Chapter 2: Daughter of Idun
"I have been blessed to meet a great many remarkable people in my life. Leaders of Great States and soldiers of spectacular skill to be sure. Nobles by the thousands and many more people of note by the tens of thousands. And yet, despite the differences between all of them, I've found an amusing commonality in that I am so often asked about the duch*ess of Arendelle.
'What is she like? What kind of a person is she, truly, the legendary Snow Queen of the Federated Commonwealth?'
To those questions, I always give the same answer I give now. If you wish to understand the duch*ess of Arendelle, you must first understand -or at least try to understand- the delightfully chaotic blaze of infinite energy that is Anna.
Do not be misled by the fact that Elsa is the older Sister and duch*ess and do not be deceived by the fact that Elsa has the power to manipulate the raw forces of the universe, while Anna is as 'normal' as any of the rest of us. Elsa has a strength of will few I have ever met could match, but never miscalculate which of the two sisters will ultimately get her way in the end should they ever disagree about something".
- Archon-Prince Victor Steiner-Davion; 'Cause and Effect'. Avalon Press, 3068
FSS Corona Sunburst
Approach Vector BA-18, Arendelle
Crucis March
Federated Commonwealth
May 09 – 3053
Anna disliked dropships.
This was not, as one might think, related to the tragedy of what had happened to her parents. Or at least not wholly so. While she had grieved – and still quietly grieved – the loss of her Mother and Father in a distant thunderclap and rumble one horrible night three years ago, the feelings of apprehension and sadness that spiked whenever she saw one of the massive craft centred on a much earlier event in her life.
It was the night, when a seven year old Anna had been told that her sister was leaving their home to go and live far far away.
She had not believed her parents when they had tried to quietly explain to her that Elsa needed to live apart from them - at least for a while. She had not believed them when they told her that she had already left and it was too late to say goodbye. And she had certainly not believed them when they told her it might be years before she saw her again.
And to prove them wrong, she had run.
In a blur of motion she had torn away from the dinner table, ignoring the pleas for her to come back as she had sprinted in her somewhat ungainly way up the main staircase two at a time. She had then launched herself off onto the second floor and down the passage to where she knew Elsas bedroom was. So many times she had run down this passage to the door set halfway down it. So many times she had halted in front of the door there over the last two years and silently stared, pleading for her to come out. More than once she had simply gone to sleep in front of the door at night, only to find herself back in her bed in the morning – apparently moved there by her parents.
But she knew she was there, even if she was still never to be seen.
Except … now she wasn't.
The doors with the pretty snowflakes painted on them that had always been closed to her were wide open and the room beyond was dark. Panting slightly from her sprint, she had slowly walked through them, into Elsas bedroom for the very first time … and found the room was empty. A few boxes, a few crates sealed up against a wall, but nothing else. No bed, no draws, no toys, no pictures…
No sister.
A sudden panic had overtaken her at that point and she had exploded out of room calling for her sister. Yelling for her sister as she zigged and zagged across the family palace twice as fast as she had run to the room, ignoring the looks from the household staff as she blew past them, effortlessly dodging around their attempts to catch her and plead with her to just stop and wait. She knew that she had done something years ago. She didn't know what, but she knew she had done something. She had heard all the times her parents whispered when she was lurking behind doors, their comments about how they had to be kept apart, that she was dangerous to Elsa and even that she scared Elsa somehow. She truly did not know what she had done, every time she tried to ask they kept telling her it was not her fault at all, that there was nothing wrong but that Elsa was just growing up into a big girl and so was so much busier.
It had just made her more determined to make the most of what time they had, trying to get close to her at dinner or what other family moments they had together, after Elsa had suddenly moved out of their shared room. Only to find that Elsa kept edging away from the closer she pushed. She saw when Elsa rarely looked at her across the table, how she would stare at her face for just a second and then flinch away as if she saw something there that scared her. Until one day when Anna had tried to surprise Elsa her by sneaking up behind her to give her a warm hug at the dinner table to try and make everything better …
Elsa had almost screamedas she jumped in shock, throwing her off and running from the room, crying, desperately clutching her arms and hands to herself as if panicked by the thought that she had touched her.
That had hurt.
A lot.
She had cried for the entire night, and no amount of hugging from her mother had calmed her down.
After that disaster, Anna had almost never seen Elsa. After that, they ate at different times, often in different rooms. Her days were even more filled with visits to other families and other 'friends' while Elsa stayed inside with her tutors doing school work or going on week long trips with one of her parents.
She tried to be a good girl like her Papa asked her to be. She tried accept that they were getting older and soon she would be busy with school and other things as well … but more and more she found herself staring at the locked door, shyly trying to ask if Elsa wanted to play, only to hear a muffled 'Go away Anna' from the other side that made her feel sad.
Not sad enough to ever stop trying though. Never sad enough for that.
Because when words failed, she slipped notes under the door in her slowly improving hand writing that tried to apologise for whatever she had done.
When notes got no response, she tried to slip tiny pieces of chocolate under the door with the notes, with the promise of more if she opened up.
When her Father told her to stop bothering her sister, she ignored him and left a toy just outside the door with a note carefully hidden inside it in the hope Elsa would find it.
When she got no response to that, she tried to lie in wait and ambush Elsa, only for various servants and her parents to show up mysteriously and make sure she was kept too busy or kept far away when Elsa was outside.
When she had been asked what she wanted her for birthday early next year, she had asked at once for Elsa to come out and play with her and had been heartbroken when her parents had come up with excuses why it couldn't happen.
She had never stopped trying, had never believed that she couldn't make things, somehow, go back to the way they were before. And so on that night two years after whatever she had done that had so scared Elsa, she had torn around the Castle in a complete refusal to admit that her Sister was gone until panting and out of breath, she had come into the library that overlooked the castle grounds, staggering over to the window ready to scream out Elsas name to the entire ground …
And instead felt a cold chill freeze her in place as she had seen a brilliant point of light rising into the twilight sky with a muffled roar of thunder through the thick window.
She wasn't as smart as Elsa, but she loved the night sky – they both had. Even more since Elsa had slowly vanished from her life, she had looked to the sky, wondering if Elsa in her room was looking at it right then and liking to think that she was, so they were still doing it together. And she knew that those big ships never flew at night from the Royal spaceport. Unless they were on very important business.
And somehow she had just … known.
Elsa was on that ship.
Elsa was leaving.
Her sister was … leaving.
She had pushed her away. She still didn't know what she had done but-
"Yes Anna … that is your sister leaving" a voice –her Pappas voice- had said gently from behind her as her mind screamed out for her Sister to not do this, her Father quietly walking up to her to put his hands gently on her shoulders. She had wanted to throw them off angrily and scream at him … but all the energy that had sent her running through the vast palace had left her all at once as soon as she had seen the sphere of light accelerating up into the sky.
Not even enough energy remained in her to reach up and wipe away the tears flowing silently down her cheeks.
"She's not going far, just around the planet a bit" her Papa kept speaking as if from some great distance … but she didn't really hear him as her eyes remained locked on the brightly ascending star moving into the night sky that slowly faded to joint all the other stars there. Eventually, at some point, her Father realized she just wasn't listening to him and had left her alone to watch her Sisters star rising into the sky until it had just become one dot among thousands of others, Anna refusing to even blink as she kept her eyes on the glow.
Until eventually she had to blink. And as soon as she did … she was gone.
Slowly, mechanically, she had then walked back to her room, complexly ignoring her parents as she walked past them, shrugging off her mother's attempt to try and hold her and simply not seeing the genuinely sympathetic looks from the staff as she walked into her room and shut the door behind her, feeling that her heart had been torn in two. All she could think was that she wanted to sleep and so she walked to her bed and collapsed into its soft arms, just wanting the oblivion of sleep to take her, unable to deal with reality anymore.
And frowned as she had felt her head land on her pillow, but felt instead something soft and crinkly like … paper?
Pushing back up in annoyance she had turned to look … and her annoyance had vanished in an instant. Sitting on her pillow was a piece of folded over paper … with her name on it. And she recognized the beautiful flowing handwriting that spelled out her name as her sisters.
With hands that had suddenly started shaking, she reached out and grasped the paper, hesitating then as she found herself both desperately wanting to read it and desperately not wanting to read it until she gathered her courage and unfolded it-
"Annnnnaaaaa!"
Anna jumped at the voice. So startled was she as she was torn from the past to the present that she literally jumped. Unfortunately, the Neptune class Dropship she was aboard was currently not under power as it slowly reoriented for its final deceleration burn – meaning that when she jumped, she kicked right off the railing next to the large window she had been looking out of as she had watched orbital ballet of other distant ships approaching the planet. An instinctive attempt to reach out and grab the aforementioned railing in chagrin succeed only in having Sir Isaac Newton mock her as the rest of her body twisted away in reaction, sending her slowly spinning into the Zero-G environment.
An explosion of snickering from the bulkhead door into the compartment strongly hinted at the source of the voice, an identity confirmed as she rotated lazily through the air to bring the figure into view.
"Not. Funny. Punz" she yelled as she tried to stretch for the ceiling, failing as this somehow slowed her drift to keep her hovering away from anything she might be able to use. Something that should have been damn near impossible given the cramped quarters, and yet …
The Lady Rapunzel Beaulieu of Corona, beloved Countess of Pomerelia, Heir to Duke Anton Beaulieu and all around nice girl just giggled harder as she watched her cousin flail about in Zero-G.
"Yes it is" the other corrected her, laughing. Anna simply growled in the back of her throat, thanking small favours that Punz didn't have a camera with her right now to capture her in this horribly undignified position – mentally congratulating herself at the same time for keeping to a very casual jeans and a T-shirt rather than the dresses she usually wore, which would have left her rather horribly exposed as she flailed about. Finally however, her foot connected with part of the ceiling and she gave a firm kick. It was of course, entirely coincidental that this launched her suddenly across the room at her Cousin, who had just enough time to say something very un-lady like before Anna slammed into her and sent the two of them pin wheeling back through the doorway to crash to the deck of the passageway outside.
The two of them lay there for a moment on the deck.
"Okay – I might have deserved that" Rapunzel coughed after a moment to get the wind back in her lungs.
Now Anna snickered slightly as she –carefully- got to her feet, being sure this time to set her Velcro covered shoes onto the strips that ran down the length of the passage before she offered a hand.
"You so did" Anna agreed as her cousin got to her feet, smoothing down the front of her blouse as she did so. "You didn't used to be this mean before you went brunet"
"Jealous much?" the other replied with a snark, tiling her new hair cut imperiously and Anna laughed, all the sadness of the past pushed away in the face of the impossibly infectious cheerfulness of her cousin.
"Well I admit you were right about long hair being a nightmare to control in Zero-G" Anna admitted, with a sigh, reaching up to poke at the bun she had made out of her hair with a critical frown. It looked horrible to her – she had never been good putting her hair up - but she wouldn't have to put up with it for much longer. In an hour or so they would be on the ground and under perfectly normal gravity again. "Still, I think you looked better with the long blond thing going".
"I'm so over the long blond thing" the other snorted as the two of them started walking down the tight passageway from the observation room towards their acceleration couches in their cabin, other passengers drifting by them as they too moved to get strapped in for their descent to the surface after one final drink in the bar or one final visit to the bathroom. "I know it's heresy for someone with my name to think that way, but, I seriously needed a change".
"Because of the six year old who tried to climb up your hair at that school last month?" Anna replied in a deadpan tone.
"Because of the six year old who tried to climb up it at the school" the other agreed with a sigh at the memory that she would never live down – not after some fool with a camera had uploaded it to Corona Information Web and it had 'gone viral' – and then some idiot had actually taken a copy with him to New Avalon where it had started to slowly spread across the entire damn Federated Commonwealth. "But that's what I get for being named after a fairy tale; it was bound to happen someday".
"Well it's not like I don't like the new look" Anna assured her as they drifted into their cabin and across to their seats. "Spunky-Punzy is awesome, but I liked Princess Punzy".
"A little change now and then is a good thing" Rapunzel shrugged as she set herself down and started to strap her restraints in the luxuriously soft chair while Anna drifted past her to the window seat that she had won after sixteen consecutively tied rock-paper-scissors battles. "Plus looking after it was getting to be a nightmare. Almost as much as yours".
"Hey my hair is great" Anna defended herself swiftly. "Well at least outside of Zero-G".
"Have you seen yourself in a mirror after waking up?" the other asked archly.
"…low blow Punz. Low blow" she muttered as she felt the dropship rumbled under them, the stars outside turning as it shifted attitude.
Her cousin smiled, but said nothing, instead glancing past her to stare out the window. Anna followed her gaze - and her heart hit her throat.
Slowly, bit by bit, Arendelle was coming into view.
She couldn't help but loose herself in the moment, drinking in every feature as if she was seeing her home for the first time. First the edge of the Northern polar ice cap, a brilliant white disk that glowed in the distant light of the systems primary surrounded by a chain of large and small islands. Then as the rotation slowly brought more of the planet into focus New Noreg slowly came into full view. One of the three main continents on the planet named after Norway on Terra from whom the original settlers had come … and her home.
She gazed down on it in longing wonder as she tried to drink it all in at once – even though it was far too large to see all at once as it mostly curved out of sight around the planet into the darkness approaching beyond the terminator that separated night from day. She knew it was roughly diamond shaped and as big in surface area as Africa on Terra, starting with the icy mountains of the Northern regions slowly giving way as the continent broadened to increasingly temperate alpine regions. From there, vast plains and forests stretched out of sight down to the South and across the equator into a string of islands and smaller land masses that dotted the globe most of the way to the South Pole. Two other continents existed on the planet, a large arid and sparsely populated land named Rostokov to the South and a second continent mirroring the position of Noreg on the other side of the planet named Vestlandet.
But she had eyes only for Noreg right now as she scanned up and down the Western coast … and finally felt her gaze soften slightly as she picked out the distinctive curve where Arendelle City sat.
Where her home sat.
It took a good ten minutes for the Dropship to complete its gentle reorientation, taking the planet back out of the windows as the spherical ship brought its engines to bear directly. Warning announcements and then alarm tones sounded before finally the engines came back online, the fusion drives increasing thrust until they were decelerating them into the planet at a full 1G burn that brought back simulated gravity to the spherical ship. The sudden feel of the thrust as she was pushed gently into her chair thrilled her, somehow making this feel real – as if they were not simply drifting by her planet in a dream; but they were really here.
After almost three years she was heading back home
She was heading back home to … her.
It was getting harder to control her emotions now – partially because she honestly did not know what she was supposed to feel at the sudden realisation that she was only hours or days away from seeing someone she had not seen for over a decade. She still missed Elsa so much – that had not changed in over ten years. A part of her had been damaged when they had been split up, a scar that marked her heart almost like the odd –Punz called it 'exotic' - white streak in her hair that had made her stand out since she was a young girl. But after so many years apart, so many failed attempts to reconnect with her, she was at something of a loss for any idea of what was going to happen now. She was not a child anymore, she was an adult. And so was Elsa; a young woman who was about to become the duch*ess of their world, something she had been preparing for her entire life.
She knew that it was wrong to keep seeing Elsa in her mind as her big sister who had loved to play with her all those years ago. She didn't even know what she looked like anymore; she had stopped trying to look at newer pictures or vids after Elsa had moved out of the palace, finding it just hurt far too much to see her but not see her. Even her invitation, delivered personally by the local ComStar Precentor to the Corona family palace along with those for her Aunt, Uncle and Cousin, had lacked any kind of personalized greeting or message from her Sister. And all of her family on Corona had tried to tell her to not hope for too much too quickly.
Small steps, one after the after, is what her Uncle had kindly told her.
But …it simply wasn't in Annas nature to walk. And in the deepest parts of her soul where she desperately did not want to look … a question that she dared not ask herself kept trying to poke its way ever more insistently into her conciseness.
What if Elsa didn't love her anymore?
Didn't care about her?
Didn't really want anything to do with her?
She had always ignored that question, burying it under her memories of her sister and her unquestioned love for Elsa that still burned strong. But it was almost as if the closer she got to Elsa now, the stronger the fear became, causing her to tense up, to increasingly shift in her seat against her restraints, her heart starting to beat faster-
"Hey" Rapunzel softly called out to her suddenly, causing her to jump yet again –although strapped firmly in and under acceleration she at least didn't go flying off this time. Gently, her cousin reached out and placed her hand on top of her own, and Anna realized that she had been gripping her armrest in something like a death grip. The warm touch caused her muscles to unclench at once, blasting the surge of emotion like a strong breeze shredding a cloud of smoke as she turned away from the viewport to face the other. "It's okay Red, I'm right here".
Anna offered her a slightly wan smile at the annoying pet name her cousin had decided on for her, but interlaced her fingers with the proffered hand gladly as she shoot her a look of thanks. Because that was her cousin. Always there when she needed her to pull her up or calm her down, tell a joke or slap her on the back of the head. She didn't know if Rapunzel truly understood just how much she owed her … and it occurred to her belatedly at that point as their ship headed in to return her back home, that she had never actually told her that fact.
And now that she thought about it, she realized there was never going to be a better time than now.
"Thanks Punz" she said simply.
The other shot her a slightly amused look.
"Chill red. If the pilot hits any turbulence on the way down, I'll have Dad assign his ass to orbital garbage clean-up".
Anna smiled and gripped her hand tightly for a second before letting go.
"No, I meant thank you" she replied, taking a deep slow breath before exhaling. "For everything. For everything over the last few years. I mean, I was a complete mess when I showed up on Corona. If you hadn't been so damn patient with me, so understanding … so insistent on trying to drag me out of my, uh, funk I guess … "
Anna looked away, her gaze drifting to the far bulkhead and flight data on the massive holovid screen, but not really focused on it as she bit her lip, exhaling as she tried to put her thoughts into words.
"I honestly don't know what would have happened to me without you" she finally admitted.
And wasn't that the understatement of the year, Anna reflected, her gaze not leaving the bulkhead. Losing her parents in the dropship crash, then burying them, alone, had been hard. Incredibly hard. All she had seen of Elsa in that week had been another door when she had suddenly moved back into the palace - while Anna had been out, of course. All she had heard from her Sister in response to her quiet plea that they only had each other now, had been soft sobs she could barely hear from behind the oddly cold door that had caused her to shy away, leaving Elsa to her grief in the hope that when she came out, she would be able to hug her and tell her that she was here for her. Always.
And then the next day had come the news that she was going to be heading to Corona to live there for a few years -sent to Corona by Elsa - with her Aunt and Uncle who had been present for the funeral, without so much as a personal goodbye from her Sister.
Effective immediately.
To say that she had fallen into something approaching a deep depression would have probably been underselling it. She should have just gone back to the palace and kicked down the door to her Sisters old room that Elsa had moved back into. She had dreamed of doing that many times after Elsa had moved out, quietly cursing her constant turning away from the door whenever Elsa told her to leave. She should have kicked down the door and demanded her sister look at her, talk to her; told her that she loved her and needed her to get through this.
Told her that all she –they- had now … was each other.
Instead, with her parents dead, her sister crying in her own grief behind a closed door … she had just blankly joined her only other living relatives on autopilot and left Arendelle behind without so much as a word of protest, watching the planet slowly recede into the distance, somehow feeling that life had finally lost any and all meaning to her.
It wasn't anger, it wasn't sadness … it was more a sudden and complete sense of pure indifference to everything that had threatened to swallow her up whole.
It had been the woman sitting next to her that had dragged her back from the brink.
Good lord she truly loved her Cousin. No matter how much she had been intent on never loving anything again, Rapunzel had simply smirked, shrugged and completely refused to take 'no' for an answer. After avoiding her upon landing at Corona and then sitting quietly in her room for a few days, Punz had finally had enough and just come in anyway. She didn't let anything as prosaic as a closed and locked door so much as even slow her down; the sight of her cousin abseiling down from the floor above her and crashing through her bedroom window –that had thankfully just flown open from the impact rather than shattering- had both stunned her into complete shock … and then made her wonder at once why she had never tried that with Elsa when she was younger.
And from that day on, and with every day she had dragged her outside her room to have fun, Anna had felt the black stain that was her state of mind retreat that little bit further. And that was how Punz had slowly become far more than a cousin; for the first time since Elsa, she had truly had a best friend in her life. Possibly because for the first time, she had a friend who had never tried to be Elsa.
Over the years since Elsa had left, her parents had tried to push her again and again into accepting new friends. And every time she had seen it in their eyes, heard in it in their voice that they were looking for someone to replace Elsa, to be a new sister to her. A new Sister like Elsa for her. And -entirely unfairly, she knew- she had hated those people because of that. Furiously resisted ever getting close to them.
But Rapunzel was … different.
Perhaps it was because she was family. A more distant part of it than her sister or her parents, but undeniably linked to her in a way that no other friend she had been forced to stay with could ever be. Despite being the same age as Elsa, despite being such a similar position as her Sister as the Heir to her own world, despite having more than a few bits of DNA probably identical to Elsas own genetic code, she had neither tried nor wanted to anyone but her own incredibly cheerful, exuberant and overly dramatic self. And day by day in those first few hard weeks, her presence had dragged her back out of the shell she had retreated into. Rapunzel couldn't fill the Elsa shaped hole in her heart - nothing wouldever do that. But she had helped her once again to come to terms with it, had helped her truly grieve her dead parents and accept their loss; she had taught her to live once more.
And for that, Anna owed her more than she would ever be able to repay.
"Anna" Rapunzel softly brought her attention back, an expression that was simultaneously amused and yet gentle. "You don't have to thank me for anything. Period".
"No, I really do" Anna tried to insist, but Rapunzel simply rolled her eyes at her.
"Anna…" she stated, paused, then looked away for a second to think, before looking back. "How much do you know about me – I mean who I was before we met?"
Anna glanced at her in curiosity as she considered the question.
"Uh, well, just what you've told me" she replied, before hesitating in embarrassment as it hit her that despite all the secrets they had share over the years, she really didn't know much about her cousin's life before she had arrived. At least nothing that wouldn't presumably be the same as after she had turned up. She knew Rapunzel had incredible talent as a painter that already had rumblings of her work going to New Avalon at some point and that she loved running around outdoors or riding around on a horse. She had a beautiful voice but was shy about singing. She loved dresses but hated shoes … and she seemed to have, much like her, absolutely no fear about doing anything on impulse no matter how dangerous it seemed.
Her aunt had often bemoaned the fact that this was clearly a genetic trait after Punz had pried her out of her shell and the two had promptly started driving the palace staff nuts by pushing everything to the limit.
"I … I know you don't have any sisters or brothers. Oh – I know you were mostly looked after by a stay in nanny, uh, Gothic wasn't it?"
"Gothel" Punz corrected her, making a face as if she had just bitten into something tart. "My Parents were busy running the planet, I had no brothers or sisters – I honestly thought for the longest time that they didn't care about me".
"But that's not true – they adore you!" Anna spluttered in hot denial, pausing with a sudden scarlet flush on her face as her Cousin held up her hand.
"Yes I know that – at least I know now" she sighed. "But for a long time, I thought they didn't care about me. At all. An impression cheerfully helped along by Gothel. Even now I'm not really sure what her angle was; my parents think she was trying to manoeuvre herself into being the power behind the throne by grooming me to be her 'perfect child'. I don't know about that … but she did do her very best to isolate me from everyone but herself. Kept insisting that I should look at her like a second mother, that she was the only friend I ever needed. Even kept trying to have me call her 'Mother Gothel'" she added with an almost contemptuous snort. "To be blunt, well, she was a passive-aggressive bitch who tried to keep me all to herself. I had no friends, no real contact with anyone except some of the palace staff and when I saw my parents, all I could see were the Duke and duch*ess - not my Mother and Father".
"That … sounds awful" Anna managed to get out, taken utterly aback and horrified even at the story she had never been told by anyone, suddenly feeling she had to apologise for her ignorance – and for making her cousin tell her. "I … I never knew …."
"Don't you dare apologise" her cousin warned her sharply. "I never told you – it's not your fault you didn't know" she scolded her, before adding in a softer tone "but it is your fault that I've gotten past that part of my life" as she turned away and chewed on her lip for a second, before sighing and leaning back into the plush comfort of her acceleration couch. "It's … not something I like to talk about … I was so lonely for so long, never had much interaction with other people outside the Castle. My parents were told by Gothel that I was a very shy lonely child who didn't want to get off the estate much, Gothel told me that I had far too many things to do to go off sightseeing. I only ever really got out for a few scripted public events where I had to show up, wave, and go back home. I just thought this was the way things were meant to be … until my 18th Birthday".
"What happened on your 18th Birthday?" Anna asked, somewhat intently.
"…Long story" Rapunzel deflected after a moment of consideration, to Annas annoyance. She knew something big had happened, had heard rumours once or twice - but she was always getting fobbed off whenever she asked about it. "But to fast forward to the end, I finally realized that my parents really did love me and that Gothel had been, shall we say, misleading me for a rather long time. It all sort of came out in a very … loud … conversation between myself, my Parents, Gothel and half the Palace staff – and ended with her getting fired and exiled from the planet".
"Seriously Punz, what the hell happened that day?" she pleaded after blinking at the revelation. Surely something so serious to warrant exile had to be big. "What did you do? What did she do?"
Her Cousin gave her a level look – but it was no match for her pouty face and her Cousin finally wilted under the fact that Rapunzel clearly knew shewas not going to be dissuaded from asking and she gave in with a sigh.
"Well let's just say that it involved a frying pan, several car chases … and possibly the destruction of a small dam".
"…You blew up a dam"
"Small dam"
"You … you BLEW UP A-?"
"Anna, forget the dam! The point I'm trying to get to is after Gothel was fired … I honestly didn't know what to do. I mean I hated her, but she was also all I had – as sad as it sounds. Then, suddenly, I was on my own. I had always had someone telling me what to do and if I thought I was lonely before … well, now that I was expected to make friends, crazy as it sounds, things were a lot scarier for me. Here I was, the heir to the throne of the planet, all these social climbers who Gothel had been keeping away for years all suddenly being invited in, all crowding around me, pulling me in fifteen different directions … After a week or so I … I couldn't take it anymore. It was just too much – and the irony was killing me. There I was, desperate to make friends for years. And now I was being encouraged to go nuts … but it was so overwhelming to me that in the end, I just ran off to my tower and locked the door. In fact, Mom told me later that the court Doctors were increasingly sure that I was suffering from a mild form of agoraphobia after spending so many years isolated".
"Rapunzel locked up in the tower? Cliché much?" Anna almost instinctively tried to lighten the mood like each of them always did for the other, earning a small smile in return, the timid and uncertain look vanishing from her cousins' face almost at once in the face of her gentle snark.
"My parents pointed this out to me several times I can assure you" she acknowledged. "But my timing as always was pretty pathetic. Right in the middle of all this, well, we got word about what happened to your parents".
Anna felt the pang that always came when she thought about that horrible night strike her heart again but almost in annoyance this time, she dismissed it, far too engrossed in her cousin's tale.
"So they had to leave quickly to make it to Arendelle for the funeral leaving me alone, really alone for the first time. It … was a really hard month for me" she muttered.
Then suddenly her eyes widened and her head snapped around as she realized what she had said.
"God Anna, I mean – it was hard, but it was nothing compared to what you were going through" she hastily clarified, an expression of mild horror at her choice of worlds flashing across her face. "That is-"
"Punz. It's okay" she assured the other, both touched and embarrassed by the sudden reaction. The last thing she wanted was her Cousin thinking that her hardship was any less valid or painful to Rapunzel than what she had gone through. "You were going through a hard time. I was going through a hard time – your issues were just as big to you as mine were to me. That's all there is to it".
"…I'm not sure I agree, but thanks for saying it" Rapunzel sighed, reaching over again to squeeze her hand with a soft smile, before she gathered herself and continued. "To get to the point, I sort of hid out in my room for a few weeks while my parents went to Arendalle, making excuses to beg off from talking to all the girls climbing over each other to invite me to their estates for a week, and all the guys trying to … well, as one of them put it, asking me to let him 'mount my golden hair' … and he was not looking at my head when he said that".
"A guy said that to you?" Anna chocked out in shock, her cheeks flushing a bright scarlet at the implications of the words. She had led a somewhat sheltered life sure, but not that sheltered – and the idea that someone would have the audacity to say something like that to her cousins' face…
"Well – I cleaned it up a little" Rapunzel replied with a slight blush of her own across her flawless skin and Anna cringed slightly at the implications in that statement. "Anyway, I couldn't deal with it all, it was just too overwhelming. So I tried to hide away until my parents got back. And when they did, when they explained a few days later that you had come with them to live here for the next few years … I didn't even wait around long enough for them to explain that you were not exactly in the best place right now. I just fell in love with the idea of having a family member, a friend I might actually be able to handle in my house right there waiting for me".
"And you came crashing through the window".
"Yeah … I might have gotten a little carried away" she admitted with a blush. "I can, uh, do that sometimes. So people tell me anyway.
"And I am incredibly glad you did" Anna replied with every ounce of sincerity she could put into her voice. "I needed someone to drag me out of bed and back to life – and, like I said, that's why I owe you so much".
"And like I'm trying to tell you" Rapunzel sighed in exasperation, with a roll of her stunning green eyes, "I was a terrified shut in who wanted to reach out to someone, but was too terrified to do so. When you started dragging me around, wingmaning me to public events and outside into the city, my life changed. When you stared down any of the social climbers who pushed too hard, when you punched that idiot Ralph out cold when he tried to make a drunken pass at me… And that night you dragged me out clubbing last year … when we got home, it hit me that I hadn't felt anxious or uneasy all night. I realized then that it had been you – you Red, had gotten me past my fear of the world. You taught me to embrace the world! I might, I might have helped you get through a sad part of your life … you started mine".
"Let's … just say we saved each other?" Anna suggested shyly.
"Deal" her Cousin decided, extending her hand which Anna took with a laugh, trying to not blush too much at the genuine emotion her cousin was stirring. She honestly didn't feel at all worthy of her cousin crediting her with helping her … but then her cousin didn't seem to think that she was worthy of the, in her opinion, blindingly obvious credit for saving her from the darkness she had sunk into after her parents had died and her sister abandoned her.
So she'd split the difference with her.
"Personally, I think that the big change was noticeable after you got that holodisk delivered" Punz reflected after a minute or so of comfortable silence between them, glancing at the bulkhead mounted display that showed a graphic of their descent and an estimated time to the ground for ten minutes as they descended into the mesosphere, the darkness of space outside steadily giving way to a lightening blue hue. "You seemed to really cheer up after that was delivered".
"It's not every day you get a message from the Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth" Anna smiled slightly at the memory, before she frowned at the look on her cousins' face. "What?"
"You … got a message from the Archon?" Rapunzel almost spluttered in shock, and Anna felt a frown cross her face.
"I told you about that"
Her cousin slowly shook her head with wide eyes.
"I must have!"
Again her cousin shook her head and Anna bit her lip.
"I knew you got a message on Holodisk, but you didn't say who it was from and I wouldn't pry into your life like that. To be honest, I always thought it was, well, something Elsa sent you".
"I can't believe – you're serious that I never showed it to you – I never even mentioned who it was from?" Anna asked in genuine confusion.
"Nope"
Anna felt a look of utter consternation passing across her face as she took in the revelation.
"I swear … I thought I had…" she muttered, mostly to herself.
"Anna, it's cool, don't worry about it-"
"But I want to show you!" she insisted.
Although on reflection she wondered if that was entirely true. She had absolutely no problem showing her now … but back when she had first received the message it had become something incredibly precious to her. Something incredibly personal that had helped her set aside her grief over her parent's death – or at least bring back the good memories of her parents to fight back the dark memory of their loss. The idea that the most powerful woman in the Inner Sphere with far too many demands on her time would take time out to send her a personal message … it had genuinely touched her in a very special way.
Still, the least she could do for her cousin who had shared so much of herself was to share this.
"Hang on a sec" she muttered, turning and digging furiously into the pouch next to her seat, pawing around for a few minutes until she found her noteputer among all the other bits and pieces she had stored there over their trip. She still had the original holodisk – it was actually packed in her luggage- but she had copied the file across to her personal computer years ago so she could view it if she ever felt like she needed a little 'pick me up'. Pulling open a tiny compartment in her armrest, she pulled out a datalink cable and plugged it in, quickly tapping in the commands on the slide out keyboard to route the display to the large holoscreen on the wall of their cabin.
"Uh, you can just read the message to me – you don't have to put it up" her Cousin pointed out with a confused look.
"Who said anything about reading a message?" Anna couldn't help but smirk archly, as the screen blanked from its flight data, replaced with the Fist of the Lyran Commonwealth, which mutated after a moment into the Fist and Sunburst of the Federated Commonwealth. A delightfully almost strangled noise of astonishment came from her cousins' mouth as after a few more seconds that too dissolved into a picture of none other than Archon Melissa Steiner sitting on her throne in the Triad on Thakard. Visible left and right of her were the well-polished legs of the Griffin Battlemechs that stood behind and protected the throne of the leader of the Lyran Commonwealth, although they were lost quickly to view as the camera zoomed in to focus on the others sombre, yet warm face.
"My … God" her cousin choked out, her emerald eyes wide as saucers and Anna couldn't help but feel a slightly selfish sense of smug pride flow across her at the reaction. A personal video message from perhaps the most beloved and certainly the most powerful women in the Inner Sphere was just … completely out of scope of most people's minds to deal with. Even lower level nobility on Thakard itself had little chance to ever do more than shake hands with their Archon in a receiving line. A personal video message hand delivered to the other side of the Federated Commonwealth in the middle of a major war …
That was something else.
"Good day to you, Anna Jorgensson" the stunning woman greeted them from the screen in a strong, yet kindly voice. Forty years old – 'and going on twenty five' as many female social commentators on talk shows across known space often complained, the Archon sat on her throne with the grace and dignity of one born to rule. It did not however in any way make her look remote or distant. There was a warmth in her eyes even framed as they were by the expression of regret and sorrow across her face that made even a video message seem intensely personal and special.
"I deeply regret that the first time we have been able to talk, so to speak, has been under such tragic circ*mstances" the Archon continued. "I had the great privilege of meeting your sister when my Husband and I visited your parents on Arendelle in '34, when she was pregnant with you. And I truly hope to visit you in person one day, so I may be properly introduced to you as someone other than, as your mother put it, 'this kid who thinks my diaphragm is a bongo placed there for her personal entertainment'".
Rapunzel covered her mouth as she tried, with only partial success, to hold back her laughter at the quip, her face flushing from the effort. Anna, despite having heard the words many times before couldn't help but giggle slightly thanks to the incredibly infectious reaction of her cousin. Sharing it with her made it almost brand new again, her reactions sparking an echo of the feelings in herself.
"Your mother … was a dear friend" the Archon continued a moment later after pausing to compose herself. "The story of how we met is known to very few people – a secret we kept because it had become something precious to those of us 'in the know'. As I'm sure you have read in your history books, I was secretly on New Avalon in 3028, working with my husband to conceive a heir to Our Thrones. As far as the rest of the Inner Sphere knew, I had returned from Terra to Thakard with my Mother as the Forth Succession War raged on. And excepting handpicked guards at the Davion Palace, only seven people on New Avalon knew the truth. Until one evening, when I was walking to Hanse's personal library, a door slammed open and your mother came storming through from a party downstairs, a hapless pair of Davion Guardsman trying to stop her and having absolutely no luck before she crashed into me – quite literally – and sent both of us to the floor"
Now Rapunzels snickering ramped up into barely restrained laughter.
"Suffice to say, it was a bit of a shock that your Mother was able to bypass eight separate security layers and get herself into such trouble without anyone even realizing it – although I would slowly learn that your mother had something of a knack for getting into places she really had no business being".
Some things never change! The look Rapunzel shot at her then said.
Look who's talking! Her own gaze shot back before they both turned back to the screen.
"Because my presence remained such a high-level secret" the Archons image said, "your Mother quickly became an extended personal 'guest' of Hanse to ensure it remained so. Yet despite the fact that she was under virtual house arrest in the Davion Palace, your mother was by far the freest person I have ever had the privilege of meeting in my life, bar none. She could brighten anyone's day just by walking into a room – and did so many times during the harder days of the war. She taught me all about New Avalon, all about the Federated Suns. Those hundreds of things you would never think to ask someone about, yet found that you truly wanted to know. I loved Hanse deeply after we were married, but your Mother spent months almost bullying the First Prince of the Federated Suns to make sure that we spent much more time together than we otherwise might have. And despite his initial irritation, I know that Hanse came to genuinely appreciate her efforts. When Morgan was given the gravest news about his Father, she was there with Kym, his future wife. For days she would simply sit and listen to his stories of his family, making sure he was never alone. She encouraged him to grieve for his Father's death and helped assure him that no matter what his Father had done, he had every right to mourn his passing. She helped him come to peace with the past, to stand up and assume the burdens Hanse was forced to put onto his shoulders".
Anna couldn't help but wonder at the differences between the woman the Archon described and the one she had known all her life. Her mother had always seemed so … sober. So careful, so cautious. Controlled … almost frightened in some way she didn't understand. There had been love yes - but always a distant expression of sorrow and regret in the back of her eyes whenever she asked about Elsa that had made her sad, knowing deep down that whatever she had done to scare Elsa that had forced them apart …
And yet, much like she had with Morgan Hasek-Davion, so many nights she had stayed by her bed, singing her softly to sleep when she had felt so lonely…
"In January 29' Hanse decided that he trusted your mother to keep the secret and allowed her to leave the palace" Melissa continued her story faintly with a smile, bringing her attention back. Anna frowned slightly and tapped up the volume a few notches as the roar of the Dropships fusion drive increased as they came down out of the Stratosphere, their rate of descent slowing as they commenced final alignment with the Spaceport. "I left New Avalon in July, but was honoured to have secretly attended your parents wedding just before doing so. Your father was quite the eligible Batchelor at the time and had a great many other Noble ladies vying for his attention – quite furiously too I might say. I must confess to you that after your mother had shyly commented one day that she had quite the crush on him after meeting him at a function earlier that year, I … well, lets just say I made it my business to ensure that they would meet again". The Archon paused for a moment to let the slightest hint of an embarrassed flush pass across her face. "And … again … and again … several times. Hanse too spent no small amount of effort behind the scenes quietly encouraging the two families to allow the match as a gesture of both apology to your mother for inconveniencing her, as well as thanks for all she had done for Us and to Our delight, your parents indeed fell deeply in love with each other and were married later that year".
Now the Archon paused, leaning back in her throne and seemingly staring deep into her from that position, her expression still gentle, but with an iron edge in it. The face of the leader – of someone who had made countless hard decisions in her life and had made her peace with them, because the alternative was to go mad.
"I left New Avalon to return to Thakard – but your mother and I stayed in touch through the next decade. After my Mother passed away and I ascended to this Throne, the letters became a little more infrequent –we were both busy, both with our Thrones and both with our children. But I treasured every HPG message – her yearly wrap ups were a high point of my Christmas year in and year out. We traded news and gossip. We exchanged well wishes and fond memories … but more than anything else, we traded news of our children. More than one long day of dealing with affairs of state ended in relief for me as I found a new HPG message from your mother, gushing on about you or Elsa. Her delight as Elsa's French vocabulary widened with her diligent practice. Her unabashed pride in you Anna, the day you first tried to ride a bike and fell off within seconds, but instantly got back up again and again, without hesitation or fear until you got the hang of it. Your father often spoke of how much you reminded him of your mother – as much as your mother fondly spoke of how much of your father she could see in Elsa. And how much of Elsa she could see in you and vice versa".
The pain of the memories her words invoked sharply hit Anna, as it always did. But she forced them to the side, taking strength from the seemingly implacable woman on the screen and her cousin watching in rapt attention next to her.
"I had been pushing your parents to bring you both to visit us on New Avalon for the last few years – although the Clan Invasion had made these plans quite impossible; I simply could not leave my capital when the Commonwealth was being invaded. And of all the things that their invasion has cost me personally, not being able to say goodbye to Idun and Adgar … " the Archon cut off suddenly, seemingly taking a moment to get herself under control as her expression slipped for just a split second, before she nodded, at once back in control. "I know you are hurting right now Anna. I know your sister is too. I have the heads of two different intelligence agencies on speed dial so despite the fact that your parents went out of their way to try and keep it from me, I know that you and your sister have been separated for a long time. With so many of my Children out of contact for so long with each other, I have some idea how hard it can be to be separated from the ones we love. For all its glamour and beauty, trust me when I tell you that a throne can be so incredibly …lonely… to sit on. I know it must have been hard, all the years you and Elsa have been separated … but everything I have heard about you tells me that you are undeniably your mother's daughter Anna. You have that same precious gift of bringing joy to those around you simply by being – and Elsa will need you, more than she knows in the years ahead. It may not be easy, indeed it may be so incredibly hard for the two of you to reconnect with each other … but I none the less charge you with finding a way to make it happen. If it takes a day, a year or more, make it happen – and always remember that wherever they are now, your parents will always be smiling down upon both of you".
And with no fanfare, the video message ended with the Archons final firm nod, the screen cutting to black before switching back to the external camera view of the spaceport under them only a few thousand feet away, the thunder of the ships engines increasing as yet more thrust was poured on to slow their descent rate to a steady ten meters per second, the roar making conversation difficult.
But not impossible. And her cousin would never let a little thing like ambiet noise stop her from being heard.
"She was right you know" her Cousin spoke up suddenly, causing Anna to glance across at her.
"Right about what?" Anna questioned as she took in the level emerald gaze.
"Well, everything, but most especially that you spread love everywhere you go just by being … you" Rapunzel clarified. "I don't think you even realize you do it; you just … do. Look, Anna, I know you've never said much about Elsa to me, but I have an idea of just how much she hurt you by sending you to live with me after your parent's died. And the reason it hurt you so much could only be because you still cared so much about her that it hurts you to even think about it".
Anna felt a wave of shock ripple through her as her cousin laid out everything so … directly on the table. Rapunzel had always been so careful around the topic of her sister, knowing it was a difficult subject … but then again, it was getting to be an elephant in the room given that they were on final approach to Arendelle city! And perhaps she took her silence as a sign to continue rather than a mixture of stunned shock and angst, because her cousin kept going after a moment.
"You've been getting more and more anxious as we got closer and closer to your home – you were so tightly wound up half an hour ago that you went spinning into zero-G when I called your name out. I … I understand that you're nervous, even scared – and that's okay! You're totally entitled to be a little on the edge right now! But I know you Anna. I know that you still care about Elsa so much and now that you're about to be reunited, you're probably thinking of about a million ways this could all go wrong every second.
Anna remained silent. Her cousin was hardly wrong after all…
"So uh, the point I'm trying to embarrassingly trying to stagger towards … look … just, be yourself. Don't try to overthink this, don't try to come up with super complicated plans or words or whatever – just be you. You could turn the most hard-core Clanner into a big softie with a few days' work. If your sister for some insane reason has forgotten how much she loves you, she'll fall back in love with you by the end of the week. Sister love that is, not … well love love … uch you know what I mean!" the other flustered for a second, and despite herself, a smile started to work its way onto Annas face as she reached out and one last time took the others hand.
"I know" she assured her with the smile exploding onto her face slightly shy perhaps, but still showing the affection she felt for the excitable brunet sitting next to her.
"And if she tries to go and hide behind a door again" the other added with an expression so absolutely serious on her face that Anna honestly would have been unable to determine if she was joking or not, "I will blow it down and drag her, kicking and screaming if necessary, outside".
