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In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic	By : GeorgeGlass Category: +1 through F > Frozen Views: 21531 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of Frozen or its characters. I made no money from writing this story. I am completely divided about whether Elsa or Anna is hotter.

Chapter List
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- 6
Chapter 5: The Minister

The next morning, Anna emerged from her bedchamber and headed for the sitting room, where she customarily ate breakfast—chiefly because she knew Elsa would join her there if she weren’t already in meetings.

Being fully dressed, and wanting to see what was afoot in the castle before sitting down to tea and toast, Anna decided to take a roundabout route to the sitting room, exiting the set of rooms that she and Elsa occupied and entering one of the castle’s upstairs corridors. It was along this hallway that the seven princes and their attendants had been housed for the duration of their visit.

A door opened, and Prince Hjalmar came out into the hallway, trailed by his attendant, Halfdan. Upon seeing Anna, the prince grunted in what she assumed was a greeting.

“Good morning,” Anna replied.

Hjalmar hocked a loogie out the window. A shout of “What the- Oh, GROSS!” rose from the castle steps below.

The Nordlandish prince then strode past Anna without another word. Halfdan followed behind him, stopping for a moment in front of Anna and then hurrying along again, as though he had been about to offer an apology and then realized that he wouldn’t know where to begin.

“Charming,” Anna said to no one.

“Ah, good morning, your Highness,” said a voice from behind her. Anna turned and saw Captain Anand holding the door for Prince Rajiv, who emerged into the hallway.

“Oh, um, hi,” Anna said, her tone suddenly made awkward by her recollection of the scene between Elsa and Rajiv the previous night.

“Good morning, Princess,” Rajiv said, bowing. “I hope you slept well.”

“I, I did. Thank you. How about you?”

“Very well indeed,” the prince replied. “Your feather beds are quite comfortable.”

“It’s the, ah, geese,” Anna said. “They’ve got great feathers. Are, um, you guys on your way to breakfast?”

“We are,” Rajiv replied. “Baron Herringholtz gave us several options regarding where to eat breakfast this morning; I suspect that he thinks it unwise to put us all in the same room again so soon. In any event, Ajay and I are going down to the mess hall to see how your palace guards eat.”

“The food cannot be worse than what we eat in the Sundaran navy,” Ajay added jovially.

“I don’t know,” Anna replied. “Just remember that you’re in the land of pickled herring and lutefisk.”

“What is this lutefisk?” Rajiv asked. “I’ve heard it mentioned more than once since we arrived.”

“It’s…probably better if I don’t tell you,” Anna said, thinking that a description of fish soaking in lye until the bones turned to jelly might put even these hardy fellows off their breakfast.

“Some mysteries are best left to gods and cooks,” Rajiv joked.

Even as she laughed, Anna found herself puzzled by the prince’s demeanor. Rajiv seemed like a completely different person from the bitter, hostile man she had seen in the throne room and the banquet hall. Or maybe he was just playing nice to get on her good side. Anna had long since stopped trusting her own judgment when it came to men—especially handsome princes.

“Well,” she said, “gotta run. Toast awaits.”

“Then I wish you a good morning,” the prince said. “And I look forward to seeing you at the ball tonight.”

“Um, yeah,” Anna said, walking away as the mention of the ball raised a rapid sequence of questions in her head—What am I going to wear? Is Kristoff invited? What if a sword-and-axe fight breaks out? “Should be a blast. See you there.”

***

Kristoff woke up at sunrise. He didn't really want to—not because he wanted to sleep longer per se, but because it would be nice to wake up late after a pleasant evening of drinking with friends, rather than waking up at dawn after being run out of a bar at arrow-point without a single mug of beer in him and then turning in early.

But it was a new day, and there were things to do. He opened a bag of feed for Sven. Then, while the deer munched away, Kristoff shuffled out to the ice house, where he had stowed a few eggs and a hunk of salmon. One of the perks of being an ice-man was abundant cold storage.

Cooking breakfast reminded him that he was low on firewood, so after he and Sven finished eating, they ventured into the woods to gather some. All the recent rain would mean that anything they found would be wet, but storing it in the house for a few days would let it dry out enough to burn.

They walked among the trees, Kristoff selecting fallen branches and sticks, cutting them to size with a hatchet as necessary, and putting them on the sledge that he and Sven were dragging.

He found a log that looked promising, and he was about to inspect it for rot when he heard movement. Stopping in his tracks, he listened carefully and surmised that it was the sound of someone walking through the woods.

He gestured for Sven to stay put. Then, gripping his hatchet, he moved toward the source of the sound. Maybe it was just someone out looking for wild berries. Or maybe it was one of the area's less reputable woodcutters, here to poach a few trees before the legal logging season began—and perhaps take a swing of his axe at any witnesses. Or maybe it was an ogre.

With these possibilities rushing through his mind, he crept close enough to see a human figure through the leaves. He leaped out to confront it—and found himself staring at the point of a foot-long dagger.

“YAAAAH!” he shouted, throwing up his hands.

“AAAAAH!” a woman’s voice shrieked back.

He looked past the dagger at the person holding it.

“Hildy!?”

“Kristoff?” the woman said, partly lowering the dagger. “What are you doing out here?”

“I live near here. I was just gathering some firewood. What are YOU doing here? And what’s with that nasty piece of steel you’re carrying?”

“Oh,” Hildy breathed, her considerable bosom heaving. “The Duke makes me carry it. ‘No stepdaughter of the Master of the Royal Armory is going to walk around without proper protection,’ he says. I guess he’s worried that I might be ambushed in the woods by some axe-wielding maniac.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Kristoff said, lowering the hatchet. Looking back at the dagger, he added, “It’s, ah, definitely intimidating.”

“You should see the piece my stepsister carries,” Hildy said as she slipped the dagger into its hilt behind her skirts. “Makes this one look like a fruit knife.”

Kristoff was mildly curious, but he stuck to the matter at hand.

“So, what brings you out here?”

“Well, don’t tell anyone, but...You know the caves at the base of the east mountain?”

“Sure; they’re less than a mile from here. When I started my ice business, I thought about storing the ice in those caves, but they’re too hard to get to with a wagon.”

“Well, my mom’s birthday is coming up next month, and she loves cheese, so I’ve been aging some in those caves. They say every cave lends the cheese a unique flavor. In fact, if it turns out well, I might even start a little business, just for fun.”

Two thoughts flashed through Kristoff’s mind—that it must be nice to be able to start a business just for fun, and that Hildy seemed like the perfect person to sell cheese, given that just looking at her made some men think of dairy products.

“Well,” Kristoff said awkwardly, “I’ll, uh, let you get to it, then. Oh, and…watch out for axe-wielding maniacs.”

Hildy chuckled and went on her way.

***

Anna had four of the fifteen record books open in front of her when the Minister of the Treasury popped in.

“How's the reading going, Princess?” the older woman asked.

“Um, just fine,” Anna replied. “I have a couple of questions, though.”

The Minister's eyes lit up. It was clear that this woman was not used to people expressing interest in her work.

“Go right ahead, dear.”

“Well,” Anna said, glancing back at the open books in front of her, “I've been looking at some of the products that Arendelle exports, and...What's pine pitch?”

“It's a sticky substance made from boiling down the sap from pine trees,” the Minister said, pacing slowly like a teacher in front of a blackboard. “It's mainly used to make ships' hulls watertight.”

“Huh. I was just noticing that our exports of that are way down.”

“That's just seasonal variation, dear. Demand doesn't peak until the summer, which is the prime season for shipbuilding.”

“Actually,” Anna said, pointing at a line in one book, then a corresponding line in another, “I meant compared to this time last year. And the year before that.”

“Ah,” the Minister said, putting on her reading glasses and peering at the tiny lines of text. “Well, I imagine that competition from Nordland has cut into Arendelle's business somewhat. They have more manpower and more trees.”

“What about sulfur? Exports of that are way down, too.”

“Well,” the Minister said pensively, “sulfur is mostly used for pest control, dear. And last year’s unexpected…cold spell…rather diminished the insect population here and in neighboring kingdoms.”

“Huh. And then there’s-” Anna glanced down at a book “-catgut?” She swallowed. “We don't actually...I mean...?”

The Minister chuckled. “No dear, we don't slaughter cats. Catgut comes from goats. It's used for stitching up wounds, and in strings for musical instruments.”

“Oh, okay. Because it looks like we're exporting more of that this year, along with some other goat products, like mohair and goat cheese.”

“I'm afraid we're profiting from another's misfortune. The other major exporter of goat products in this part of the world is Dianisia, and they've had some sort of goat disease going around this year.” The Minister cleared her throat. “It's not terribly serious, I'm told, but it has set back their production somewhat.”

“Wow,” said Anna. “Trees, pests, goats, diseases—all kinds of things affect trade.”

“They do indeed, dear,” the Minister said, smiling. “That’s what makes the subject so interesting.”

“Interesting” struck Anna as an overstatement, but she held her tongue.

***

Kristoff walked through the castle's main doors and into the massive entry hall. The guards had let him in without argument; Elsa had given him special dispensation to be in the castle unescorted so that he could visit Anna at will.

As he looked around, he saw Elsa emerge from one of the downstairs parlors about a hundred feet away. Half-jogging to cover the distance, he approached her.

“Hey, your Majesty,” he said. He always called her by her honorific when they were in public. “I was just looking for Anna.”

“Oh, hello, Kristoff. She's over at the Treasury, reading,” Elsa replied.

“Oh, yeah, she told me about the trade conference thing,” Kristoff said. “She's been working pretty hard to get ready for it. I think she wants to make you proud of her.”

“I already am. Imagine where this kingdom would be without her...or you. How are you two getting along these days?”

“What, Anna doesn't talk to you about us?”

“Well...not a lot, no.”

“Um, fine, I guess. I mean, she's my first serious girlfriend since I was...well, born, so I don't have much to compare our relationship to. But...I think she's a little…hesitant. You know, because of the Hans thing.”

“Indeed,” Elsa said, nodding. “I can’t even say his name without her exploding.”

“Yeah,” Kristoff said, a bit gloomily. Then he forced himself to lighten up. “But at least she knows that if I break her heart, her big sister can turn me into an ice sculpture.”

Kristoff chuckled until he noticed the serious look that Elsa was giving him.

“Kristoff,” she said slowly, seeming to be thinking even as she was speaking, “if Anna made a joke about how she'd better do what you say because you're bigger than her and could beat her up, would you think that was funny?”

“N- No, I guess I wouldn't. But how does…ohhh, I get it.”

“I just don't want people to be afraid of me,” Elsa said, eyes downcast.

“Well,” Kristoff replied, “you ARE the queen. Shouldn't people be a little afraid of you? At least sometimes?”

“Not my own people,” Elsa replied. “I just...I feel like I've scared them enough for a whole lifetime. Sometimes I wonder if they're still afraid that my powers are a curse that's going to destroy the kingdom one day.”

“Oh, come on. Last month, when you used your powers to stop Big Elk Dam from breaking and washing half a village into the fjords, everybody there called you a hero. I've heard that both of the baby girls born in Big Elk Village since then were named Elsa. And the one boy was named Elwin.”

“Oh, that poor child,” Elsa said. She smiled a little as she added, “Maybe THAT'S the curse.”

“Besides,” said Kristoff, “I'M not scared of you.”

Elsa raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“Nope. And I'll prove it.”

He opened his arms wide. Elsa looked at him, uncertain.

“C'mon, bring it in,” the ice-man said, smiling and wiggling his fingers in invitation.

Elsa moved into his arms, and Kristoff wrapped them around her. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed as the man gently pulled her against his big, warm body.

“See?” Kristoff said. “I don't hug people I'm scared of.”

Enveloped in Kristoff's welcoming arms, Elsa felt her anxieties draining away, and a sort of contentment taking their place.

“You're good at this, you know that?” Elsa said, leaning her head against Kristoff's chest.

“Thanks. When you grow up hugging rock trolls, hugging humans is a cinch by comparison.”

Elsa smiled, her eyes closing for a moment.

“Well, since you're the expert,” she asked, “how long can we do this before it gets weird?”

“Riiiight about this long,” Kristoff replied, relaxing his hold on Elsa. As she stepped back, he added, “I guess I’d better go find Anna. See you later, your Highness.”

“See you later,” Elsa agreed. “And Kristoff?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

END CHAPTER 5
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In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic