..."―sigh―"we never met." Fork bouquets were distributed to maids behind a feeble smile.

These proceedings bothered Kai's pancreas like a gallstone. Sovereign and servant were equals in turning Arendelle's royal garden into a brunch patio when it was absolutely inappropriate for Her Superior to be assisting her inferiors.

―"I think your ice sculpture looked handsome, Your Majesty!" flapped the gums of one decorator. "I hear that King Eugene is a dish! The finest fella on the continent, even."

Elsa gave her an almost smile. "Thank you, Åsdis."

Such a collaboration may not have been as scandalous as installing a plumbing system in mud and heels (*), telling underclassmen to treat her like a person instead of divinity (*), or sneaking into peasant choirs as a villager (*), but it was enough to make Kai's eyes sore.

"That placement is perfect," Elsa complimented, resting one palm in the other as she circled the staff. "And please remember to give the tulip glasses instead of the tumblers to King Eugene and I."

The discomfort she spliced onto those last syllables went undetected by all except Kai. He closed his eyes and dignified his posture when she approached him to inspect his silverware. Puffed with confidence, he appended a second passage to their first conversation: "I had the pleasure of being nose to nose with him, and he's not a coherent fellow."

Elsa held up a saucer and squinted at it with her smirk stretching into an arrow. "And, by coherence, you mean...?"

"A confusing blend of 'larger than life' flamboyance and 'down to earth' sangfroid, so to speak. He imparted an animated verbal routine designed to awe, often alternating between bookworm vocabulary and savvy one-liners, but he spoke like he was the only chap in conversation with himself, as if he didn't care whether his listener actually understood him or not. I suppose such is the way of storytellers, but just know that if you happen to find yourself in need of a translator, it's no one's fault except his own."

Elsa's shoulders bounced with a sound that was crossed between a sigh and a snort. She wiggled her eyebrows with the tick of her head, daintily placing the plate back into his stack with her fingertips. "I prefer to make my own judgment calls, but I'll keep that in mind." 

This rivulet of humor that was shining through the keyhole of her personality, Kai grasped, was faint.

When she looked up to shine her smile on Kai, his expression differed from the first. It was torn, soggy, and so fiercely studying every freckle on her cheeks that her saliva went down the wrong windpipe. "What's the matter?" she asked, much like a caregiver itching to press their hand against their grandfather's forehead.

"...Nothing, Your Majesty." Austerity faded from his crow's feet like wet sand dripping to the bottom of an hourglass. He blinked his damp eyes and let his dimples show. "It's just that you've grown exponentially."

A rueful smile broke out on her face with the loveliness of a sunrise climbing the horizon. A fatherly one trembled on his own. In the ruining of this special scenery, lurs and bukkehorns were blown from the castle's bartizans.

The silhouettes inside waved their arms to and fro to alert the queen. "King Eugene is nearing the border, Your Majesty!"

Elsa clapped a hand around her throat with the other cutting off the circulation in Kai's arm.

"Oh, peace be still!" Voices could be heard from the castle's windows in rippling brooks of panic as housekeepers unyoked from their composure.

The pond's honking swans took flight in a blizzard of white, owing in great part to the decorators who hotfooted it through the shrubberies. Elsa was just about clapping her hands like a seal and making traffic signals to keep people from abandoning their stations. One servant with a teetering tray scuffed Kai's shoe and dove straight into another's stomach. These acrobatics caused the crystalware to fly up and shatter into little spinning chips of glass right before Kai's feet.

"...It would seem King Eugene has arrived earlier than anticipated," Kai's wooden announcement of the obvious was gravely swallowed by his listener.

The number of catastrophes going on at once would've been enough to put Elsa in a coma. She beetled after one group with her hand clamped to her temple and the other reaching for compliance before lagging behind a second herd that stampeded in the opposite direction. Agitation soon supplanted anxiety, and after one fed-up grunt, she jammed two digits into her mouth and whistled.

Heels skurrrrrr-ed to a grinding halt.

The heated queen motioned her hands like an equerry calming horses. "I need everyone to just―calm―down."

They blinked at each other before blinking at her.

As sleepy and sweaty as she was, she recuperated her staying power and pulled her shawl over her chest. "King Eugene won't be docking for another thirty minutes," she patiently shared, "so that leaves us some time."

The servants gauged her words with chagrin.

"Now as you were, please."

Bows, curtsies, and apologies were given before her servants billowed out and did as instructed.

Once everyone had fallen back into formation, Elsa's voice was whittled down to a woozy quiver by her own dismay: "Kai..."

He faced her with a troubled look.

A smile flickered through her lips before waning like sea foam. "Make sure everyone is ready before we open up the gates."

Kai bowed from the neck. "Yes, Your Majesty..."

Elsa thanked him for his kindness and grabbed the bottom of her cyan nightgown to make haste.

Chapter Text

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"We crucify ourselves between two thieves:
regret for yesterday and fear of tomorrow."

― Fulton Oursler

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

"..." Puffy-eyed, jaw-slacked, and syruped in sweat from throat to chest, Elsa almost scoffed, "Journalist J. Abelard...Minister Slake?" She tetanically felt the urge to smile, titter, and shake her head at him, but in light of the comity demanded by the media event, she did none of the three.

Kai looked at Elsa, cuing Elsa to look at him, but the queen, with her lissome arms and petite hands arranged into a perfect "V," preserved the guise of a goddess among mortal men. He grew in tune, however, with that goddess's anxiety by watching her chest bob up and down.

Minister Slåke, to the detriment of the queen, decoded her somatic signals out loud, "Your Majesty, I understand your enmity. I can see it oozing from you―"

The press looked at her dewy cheeks, which were honeycombed with pores.

Her prime minister sawed his mouth with the back of his finger before guiding his attention to her wrinkled forehead. "Sit down, Your Majesty," he whispered.

Elsa remained as static as a thundercloud.

―"but whilst Abelard's libels and conspiracies were...sophistical and prejudiced against your 'mystique' in the past, my meeting with him hours after King Eugene had rejected our union was candid and educational," promised Minister Slåke.

Her lips squirmed in passing. She raised her chin, eyelashes batting drowsily. "Can you provide any...proof or eyewitness of J. Abelard's interview with King Eugene's minister, Minister Slåke?" Her cynical eyebrow wagged. "Maybe even a name?" The patronage in the request was couched under polite indulgence, for she had already decided that the elder was electing a liar for the position of informant.

Minister Slåke stalled to study the dark bags hanging from her eyes like spider egg sacs.

"Can you provide any voucher or proof of an irrefutable connection between King Eugene and your attackers?"

Neither Minister Morgenstierne nor Minister Solheim volunteered. Minister Slåke opened and closed his fists. For all of her deliriousness, the regnant waited on him with a ladylike demeanor. Kai chewed on his thumbnail as he overanalyzed her body language from afar. Both he and the prime minister were doing a mental countdown on how long it would take for either of them to catch her.

Should she pass out from sleep deprivation, the entire conference would go to pieces.

"...Minister Slåke?"

He was unresponsive.

Holding in her growl, Elsa moved her cloak behind her waist and folded the dress under her legs to sit down. "Please go on, Minister Slåke."

"I can provide my word for the former," he vowed.

This was the unspoken "validity" that had touched Elsa's sixth sense. Minister Slåke seemed determined to legitimize his loyalty to the Crown over the legitimacy of his sources, and there was no dependability in that. The very valor of the scabbed man standing on her rug, looking as cocksure and gallant as Lancelot before Guinevere, made her head detonate from the ludicrousness of the parody. 

"J. Abelard's veritable citations were as unbiased as they were onerous, Your Majesty."

"But, in the meantime,"―Elsa shuttered her eyes with her lids to rub her temple―"your...verification of hearsay comes from more...hearsay, Minister Slåke?" Two red eyes opened unevenly to squint at his face with what little clarity they could capture. "Is that what you're implying?" The jellyfish that was her brain was already swimming through seaweed with every word he spoke.

"The verification is King Eugene's absence and our presence, Your Majesty," he reasoned.

Elsa's fingernail hovered by her temple as her frown loosened. She demoted her hand to the armrest of her chair and endured the brunt of that realism by looking at him through the oval cracks of her vision.

"My lack of physical proof or eyewitnesses are not nullifications of what's before you right now."

The prime minister imposed on their colloquy by saying, "Before you wend your way further, Minister Slåke, please recount that Arendelle and Her Majesty still need Corona and His Majesty just as much as they need them, so if there is any word spoken here that is part of a trumped-up story, then the repercussions will permanently hamper Arendelle's access to Corona and Her Majesty's line of succession."

A wheezer coughed in the room. Elsa palmed her face to hide her reaction. She then squeezed her eyelids with her thumb and her pointer before tucking tussocks of frizzy blonde hair―the most protuberant evidence of her deterioration―behind both ears. She rocked her head over to the prime minister and opened her frosty eyes, whispering, "Baldor―"

"Minister Slåke!" A journalist wiggled his pen in the air.

The prime minister edged away from the table's oil lamp to head him off at the pass: "Mr. Bylund, questions are to be withheld during any exchanges between Her Majesty and her commissioners."

The man sawed his scalp with the pen's nib. "I understand that, Prime Minister Håakonsson...um―Your Excellency, sir―but it shan't take long."

His Excellency reopened his eyes to Elsa's profile, which had been nothing more than a trembling blur in his peripheral view. The regnant gave him her consent by lowering her chin.

The prime minister returned to the exchange. "Make it concise, Mr. Bylund."

Mr. Bylund torpedoed pop quizzes at Minister Slåke, "Does the minister in question have a name, Your Excellency? And if he does, what were his intentions when he leaked this defamatory information?"

Minister Slåke squeezed the brim of his hat, leaving compressions in the wool. "...I was not...exactly told his name, Mr. Bylund―"

The audience threw their hands up and awed in anger. Having foreseen the inevitable minutes before her men did, Elsa inhaled deeply and exhaled hard in one go. Kai fetched a glass goblet to push it near her wrist with his thumb. Her forefinger reached up to stroke the vein on her nose as she groped the cup's star-cut foot―"Thank you"―before puckering her lips against the rim.

―"but I was told that his name would be censored out of respect."

Elsa's bitter eyes sallied up to Minister Slåke as she drank, unmindful of the sweat zigzagging down the side of her forehead.

"I don't find this information inauthentic," Minister Slåke defended. "It explains perfectly why the king withheld assent."

Mr. Bylund proved that his brainwork was in sync with the queen's when he proposed, "On the contrary, Minister Slåke, it explains perfectly why repeating it is so irresponsible in the event of the king withholding assent. Furthermore, if a journalist can't tell you the name of his informant for Her Majesty's benefit, then the journalist himself is, by those standards, a propagandist and a liar. What if the writers in this room took his prevarications and exacerbated them at the cost of peace with Corona?"

...Pens stopped wagging.

"Would that not make it impossible for Queen Elsa and King Eugene to legitimize their marriage―"

Elsa's shoulders lurched in the middle of her coughing up water.

"―if there could be any united kingdom now at all?"

Kai scooched sideways to stage-whisper behind her neck, "Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

Lips buttoned and cheeks still whooping, Elsa set the glass down to crush a tissue against her chest and wave his concerns away. "Fine." Her voice was thin and embarrassed. "F-Fine. I'm perfectly fine." She cleared her throat after a few hurrums.

"There are probably no two kingdoms more destined to be one than Corona and Arendelle, but they may never be united because of one infamous news writer dropping a bug in our commissioner's ear―"

"Mr. Bylund, this is not a debate, a soapbox, or a trial," the prime minister curveballed. "We have opened the doors of Her Majesty's treaty room for the media to witness and relay the event. You may question these commissioners after their testimonies have been laid before Her Majesty and Their Excellencies, but you will not peck at them."

An agitated Mr. Bylund slumped in his armchair. It made his chin press comically against his chest, but no one laughed.

Elsa stared sullenly at her shoulder before speaking up to take the ox by the horns: "Mr. Bylund made a point that should be debated, Prime Minister."

Minister Slåke faced her. His eyes were not egotistical, but puzzled.

She rocked her own away from her shoulder to imprison him with her glare. "While I'm thankful for your loyalty, Minister Slåke, unsubstantiated information is not trustworthy, stable, or authentic." His waftish "damsel" crystallized each utter with the self-possession of a deity seated upon her zircon throne. "On the strength of your own bias, you're asking me to believe a journalist who distorts and withholds facts over a relative I speak to personally. He deserves a chance to explain himself to me just as much as you deserve yours."

The overemotional commissioner whined, "He hasn't written back in months, Your Majesty. We have no way of knowing what his thoughts about you or Arendelle have mutated into since―"

She stonewalled him with, "Please choose your words wisely, Minister Slåke."

Minister Slåke's volume was conquered by hers. Elsa's calm display pervaded her acerbity despite the sharpness of her command. Because he said nothing else, but only explored the dry wasteland of her face, she knew that she had unhorsed him. Alas, he had indeed called her bluff and hatched a logical argument.

"...Your Majesty, I simply..."―he chortled apprehensively―"I simply thought it was only fair to warn you about what would soon inflame the continent."

Elsa tried to carve out an expression of condolence and forgiveness, but she only made the effort look like it was a hardship. "Minister Slåke, this is not an insult to you; please try to understand that. I understand your reasoning, but we've gathered here today to talk about what happened on your journey, not Corona's gossipers. I don't ever want any of you to suffer what you had to suffer on my behalf again." Even if she had to choose her own words wisely in front of her Germanic and Slavic onlookers, she included that addendum sincerely.

The statsråds nodded in appreciation of her words. 

"The king's veto and Corona's reaction need severe attention," Elsa continued. "I'm not denying that, but you can't take it upon yourself to make a dubious connection between King Eugene and rebels because of something he may or may not have said about me. Common sense would lead him to believe that he can't afford a violent reaction from Arendelle. He wouldn't chance it regardless of having some kind of personal grudge."

Minister Slåke's ego would have none of it. "King Eugene's feelings―"

"How King Eugene feels about me isn't important," she lied. "He is my responsibility the same way Corona and my first cousin are. Whatever perception he has of me, I'll work to change it for peace's sake."

Polar to the ataraxy within her deportment was something that the commissioner detected like a fox sniffing out a hen in the grass. "Because he is its king, I presume."

The prime minister squeezed her knuckles. "Your Majesty―"

She pulled her palm away and impulsively reengaged to demand, "Explain what you mean."

By doing so, Minister Slåke managed to bayonet straight through her mask with what was still lurking between her thoughts: "Without the crown, he is not under Arendelle's responsibility or immunity. He knows this. King Eugene, for that matter, does not base your loyalty on affinity or consanguinity. He told his council that he thinks disdainfully of your character because you passed the Union with Corona Act, which was, in his words, a 'snow job.'"

Elsa's heart rate ping-ponged from stagnant to unstoppable. Such jargon was indisputably Eugene's style.

"He did not know about your original abstinence from signing it."

The crowd's rowdiness intensified, but their criticisms were a mixture of sideswipes at Queen Elsa and King Eugene.

"Minister Slåke," the prime minister chided, "that information is not for public consumption."

"Its confidentiality has done more harm than good. From where King Eugene limps, Her Majesty's sentimental letters have been part of one big sociopathic scheme to play on his broken heart and lure him into indentured servitude."

The hooked dagger penetrating Elsa's mask drove all the way to the hilt, shattering it like glass. Left behind was her helpless inner child.

"From where we tower, he has excavated and used Her Majesty to better his own financial devices like the con man he is rumored to be."

In the absence of evidence, the objective side of Elsa resisted these third party remarks, but the arrangement of Minister Slåke's sentences, as she passed from one neurological paralysis to another, made her skeleton vibrate to guilt and phobias she had long suppressed. No other intuited her entangled subconscious, but Minister Slåke had pulled it open like a yarn ball unraveling down a flight of stairs. Degeneracy reawakened all around her, jailing her in:

"I've heard enough of this hoax!" A journalist shot up with his notepad under his armpit to wade through the botryoidal cluster of pressmen.

Other journalists uprooted from their passive reposes to sling colorful vocabulary and vicious obloquies:

"I believe Minister Slåke!"

"But why has he profaned Queen Elsa's crown when it is she whom Corona rightfully belongs to?"

"Because he's a solipsistic, unctuous, double-crossing wheedler, that man!"

The almost dreamy quality of this harlequinade made her feel like she was standing outside of herself, frozen between the real world and the world she thought she reigned, zooming out of frame as she watched a hostage wearing her face be cornered by the opinions of men. The ghoulish shadow of Minister Slake's body swallowed her whole as he walked forward. The sick regnant now sat staring catatonically at the man, and the man watched the catatonia cloud the regnant's judgment.

"―Therefore," he lamented, "it saddens Her Majesty's commissioners to watch her compromise her health for Corona when its king may very well think her a monster of Prince Hans's caliber."

Elsa's fingers ticked one by one―like a ripple effect―before gripping the armrest tighter. Her voice limped when she unshackled its broken legs: "Enough, Minister Slåke―"

The recalcitrant man paused at the base of her dais so that his slurs were out of everyone else's hearing range: "The fiancé you once called cousin, like the other potential husbands who have swatted your hand in revulsion of your birth―"

Her nose was tingling with the pressure one felt when it reddened in the snow. "Please―"

"―has given you his back with an even iller reason for such contempt―"

"―I said, 'Enough.'"

Minister Slåke shut his cakehole. She had also given her company a scare. 

"...Please, that's..."―her hoarse voice deepened by one octave―"that's enough."

Minister Morgenstierne frowned between Minister Slåke and Queen Elsa before blinking hysterically at his shoes.

"I pray that it will be," answered Minister Slåke.

―"Enough of your commentary, Minister Slåke," Elsa clarified. Her womb harvested a storm that she had to weather without empowering it, for she could not let journalists grope through the rubble of her heart. "I don't need to hear another word of it. Now please withdraw from my dais and retire from the conference at once."

The commissioner disembarked with a leer of satisfaction seen only by Minister Morgenstierne and Minister Solheim.

Kai judged Elsa's microscopic―if not admirably controlled―upheavals as a subliminal sign of her holding her ground and crumbling on the bedrocks of it at the same time. When he saw her chest sink, and her head turn down and away like a deer, he knew she had been cowed. Her aura was too weak from the morning's little horrors―too depleted from indefatigably orchestrating ambiance and details without a thought to her own health―to buttress walls built by years of maturation. To think that she had endangered her blood sugar levels for this and this alone put his own opinion of Eugene in the sewer. He should've been here to protect Elsa from looking foolish for cornicing his feet with her shoulders.

Despicably, that cad didn't give two shillings about Elsa's vertebrae. The proof, when all was said and done, was his absence.

*Beta Gyre made this lovely piece of UotC fan art in 2016! 

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"Heroic ambition seemed to have been the cause of much of the world's pain."

― Criss Jami

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With her thoughts in shreds from not knowing what to think, Elsa was also subjected to another trial outside of her limbo: public examination. Like the lab rat she always was in the maze of politics, she had to withstand the pain of her observers dissecting her conscience. Every face she panned across judged her with one glare after the other. Elsa gulped down a tidal wave of nausea while men picked at her character with their whispers. The wing of her eyelashes, which was weighed down by dew, twitched once as she regained her breath to say, "Minister Solheim?"

"Um, present!" A young chap of twenty galumphed and gimped onto her dais.

The prime minister gestured at him to remove his hat. He plucked it off, exposing a meadow of hair that sprouted out like uncut grass.

Elsa was too distracted by the gauze around his wrist to focus on his manners. The regnant crossed her hands over each other and asked anxiously, "How did you get that wound, Mr. Solheim?"

"Oh, this little misfortune?" Minister Solheim shook his sleeve open. "One of the fellows who tarred me in my clothes had scratched me up a tad. It got a bit infected on our way here, but I'm better now," he chuckled. "Better as better could possip'ly apply in these conditions. The tarring was quite minimal."

Kolgrim Ásgrím, the Private Secretary to the Sovereign, voiced on Elsa's behalf, "Her Majesty doesn't want you to feel overexerted, Minister Solheim, but if you could be so noble as to pick up where Minister Morgenstierne began and Minister Slåke left off―"

―"I would be grateful," Elsa finished, kindly butting him out. "But if you'd rather be home―"

"N-No! It wouldn't exert me at all!" Charmed by her humility, Minister Solheim complied: "To start with, it's not...ahm, quite as...I believe it's been interpreted."

Minister Slåke stopped walking.

"The king didn't ― necessarily ― let patriots attack our ships because of his repellency against the Act. They were rebels who protested against a speech he made regarding his choice, which was to veto its sections only to ask for revisions."

Elsa's face whitened before flushing into the red color of vexation―

―"I did not withhold this willingly, Your Majesty," apologized Minister Solheim.

He and Minister Morgenstierne glimpsed at the pale Minister Slåke under the shadows of their eyebrows. The pucker between Elsa's reappeared as the loose joints of this contorted story began to pop into their sockets like magnet chips. The strained jig-saw pieces that Minister Slåke had tried to jam together with his own abridgments, along with the threats he might've made against his own colleagues to smuggle it into the conference, shocked Elsa. Never did she have a reason to oppugn her statsråds for deceit; they were her professors, grandfathers, uncles, and, to her misgiving, her wardens, but today, Minister Slåke was not the man who had tutored her from birth. Before she could ferret out his temerity, he piped up to extenuate the discrepancies:

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, I did not say King Eugene sicced them on our vessels."

"Minister Slåke, did you or did you not tell them to go along with your presentation so that all of Arendelle would think King Eugene was waging a 'rebellion' against us?" Elsa had no plans to keep her voice small or stable; Minister Slåke had probably prepared for an earthquake, but he had no defenses against this mudslide.

"I did not," Minister Slåke testified with a straight face.

Turning her head at an angle, Elsa speechlessly narrowed her eyes at him before parking them on Minister Solhiem when he spoke:

"The rebels pledge loyalty to King Eugene's best interests, thus they...um―according to them, that is―act in his favor despite acting without his authority."

Minister Morgenstierne eyeballed Minister Slåke, who tossed him an icy glance before looking offward and elevating his chin. The former dismally concentrated on his feet.

Elsa caught these telecommunications. "Is that true, Minister Morgenstierne?"

"U-Uh!" He flinched like he couldn't handle the exposure or the responsibility of exposing. "Yes, Your Majesty...b-but in Minister Slåke's defense, there is no proof that the king doesn't support vigilantes."

She henpecked him angrily: "Is there any proof that he does, Minister Morgenstierne?"

"No, Your Majesty, but I say that because Germanic halberds, poleaxes, and hand cannons are restricted to Coronan soldiers and border guards, yet these rebels had access to old oubliettes teeming with weapons beneath the castle's mural tower. Our men searched the oubliettes without informing the king, where they confiscated firearms such as matchlock guns and calivers."

That muzzled her.

"Could it've been an ambush, then?" journalists nattered.

On the surface, Elsa didn't succumb to the presupposition, but below the ether, she was sucked into the vacuum of a greater paradox. The hidden guns listed were not native to Corona or shared among their brigades. They belonged to the hussars of the Southern Isles. "Where are they right now?" she urged. "The rebels?"

"Imprisoned, Your Majesty."

"All of them?"

"Every last one."

She wasn't keen on believing or disbelieving the new dump of information, but before she could issue what was practicable to be done, she manhandled the oppressor of the group with her next words: "Minister Slåke?"

The pits of his nose dilated.

Elsa outglared him. "You are hereby discharged from your functions as the Minister of Foreign Affairs."

Minister Slåke's body housed an unspoken rage. It may have been Elsa's imagination, but for a second, she thought she saw his soul rise up behind him and take the shape of a monster. What she didn't imagine was his clear disinclination to obey her order.

Correlating this obstinance with gender discrimination, Elsa rose from her chair, squared her shoulders, and folded her hands in front of her pelvis. "Please excuse yourself from our presence, Cedolf Slåke." 

Minister Slåke wrestled with his own inner creature to conceal the flames behind his tear ducts, for he knew that this was only a postponement of a penalty. He backed away, bowed, and tore through the men like a tornado. After him left six reporters who glared down the Statsrådet with mutinous looks before their secession.

Once all was as powerfully quiet as a prairie, Elsa's rigid vocals were diminished to a tired, tiny sound after her gaze dropped along with it: "Carry on, please."

The last commissioners standing were attacked by questions from the press.

The prime minister squeezed his knee. "This betrothal has brought out the worst in both sides." He slid a look of sympathy over to Elsa. His fingers brushed the cold hills of her knuckles. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," Elsa swore breathlessly, flicking a stressful smile to him without peeling her eyes off her desk. "But now we have an even bigger problem on our hands." She moved her clammy palm out of his reach and paid the untouched rotulus some mind.

The calfskin wound about its wooden staff was sealed inside a capsule with the embossed image of Corona's sun, but it had no traceable clasps to unlock.

"Coronan trinkets," said the prime minister. "Only its makers could tolerate fiddling with such a complex thing. We've tried without getting any results."

Enticed, Elsa submitted a solution, "Kai, would you mind summoning the Captain of the Guard from the infirmary at eight o'clock?"

"You wish to grant him audience after the conference?"

"Brief―" The last syllable was drowned out by the hubbub of interviewers:

"Aren't you going to tell us what happened after King Eugene revoked the union?"

Minister Solhiem pampered them like a celebrity at an autograph signing. "Corona was in a very divided state."

"What kind of divided state?"

"One of violence. There were people who were glad and others who were angry. The Captain of the Guard―his name is Captain Hitler, if my memory serves me―yes, Captain Hitler said the ones who tarred us were the worst of the lot. They belonged to a rebel party called the 'Brotherhood.'"

Elsa's face fell as slowly as a daisy breaks. Listeners took up talk, but Elsa was so motionless that Kai wasn't sure if her respiratory system was still operating.

Minister Solheim unclasped a leather case, which he took from beneath his coat. It appeared to hold pages made of vellum, but many of them were eaten away by seawater. "These are incomplete illustrations from the capital's commemorator. Captain Hitler was nice enough to safeguard both these and the rotulus while I had the pine tar removed with lard." He laid the distinguishable illustrations on Elsa's desk. "I can assure you that they aren't fabricated. Perhaps artistically exaggerated, but true to events."

She spread the papers out until they made a wing on the table. "These are reenactments?"

Minister Solheim picked in his ear before wiping his waxy finger on his coat. "Um, y-yes―to give you a better visual beyond oral testimonies. It follows a bit of a storyboard that you may find more...'educational' than me simply opening my gab."

Frowning at his implication instead of his impropriety, Elsa looked him up and down before holding her throat and looming over the artwork. The first sheet showed food being hurled through the keyhole-shaped windows of Rhine Hall. Identical to church paintings of men being condemned by Heaven, Eugene was drawn under a column of sunlight with his wrists roofing his head. Elsa gasped just before her fingers flew over her mouth to cup and squeeze it. The very skin on his body was clenched to the easel of his skeleton like a starving farmer's.

Sketched behind him was a haze of ominous faces that watched the harassment go on rather smugly.

"Some of the islanders who supported the union heckled the king after he withheld assent," Minister Solheim narrated.

"But he can't look like the chupacabra drawn here," her horrified prime minister abjured. "Her Majesty has fed the king's household consistently."

"Her Majesty has also not heard from the king in over five months," her secretary grievously reminded. His eyes were stationed on Queen Elsa's profile. "Isn't that right, Your Majesty...?"

As proven by eyelids that were flickering without actually blinking, the queen was too faraway to comment. Her spirit had evacuated her body, and during this period, her council felt awful to have watched it leave so quickly. Her spirit returned when Baldor said a word to her secretary. 

"King Eugene is only a tad thinner than he was as Prince," Minister Solheim remarked. "He's not as undernourished as the sketch depicts." He laid a page on top of Eugene's body. "If you peruse the complete storyboard, you'll see where he calmed the kingdom that afternoon."

The crosshatched lines limned a portrait of Eugene standing on a lectern before a crowd. Contrary to his audience, his face had been painted with watercolors. The goatee she remembered was a thin beard feathering his jawline. Hair that was once short stopped at his shoulders. The quality of his skin, while leathery, looked unnaturally ageless, but those niceties weren't the troublemakers.

Elsa's lips bobbled off her fingers as they deserted her mouth, trickled down her throat, and closed into a fist against her bodice. The inked fibers inside Eugene's irises made his eyes favor sunbursts that bored into hers under the lids of a miserable man who had been subjected to his own degree of public humiliation. The accusatory grimace on that face condemned her while Minister Slåke's voice echoed down the hallway of her mind:

―"From where King Eugene limps, Her Majesty's sentimental letters have been part of one big sociopathic scheme to play on his broken heart and lure him into indentured servitude."

Fluid, hot and prickly, seeped up from the bottom of Elsa's eyeball and sleeved over her pupil, creating a glassy sheen. 

"Kai?" Minister Solheim called. "I'd like to show our pressmen as well."

The wooden easel used for oral presentations was transported from the back of the room to the front of the room.

"I don't want these drawings distributed to the public," Elsa fearfully whispered to her prime minister without locking eyes.

Minister Solheim clipped the artwork to its canvas. "If you look here, you'll see that this took place outside of the palace that night." He tapped the storyboard's second comic strip. It had violent, dark strokes scribbled over a black background with spiky circles that were either torches or lanterns held above the hats of faceless people. "The rebels were shouting, 'Get the fish eaters out! They're trying to take our country!' As they did this, other members went into the harbor disguised as Arendelle's officers. They then dumped the food sent by Her Majesty and sank the ships as a demonstration of their patriotism and...'rejection' of Queen Elsa.'"

"More evidence of Corona wasting our money and fidelity senselessly," Elsa's adviser mourned.

Elsa was stone. The white bulbs of her eye sockets, which were likened to cracked eggshells, did not look like they were seeing anything in the room except patriotic phantoms with their weapons raised against her. Kai dropped his hand on her shoulder to pull her neck against his stomach. Her body jolted at the unexpected warmth, but his presence lulled her eyelids to fall like blinds as her hand reached up to braid their fingers together.

"The king and ourselves rushed onto the scene with his cavalry a few hours before dawn, but that proved fatal. Our ship was already sinking when we got there. King Eugene..."

"...Was...he also―"

"To a point, Your Majesty," Minister Solheim tragically confirmed.

"..." She waited for him to recant his statement. When he did not, her next question was laced with a mucus-congested chuckle: "But I thought―"

"He wasn't attacked or harmed; that much is true, but he did lose consciousness after his horse fell. Although he wasn't awake when we left, Lord Constantine told us that he would be fine. Only we were barricaded and snatched off the dock by the rioters."

Mr. Bylund needled him again before she had time to be sick: "And, every single member was caught?"

"As far as we know. Though to make up for our losses, Lord Constantine offered us Thor and a sliver of their cavalry. They were meant to convoy the king to Arendelle, but he offered to lessen our royal navy's responsibilities. Captain Hitler even volunteered. His deputy and the rest of the cavalry remain with the king at his bedside."

Chapter Text

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"You may dream of independence, but you won't get it.
From now on, everyone will push and pull you for their own advantage.
Politicians, whatever their creed, always resent the monarchy."

― Queen Adelaide

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

The conference, in response to the queen's tottering condition, was dissolved at ten o'clock on the dot. Footprint scrubbers made it their business to lather up rumors instead of soap, and thus "castle talk" whirled behind the crocus-embossed doors of the treaty room in typhoons. From the maids poured sympathy for King Eugene―"That poor handsome man!"―but from the men frothed nasty tirades over his debatable disrespect of Queen Elsa. All chatter was washed away by a, "Hush up!" from Gerda when the royal physician came down the antechamber to knock on the study's doors. He was welcomed by Kai, who saw him in before seeing himself out.

Decorators bounced back to removing ribbons and wall flower arrangements as the royal overseer walked between them.

"I had so hoped for a wedding this spring," Gerda moaned upon joining him. "With all the letters in the past, I thought that perhaps, maybe...he'd be fonder of her."

The foyer's double doors were opened by the Pages of the Presence. Kai stepped outside, gripped the collars of his coat, put his nose in the air, and then confronted her with a different notion: "It would be of my greatest regret for there to have ever been one in the first place."

Dumbstruck, Gerda watched the doors close on his aloof face. She crestfallenly returned to the antechamber with a goblet of tea in possession, hoping to get more updates on the controversy by muscling into the office herself. Two knocks and a curtsy led to her admission, and then she was upon Elsa's company before she could say good day―

―"This has been going on for too long." The chants of a statsråd jackhammering away at Gerda's ears startled her out of her bonnet. "It took Corona's commissioners forever to shake on this after months of sass. When they finally act right, the king gives a line veto and asks for another intermission. Then chauvinists throw our people's taxes overboard and tar our men. What part of the union is affordable anymore? We should pull our navy out and cut back deliveries―"

"We can't leave Rapunzel's people to starve."

Gerda's big, blinking peepers pinpointed the female objector. She had expected―and hoped―to see her lolled back in a chair while the physician checked her pulse.

What she received was Elsa―if she could be recognized as that―watching her toes as she paced from window to wall with her elbows in her palms. Wisps of hair, which curled this way and that way in corkscrews, made the braid on her back look like one big knot of wool, and those kangaroo pouches under her eyes were still darker than coal. "If we abandon Corona now, there won't be a future for any of them."

"Kindness is expensive, Your Majesty," sorrowed her private secretary. "And sadly, you've pulled much kindness out of our banks by advising such."

The heels brushing against the bottom of Elsa's gown paused. Judging by the enormity of her eyes, she wanted to confute the point spoken behind her, but she had no point to confute it with. She hugged her sweaty arms, sank her tired gaze, and sulked in response.

"Oh, Your Ma-jes-ty," Gerda gnarled to herself behind the tiles of her teeth. Of all the childhood habits her old eyes could do without, this pessimism topped the list.

Elsa's statsråds encircled the prime minister to form their own little penguin flock. This geographic division between queen and council was a perfect spoof of the separation of powers in these matters.

"Corona is a watering hole of goods that has not been properly tapped into by its primitive government," mumbled Baldor Håakonsson―a too young prime minister who was no handsomer than a viking. "There are many nest eggs to eke out."

"But those patriots, who inspired Slåke to lie, have made a revolution," puled Håvard, who administered the Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs. "If the press publish their protest, people in Arendelle will react with their own patriotism. And what of the wedding? The ceremony is abreast; invitations were sent in February―"

"We take the boomerang," ended Baldor. "A proxy marriage cannot be done, but if we must push it back for the king's recovery, we will. We can't break it because he couldn't control delinquents, a fall, or Slåke's mouth. We have invested and will earn too much."

Håvard's nervous system was inconsolable. "Do you think our guests will be blasé about their travel expenses? Foreigners are docking as we sit. Change was already in practice. The bishops expect a wedding in a few days. We've boarded a sinking ship―"

"Because not a single one of you apart from Baldor listened to what I told you from the beginning." Elsa gave the council her front.

Although she had the queen's rear, Gerda could still tell that she meant business. As for the statsråds, not a man of them moved, but each beheld Elsa like a guilty juvenile being chewed out by their principal.

"You were all too confident about Corona's dependency on Arendelle to even consider a retaliation against the nonsense in that treaty agreement." Fitful and irate, Elsa doubled back to the rug she had trampled. Her forehead was indentured by a rather unpretty depression. "The Storting chose to plan ahead before a contract was signed and assumed Eugene would just fall in line because he was 'desperate.'" Elsa clutched her elbows tighter, bringing her shoulders closer to her ears. "I warned everyone that he wouldn't stand for this."

Elsa's diatribe made Gerda feel like a fearsome revolt overhung them. She slunk behind the candleholders of the vestibule as the skittish physician finally migrated across the room.

"I advised you to use your reserve powers in private because I agreed with you," Baldor reminded, "but we cannot dissuade or fight the Storting's majority vote. To battle it because of your own partiality would involve a breach of your coronation oath." 

"The king's disrespect of his parliament is a tiny example of what happens," her secretary pitied. "The Storting won't tolerate such a personality when he marries Your Majesty. You must teach him discipline."

Elsa's shoulders dropped as she looked up at the chandelier with wet eyes. The sigh she emitted sounded like a growl in the belly of her throat. 

Håvard smiled prudently at Elsa's nape. "And don't forget that these early schedules were requested by the People's Council anyway, Your Majesty." 

She finally turned around. "That doesn't make agreeing to them reasonable, Håvard." Lowering herself with a wobbliness that indicated how much it hurt to bend her arms, Elsa inched down into her chair and sat back with a wince after being walked to it by her physician. "Expecting everything to go according to plan just because one parliament said it would is why we're in the situation we're in."

"Then it's his parliament's fault, too," Håvard timidly carped. "Our kingdoms grew closer after the Southern Isles had invaded Corona. Neither foresaw this tension. Both entered betrothal with blissful ignorance, hope, and dreams of happily ever after."

Elsa looked up at him.

"Was it short-sighted? Yes, but our surety came from refusal not being a choice for Corona. That was what the king and his parliament said. If we couldn't meet each other's terms, they promised that we'd keep at it until we did. Your wedding date and the treaty were settled by his parliament's delegation with expectations the king evidently did not meet."

"You're missing the point," Elsa croaked while her pulse was being squeezed by the physician. "Regardless of whatever it was the People's Council said or did, we have to take responsibility for our part in this mess by meeting Eugene halfway. Unlike the Storting, the People's Council can't override the sovereign's veto." She groped her desk for the crocus handles of her drawers. "First and foremost, the cargo that was destroyed will have to be replaced, but we can't afford to send in more men or fleets." She looked for her dossiers, only reclining to dab her slick temple with her wrist.

"Our battalion in Corona is fine," averred Baldor. "The Southern Isles and its scanty army won't be sneaking ashore. They know Corona plans to enter into union with Arendelle after the wedding."

Elsa stilled. "...That's right." Her eyes drifted over the top of the folders until she was gawking at the void.

"Something of consequence?" Baldor asked. 

The sweat on her nostrils gleamed like grease on a frying pan. "The weapons Morgenstierne mentioned..." She closed her eyes, trying to shake her head out of its stupor. "I didn't want to say it in front of the press because there could be other factors I'm missing, but Coronan arms have never used or imported guns. Matchlocks and calivers are the property of the Southern Isles." Her face somatized a palpable sense of biting back embitterment and desperation as she swung it over to Baldor.

Baldor impugned her conjecture with, "Smugglers can't get past our security systems. The rebels could have picked them up after the invasion failed."

Elsa trickled into a silence possibly intended to express that she warehoused better theories, but she confiscated Baldor's and ranked them higher. Sighing, she stressfully covered her eyes with one hand and leaned her temple against her digit to ride out a migraine. "I have to write a letter to Lord Constantine and Eugene before noon," she moaned.

To Gerda, it was a weep.

"I'd advise you to rest before your body shuts down."

Elsa subtracted her finger from her dome to squint at the physician through spiderwebs of hair. Feeling that was her signal, Gerda hurried in. The closer she crept, the sooner she realized that Elsa was not only more tormented than she thought, but in dire need of medical attention. Her sclerae incubated little red tree branches that sprouted over her eyes, and her skin had more precipitation than a window on a rainy day.

"You've overworked your functions by not allowing them to rest," the physician diagnosed.

"I don't have a choice." 

"If you continue on in this nose-to-grindstone manner, you will have no body at all. It is my input that King Eugene has not excavated or drained you of anything except your own health."

Elsa swallowed his prescription, but her face was sour as she did it.

Kolgrim stepped up. "I'll have a letter written to Constantine." He patted his forehead with his handkerchief. "I will also have our battalion look into it."

Elsa sighed again. "Thank you." Having won the great victory over her pride, she turned her head to look at her armrest with the heavy eyes of a sedated patient. "If you could also help me inform the Storting about a possible departure, I'd appreciate that as well."

"That's not recommendable."

She raised her head to scowl at Baldor. "After everything that's happened, you still want to hold me hostage?"

"In the event that there is famine and disease in another country, the Storting may shelter you as a precautionary measure because of the way your powers react to the latter," he justified. "That was not holding you hostage. Ambassadors and doctors were removed from the travel ban after Corona's capital became safer, but the removal of yourself was scheduled for your honeymoon. Now that we don't know when that will be, it'll be burdensome on the Storting to meet over the Union with Corona Act, the Embargo Act, and other civic bills for an undetermined three or less weeks should King Eugene still be in recovery."

Elsa repealed this respectfully: "I understand that you and the Storting have reservations, but the position we're in as a result of those reservations is already burdensome. We all have to work tiresomely to correct it. I don't know what will happen in the next few days, but I want to prepare for the best and the worst." 

"But it wouldn't be smart to go in a generation like this, my dear," Håvard cautioned. "There are Coronans like the rebels from the Brotherhood who..." He turned to Baldor for help. "What was it that was said about Corona's theology?"

"'Any drop that falls from the sun falls from Heaven itself, and any bearer of the drop becomes the sun himself,'" Baldor paraphrased.

"That's exactly it," yawped the nervous Nellie that was Håvard. "'Conjurers' who do not bear the drop are seen as black magic practitioners to many citizens, and Coronan extremists hang whoever they think are evil witches."

"Corona's bishop thinks differently," Baldor offered. "He believes that Her Majesty's gifts come from the clouds due to her ability to restore life." 

"Yes, but not all think as he does due to the Testaments of Eld. Some who want you to be their queen know they have no other savior. Others are grateful for you but don't accept you unconditionally. Unless we can be sure that the entire Brotherhood is detained, your welcoming party could be an assassination attempt."

Elsa did not look rattled more than she looked harassed by her councillors for parroting psalms she had already memorized, but it was obvious that she was holding her breath to perpetuate the mask of queenliness. "I have to face Rapunzel's people, Håvard," she gravely whispered. Her own ambivalence was hearable. "I can't keep avoiding a kingdom that will be under my crown. As I told Slåke about Eugene, whatever perceptions they have of me can be worked on. I'm committed to working very hard to change them in the name of peace. It's not just my powers that bother them; they've also misunderstood my intentions, and the Brotherhood is an important part of that audience."

Feeling that the discussion had fallen away for good, Gerda bulleted across the room and bent over Elsa's shoulder to present her cold tea. "Here you are, Your Majesty." 

Her tremulant hands received it with a slow, confused look before she blinked up at her server. She rewarded Gerda with the type of smile people made when their day had been so awful that they couldn't do anything but smile because working up the energy to cry or scream was no longer an option. "Thank you."

"No thanks necessary, Your Majesty," Gerda silenced humbly. "Would you like these old bones to shake Princess Anna awake, too? That child won't be coming to until twelve if she's left to her own hours."

"She can sleep. I don't want to trouble her with this right now..."

"Your Majesty."

Heads turned to the melancholic figure standing in the vestibule.

"The captain is crossing the courtyard now," Kai informed. 

Elsa, though still out of kilter, nodded. The councillors, the physician, and Gerda bowed to her two by two before leaving. To Gerda's wonder, Baldor stayed behind. She rounded back to pop her eye into the break of sunlight spilling out of the door's crack. Elsa was facing an uncurtained window; the chubby bugle of her cheek, the curled whiskers of her eyelashes, and the pink snout of her nose were all Gerda could see of her face, but even from this angle, Elsa embodied a tragic empress watching her empire turn into powder in the sunrise.

Gerda thought it unusual, however. In a situation as horrible as this, she pictured Elsa at her desk with her arms curled around her head as she shook, sighed, and hiccuped on shuddering sobs all alone. 

"...Is it wrong that I believed him when he said Eugene persecuted me?" Elsa's cheek moved to the mumble. "I don't...want to, but I'm...h-having a hard time..."

"You should rest, Elsa," Baldor suggested from some undiscoverable corner of the room. The intimacy in his murmur was the most improper thing Gerda had ever heard. "I'll talk to the captain. Don't worry yourself with Coronans or thoughts about what story the press will print."

"And exactly how am I supposed to rest in this situation? I have to fix what I broke."

"You couldn't've done what Eugene did to prevent this. His choice was just, but unlawful. We have our own law that requires you to sign a vetoed bill if the Storting votes in favor of it."

"I know that. My coronation oath was designed to ensure that Parliament could function without my interference in treaties of union, but I didn't expect his delegation to sign the treaty agreement. I didn't know where his or Corona's mindset was anymore after that...or even before that. He wouldn't respond to any of the letters I'd sent him. Now he's lying in bed without me or Anna by his side because of a violation I signed. And..."―sigh―"those drawings of him..." Here her tearful voice gave way to breathless blubbers. She gripped the sides of her arms again and shrank into her own body. "I can't just stand here and do nothing―"

"We don't know how factual they are," Baldor soothed, "and what you cannot do is keep living in fear for Rapunzel's family. Whatever you thought then, you had to respect your constitution first, and whatever you think now, you still must do so. To reconcile with the Corona of today, you'll have to make it fall in love with you as you said, but before that, the king."

"What...?" Elsa fired a frown over his shoulder. Because it inadvertently flew into Gerda's direction, the maid scurried away from the door and flattened her back against it with her fingers under her teeth.

"Widowed men are swayable," Baldor elaborated. "Beauty and kindness go a long way. Countries less so, but you're no stranger to that."

"...Do you have any idea how heartless you sound? I'm not going to take advantage of my own cousin's widower, Baldor."

"I wouldn't dare call your letters to Eugene conniving or flirtatious, but I know why Slake's words have affected you, and I don't judge you for it because I was your adviser on your exchanges."

'What's he saying?' Gerda shoved her nose into the crevice―

"AHEM." A padded finger tapped her shoulder.

She rocketed into the air with her feet pedaling like a roadrunner's. When she earthed, Gerda clutched her apron and whipped around to her tapper.

"In Corona, eavesdropping is considered treasonous, but it seems you've overheard something that would be of value."   

Chapter Text

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"The most dangerous people in the world
are not the tiny minority instigating evil acts,
but those who do the acts for them."

― Suzy Kassem

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻

"P...P-P-Pardon?"

"Is this not the case?"

"No, Captain! Not the case at all! It's just weather gabble, really! Nothing of value―"

"It must be if you're putting your profession and your life on the line," barked the sunburned foreigner barring her way. Compared to this morning, he was unhelmeted and clean, but his gravelly voice, which was fixed in the baritone of a general saddled for war when there were no soldiers, lent him an unapologetically permanent meanness.

"You misunderstand this scenario entirely! I'm...well, ehm...ahhh..."

The piglet was becoming mumbly and stupid as she sounded out vowels instead of words. He gripped the pommel handle of his scabbard to abate his anger and then asked as patiently as his temperament would permit, "May I see Her Majesty as scheduled, please?"

She grinned. "Yes, I-I'll...let Her Majesty know that you're here." Her chunky hands pushed the study's door so that the other two-hundred pounds of her could toddle in.

He dried the gleaming seeds of sweat in his mustache on his sleeve before snorting.

"I never did what you advised me to," Captain Hitler could hear the queen bristling. The wooden barrier between his ear and her cry made her sound like she was talking underwater.

"You did not embrace it, but you allowed it to trickle into your letters discursively," a man gently said. "Before either of you spoke of union, you pined after what the marriage would grant you as much as I."

Running his eyes all over the oak door in alarm, the captain pressed his shoulder against it and bent his head down to the airy gap.

"All politics and kingdoms aside, I wanted him for you, so I don't judge you; I judge myself. I thought he'd make an eligible husband who'd treat you with kindness and acceptance because of what he told you after your first betrothal failed. You must have thought it then, too."

"Baldor, I don't even know what you're on about."

"The letter that he wrote on September 12th in 1848. Do you still have it?" 

A drawer yawned. Papers rustled.

"Idolization is objectification, and it's a lot lonelier to be the object of someone's affection over a real, whole person meeting them on their level. I never wanted Rapunzel to feel like I defined her by her hair, powers, or tiara for that reason; she doesn't need magic or tiaras to make her special. It takes the 'human' part away, or more importantly, the 'Rapunzel' part.

Although I hate to say it, I think you had to experience a so-called 'love' like Aloysius's to get a sample of that cheap brand. The next time someone comes along who isn't interested in you because of your powers, your crown, or their definition of 'perfection,' you'll know that he's the better option because he won't be treating you like the only thing you're made out of is magic. To that guy, you'll also have cells, organs, and blood running through your veins. You'll just be 'Elsa.'"

"...I...had many thoughts, during that time, but I didn't want―"

"Your Majesty!" The train of drivel jackknifed and turtled once the maid had finally crashed it. "I know this is not my place, but Captain Hitler is here to see you."

There was a choked up pause, and then a stomping thud-thud-thud-thud. The captain hopped back from the entrance as the door swung open. A blonde man stood staring at him. He bowed to the executive out of respect, who did not nod in requital, before stepping aside to let him through.

"...Arendellian pissant." Captain Hitler looked over his shoulder to snarl at the man's back. 'They all suffer from coldness and arrogance. I'd rather accept death than marry into their kind as a people.'

"Captain?" the maid cheeped like a sparrow.

After hocking up a loogie and spitting it onto the rug, he released the hilt of his scabbard to step inside the treaty room civilly. At the stomach of the vestibule waited the notorious sorceress of Arendelle, Queen Elsa. Sunlight bled in through her silk drapes, illuminating the dust that orbited her in schools of white. Her gown sparkled rather beautifully from where she stood.

He noticed the leg announcing its presence from the gash in her skirt, and dared to think without any abashment himself, 'That Rider would've had a field day flirting with her.' 

Her bold gown, vampire makeup, and Gothic hairstyle were against Coronan customs, but they were perfect for Rider's heart. Among more noble men of the civilized world, maidens and princesses alike were not allowed to show one shin in public, yet here this pythoness was, flashing her own rules. The dress was obviously tailored to parade her lack of subjection to patriarchy. Such glimmering beauty was so hypnotic that the awe it crippled him with offended him.

"I bid you welcome, Captain Hitler," she said kindly.

He shivered at the vibration of her wise voice echoing all around him. "I am...honored to be granted audience, Your Majesty." He bowed.

On her face curled a smile of modest character. "I apologize for my appearance..." She pressed on her fingertips. "But I wanted to thank you for making sure my commissioners got home safely. I don't know what would've happened to them had you not been there when the rebels rioted."

Such a groveling little bird. The twinkling swan even looked down at her hands as to appear humble and angelic. Her mansuetude didn't fool him, though. There was no doubt in his head that it was in her monstrous nature to seduce politicians in an effort to maintain popularity.

"As my future queen, any man of Her Majesty's is a man of mine." He closed in on her with lingering steps, searching the blue wells of her eyes. 

The eyelashes that wreathed them began beating faster than dragonfly wings. "That's ― too kind of you, Captain," thanked the pythoness, all the while upholding her cautious smile as she challenged his piercing stare with the scimitar in her own. "But if it isn't too much trouble, I wanted to ask you for your help myself."

Visibly closed off and befuddled, she seemed unwilling to drop her mask in his eyes. Had she shed the pretty thing and exposed her fangs, it would've given him a reason to prosecute her for being the witch she was. 

The captain stopped a foot away. "I am willing to service Her Majesty in every way that I can."

"I'm happy to hear that." She picked up his rotulus and handed it to him with a frown. "Because I was having trouble with your delivery."

He disappointedly took it from her.

She crossed her arms afterwards and brushed her elbow with her hand. "It doesn't seem to like me very much."

"I doubt such would be the matter here." The captain pressed the capsule's top, and out flew the rotulus from the bottom.

"Oof!" The conjurer squatted down and juggled it between both palms before finally trapping it. Elsa shoved a curl behind her ear and unbended her knees to hold the object to her eye level. "Thank you," she huffed. "I've been fumbling with it since this morning."

"It is my pleasure," he lied while she studied it from the sidelines. The captain saw that her eyelids were satisfyingly droopy.

She could not, even then, feel the heat from his gaze burning her cheek like a flame against a candle because his formal exterior kept his feelings cooled and obscured.

He lifted a finger to the curl bulging from her braid and turned the edge of his nail against it, feeling the silkiness of the cuticle. Frost pearled the angel blonde strand. 'Such beautiful evil...' His other hand reached for his scabbard to slowly unsheathe his flashing dagger little by little. The captain's trembling fingers hung in suspension when she rotated and walked away with her eyes still on the rotulus.

"Is there any information that you can disclose to me about the Brotherhood, Captain?" Her hand followed the path of the table's edge as she walked around the desk, taking her diamante cloak with her.

His lungs collapsed. "...Only―...as m―much as I'm sure you've been...told, Your Majesty."

She placed the rotulus in her drawer, noticeably refusing to read it in front of him. "I'm afraid I haven't been told nearly enough." 

This put him on the spot. "To our...knowledge, Your Majesty, Corona's famine has given birth to two surviving rebel groups."

She sat down and braided her fingers, squinting.

"One is the People's Liberation Party, which supports the union. The other is the patriotic organization for 'saving the country's independence,' which is the Brotherhood. To distinguish themselves from the former, the latter has branded their fellowship with symbols of Corona's sun, making their followers easy for my men to find. Every member appeared for the protest that prevented the king and your commissioners from boarding their ships, so they were all arrested."

"...I see," she said. Something about that intelligent face, however, made him wary of her. It was the face of a woman who was hiding her true thoughts, and no good came from a woman who hid herself. "Can you give me an estimation of how many members were involved?"

"I am inclined to say a hundred."

The count blanched the sorceress's cheeks of their rosiness. "A hundred?"

"I'm afraid so. That is why King Eugene and our forces were overwhelmed in the beginning. When I left with your commissioners, your men were trying to repair the damage that was done to the land and our people's composure. The king had suffered a critical fall himself. It takes a week or so to fully recover from one of those goblins after consciousness has been restored. Boarding a ship and engaging in festive activities will be hard for him until he has healed."

Her bobbing mouth had a hard time closing. She swallowed the brimstone on her taste buds and nodded blindly. Poor wench; she would suffer an irrecoverable loss of money and guests because of such a last minute cancellation. "And, what about..."

He read the name that was on her face. "...We don't see her. Only he does, because she stays locked in her room."

The wings of her eyebrows snapped into a scowl. He could even make out a lattice of bunny lines on the crown of her nose. "And why is that?"

"That is something you will have to ask His Majesty the King." How he hated calling a thief his king. 

She leaned back against her chair, annoyed and dejected. "Then what of his veto? Surely he wrote a letter to the Storting about the line items he wanted to change."

"I was not asked to deliver it. Political paranoia and distrust of the seas without a decent number of Arendellian fleets to follow us, perhaps."

She was having trouble battening down her sangfroid now. "Please tell me how long the Brotherhood has been active in Corona, Captain Hitler." 

"Since the union was proposed, Your Majesty." 

"But I'm just hearing about it now?"

"I cannot speak on behalf of my superiors."

Elsa grew angrier than she had the energy to be. "Have they indulged in violent activities since the union?"

"I believe not." 

Sighing, she perched her elbow on the table to hold her forehead and wearily look up at him from the awning created by her palm. "Then I have just one more question for you, Captain, and then we can move on."

"I will answer as honestly as I can." 

She docked her hands on the desk and frowned at him with unshed tears shining in her eyes. "How has King Eugene been throughout the famine in the eyes of his captain? I'd like to hear the answer from someone who has no reason to make light of it."

"Her Majesty hasn't kept in contact with the king?"

 "Not for a year." She looked down at her knuckles wistfully. "I told my council that he hasn't spoken to me in over five months because I didn't want them to think any worse of his character than they already did. This new rumor about his disdain for me hasn't helped."

"I do not turn my ear toward hallway chatter, but I will say that King Eugene has kept his household in as decent of health as our misfortunes have room for. His body has not degenerated; he puts it to use with the crops and by chasing shy maidens, though his trust in the monarchy, as well as his allies, has thinned greatly."

Her eyes were squeezed shut. "...I'm, sorry," she tittered, shaking her head. The blue chemical fire ringing her orbs scared him a bit when she unlidded them. "You said he chases maidens?" 

"Staying in the company of beautiful women is...a coping mechanism for the king. There are even some who claim to carry the next line for the throne."

Her jaw tightened. She didn't look like she was with him in the room anymore. The thief's one last confidante on the continent was trying to decide whether or not she believed him, and she couldn't seem to isolate herself from the fact that she possibly could. "...You've given me more information about the king than I expected to receive, Captain..."

"I knew him before he became a prince, Your Majesty," he finally leaked. "No man in Corona knows King 'Eugene' better than I. I am open to answering any questions you have about him."

She was rubbing her hands incessantly. "Thank you, Captain Hitler. Your candidness speaks volumes, but perhaps another time would be better for both of us. Right now, I'd like to visit your men."

He had broken her faith. "They would be honored."

The captain was asked to wait on her in the courtyard. From there, he was convoyed to a coach by her infantrymen. In it he climbed, and fifteen minutes after him, she came. Her eyes were swollen from having to grind over the words on the rotulus in private, and what depressing words they were; he remembered every cursive letter without failure. The queen joined him by sitting on the opposite side of the carriage like a refined madam in a painting, determined to convey this silly image of invincibility.

'Just break down already.'

They wagoned through the fish markets with little talk of life in Arendelle, prompting him to stare at her as their bodies swayed to the bumpy motion in silence. The window preoccupied her somber thoughts, but from time to time, she would look at him and crack a smile under the drops of sweat that mustached her face. To stab her now would be impracticable, for she'd kill him with ease. When her coach horses pulled up to the infirmary, her rickety legs made it unimaginable for her to dismount with dignity, so her foot guard offered his assistance. The doors were quickly opened for their company by the building's sentries.

Flocks of old women in skauts ambulated about the institution like sheep. Once they saw the queen standing in the vestibule, all clamoring ceased, and their dresses opened like umbrellas as they dropped into curtsies. The queen acknowledged each commoner with the courtesy of a niece greeting aunts at a family reunion before paying her respects to the Brotherhood's piñatas. His phalanx of unsmiling comrades were by no means as injured as they were drained; hers, however, wore burn marks and cuts that needed the disinfectants Corona couldn't supply. Only one man had it particularly bad, but he became a volunteer for something breathtaking. 

The queen, despite being weak herself, sat by his bedside. She placed a hand on his stomach and asked for his permission to perform an operation. The patient told her that it would be an honor. Captain Hitler then saw a blue light glow under her palm. The vein in the man's throat went as taut as a violin string as he tilted his head back into the pillow and curled his toes.

After twenty minutes, she removed the palm from his belly, and the glowing blue handprint evaporated. The man shed the gauze from his body, awed at whatever it was he saw, and then kissed her hands and sang praises as she shyly begged him not to. The ring of nurses laughed and beamed about this open display of witchcraft. 

The captain stalked the conjurer all the way to another man's bedside to see what this was all about. "What was it that you did to him?" 

She twisted her head around, looking him up and down with a grimace, before slowly redirecting a soft smile to a sleeping man whose brow she sponged. "I used a cryotherapeutic spell to close his lesion, Captain." 

He was floored. "Your conjury?" 

"My gift," she corrected sternly.

He refrained from forcing her to explain the meaning of "cryotherapeutic" in order to pick up the fragments of his own reserve. His interpretation of the queen's malison, which was consistent with half of Corona's, had been synonymous with doomsday. It was conjury that could kill, wipe out, and eclipse the earth as well as the sun, not heal. Anything pure and sacred should not be able to kill, so never had he considered the compossibility of that same magic having the power to mimic the Golden Flower in such a way. It must have been a trick, he settled; by sundown, the man's lesion would probably return after her spell of illusion had worn off.

"Once you're all well-nourished, I'll have you returned to Corona on Vör; she's a good ship who's served me well over the years," he overheard her telling his infantry. 

They showed gratitude―perhaps even infatuation―but the captain knew they were pretending. There was no way in Heaven that his men could be fooled by such sickly-sweet gimmicks from a witch. Gothel had played those same cards on the cavalry in his youth.

"Were you not ready to die for your country's independence, Captain?" a man said behind his shoulder.  

He didn't have cause to look back; the way the man's plummy voice smiled revealed his identity. 

"He won't be happy," his interlocutor chuckled, contradicting the content in their conversation. 

The captain glanced at the sun ray tattooed on one of the man's clavicles before looking at the profile of Elsa's smiling face. "He'll come to terms with it after today, for I'm a dead man regardless." 

Chapter Text

༺ ❄ ༻ 

"Impatient and restless, but simultaneously exhausted and fragile.
The challenge lies in knowing how to bring this sort of day to a close."

― Alain de Botton

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

Chapter Text

♕.♕

“When people believe that the local government and economy serve their needs, 
there is little to protest.”

― Auliq Ice

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

Chapter Text

♕.♕

“The danger is that in this move toward new horizons and far directions,
that I may lose what I have now, and not find anything except loneliness.”

― Sylvia Plath

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻   

Chapter Text

♕.♕

“Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to preserve such a friendship
that no doubt requires the assistance of a slight physical antipathy [on his part]."

― Friedrich Nietzsche

 ༺[❄]༻♕༺[☀]༻    

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"Wait." Eugene squeezed Elsa's fingers with more strength than she was prepared for.

Wide eyes swam back to his face, seeing the shadow of seriousness come over it. 

"The letters you wrote," he whimpered with mucus in his voice, deaf to everything except his fear of drowning.

Elsa held her breath.

"All those letters you wrote…th-they…" He placed her hand in his palm to caress it with both of his. A tear fell between their fingers like a sun-drop falling from the sky of his eyes. "They helped me stay alive."

Elsa stared at him, echoing the words in her mind. His gaze was like a sunset: warm and fading away from her with every second of silence that deepened her speechlessness. The queen rowed her heart away from politics and into the sea of emotions rolling between them by making space for his loneliness. She leaned closer until she was holding the side of his head to look inside of him. The compassion in her gaze opened the door to his soul. 

Mucus that had been building in Eugene's chest gushed from his nose as he smiled at her shining eyes. His smile held more guilt than relief, as if he was forcing his voice to stay in the back of his throat. She gave him a smile of her own, holding only warmth in hers. Tears rained down his face. The cool fingers on his temple lowered to his cheek. 

Eugene's shoulders bounced as soft sobs spilled from his mouth. "I'm sorry..."

Moved to tears, Elsa wrapped her arms around him and let him tuck his leaking nose into the curve of her neck. His large body enveloped hers with every pound of muscle that it contained. The little boy rippling underneath was tangible to her. Eugene Fitzherbert sobbed harder to let that boy out. Her body felt all of him—all of him shuddering and softening and revealing his wordless secrets to her—like the hug had just allowed him to breathe, to be. 

"Stay," Elsa said firmly with eyes closed, referring to the openness of his heart. "Stay right here." Her palms pressed against the backs of his shoulders to bring more weight to her command. "Don't go anywhere else," she murmured. 

The coronet on his head found a home on her cloak. They remained there, Elsa on her haunches and Eugene in his chair, with their silhouettes entangled beneath an awning of ice and wisteria. Elsa's dress sparkled like stars in the dark as Eugene melted against her. The trembling in his arms was reciprocated by the tightening of her embrace. She opened her eyes very slowly as his body temperature bled through her skin; what at first felt warm like oatmeal became hotter than July. 

After two minutes, Elsa said, “I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened, Eugene.” Her chin moved against the fabric shirting his shoulder as she spoke. She pulled back, separating her wet neck from his shiny face. “When I first saw the Union with Corona Act, I refused it.” Elsa removed the embroidered napkin from their table to dry every inch of his countenance like a mother preening her child, even going so far as to hold his chin to complete her mission. “Then the Storting—“

Eugene touched her hand before it could continue its journey. “Elsa…” The fingers he held were uncurled by his own. 

Elsa watched their fingers form a dovetail.  

Eugene's other hand engulfed the one he was holding, allowing him to cradle it as though it was a precious jewel. “You can’t be the world for everyone in it,” he huskily admitted. The intensity in his eyes was beyond all the ugliness he had thrown her way. "I've tried." 

A lopsided smile appeared on Elsa’s face before fading. She looked down, shaking her head until she was ready to look inside of him again. Tears warmed her eyes as she did. “I made a promise to Rapunzel to take care of you.” 

Eugene’s hard swallow was his response to her words.

Elsa swept his fringe out of his eyes before making a home for his cheek with her hand. “And that’s exactly what I plan on doing.” 

The smile that Eugene made this time was gentle and genuine. He squeezed the fingers cupping his tear-stained face. Suddenly, leaves rustled in the distance. Elsa rose to her feet while Eugene stood up with his arm blocking the impending danger from her body. 

“What're you doing?” Elsa hissed. She touched his elbow, feeling him lower it once he understood who their enemies were. “It’s only Sigurd and Randolph.” 

“Please forgive us for the intrusion, Your Majesty.” Their twin servers stepped onto the patio with two of the kindest smiles Elsa had ever seen. “Her Majesty wished to treat you to the best of Arendelle tonight.” In their hands steamed lemon-roasted root vegetables, lamb, cabbage, and boiled potatoes all piled on top of two filigreed plates. 

“Ah ha...” Eugene put his arm down, unaware of Elsa’s momentary—if not unbidden—smile. “My...apologies, gentlemen. I just thought I…” He scanned the bushes and trees standing behind the twins. 

"Saw something you didn't," Elsa finished. 

Eugene's silence said that he wasn't sure if he agreed with her explanation. Then two squirrels jumped out of a tree and into a bush, extinguishing his inner fire. He sighed from the shoulders while an amused Elsa shook her head.

Eugene’s face asked her, “And what’re you sniggling at, little missy?”

Elsa was bold enough to keep smirking.  

The twins placed Arendelle’s national dish on the dining table, breaking the silent communication between Elsa and Eugene. Both brothers beamed at Eugene in a way that seemed to touch his heart. “We sincerely hope that you enjoy it, Your Majesty.”

"Thank you," Eugene sincerely told them. 

They reciprocated his kindness by saying, "You're most welcome, Your Majesty."

Eugene continued to smile warmly at them. 

"Sit," Elsa insisted, careful not to order him to do so. “Before it gets cold.” 

Eugene cleared his throat, glancing at her awkwardly. “Right. Of course.” 

The servers pulled out their chairs. Elsa and Eugene took their seats on opposite ends of the candlelit table, both giving each other two very different looks. Once seated, they scooted their chairs forward simultaneously. The king flattened the buffet napkin in his lap while the queen julienned his meat for him. 

“Try the carrots before you try the Fårikål,” Elsa encouraged. 

Eugene's ears almost wiggled at the sound of her offer. “Carrots?” 

Elsa forced out a smile. “I had them roasted because I was told they were a favorite of yours. Try one.” 

Eugene popped a glazed carrot into his mouth. “Mm!" He blinked and exhaled through his nostrils, letting his eyes roll back into his head. "Mmm, this is stu-pen-dous." He held his napkin up to his mouth. "Who made this terrific entrée?”

“Ødger made it.” 

“My compliments to the chef." 

The smile Elsa had been wearing for him began to melt away as she combed through the cod in her salad. She didn't have the heart to say what she needed to say because he seemed so at ease. She could even tell by his posture that he dreaded ruining his small heaven. A paradise was what she had tried to give him by decorating the garden, but paradise could only last for so long.

Elsa laid her salad fork down. Eugene slowly met her rising gaze, possibly knowing that she had something to say. She looked down and away, at war with herself on the inside.

 “You should eat something first," Eugene softly recommended, "before it gets cold." 

His perceptiveness wasn't what Elsa had expected. Although she was reluctant to fulfill his decree, she took a small bite of what was in front of her and sighed through her teeth. The taste of fish took a heavy weight off her bones by grounding her anxious spirit in her body. She opened her eyes to Eugene with a better head for the night's severity. 

"I...already know about the Brotherhood, Elsa,” Eugene said gravely. 

Elsa showed her shock. "How did you...?" 

“I found out about the mural tower before I left Corona," he included, misunderstanding the reason for her astonishment. 

Elsa's forehead was now full of hard lines. "And what about their connection to the Southern Isles?"

"My moles told me that no mention of the Southern Isles has ever been made, so it’s possible that they simply hoarded what was left behind from the invasion.” 

“For our sake, I hope that’s true." Elsa squeezed her fingertips. Her agitation was upon her again. 

"You alright?" Eugene questioned with more warmth than she ever thought she would hear from him. His hand sat across from hers on the table, inviting her to accept his support so that she wouldn't have to be alone with her thoughts. 

Elsa's hand twitched before forming a fist. She wondered whether her dive into the troubles of their new world would be insensitive to his vulnerable state, but what seemed kinder was to tell Eugene what she knew now instead of waiting for the sun to rise. "It's just that..."

He waited patiently for her. 

Elsa's fist relaxed into a loose curl due to the safety provided by his tender eyes. "It's just that evidently, one of your ministers is very keen on sharing your private conversations with journalists."

"What?" Eugene exhaled and spoke at the same time. 

Here, Elsa paused. Regret crept up her throat. She stopped talking to think carefully about what she would say next. "Journalist J. Abelard allegedly had a conversation with a member of the King's Council." 

Dread percolated through Eugene's voice as he asked, "What was it about?" 

"Statements you had made in regards to the union. It was revealed during a public conference for Arendelle." 

Surprise didn't reach his eyes, but he continued to look at her with the expression of a kicked dog. The thorn from the previous hour was sticking her in her side. Eugene's eyes shrank into slits as he squinted at her. She could tell by the way he was trying to read her that he was more concerned about her feelings than his own. Elsa's hand made a fist again. 

Eugene's fingers curled into his palm as well. "Did he say who it was?" 

Elsa shook her head, now staring at their faraway hands. "Not a word on it." 

"And my captain? You mentioned something about him earlier." 

"Yes. I found him rather..." Elsa looked for the words. 

"Revolting?"

"Untrustworthy, like he was hiding something."

"Something as in?" 

"A very unkind nature."

Eugene's displeasure took shape on his face. "Did he make you uncomfortable?" 

"Occasionally...but I don't know how to put it into words." She didn't know why she was struggling to define him for Eugene. Her mouth was too dry to speak on all the things the captain had told her. 

Eugene wiped his entire face with the base of his palm, noticeably angry. "I'll take care of him," he solemnly promised. 

She nodded, scooping up more cilantro with her fork. The candles melted from the heat of the fire eating their wicks as Elsa and Eugene tried to dine. Conversation catered only to what was to be done about tomorrow's surprises. She had so much on her heart, but she kept suppressing what lay beneath it. Sitting formally across from Eugene, even after all the tears they had shared, made her lose her mettle.

There were questions she had about his encounter with the Brotherhood and several other subjects that had yet to be asked; there were confessions she harbored that had yet to be made. Elsa avoided all topics about Isolde's nursemaid in her hope that he would mention her on his own, but he never did. She called his name when the candles were close to dying. He answered her with his unbroken gaze. 

"Before I say anything else, may I...have a moment with Isolde tonight?" she finally asked, fighting the urge to beg. 

Eugene remained silent and distant. 

Elsa leaned forward, throwing away propriety. "Please. To see her, at least. I won't disturb her rest or do anything of the sort."  

"It's not that," Eugene began. His eyes were louder than her heart, but what they were saying to her was unclear. "There's something I have to tell you."

Elsa's fingernails dug into her palm. "I'm listening..."

"I managed to tell Anna tonight, but I haven't told you yet."

Elsa was growing afraid. "What is it?"

"My daughter...Isolde; she's..." 

Elsa's nose wrinkled. Eugene, who had withdrawn from speaking like a man who had just remembered himself, nudged his head in the direction of Arendelle Castle. She looked up, catching sight of the housekeepers watching them. They gasped and pushed each other deeper into the hallways of the castle, shushing one another as they left. Eugene had been right to lower his voice, but now the air around them had grown colder. 

"Take me to her," Elsa whispered. "Please." 

Eugene nodded. "I will."

Elsa stood up with one hand on her cartwheeling stomach. Eugene walked away from his seat and put on his gleaming coronet while she blew out their candles. 

Up the staircase the two went, Elsa holding a freshly lit candelabrum while Eugene walked behind her. The night was thick with darkness that seemed to deepen with every step they took despite the many candles guiding them.

"You've been hiding your daughter away," Elsa murmured without looking at Eugene. "Haven't you?" 

"You'll understand what's been happening after we talk," he answered without anger. 

Soft blue hues enveloped the hallway that led them to Eugene's bedchamber. He pulled down his door's lever little by little, suspending Elsa in time. 

Behind the opening door stood a blonde maid with a book in her hands. The girl locked eyes with Elsa before gasping and curtsying, cutting off the static between their confused glares. "Your Majesty!"

Elsa, who had forgotten that she couldn't fold her hands with a candelabrum in one, decided to nod once with a tense smile. The girl was all of twenty years or less, no older than a spring lily, and every bit of pretty. Captain Hitler's portrait of Eugene had not revealed anything beyond his penchant for gossip, but the validity of Olaf's statements did not seem impossible to her. How she felt about such statements was another convolution entirely; one thing for certain was that she hoped to be free of having a jealous nursemaid burning her photographs at night. 

"This is Gunnel," Eugene explained. "She's been Isolde's nursemaid for about a year now."

"Ah," Elsa said, having meant to say it in her head instead of to Gunnel's face. "Well, then..." Her tongue stopped moving as her shoulders raised with her inhale, adding to the suspense created by the empty mouth that smiled at the nursemaid. Elsa had lost track of her sentences faster than an old hound losing track of a fox. "I...hope that your journey wasn't too hard on you." 

"It was unique," Gunnel started, "but Arendelle Castle has been warm." 

Elsa didn't know whether she referred to the household or the castle's temperature, but she continued to smile at the young flower with strain.   

Eugene, while eying Elsa, took hold of the conversation to tell Gunnel, "Give us a moment." 

"Of course, Your Majesty." Gunnel picked up the hem of her dress. "It's time for me to retire for the night, anyway." She curtsied to Eugene and Elsa. "Goodnight, Your Majesties."

"Goodnight," Elsa said quickly in a nervous way, outpacing Eugene's similar remark. 

The two watched Gunnel retreat until she was out of eyeshot. Eugene gave Elsa one long look before holding the door open to his bedchamber and welcoming her inside with his outstretched arm. The nervous queen accepted his invitation. She had half a mind to ask Eugene about the informalities she had spotted during his exchange with Gunnel, but when she saw the sleeping tot on his bed, all of her thoughts went quiet. Elsa placed her candelabrum on Eugene's table to come closer to the sweet little thing before her. Chestnut hair that reached pink ankles nearly swallowed the rest of Princess Isolde's body as she slept like all the world around her was at peace. 

Elsa gasped when the chubby-armed child wiped her eyes and whined before huffing. Back into her dreams she drifted, never making another sound. 

“She’s gorgeous, Eugene," Elsa whispered with her hands pressed against her bursting heart. "The most beautiful little girl I've ever laid eyes on." Her eyelashes wore tears. "The fact that I even get to say that is..." Elsa allowed her breathlessness to overwhelm her. 

"Well...you'd be the first." Eugene was pressing on his palm anxiously.

Elsa empathized with his anxiety, but she was growing irritable. "Eugene, tell me what's wrong."

Eugene looked at her like a man who was being taken to the gallows. Gradually, he pulled back Isolde's blanket. The hands that touched Elsa's heart shook from the sight of the child's harelip. She covered her mouth to silence her gasp. 

Eugene slid onto his bed and rested a loving hand on his daughter's head as he raised his sad eyes to Elsa's. "This is what I was trying to tell you about." 

Elsa tried to slow her breathing. She held her elbows and shook her head tearfully, unable to wrap the latter around the poor work that had been performed on the child's face. "Who did this?" 

"Dr. Friedrich," Eugene supplied. "He did as good of a job as he could, considering the rarity of doctors like him."

More questions crowded Elsa's mind, but the only one that clawed to the surface in a fury was this: "Why on Earth didn't you ever say anything to me about this when we were writing to each other?" 

"I couldn't at the time," Eugene swore. "I was...too afraid of what would happen if I did." 

Elsa suddenly understood what he was trying to say. "Who threatened you over this?" Her palms were tingling from anger, but she did her best to calm the magic. 

"A coward by the name of, 'Leopold,'" Eugene revealed. "There was more fear-mongering than there were carefully coded threats, but...overall, I was afraid for her back then, and submitting to that fear was the biggest mistake of my life." The scowl he made was nasty and hateful because his true enemy seemed to be himself.

"What did he say to you?" Elsa's voice grew too loud for Eugene, causing him to hush her with one finger against his lips. 

"More than I can repeat right now," he half-whispered. 

Seeing that he didn't want to discuss the details in front of his sleeping child, Elsa moved on to another matter that disturbed her: "Eugene, exactly how have you been hiding all of this from the rest of your household?"

Eugene squeezed the skin between his thumb and his forefinger before reaching into his belongings and pulling out a face veil made from pink lace. "Only a few people, like Gunnel, know about her."

Sadness mixed with memories from her childhood seeped through Elsa's face as she uttered to herself, "You're concealing her..." 

"I can't get her away from them," Eugene disclosed with desperation. "Her last nursemaid gave them to her as a Zarian gift, but she'll fly into the most violent rage I've ever seen if I don't give them to her."

"You have to stop doing what you're doing right now."

Eugene was taken aback by the panic in her tone.  

"You have to stop enabling her," Elsa stressed. "You have to teach her to love herself for who she is―"

"Isolde isn't her face, Elsa," Eugene argued. 

"Then show her that," she clarified. "You're her father, and it's your job to instill self-confidence in her. You can't let her run away from life. Encourage her. Embolden her."

Eugene didn't fight her like she expected him to. He studied her face and then studied his daughter's. Elsa hesitantly closed her mouth to allow him to pore over her speech. 

"I've no intention of letting my daughter run away from everything life has to offer," he finally told her, "but she needs time to adjust to what this new one is giving her."  

For that, Elsa had no answer beyond sitting beside Eugene and searching his heavy eyes. He searched hers in return, looking for an answer to the question asked by his own. 

Elsa squinted sadly. She found the courage to place her hand on top of his and say with the softness of a palm caressing his cheek, "Allow me to help her through this." 

Eugene's body eased. He looked at her mouth before looking at his lap and sighing. Elsa kept her hand on his without demanding anything from him. The sheer magnitude of the depression he carried brought out her own, but there was an unwritten letter in his gaze when he had looked at her, something he had perhaps wanted to write in the past but never did. Elsa could feel all of the unwritten and lost letters filling the unspoken space between them. 

Eugene turned his head toward her without making eye contact. “...I’m terrified," he whispered to her knees. The way his voice had changed gave her a reason to believe that he was talking now of the new life that would change them all. 

“...As am I. I'm counting the minutes just as you are, Eugene.” Elsa opened her other hand to gesture to Isolde's sleeping body with her palm. “But this blessing helps.”

Eugene gazed at his daughter lovingly; Elsa watched that love fill him, which filled her in turn. 

"She has Rapunzel's face and your nose," she mentioned, saving what lightness she could. 

The tremors of a tearful smile flickered across Eugene's lips. "Teh..." He thumbed a tear out of his eye. "She does, doesn't she?" 

"Yes, she does." Elsa glanced at the bookcase behind them. "Wait just one moment." Her fingers left his knuckles to wrap around the body of a stuffed puffin sitting between "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Iliad." She handed the doll to Eugene, who blinked at it curiously. "His name is Sir Jorgenbjorgen. He's a great listener." The adult queen stroked her puffin's head. "Maybe Isolde can find a friend in him." 

Eugene looked like he was about to chuckle at the toy before the laughter on his face turned into a wholehearted smile. He gave the same smile to Elsa. "...Thank you. Truly." 

A smile of her own inched across her face like a breaking dawn. "You're more than welcome, Eugene." 

The smile he was giving her began to soften at the corners.

Her eyes moved from his smile to the grandfather clock's hands. "It's late," she shared.

Eugene blinked at her as she stood up to grab her candelabrum and smooth out the wrinkles in her dress.

"We should turn in for the night." She had more to say, but Eugene was visibly exhausted, and so was she. 

Eugene cleared his throat and patted his knees, rising to his feet.

Elsa paused to bend over Isolde's angelic form and whisper, "Goodnight, Sunflower." Her longing hand slipped off the mattress as she straightened her back. She didn't notice the expression Eugene was wearing as he stared at her. Besotted, she walked away from Isolde and into the moonlight. 

Eugene saw her to his door, stopping to hold it open for her with Sir Jorgenbjorgen still in his hand. 

Elsa faced him. "Goodnight, Eugene." Her small voice was as tender as his eyes, if only a little insecure. 

"...Goodnight," he replied. Elsa's candlelight captured the face of a king looking deep inside of her the way she had looked deep inside of him. 

She smiled one last time before seeing herself out. When the door clicked shut, she leaned her back against it to release a breath she had been holding. 

Anna would have an earful tonight.