As my toddler watches Frozen for about the 120th time, I present a fanfic sequel, tying up some of the loose ends… as with all fanfic, the characters are not my property…
Chapter 1
A tiny reindeer calf nudged its way through the market place, crossed the bridge and pushed through the crowd at the palace gate. The guards uncrossed their halberds to let it through, then crossed them again as the crowds surged forward.
As it emerged in the palace hallway, the reindeer munched a bunch of flowers that a lady at the gate would soon discover was now missing.
It clattered up the stairs, took a right along a red carpeted hallway and stopped at a door. A short snowman with a crooked carrot nose was bobbing up and down, attempting to peek through the keyhole.
“Did you find Elsa?” asked Olaf.
The reindeer shrugged.
“Oh, that’s ok, Bernd. I could really have used an icicle, they make great spy glasses. I guess it won’t be long now.”
He leaned forward to peek again, and nearly toppled over as the door swung open and Kristoff ran out.
“It’s twins!” he yelled, pushing his sweaty blond fringe out of his face. As Olaf tried to shove past him, Kristoff slammed the door and wiped his face and then high-fived a surprised Olaf so hard that his middle section separated and he dropped to pieces. As Olaf’s middle tried to catch his escaping legs, Kristoff caught up the reindeer calf in his arms for a hug. He was rewarded with a big slurpy lick on the cheek.
“She did it! We did it! I mean – woah.” His legs gave out and he slumped to the floor, leaning his head back against the blue and white painted door. “What am I going to do now?”
Bernd looked at him with tender concern.
“You’re going back into there to be a father,” it said, using Kristoff’s voice. (Everyone always thought that Kristoff was a poor ventriloquist talking to himself. They didn’t realise that his reindeers used him as a conduit for communication.)
“I know little buddy, I know. I wish I could have done more for your daddy. He was my best friend.”
The reindeer licked him again.”Don’t live in the past. You have to look after the Queen.”
“The Queen?” said Kristoff. “The Queen! I have to go tell her!”
He dashed away.
After a moment or two, Olaf tried the door handle, found it would open and slipped inside to visit the royal babies.
Chapter 2
“So, your Majesty, what I mean to say is…” The Prime Minister paused, and adjusted his collar.
Elsa had her elbow on the tabletop, gloved hand under her chin. Her other glove lay discarded on the floor. She flicked her flingers and little translucent, blue-white skaters appeared in a spray of snow flakes and skated about on the polished table surface. Eventually she noticed that the Prime Minister had stopped talking. “I’m sorry. I am listening, really.”
The little figures pirouetted. The female figure bent and, with a graceful swooping motion, lifted the male figure above her head.
“Your Majesty, this is most unorthodox.”
“I know,” sighed Elsa. “Of course you would expect the male dancer to be stronger and to perform the lift, but with my tiny dancers the skirts seem to lend the females added oomph.”
“Not your ‘tiny dancers’, your Majesty. This briefing.”
“We have to do it. I’m the Queen.”
“You are indeed, your Majesty. And I need not remind you that Arendelle is a representative democracy with you as the Head of State.”
“You didn’t need to, but you did it anyway.” Elsa pointed and the dancers executed a perfect figure of eight.
“Indeed. We kept the show on the road after your father’s death, until you came of age, and now we have reverted to his method of government. What I am suggesting, your Majesty, is that we might try something a little more in keeping with your modern approach to monarchy?”
Elsa looked the Prime Minister in the eye. She saw nothing but honesty radiating off the man. “Are you suggesting that you take control?”
“Only of the small, day-to-day matters, your Majesty. I would of course revert to you for big decisions, matters of state, that sort of thing…”
A tinkly whooshing blizzard like ten thousand tiny arrows cut across his words. The table top was now surrounded by a jagged ice perimeter wall and the tiny dancers were saved from plummeting to the carpet.
“Prime Minister,” said the Queen, “how long have you been working for the Duke of Weselton?”
“I don’t know what you mean, your – ”
Elsa stood. She reached forward and snapped off one point of the table’s ice wall. She turned the flat icicle over in her hands.
It was definitely not a dagger, thought the Prime Minister, and the Queen was not threatening him. And yet, something unspoken hung between them. This fragile-looking, wide-eyed woman could create weaponry from thin air.
This was not the only peculiar thing. The royal tailor was going crazy trying to discover the maker of the clothes and shoes that the Queen and the Princess Royal were now sporting. The Prime Minister had his suspicions. He remembered a pair of ice skates that appeared on his feet out of nowhere at the end of what was now only referred to as the Hansean Attempted Coup. But he couldn’t prove anything. That was what was most frustrating thing.
He bowed low. “With your permission, your Majesty, I shall retire-”
“Well that is good news, I didn’t expect you to agree so easily-” Elsa began, but the Prime Minister raised his hand and continued.
“Your Majesty, I shall retire to my offices and permit my aides to draw up a constitutional settlement to allow best use to be made of Arendelle’s assets, which of course includes the person of your Majesty.”
“My – my person?” said Elsa, uncertainly.
“Yes, your Majesty. As an unmarried monarch without issue, you are of course an asset of the State of Arendelle. It may be that it is imperative that you marry.”
His exit wasn’t exactly undignified haste, but if he had tried to leave any faster, he wouldn’t have had time to get the door open.
Elsa gathered herself up to her full height, prepared to deliver the perfect retort, but sagged realising the moment had gone. “I should’ve just frozen the lock shut,” she muttered.
The door was flung open, and there was her brother in law, Duke Kristoff of the North Mountain. He hadn’t wanted the title and didn’t like it, but protocol demanded that the Princess should marry a man with a title and Royal Ice Master and Deliverer didn’t cut it. She smiled to herself. Cut it. Ice.
“What’s happened to Anna?” One look at Kristoff’s red cheeks and generally panicked demeanour convinced her that she should have been in the room with her sister. Something must have gone wrong.
“You’re a father!” he blurted out. “Wait. What? No, I’m a father, you’re an aunt!”
“And Anna?” asked Elsa, an icy hand of fear clutching at her heart.
“She’s good, really good,” Kristoff reassured her. “Tired, you know, but Bulda says that’s normal for human females…” He trailed off in the face of Elsa’s ice cold stare.
“Human females?” she asked.
“Yeah, uh, Elsa? There’s something I should probably tell you about my family. They’re -”
“Trolls,” said Elsa. “I should’ve guess when they all showed up like that for your wedding. I thought they were just being friendly to me, y’know, one magical creature to another…” She stopped. “Oh my. So you knew, you knew about what happened when Anna and I were little?”
Kristoff nodded. “I watched. That was the night they adopted me. And Sven.” A small black thundercloud seemed to hover over his head. Elsa waved a hand and it vanished.
“Let’s not dwell on the past, brother of mine. Let’s go and celebrate your baby, give the royal seal of approval.”
They stepped out into the corridor and walked briskly towards Anna’s chambers. Elsa sent a spray of ice magic over herself, creating a vibrant purple dress, decorated with sprays of pansies and violets.
Kristoff smiled. He was not big on fashion, but he appreciated the way Elsa’s magic incorporated living flowers into the clothes that she and Anna often wore. Pink flowered clematis wove itself into her plait.
“So what have I got, niece or nephew?”
“Um, both, actually.”
In the State Room, the tiny ice dancers climbed down a table leg and ran to the window. Scaling the sill, they reached a latch, and opened the window. Then they were out, outside, leaping and drifting down to the ground where they skated off at high speed to the lake on the north mountain which would be their home. They were born knowing this, just like all the tiny dancers before them, created by the Queen during her meetings with the Prime Minister.