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Anna sighs, and tries not to cry as she drags her feet, heading back towards her room.

Go away, Anna. Again. Every time she’s tried to get her sister to even talk to her, for the past two months, that’s all it’s been. She still doesn’t understand what changed. What she did wrong.

And Mama and Papa are always so busy. And when it’s not with being King and Queen it’s with Elsa and she’s—lonely. She misses all of them, so much, even though they’re all there.

She turns a corner.

There’s a stranger. A tall lady, with black hair and eyes that are purple and nearly glowing. Anna backs up a step, even as she looks curiously at the woman.

“Hello, Anna, dear,” the woman says, “I’m your aunt, Marit. How are you, little one?”

Aunt? She didn’t know she had an aunt. But if she is then she’s family and that means she’s not a stranger, right? So she’s much less scary! And okay to talk to!

“Lonely,” Anna says. Because what else is she going to say?

“Poor darling,” her aunt says, “I know loneliness all too well, my sweet. I would not wish it on anyone. Perhaps… Here,” she—it almost looks like she pulls it out of thin air, the stuffed toy kitty that she offers. Red-orange, with little white socks. Anna darts forward and takes it and it’s so soft and she hugs it tight to her chest, “It isn’t much, I know. But perhaps it can keep you company?”

“Thank you,” Anna says, and even as her aunt smiles at her she runs the rest of the way to her room.

“Why are there traces of magic around Anna like someone has mucked about inside of her head, Iduna?” Marit asks her sister-in-law. Generally, she likes her brother’s wife, thinks she’s good, and kind, and that she’s adapted well, to the role of Queen, despite not having been raised with royal expectations. “Actually, I believe my bigger concern is why she looked at me as though she had never seen me before in her life, and then didn’t react when I conjured a gift in front of her, as though she suddenly doesn’t know about magic at all?”

“There was an incident while you were away,” Iduna sighs, “The girls were—playing. With Elsa’s magic. She struck Anna in the head, accidentally. We had to go to the Valley—”

“The—I’m surprised they let Anna leave, if you took her to them! You know how they are about children!”

“Yes, well. They took her memories of magic, to be completely safe about things. I thought it was just of Elsa’s magic, but if you say she didn’t recognize you…”

That’s—the most absurd safety measure she’s ever heard of! Forcing Elsa to keep her powers hidden from Anna will only blow up in everyone’s face, she’s certain of that much. Though, come to think of it—

“And why have I not seen the girls together since I came back?”

“Because Elsa blames herself for what happened and is refusing to put Anna in danger again.”

Lonely. Anna said she was lonely. She is five years old and as far as she knows her sister is suddenly and unexpectedly keeping her at arms’ length for no reason and her parents are incredibly busy generally because they have a kingdom to run and Marit is furious, actually. And she knows that her brother is going to send her away, soon enough. She had none of the answers that he wanted, for Elsa.

And then where will Anna be?

No, she decides. If she’s to leave Arendelle, again, it will be on her own terms.

And it will not be alone.

“Anna,” her aunt says, sitting with her, “Would you like to come and stay with me, a while? Just us. I promise, pet, you won’t be lonely.”

“We can’t go anywhere,” she frowns, “the gates are closed.” That was another thing that happened, the same day Elsa started saying go away. Another way things were suddenly different and no one will answer her when she asks why.

“A little thing like that can’t stop us if we don’t let it,” Aunt Marit says, and winks at her before whispering watch, and stepping into a shadow and disappearing, only to walk through the door just a little bit later. Anna gasps.

Magic! That was magic!

“If we go, will you teach me magic?” she asks, excited. She wants to do magic!

“There are some things I cannot teach you,” Aunt Marit says, “Magics you have to be born with. But there are certainly things I can. Things you could learn, through hard work. Potions, herbal remedies, some small charms and enchantments. If you’d like.”

And she doesn’t want to leave Elsa and Mama and Papa. She doesn’t. But…

Will they even notice she’s gone, she wonders, sad. She clutches the kitty her aunt gave her close to her chest and she thinks-thinks-thinks and—

“I wanna learn,” she declares. Magic. She could learn magic. She could have an adventure! And then maybe she’ll come home and Elsa will want to spend time with her again, and she can show her sister all the fun magic that she knows!

Aunt Marit smiles, and pulls her and kitty into her arms.

“Then shall we, my darling?” her aunt says, and she nods, and in a poof and a woosh they’re not in the palace, anymore, they’re outside! On a ship!

“Where are we going, Auntie?” she asks.

“My home,” Aunt Marit says, “In the Southern Isles.”

“Your Majesties!” Gerda rushes into the office. Iduna straightens at the sound of panic in her voice, “Your Majesties. Princess Anna, she’s missing. We’ve searched the whole of the grounds. We can’t find her anywhere.”

“Did you ask Marit to help you?” Agnarr asks, off-hand, continuing to read his correspondence from various allied nations, and Iduna’s sure he means because his sister favors Anna, quite greatly, but she hears the question and she knows.

“Marit’s missing too, isn’t she?” she asks. Agnarr looks at her like he can’t quite believe that she’s suggesting it, but really. It’s the obvious conclusion.

“She is, ma’am,” Gerda confirms.

“Are you suggesting—” Agnarr can’t even finish the sentence.

“Marit didn’t like hearing about the incident with Elsa’s magic. You know how much she adores Anna. I don’t think she trusts that the trolls won’t somehow try and seize Anna from us, since we went to them for help,” and Iduna can’t say she hasn’t been worried about the same thing, though she would have expected it to have happened, by now, if it was going to at all, “Between that, and seeing how alone Anna’s been since everything happened, I—yes, I’m suggesting that Marit took Anna and left.”

And though she hates to think it, wants both her girls with her, safe and happy, perhaps, it’s possible, this will be—better, in the long run. Anna will be safe, with Marit, who can devote time to her that she and Agnarr themselves simply aren’t able to. And Elsa—will have space. To explore her abilities without the fear of harming Anna hanging over her head.

She sees the same line of thought, in her husband’s eyes.

She sighs, and asks Gerda to pack her trunk. They’re due for a diplomatic visit to the Southern Isles, anyway. She’ll stop in and visit Marit, while she’s there, and speak with her. Check on Anna. Perhaps, bring her home, perhaps, but—only if she’s unhappy, with her aunt. Only if it’s really what’s best, for her.

“Bet you’re too much of a baby to go there,” Franz jeers, and Hans—twelve years old and sick of his brothers treating him like he doesn’t even deserve to exist—looks across the bay at the Witch’s Isle. The Forbidden Isle.

“I’ll do it,” he declares, “I’m not afraid.”

He isn’t. When he says it. But as he makes it to the shore—to the forest that surrounds the witch’s manor—he starts to get more and more nervous.

But he’s not a baby. He’s not. So he keeps going. All he has to do is find some magic trinket and bring it back and that’ll be proof he went.

Before he gets out of the forest, though, a girl appears.

He blinks, not quite sure if she’s real. She looks a little younger than he is, maybe. Her copper hair has flowers braided into it and he’d say her green dress is of a simple make but the skirts are embroidered with a whole garden of flowers so lifelike he can practically smell them, and she’s wearing an apron over it with pockets full of glass vials full of plant matter. There’s a butterfly on one of the flowers in her hair, and a big fat toad on her shoulder, and an orange cat that doesn’t look quite normal trotting next to her, and a blue-glowing thing that looks like a rabbit with an owl’s face peeking out shyly from behind her legs. When he sees the not-rabbit he can’t help but notice that her feet are bare.

“Oh, hello,” she says, like it’s every day that she sees strangers in these woods.

“Are you a Fae?” he blurts, unthinking. She must be, mustn’t she?

“No, silly, I’m an Anna,” she giggles, at the question, “and who are you?”

“I’m—Hans,” he tells her, even though if she’s magic he probably shouldn’t give her his name, probably, “what are you doing here?” This Isle is supposed to be scary, right? That’s why it’s called Forbidden. But Anna seems perfectly happy.

“I live here, with my Auntie. Mama comes to visit, sometimes, but Auntie is teaching me magic.”

She’s—

“Does that mean you’re a witch?” he asks. Witches are definitely supposed to be scary, but Anna isn’t scary at all. She’s—pretty. With the bluest eyes he’s ever seen. She fidgets, restlessly, as she watches him, like she’s got too much energy to be still, and her glass vials clink together and he thinks maybe she’s perfect. So maybe she’s enchanted him, somehow? But, no, that doesn’t make any sense. All she’s done is stand there and talk to him.

She looks thoughtful, at the question, and then she smiles and laughs aloud. Her laugh—makes him want to laugh with her, too.

“I guess I am,” she says, bouncing happily on her toes, “I didn’t know I could be both! The stories make it seem like you can only be one or the other, but! I’m a witch! And a princess!”

He blinks, at the declaration.

“A princess?” he asks.

“Oh—I didn’t say, did I?” she asks, “Sorry! Princess Anna, of Arendelle. Nice to meet you!”

Arendelle. His tutors had glossed over it. Called it a small nation, fairly far away. Mostly dependent on fishing. An ally, but not close. Queen Iduna visits Mother at least once a year, though, has been for the last five years or so. So when Anna said Mama comes to visit, she must have meant—

He bows, polite, and Anna giggles again.

“I suppose I didn’t say, either,” he says, “Prince Hans, of the Southern Isles, at your service, My Lady.”

Anna bites her lip, and curtsies, stumbling slightly. The toad hops off her shoulder as though offended, but Hans just finds her ever more charming.

“If we can be both,” he asks, “Do you think your aunt would teach me magic, too?” None of his brothers know magic. He could—stand out. Be special. And, at the same time, spend time with her. Get to know her.

“We can ask!” Anna says, and she takes him by the wrist, and leads him through the woods, both of them laughing the whole way.

“Everything has at least a little magic,” Anna explains, to Hans, as she helps him put together a fairly simple potion. One of the first ones she learned, a recipe that eases pain, “Plants and animals and everything. Some magic is really specific and you have to just. Have it. Like Auntie and her shadows. What we do, when we make potions like this, is we… Bring out the potential. It’s already there. It just needs a little help to work.”

He smiles at her, quickly, and then turns most of his attention back to the potion, where it should be.

“So, if you weren’t born with something specific, why’d you come here to learn?” he asks.

She sighs, and gently scratches Kitty behind the ears, making her toy-turned-familiar purr.

“My older sister, Elsa, was my best friend,” she tries to explain, “and then one day she just—didn’t want anything to do with me anymore. And Mama and Papa were always busy. And I was…”

“Alone?” Hans suggests, soft. Like he knows exactly what she means. What she feels.

“Yeah. And Aunt Marit saw how hurt I was. So she offered to teach me. And magic was suddenly real and not just something out of a story and I wanted to learn! So we came here. I’ve been here ever since.”

“I’m glad you did,” he says, “I—you’re my best friend.”

They’ve only known each other for a month. He can’t come all the time, only every few days. But she gets it.

“You’re my best friend, too,” she tells him, nodding decisively.

“What’s this?” Hans asks. Dares to reach out, run his fingers through Anna’s hair, and the winter-white streak that stands out against the copper strands. He’s wondered ever since he first noticed it, but hasn’t been able to get up the nerve to ask, before.

Anna lets out a long breath, like she’s thinking about it. An otter from the nearby river wanders over, splays itself across her stomach and enjoys as she scratches its chin. Her cat is sitting on his chest, staring jealously over at the other animal.

He maybe relates a little too much.

“I don’t know,” she says, “I remember it like I was born with it. But every time I see it, in the mirror, that memory feels—wrong. And Auntie says I wasn’t born with it, but she doesn’t know exactly what happened because she wasn’t there when I did get it. I had a dream I was kissed by a troll, but…”

But they both know enough about trolls, from Lady Marit's teachings, to know that if a troll got close enough to work some magic on her, it wouldn’t just change her hair and leave her be. That there must be something more to the story.

“I like it,” he tells her, “I think it suits you. But if it’s some spell, affecting you even now… I hope you find a way to break it.”

Marit watches the children as they make a dose of sleeping powder. It’s a finicky recipe, requires a perfectly precise flame, to heat it, but she’s noticed that the prince has a way, with those sorts of recipes in particular. As though he simply understands fire.

The Southern Isles are more accepting of magic than some nations. It’s the reason her mother had chosen them, to raise her in, when they were cast out of Arendelle’s royal family. Surely, though, the Westergaard family would have noticed if their youngest son had fire? Would have sought someone to help him with control, the way Agnarr had sought her out in an attempt to help Elsa?

Unless, of course, it hasn’t fully manifested, in him. If it’s—dormant, within him. A power he has but cannot yet use.

Still. There should be signs. Signs that his family should have seen. He spends so much of his time, though, with her and Anna, and she can’t help but wonder if, perhaps—they just aren’t looking.

“Come here, darling,” Anna says, holding out her hand, making a sort of kissing-noise as she crouches outside of a tiny cave, of some sort. Hans watches, entranced, and tries not to get too close, not wanting to frighten away whatever she’s trying to lure, “I know you’re hurting, but I can’t make it better if you stay inside, little one.”

Her cat rubs against his leg, and he leans down to scratch it behind the ears, as they both wait.

Slowly—incredibly slowly—something starts to make its way out of the cave. Big, tawny eyes blink at them, first, and then a red-scaled foot with sharp talons appears, and—

“Is that a dragon?” he asks, nervous all of a sudden at the appearance of the creature, which is about the size of one of Jurgen’s dogs, when they’re a gangling few months old, but also has a pair of jet-black wings.

“She’s just a baby,” Anna says, like that makes it—her?—less of a mythical creature, “I’ve been worried about her, she showed up on the island a few weeks ago, and there’s no sign of her mama, and this cave suits her now, but when she gets bigger it won’t, and she’s hurt, she was bleeding really badly when I first saw her. But she keeps hiding away like this.”

The dragon sniffs at Anna’s hand—much like one of his brother’s dogs, on meeting someone new—and makes a sort of cooing sound, more bird than dog—and then crawls closer to Anna, bracing its forelegs on her knees and nuzzling her face, making her giggle.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” she praises, running a hand along the scales of the dragon’s head, “I just want to help the hurt go away, my love.”

“Do you have any idea how she was hurt?” he asks, and he dares just a step closer and the dragon freezes, staring at him.

“I think maybe a poacher. It would explain why there hasn’t been any sign of mama,” Anna says, to him, and then she croons to the dragon, “It’s all right, baby, that’s just Hans, he’s a friend. He’s a prince. He won’t hurt you, no, not ever.”

“There are poachers for dragons?” But—he didn’t even know dragons were real, until just now! How could there possibly be enough of a market for any part of them that there could be poachers?

“Of course there are,” Anna tells him, as she coaxes the dragon into letting her actually examine it, “There’s poachers for just about any magical creature. Because there’s witches out there who are a lot worse than us and Auntie who’ll pay for parts, for enchantments and potions. Dragons have it the worst, though. Every part of them has some sort of practical use for healing.”

He steps just a bit closer. Crouches down like Anna is, holds his hand out, too. The dragon keeps staring at him, unblinking, while Anna spreads a blue-green salve across a gash on her side where she’s clearly missing scales. What kind of horrible person would go into dragon poaching, he wonders, for a moment, but then he remembers that if the twins knew that was a viable career path they absolutely would.

“I really won’t hurt you,” he promises the dragon, sincere, and she cranes her neck towards him and starts sniffing, and then she sneezes, little embers of flame dancing across his skin, not quite hot enough to burn. It tickles, really. “You’re very brave, little one,” he tells her, “to try and take care of yourself when you’re hurt and lost. But you don’t have to do everything alone. Anna and I will take care of you, if you’ll let us.”

Anna stifles a yawn as she tries to read for her history lesson. Magic is way more fun than anything else, but Aunt Marit has been pretty insistent that she still needs to learn all the things that she would have been studying under tutors if she’d stayed in Arendelle and not started learning magic, because no matter what else, she’s still a princess. Still second-in-line for the throne, if something terrible happens.

She tries again, to focus on the page in front of her. But it’s so boring, and she decides that, in order to continue, first she needs to take a break.

She glances around Aunt Marit’s library. Hans isn’t paying attention to her, working on an assignment from his tutors. Literature, she thinks. But, anyway, he’s distracted, and that’s perfect.

She marks her page, closes her book, and tiptoes over towards him. Before he can protest, she’s next to him on the couch where he’s been reading, arms wrapped around him, head on his shoulder, feet curled up under her.

“Anna,” he says, and she can hear that he’s smiling, because she always likes it so much when he smiles so she’s paid attention to the way his voice sounds when he’s happy, “What are you doing?”

“Taking a break,” she tells him.

“I believe, Princess,” he counters, “Some people might call this inappropriate.”

She makes a face, even though he probably can’t see it. Inappropriate! To cuddle her best friend! Just because, what, she’s a princess and he’s a prince and they’re not related or betrothed and the closest thing they have to a chaperone right now is her familiar?

“Does what’s inappropriate for a princess matter for a witch?” she asks, tightening her hold, refusing to let go.

“I think it has to. When you’re both,” he sighs.

“Well, I think I don’t care,” she declares, “As both, I am declaring that there’s nothing more appropriate. Than a witch being allowed to snuggle the best prince in the whole wide world.”

Hans laughs, just a little bit, bright and warm, and, oh, she wants to hear it all the time, his laugh.

“You don’t know any other princes,” he reminds, “you can’t possibly know I’m the best.” He sounds sadder, at that, than before. Is he comparing himself to his brothers? He shouldn’t! From everything he’s told her, all of them but Lars are nothing but bullies. From everything he’s told her, they don’t deserve to be called princes. That title should be about more than just what family you were born into, she thinks. Because being royal is also a job, she knows, and anyone who doesn’t respect the responsibility that job comes with can’t deserve the title.

“I don’t need to know them,” she says, firm, “Because I know you. I know how much you want to make a difference, in the lives of your people. How much you want what’s best for the Southern Isles. How hard you work, when your mind is set on something. How kind you are. You’re definitely the best prince.”

“Help me up,” Anna demands, standing on her tiptoes, and Hans rolls his eyes at her pout but obliges, cupping his hands to make a platform so he can give her a boost into the tree that she’s decided she has to climb, for reasons she will not tell him.

He only rolls his eyes because he knows that she’s being performative and wants him to, of course. He can’t imagine ever actually being that exasperated with her.

It’s near midnight and he should have gone home already, but no one will notice—no one ever notices—and Anna had asked him if he wanted to gather ingredients together, things that could only be found at night, and the answer had been of course, because what else would it ever have been? He won’t learn about gathering these particular things, without practice, but that’s almost secondary, at this point, to the fact that he would follow Anna to the ends of the earth, if he had to. If she asked him to.

In moments, with his help, she’s scrambled into the branches, and he worries when she keeps going—higher, and around, and out of sight. What if she falls? He hates to think it but he’s seen her trip over nothing. He hates the thought of something happening while she’s up so high. Next to him, their dragon friend fidgets, clawing at the ground, just as nervous as he is, about Anna being up there. Most likely because she’s not big enough to fly up and save Anna if necessary.

“I knew it!” she cheers, somewhere above, triumphant, and then there’s a few moments of absolute silence before the leaves begin to rustle again and he only feels even slightly calm when she’s back on the branch he lifted her to, sitting there looking smug.

“Knew what, exactly?” he asks, and she pulls one of her vials out of her apron pocket and tosses it, gently, down to him; inside is what appears to be a luminescent moss in a blindingly vivid pink shade.

“Hartmoss,” she says, explaining, “It’s really rare, but it has incredible protective properties. We can make some amazing things with even this much, and! We might be able to actually cultivate it for ourselves. We at least have to try, I think.”

He smiles, at her enthusiasm, before tucking the glass away in one of his own pockets and holding his arms out, because he knows she’s going to need some help, getting down again. She looks at him, and at the tree, and he sees the moment she sort of just shrugs and flings herself off the branch towards him. The dragon makes a panicked little noise, but Hans just braces himself.

He catches her. There’s no part of him that would ever be willing to not catch her. And for a little while, they stay like that. Her, in his arms, both of them giggling like they’re escaped from an asylum.

“Glad I caught you,” he murmurs, when he can bring himself to stop laughing.

“I knew you would,” she says, smiling, leaning into his embrace.

“Will you teach me to dance?” Anna asks, not quite letting herself look at Hans, “I mean—I should know how, right? Because I’m a princess? Just—just in case?”

She does mean it. Does think she should learn.

Mostly, she just wants an excuse to have his arms around her, again. When he caught her, when she leapt from the tree she found the Hartmoss in, it—it felt right. To be held by him. It’s always felt right to be around him, everything with him has always felt as easy as breathing, but this is a different sort of right. Butterflies-in-her-stomach right. Since then, when she reads fairytales, just for fun, she’s even been imagining—him. As the princes. And her. As the princesses. Although, she does have to change the stories, when she imagines them, to account for both of them practicing magic, but—

She still thinks about it. Sometimes. Being—best friends. But also more. True Love. Happily Ever After. Together.

“You’ve taught me so much about magic,” he says, “of course I’ll teach you to dance. It’s—it’s not even enough, to make things fair.”

She looks up at him, with that.

“No, you don’t have to worry about it being fair!” she protests, “I didn’t—Auntie and I haven’t been teaching you so that you’ll owe us, or anything! You wanted to learn. That’s—that’s more than enough.”

His eyes are soft, as he looks at her. He steps just a bit closer, brings a hand up to her cheek, thumb brushing, warm, against the spot right under her eye.

“And you want to learn this,” he says, kind and gentle, “So I’ll teach you. Maybe… Calling it fair was the wrong way to put it. You—” he pauses, as though looking for the right words, “—the day I met you was the best day of my life. Just by being my friend, you’ve done so much for me, without even taking everything I’ve learned into account. I want to do nice things for you, too.”

Oh. Is it supposed to be this hard to breathe, suddenly? Like all the air has been sucked from her lungs and all she can do is stare into his fern-lush eyes?

He moves his hand away from her face. Uses it to take her hand, while he—guides her other hand to his shoulder, before setting his other hand on her waist.

“Ready?” he asks, and she swallows back her nerves and nods, and usually she can be so unsteady on her feet, but, with him, dancing through the forest, she just feels graceful. Like a princess should be.

“If you weren’t a prince, what do you think you would want to be?” Anna asks.

They’re out late, again, although this time, rather than gathering ingredients, they’re only stargazing. Anna is curled into his side, on his right, and the dragon is curled into his left, and as a shooting star goes by, he makes a wish. To always have their friendship, if nothing else.

He doesn’t answer her question, right away. He has to think about it, after all. If he wasn’t a prince, his best chance to distinguish himself in some way, make a name or a fortune for himself, would probably be to join the royal navy. But she hadn’t asked that. She’d asked what he would want to be. He knows her well enough to know she meant if anything was possible and you didn’t have to pick something sensible.

“I think I’d like being a florist, actually,” he admits, “working with plants. Helping people say things with arrangements that they maybe don’t have the courage to say out loud. I—is that silly? Maybe it’s silly—”

“It’s not silly,” Anna shakes her head, “I think you’d be amazing at it. I’d want to be a baker, if I wasn’t a princess or a witch.”

“If only to work with chocolate all the time, I suppose?” he teases. She smacks at his chest, but it’s only half-hearted and she’s laughing, so he’ll take it. Making her laugh is one of his favorite things to do.

“I just like the thought of making things, I guess,” she says, “Taking care of people, even in a small way, like fresh bread. Giving them something to smile about—like a really delicious chocolate cookie. There’s something really good about warm baked goods. Not in a taste way, specifically? I mean obviously if they taste good that’s extra important but it’s not what I mean. I mean in a. A kind way.”

He dares to hold her just a little bit tighter.

“Well,” he says, “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, so that makes sense.”

“You’re kind too, Hans,” she murmurs, leaning her head into his shoulder, “Please don’t ever forget that about yourself. I know—I know you said your brothers call you things like soft, and weak. But they’re wrong. You’re not weak, for being kind. For being soft. You’re good. You’re so, so good. So don’t listen to them, not ever. Don’t let them make you think you need to change who you are. Because I love you, just as you are. My best friend.”

He glances away from the stars, to Anna, something warm filling his chest as he sees her, the way she nearly glows in the moonlight, fireflies dancing around her.

“I love you, too,” he says, “My best friend.”

But why do the words best friend feel wholly inadequate, all of a sudden?

“Hans, c’mere! Come look!” Anna calls out, and then she looks back over her shoulder to make sure he actually listened. This is so exciting! She can’t believe she actually found a bush full of moonberries! Oh, the possibilities that this opens up!

He’s at her side in moments, and looks at the bush and seems not to know why she’s excited, because he looks at her and says “so what am I looking at?”

“Moonberries!” she tells him, gesturing to them. Their dragon friend comes out from behind him, and steals one of the slightly-glowing fruits right off the plant; berries of all sorts do seem to be her particular favorite.

“Are they?” he asks, like he doesn’t believe her, “I mean, they are glowing. But I thought moonberries were only supposed to be out at night,” he points overhead, at the sun streaming through the forest canopy.

Huh. Huh. Now that he mentions it, they do look more golden than the white that moonberries are supposed to be. But then…

“Um,” she hesitates, “Well. If they aren’t moonberries. Then—they have to be sunberries, right?” Sunberries are supposed to be even rarer, though, than moonberries are. To the point where their uses are barely even documented a little bit. So in some ways that’s more exciting, actually, but it’s also just—she’s not entirely sure she believes it.

The dragon takes another berry, chirping happily. Sunberries. Here! And there’s so many! They’re not having much luck getting the Hartmoss to propagate, so far, but maybe they’ll have better luck with sunberries! Maybe they can be the ones to fully understand what they can do!

Hans holds her basket out to her, a smile on his face like he knows exactly how significant a sunberry bush could be, and they start carefully gathering the glowing golden fruits.

“Dear God in Heaven, she actually came,” Lars mutters, and before Hans can follow his brother’s gaze to see what apparently invited-but-unexpected guest has arrived at the ball for Anton’s wedding to Lady Maria of Norland, Helga clamps a hand on his shoulder.

“Eyes forward, Hans,” she hisses, under her breath.

“She’s brought—a girl?” Lars continues, “Had you heard rumors of an apprentice?”

“Lars,” Helga scolds, “If you get yourself cursed for staring like she’s a creature from the royal zoo, I’ll let you suffer.”

Cursed? But, wait, does that mean—

Helga’s grip on his shoulder remains firm, as guests make their way down the receiving line. Most pay him no mind; he’s the least important prince, after all. The one who’ll never see the throne. The whole thing seems to crawl on. Eventually, after what seems an age, Lady Marit is in front of Helga, Anna at her aunt’s side. Their dresses aren’t generally the style, but he doesn’t think they’ll hear anyone criticize them, for it, and not even because of how terrified Helga actually seems, but because, somehow, they’re the most regal women in the room. Lady Marit is in a deep royal violet—daring, considering so few of the assembly would know that she’s King Agnarr of Arendelle’s sister, and thus one of them in her own right.

Anna, in forest green, hair free of its usual braids, looks more Fae than ever, somehow. A dryad, lost in this horrid stone fortress.

“Your Ladyship,” Helga greets Lady Marit, head inclined respectfully, “I’m sure you’ve heard what an unexpected pleasure it is a dozen times already.”

Lady Marit keeps her posture straight. Doesn’t curtsy, even though Helga, by her marriage to Lars, is a Princess of the Southern Isles. But she glances, at Anna, and smiles softly, before she responds.

“My niece was curious about royal functions,” she says, “So I thought perhaps it would be a fine night to indulge her.”

“Your niece?” Lars questions, sounds politely interested.

“And my apprentice,” Lady Marit nods, “Anna. My brother’s younger daughter.” When her aunt introduces her, Anna curtsies to his brother and sister-in-law, far steadier than she’d been that first day they met. He smiles at her, and she blushes, just a little bit. “I had also thought, as they’re of a similar age, perhaps Prince Hans could act as her escort, for the night.”

Helga releases his shoulder.

“A fine idea,” she agrees, pushing him forward, just a touch. He extends a hand to Anna, who takes it easily. He leads her away from the adults, just a bit, finds a place in the ballroom where it will be much easier to actually talk to each other.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, although he is still smiling. Her presence alone has already made this the best of his brothers’ weddings, that he can remember. Anna looks towards the floor, as though she’s a bit shy, for just a moment, before she looks back up at him.

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” she says, “I—I remembered how miserable you were when you had to stay away for longer than usual because of Markus and Katherine’s wedding. And I thought. Since you couldn’t come to us. Maybe we could come to you. Auntie’s always invited, she says they think she’ll curse them if she feels offended? So. Yeah. Here we are.”

He looks down at their hands, twined together, and marvels at how it feels so natural. Holding Anna’s hand. Part of him runs away with the thought—imagines them, older, a wedding ball of their own in this very hall. He can hear the whispers already; the throwaway has married a witch. But even in his imagination, he can’t bring himself to care about that, as far as things people have ever judged him about would go. He would be so proud, to be the man that Anna gave her heart and her hand to. She’s brilliant, after all. Bright as the sun and one of the smartest people he knows. Anyone would be lucky, to catch her eye.

“Do you want to dance?” he asks her, embarrassed, a bit, at the way his pulse quickens at the thought of her in white. It always seems like they think alike, their opinions tend to be so similar, and he can only hope that if she is thinking the same sorts of things he’s thinking that she wants it, like he does. Hope that if she knows what direction his thoughts are going in, she isn’t absolutely appalled by the idea.

“You know how clumsy I am,” she says, “Are you sure you want to risk me stepping on your toes?”

“I’ll keep you steady,” he promises, “I’ll always keep you steady.”

“I’m worried about Hans,” Helga declares, to her husband and several of their sisters-in-law. Beatrice, Edith, Louisa, Katherine. She would have gathered them all, but really, she doesn’t trust Maria to actually care, just yet, and Josefine is so heavily pregnant that she’d rather not cause her undue stress.

“Why?” Louisa asks, innocent as anything, “He’s seemed so happy lately. I don’t think I’ve heard of any of our brothers doing anything to him in a while, either?”

“I believe he’s got feelings for a young lady,” Helga explains, cautious, “and unfortunately I believe the young lady he has feelings for is the apprentice to the Witch of the Forbidden Isle.”

“He’s sixteen. He’s a boy, and she’s a pretty girl he danced with who was, as far as I saw, nothing but kind to him,” Lars sighs, “It’s a passing fancy, my dear. He’ll get sensible before it matters.”

She rolls her eyes, looks at the rest of them.

“Has Hans ever struck any of you as the passing fancy sort of boy?”

“No,” Edith scoffs, “He’s like Konrad, but with manners, he’ll fall in love once and if it doesn’t work out he’ll pine for the rest of his fool life. And the lonely prince and the apprentice witch has fairytale written all over it, which means if the fancy is in his head at all, he’s already halfway there at least.”

“Thank heavens Konrad had the sense that he’s fallen for the girl he’s arranged to marry,” Katherine adds, “Else he’d have done something stupid like run away to become a curse-hunter, or some such nonsense.”

“You—think Hans. Is like Konrad?” Lars questions, and even Beatrice rolls her eyes at that.

“Get out of your books, sometimes,” Beatrice says, “In any other family, those two would have been best friends against the world, making some sort of pact to go out and seek adventure together while they search for True Love. But your father’s insistence on pitting you all against each other for no reason got in the way of that. Hans is softer than Konrad, and that made him an easy target for Konrad.”

“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Louisa says, “Even if Hans is in love with the girl, we don’t know she wouldn’t be an appropriate wife, for him. The Witch said she was her niece, didn’t she? All we know about the Witch’s own lineage is that her mother fled from Arendelle with her, when King Runeard made his distaste for magic clear. She could be a noblewoman, it is possible.”

“It is,” Helga agrees, “But do you really think our father-in-law would allow one of his boys to marry an apprentice witch, regardless of her station at birth?”

“If she was a Crown Princess, perhaps,” Edith allows, “But I do believe the Crown Princess of Arendelle is named Elsa. That, and what king would ever allow his heir to travel to another country to learn magic rather than keeping them close?”

“Even if she is a princess of Arendelle, the Witch specifically called her the younger daughter,” Helga dismisses, and that’s before taking into account that all their records of the isolated nation say there is only one princess.

Though, whenever Queen Iduna visits, she does go spend a day at the Witch’s manor, and it would be quite the irony if one of King Runeard’s own family was so powerful a witch as the Witch of the Forbidden Isle seems to be. Doubly so if the girl is his grandchild.

“Unless,” Lars sighs, “you suspect that he’s been sneaking to the Forbidden Isle to see her, I will stand by my earlier assessment. He’s a boy. It will pass.”

Well. There is that. He’s a smart boy; certainly he wouldn’t risk offending the girl’s aunt and getting cursed by trespassing.

“For now, I suppose all we can do is keep an eye on him,” Beatrice suggests. The others all nod along.

“Fine!” Helga concedes, “But if he gets turned into a frog, I warned you all he might be in trouble.”

“Why is it so hot today?” Anna asks, fanning herself a bit. Genuinely, it’s ridiculous how hot it is. She feels like she climbed inside of an oven, and it’s only May. This is too early in the year to be half this hot. She feels like she’s going to melt. Or maybe like her brain is going to melt, if not the rest of her.

“I wish I knew,” Hans sighs, letting out a breath that sounds absolutely exhausted. He leans up against their dragon friend; she’s hit a growth spurt, lately, is taller than he is, now, and much too big for the cave that she’d claimed when she arrived on the isle. She basically lives in the manor courtyard, at this point, though, so it isn’t as though being too big for her cave matters. When he leans on her, she lifts her wing to give him some shade, and Anna would laugh, at the sight, if she wasn’t about to drop, from the heat.

She eyes the river, sparkling and cool. Propriety would demand she not do what she’s considering. But propriety would probably also look at the way she acts all the time and run screaming in the other direction, probably, so who cares what propriety thinks?

She takes her apron off, ties it around a tree branch.

“Anna?” Hans calls her name, sounds a bit odd, like he’s choking, as she begins to strip down to her underthings. She doesn’t have a proper bathing costume, but that’s never stopped her before. Even if usually she only does this when she’s alone or with only Aunt Marit. “What are you doing?”

“Cooling off,” she says, and glances over to him to see he’s looking away, his cheeks beet red. “You should maybe come swimming too,” she suggests, and then she jumps into the water with as big a splash as she can.

“Hans?” Beatrice calls, “Are you all right? You seem flushed, dear.”

He pauses, in his flight back to his rooms. He can’t not answer his sister-in-law. That will only make her even more concerned, which is the last thing he needs right now.

“‘m fine,” he manages, swallowing, “Just the. Heat wave, getting to me a bit.”

Normally heat doesn’t get to him, not really. This particular spike in the weather, though, has been hell. Has been sent by the Devil himself, Hans is convinced.

And if the heat wasn’t bad enough, there was Anna. He adores her, in every way, but, God, was it nearly impossible to maintain his composure and act like a gentleman and not stare like some lecher when she decided to strip nearly naked in front of him.

Which is getting to him far, far worse than the heat ever could.

“Well,” Beatrice says, “Stay inside a while, then. It’s much cooler in the palace. Send for a pitcher of water, too, and make sure to drink plenty.”

“Yes, Beatrice,” he agrees, does his best to sound deferential and obedient, and then he starts running, again. Trying, trying, trying not to let what he saw, of Anna, merge itself with the fantasy he already had of their wedding.

(It’s too late; he can already picture her, in his rooms, in that white dress, rings on her fingers binding them together. See her smiling at him, coy, pretending at being shy even though she never has been in her life, asking for his help with the buttons down her back. The curve of her neck, as he kisses his way down it, as more and more of her soft, pale skin is bared to him.)

He swallows, again, hoping to get some control over his racing thoughts.

It doesn’t help.

Fuck, as his brothers would likely say, he’s screwed.

The dragon settles down, next to them, hunkered in a way that makes it clear what she’s offering.

“Are you sure, darling?” Anna asks her, scratching her favorite spot behind her ears. In response, she chirps, the happy chirp she usually reserves for strawberries, which are her favorite, because she has excellent taste.

Anna takes that as an obviously I’m sure and carefully climbs onto her friend’s back, making sure she doesn’t aggravate what’s left of the scar, she still has, from the wound that had been on her when she arrived on the Isle.

When she looks back at Hans, he’s hesitating to do the same.

“Come on, Hans,” she urges, patting the spot right behind her, “She wants to take us flying. You don’t want to disappoint her, do you?”

“I’m just not sure it’s safe,” he says, and Anna frowns at him.

“What could be safer than having a dragon to protect us?” she counters, “Get up here. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

He hesitates, just a little bit longer, and she bounces in place, impatient. The dragon turns her head towards him and huffs and nudges him with her snout.

“All right, all right,” he agrees, laughing a bit, and he climbs up behind her, settling his hands on her waist, carefully. She rolls her eyes, grabs his hands, and tugs, makes him wrap his arms around her properly. Then she leans forward, rubs the dragon’s head.

“We’re ready, sweetheart,” she promises, and with a massive leap and an unfurling of wings, they’re in the air, joyful and free.

Hans laughs, as he chases Anna through the forest, the dragon flying somewhere overhead. The sunlight streaming through the trees glitters off Anna’s hair, just enough he can keep her in sight. Sometimes he thinks they’ve explored every bit of this island, her aunt’s island, but then they always manage to find something new.

He catches up to her in a clearing, hands wrapping around her waist gently, but they both go stumbling to the ground from the momentum of their run, and he does his best to be a gentleman, to take the brunt of the fall, and she shrieks with laughter even as she lands on top of him. For a while, they stay like that, giggling together. He wishes every day could be like this, but even with as little attention as his family pays him he knows he can’t simply—run away to live on the Witch’s Isle, with her and her Aunt and their dragon. Though he’d like to. More than anything.

“Do you know what today is?” he asks her, once her laughter has subsided.

“Ooooh, let me think!” she bites her lip and her nose scrunches up as she concentrates and he still almost doesn’t believe that she isn’t some Fae that enchanted him, with how adorable he finds that look, “Is it… Hmm. Caleb and Beatrice’s wedding anniversary?”

“Close,” he says, “It’s an anniversary. Not that one, though.”

“Ernst and Josefine?” she tries again.

“No, silly,” he laughs, “Ours. Four years ago, today, my brothers dared me to come over to this island, and while I was looking for some magic trinket to prove I’d done it, I met you.”

“Oh! But I didn’t get you anything,” she pouts.

“All I want,” he says, slowly, “is—permission. To give you what I have. For you.”

She tilts her head, the way she does when she’s curious about something.

“Why would you need permission to give me something?” she asks, confusion lacing her tone.

“Because I don’t know if you want it,” he explains, “And if you don’t, I don’t want to—force it on you.”

“Well, why don’t you give it to me anyway and then I’ll tell you whether I want it or not? And if I do I’ll keep it and if I don’t then you can take it back and get me something better.”

That’s as near as he’s getting, he supposes, and he pulls her in, close, and kisses her. She squeaks in surprise when their lips meet, and then sighs, dreamily, and melts into his touch.

“Oh,” she breathes, the moment they part, “Yes. I want that. You can’t take it back.”

He grins at her, his pretty witch-princess, and she kisses him, this time, and even if he is enchanted, he decides, he doesn’t mind. Just as long as he gets to stay with her, in this moment and for the rest of his life.

“Where’s Anna?” Iduna asks, as she arrives at the manor, for her annual visit. Usually, her daughter greets her with a hug, before excitedly telling her all about the things she’s learned, since they last saw each other.

It isn’t perfect. Isn’t what she’d prefer. But it’s been good, for Anna. Even if Elsa’s not making the sort of progress with her own magic that any of them would want.

“In the forest,” Marit tells her, “Collecting ingredients.”

“On her own?” Iduna questions. She knows this place is safe enough, that Anna’s capable, enough, but she still worries. Can’t help but worry. Part of Marit’s reason for taking her had been concern about the trolls, after all, and they aren’t necessarily known for playing fair, when it comes to getting what they want. It perhaps isn’t likely that they can cross the sea to get here and take Anna, but that doesn’t mean she or Marit knows for certain that it’s impossible.

“No, of course not,” Marit shakes her head, “Hans is with her.”

She says it entirely casually. As though there’s nothing more natural in the world than—Anna and Hans. Given, however, that Iduna’s never heard either Anna or Marit talk about anyone by that name, Iduna is only confused.

“Hans?” Perhaps Anna finally named her cat-familiar? After all this time, last Iduna knew she was still calling it Kitty, just like she did when she was little and it was only a toy. That thought lasts only a moment before the very cat in question leaps onto one of Marit’s bookshelves, tail flicking back and forth as its eyes—just a little bit unnaturally glassy—land on her. The dragon she’s usually talking about certainly can’t be Hans, as she’s always insisted that it’s a girl.

“The prince,” Marit explains. Prince Hans? Iduna’s met all thirteen of the Westergaard boys, a few times, since she’s been coming to the Isles for Anna. The youngest hadn’t made much of an impression, she must admit—he’d seemed quiet. Certainly better behaved than the majority of his elder brothers. But that’s about all she could say, about the young man. “Anna and I have been teaching him magic. They’re quite taken with each other, actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if their friendship turns into something more, one of these days. He brought her that bouquet,” Marit waves to one of the desks and Iduna looks and sees—

Sunflowers, daisies, red tulips, even a hint of little blue forget-me-nots. It’s colorful, charming, and suits Anna far better than red roses ever would. And it is, of course, a very clear message. A declaration.

She doesn’t think she would have expected such a match. Anna and a prince, any of the Isles’ princes, bonding over learning magic. But… She was not raised, to politics, herself, of course, but she’s learned, since she married. And certainly, on paper, she doesn’t think there could be a better match, than Arendelle and the Southern Isles, and if she had to pick one of that lot of boys to marry one of her girls then it would probably be him, if only because of the closeness in their ages, if only because of the thirteen only he and Lars have never said anything cruel or offensive in her hearing, and—most importantly, to her—if it’s a match of true affection then what could be more suitable? Anna’s happiness and Arendelle’s future would both be better off, would they not?

Iduna tries not to get ahead of herself, while she waits. Marit could be wrong, she thinks. It could be nothing but innocent friendship, between the teenagers, no matter what the bouquet suggests. He’s a boy, he may have just thought the flowers were pretty and wanted to share them with his friend, without thinking it through.

Anna’s alone, when she returns to the manor. Her eyes are sparkling, her cheeks are flushed red, her braids are mussed, and her lips just slightly swollen, as she keeps pressing her fingers to them and giggling, a bit.

One of these days, indeed, apparently. She doesn’t press her daughter, on what it’s clear Anna thinks is a secret, for now, that only she and the prince share. But it does her good, to see Anna so very happy. This could never have happened, she knows, if Anna had stayed locked behind Arendelle’s gates, with them.

When she returns to the Westergaard palace, for her diplomacy, she is a bit more mindful. A bit more interested in the youngest than she was before. Watches most of his brothers treat him like dirt and frowns, at it. His sisters-in-law seem to be paying more attention to him than his mother or father do, so she seeks out one of them—Louisa seems a sensible enough girl, in spite of her husband and in spite of being from Weselton, originally—and tries to understand. From all she can tell he’s a decent boy, and she’s already seen how happy he makes Anna.

Yes, she could see him as a son-in-law, she decides. Though, she can’t help but hope that when she does, it will be back in Arendelle. That Anna will be able to come home, by then.

They’re in their favorite clearing, when it happens.

He just—feels hot, all of a sudden, like he’s sat far too close to the fire for far too long, but he also feels chilled, at the same time? Like a fever-sweat. His stomach clenches and he heaves, but nothing comes out, and Anna hovers, worried, hands in her apron pockets ready to grab whatever she thinks he might need, and he falls to his knees, fingers clutching at the blades of grass, and then fire bursts out of him, an inferno that he can feel every single ember of. The dragon makes a startled squawk and wings backwards, away from him, a surprisingly quick and graceful motion, for as large as she is, and she’s staring just as much as she did when they first met.

He tries to stay calm. To will the fire back below his skin. At least, so far, it hasn’t harmed anything. Hasn’t touched this beautiful place, or Anna.

She steps closer to him, hands extended. A surge of panic that he might hurt her goes through him, but there’s no fear in her eyes, not one ounce of it, and he breathes, forces himself to breathe, watches as she closes the gap between them.

She braves his fire. Embraces him as though nothing has changed.

It doesn’t touch her. Doesn’t harm her. And Anna, in his arms, is exactly what he needs, in order to hold the fire tightly, to understand it, to control it.

“When we’re old enough,” Hans asks, as they work together in the garden, while Kitty chases butterflies and the dragon keeps trying to sneak into the berry bushes, even though that worked much better when she was small, “Will you marry me?”

Anna pauses, at the question. Looks over at him.

“Of course I will,” she tells him. She thought that had been obvious from the moment they first kissed. She hadn’t even expected him to need to ask. They’re—each other’s. They always have been, always.

It must be his brothers, making him insecure again, she decides. If she ever properly meets the rest of them she has some choice words planned. And maybe also some vials of miserable-but-not-dangerous potions and powders that ought to teach them a lesson, set aside. If they want to keep being horrible to Hans, they’re just going to have to live with the fact that they’re messing with the wrong witch’s prince, and get used to being itchy and uncomfortable for extended periods of time.

He holds out a hand. Holds out a ring, of a sort. A sprig of forget-me-nots, twisted ‘round, made a ring. The plants respond to him so well and sometimes she gets a little bit jealous, because he has that and his fire, and she has to work for everything, nothing comes naturally, but in this moment she’s just—swept off her feet. Just a bit.

She reaches across to him, lets him put the ring around her finger. He murmurs a spell and the forget-me-nots seep into her skin, their promise inked there, indelible, permanent. So long as he loves her, so long as his intent is just as it was in this moment, the flowers will stay just as vivid as they are, now. She throws her arms around him in an embrace, relishes in the way that it feels to be held by him, her Hans. Her Prince.

He’s about to kiss her, when Aunt Marit interrupts.

When Anna’s whole world changes.

Arendelle is even lonelier than Anna remembers it being.

Aunt Marit hasn’t left, even though Elsa tried to order her to. Anna’s grateful she has that much, her aunt who she knows better than she ever knew her parents. Because—she will never know her parents, better, now. Mama and Papa are gone. Lost at sea. They weren’t coming to visit, she knows that, if only because Papa never visited, not once, but no one seems to know what they were doing. Why they felt the need to both go on whatever journey they were undertaking.

Elsa still shuts herself in her room. She doesn’t even dignify Anna’s knocking with go away, anymore.

And Anna knows why they came back. They had to. They couldn’t leave Elsa alone, now, no matter how much she seems to want them to.

But she misses home. Their manor on the Isle. The forest, and her animal friends there, and the dragon whose trust she worked so hard to gain.

Hans, of course, more than anything.

She has their promise. The forget-me-nots around her finger, forever binding them. He promised, as he held her through her initial bout of tears at the news that they had to leave, that he still means it. That if she doesn’t come back to the Southern Isles before then, then he’ll make sure his family sends him to Elsa’s coronation, when she’s of age, and they’ll be together, then, because they’ll both be old enough and no one will be able to stop them. He’d made another ring, and she’d put it around his finger and done the spell. They’re meant to be. She knows they are.

But she’d rather be with him, in their favorite forest clearing, than locked away in this near-empty palace, waiting impatiently to see him again. Ignored by her sister, just like before. Barely able to practice with her plants and potions because the royal gardeners take offense every time she tries to set up a little patch of her own. Forced to keep Kitty in her room because the staff looks at her familiar like it’s just some unnerving thing.

She’d rather, she thinks, just be a witch, right now, than a witch and a princess. As much fun as it is to be both, if she wasn’t a princess then she wouldn’t be—stuck. Inside these walls. Far, far away from the prince that she loves.

Three years. It’s been three years since he saw Anna.

As he arrives, in Arendelle, she’s all he can think about. He has their promise. The spell-ink is as vivid as the day it was cast, so he knows her feelings for him haven’t changed. Knows that she still loves him, still wants to be with him.

But sometimes—he worries. That being separated, for as long as they have, will somehow mean that once they’re reunited, she won’t… She’ll think that one of them has changed, too much, and not want him, anymore. That she’ll cast him aside. That he’ll end up just as alone as he always felt, before he met her, and as he’s felt since they day they were forced to part—the day that he arrived back from the Witch’s Isle, having said goodbye to his princess, and Lars told him Arendelle’s King and Queen have died at sea, and this could be your chance! If you get Princess Elsa to marry you, you’ll be able to leave the Isles behind! His brother probably thinks he took that to heart, probably believes that idea is why he worked so hard to get their Father to allow him to be the one to attend the coronation. Only, Hans has no intention of marrying anyone but Anna. He’s never had the intention to marry anyone but Anna, and he never will. Even if she does cast him aside, there will never be someone else, not for him, and they’ve managed to exchange a few letters, but it’s not the same, as having her in his arms. As being together.

He disembarks. Makes his way down the docks, a little bit surprised he can’t see the dragon soaring overhead, because he’d told her, before he left, that he was going to Anna and she had perked up at the princess’ name and tried every begging look in her arsenal to get him to bring her aboard the ship. If she was still small, he might have tried using a glamour spell to make her look like a dog and allowed it, but she’s far too large for that to work now.

He barely has time to notice Anna is in front of him before she’s barreled into his arms and they tumble, together, into a nearby rowboat.

“Hi,” she greets, smiling at him, almost shy. She’s in a ballgown, hair swept into a proper updo, looks every inch the perfect princess—minus the position they’re in, of course. He misses her messier, witchy side instantly, even as he very much appreciates his first look at this half of who she is, Princess Anna.

“Hi,” he smiles back at her, then steals a kiss. He feels whatever tension was in her, making her shy, bleed out of her, at the affection. “Missed you,” he mumbles, holding her tight. He itches to hide away with her, in a bubble of his fire, their own little world, but this is hardly the time or place.

“Missed you, too,” she agrees, stealing a kiss of her own.

“Anna,” her aunt’s voice comes, and he looks up to see Lady Marit smiling down at both of them, “I know you’ve missed Hans, dear, but we aren’t home. A little restraint, please.”

“We’re engaged,” Anna says, and he feels his grin go even wider, “It’s not like we’re being inappropriate.”

“No, you aren’t, but please. You haven’t introduced your suitor to your sister, yet. Let’s not have wild rumors reach her before you can. We don’t need her thinking the worst of the pair of you.”

Anna’s smile slips, at the words, and he’d pull her closer if it wouldn’t be counterproductive, right now. Elsa, Arendelle’s Queen-to-be, is, from all he’s heard, certain to be an obstacle. But he has to hope that she’s at least invested enough in her sister’s happiness that she’ll allow them to wed.

If she’s not, well, he’s certainly not opposed to them taking matters into their own hands and eloping. Finding a little cottage in the woods somewhere, where they can just be together and practice their magic and not worry about what anyone else thinks of them.

“Oh, I don’t dance,” Elsa tells the Duke of Weselton, when he asks her, “but my sister does.”

Anna turns, wide-eyed, towards Elsa, startled at both the playful tone in her sister’s voice, and at being thrown to the wolves, but before she can protest—I only dance with Hans, the words on the tip of her tongue that her sister wouldn’t even understand—the Duke is dragging her out to the dance floor and asking her questions about the gates and why they were closed and also theoretically he’s dancing while he interrogates her but whatever that is he’s doing it’s atrocious.

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to suffer it long, before Hans interrupts the Duke with the most cordial may I cut in? that’s probably ever been spoken, and she’s exactly where she wants to be, in the arms of her prince.

“My hero,” she sighs, dreamily, as Hans whisks her away from the Duke.

“Well, someone had to rescue the whole ballroom from seeing that train-wreck,” he teases, laughter in his eyes, “Why did you even say you’d dance with him?”

“I didn’t,” she explains, as they continue to waltz. She’d thought, the way her feet get away with her sometimes, she must be one of the worst dancers in the world, in spite of her truly excellent teacher, but what little she’d suffered through with the Duke is actually fairly reassuring, in its way, because at least she isn’t that bad, “He asked Elsa. She volunteered me,” and she frowns, a bit, a heavy sort of feeling in her heart, “I think she thought it was funny. I—she’s barely even spoken to me, since I got back, and I thought we were having an actual nice conversation before he interrupted to ask her to dance but. Then she just…” Sent her to dance with a horrible old man and laughed about it? Even if Elsa didn’t have cruel intentions, Anna doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

Despite propriety, and the fact that their engagement isn’t yet public knowledge, he risks leaning in a little closer, kissing her, briefly.

“I’ll protect you,” he promises, “from bad dancers, or anything else you need protecting from. Consider me your devoted knight, Dearest.”

“I can protect myself, you know,” she reminds, but she’s smiling, at him, and she knows he knows that she’s not at all offended by his promise, “Maybe not from bad dancers,” she allows, “but what else is going to mess with me that I can’t handle?”

“You can,” he agrees, “But some of the nations who sent representatives tonight aren’t particularly fond of magic, and I don’t think you want to jeopardize your sister’s alliances on the day of her coronation. So maybe accepting the fealty of my sword-arm is just a little bit safer, for now?”

She pouts, playful, for just a moment, and then she grins up at him.

“As long as I also get the fealty of the rest of you, I suppose I can accept your sword-arm,” she says, as though she’s making a great concession. He sneaks another kiss, and she giggles, so very happy.

“You already had that, My Lady,” he says, in a tone full of promise that sends shivers down her spine.

“I know I already asked, and you already answered,” Hans says, as he and Anna walk together in the gardens, “But—” he reaches into his jacket, and pulls out the box he’s kept there since the moment, a year ago, that he had found a proper ring, with a traveling merchant in the marketplace, that he wanted to see on her hand. He pauses. Wants to do this properly. Gets down on one knee, holds out the ring, so that she can see it, “Will you marry me?”

“Oh,” Anna breathes, her eyes lighting up as she takes in the ring. The emerald centerpiece. The golden band of twining ivy. He’d seen it and remembered that moment, at Anton and Maria’s wedding, that he’d seen her and thought she’d looked her most absolutely magical, “oh, Hans, it’s beautiful!”

She jumps a little, on her toes, too excited to contain herself, and he smiles at her happiness. After a moment, she extends her hand to him, and he places the ring where it belongs, right next to their forget-me-not promise. As soon as he’s on his feet again, she’s in his arms.

“I love you,” he tells her, as he holds her tight, content. It’s the truest thing he’s ever known, his feelings for her. His witch. His princess. His Anna.

“I love you, too,” she replies, and he never wants to let her go again. Feels like he was made, by God or Fate or whatever is out there, with the purpose of holding her, “But,” she says, sighing a bit, pulling away a fraction, “we do still have to talk to my sister.”

Right. Yes. Queen Elsa’s blessing, for the union of Crown Princess Anna of Arendelle, and Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. They’ve been putting it off, just a touch, but as the gates are to be closed again as soon as the coronation celebrations are over, they do need to have that secured, by the end of the night, if they’re going to secure it at all.

The embrace ends, because it has to.

He still holds her hand, all the way back inside the ballroom to where the Queen waits.

“We would like your blessing of our marriage,” Anna explains, to her sister, as she introduces her to Hans. She doesn’t really care, if her sister approves or not, at this point, but it will make things much easier, if she does. And asking is the right thing to do. Since she is a princess, and her Queen’s opinion matters, because of that.

Elsa looks at them like they’re speaking a different language, one she’s never heard before in her life.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Elsa says. What is there not to understand, though?

“Well, we haven’t worked out all the details,” she admits, because obviously it can’t just be this is Prince Hans and I want to marry him that Elsa didn’t understand, that’s a perfectly clear statement. As much as she knows being with Hans is her future, there’s a lot they haven’t talked about. Like where they’re going to live, after they’re married, Arendelle or the Isles. She looks over at him, “Would we get married here or in the Southern Isles, do you think?”

“Here, I would assume,” he says, sounding thoughtful, “Given how much closer to the throne you are than I am, it seems more appropriate to have it in your nation than mine. Besides, the Isles has already had nearly a dozen royal weddings and I’m sure Rudi will finish that dozen out soon enough. Arendelle’s had much less reason to celebrate and it could only be good for the people. That sort of thing brings in a lot of trade and business.”

“Absolutely not,” Elsa interrupts, “No. No one is getting married.”

“Yes, we are,” Anna tells her. She can’t just—say no. Well. She’s Queen so she kind of can, but she didn’t even think about it first, “Are we inviting your brothers? I know it would be rude not to, but I don’t want them ruining our day, either.”

“We are not inviting anyone’s brothers. You can’t marry a man you just met,” Elsa tries again, tone a bit firmer. Oh! That’s the problem, then! Anna didn’t explain well enough. Okay. She can fix that.

“Well, I didn’t just meet Hans,” she says, “I’ve known him since I was ten. We’ve been engaged since just before Aunt Marit and I came back to Arendelle. We are getting married. That’s—we are.”

“You were fifteen when you came back, you weren’t old enough to get engaged,” Elsa argues, “And given that you haven’t seen him in three years, you may as well have just met. People change, Anna. I’m sure you wouldn’t say you’re the same as you were when you arrived back at home.”

Hans squeezes her hand, reassuring. She probably has changed. Some. Out of necessity. Out of not being able to be the same, here. Less witch, more princess, and all. But—he still loves her. And she still loves him. And that’s the part that matters. Everything else is just—details.

“As if you would know,” she bites out, “This is the longest you’ve spoken to me since before I left in the first place. You have no idea who I am, anymore. Let alone whether or not I’ve changed since I’ve been back here.” Isn’t it the most telling thing, she thinks, that her sister called her coming back to Arendelle her arriving back at home? Because it hadn’t been coming home. Not for Anna. Her home is a magical island with a constantly-changing forest and a manor house full of memories.

“Anna, love,” Hans murmurs, thumb rubbing across her forget-me-not ring and the new emerald he’d given her, warm and grounding, “It’s all right. Her Majesty isn’t making entirely unreasonable points. Queen Elsa, if I might reassure you—”

“You may not,” Elsa glares at him, as though he’s done something wrong, and then she turns to her steward, Kai, “Close the gates. The party is over.”

Anna reaches out. Tries to stop her sister. Only manages to pull one of Elsa’s gloves off of her hand. The fight that ensues feels like it’s happening in slow-motion, almost, and then—

Ice.

Ice flies from Elsa’s hand. Wicked spikes of ice grow from the floor of the ballroom, in the gap between them.

Elsa has magic. Elsa has ice magic.

Her sister’s face grows terrified at the sight of her own powers, and then Elsa runs.

“Do you have magic too?” the Duke of Weselton accuses Anna, in the aftermath of Queen Elsa’s flight.

“Who gave you the authority to do anything about it if she does?” Lady Marit sweeps between the unpleasant little man and her niece. Hans is helpless to do much but hold Anna, tight, but he’s going to do whatever she needs him to, for the time being, “You are a visitor, in Arendelle. Anna is Crown Princess, now that her sister is Queen. Show some respect, sir.”

“You are that witch from the Southern Isles,” says another dignitary, “Seems awfully convenient that your prince managed to secure an engagement to the very princess you’re now defending.”

“Allow me to correct you,” Lady Marit sneers, “I am that witch from right here in Arendelle. My loyalty is, first and foremost, to Princess Anna, and always has been. And their engagement is not as new a development as Queen Elsa might have you believe.”

Lady Marit has the argument well in hand, he thinks, so he turns his attention to Anna. She’s staring, a bit wide-eyed, at the glove she still holds.

“Dearest?” he murmurs, soft. He thinks he knows what’s going through her head; he saw the fear on her sister’s face, before the Queen ran. Anna wasn’t born with a magical affinity, has worked hard for every bit of magic she’s ever cast, and certainly has never feared it—not even the first time his fire fully manifested and he wasn’t sure if he trusted himself. Elsa, apparently, was born with magic, with ice, and is clearly haunted by it in some way, had been trying to keep it hidden and bottled up inside, and it runs so counter to everything Anna has ever been.

Anna looks up at him.

“She needs help,” she says, “I need to help her.”

“Let me go with you,” he asks. He’s—reluctant. To let her out of his sight, now, after their years apart. Besides, surely both of them together have a better chance? Surely his fire could keep her safe?

But Anna shakes her head. No.

“I need you to stay here,” she tells him. Stands on her toes and kisses him, like no one else is around, “I need you to take care of Arendelle, for me. The people need a leader, in a situation like this, and you’re the best person for the job. Besides, Elsa’s not going to want to listen if you’re with me, we saw that already.” He hates that she has a point, about her sister’s refusal to hear them out. But he can’t argue it, either.

She turns to the people, surrounding them.

“I’m going to find my sister,” Anna declares, loudly, for everyone to hear, “I’m going to bring her back, and fix this mess. In my absence, I leave Prince Hans in charge.”

Lady Marit pauses in her argument with the visiting dignitaries long enough to take Anna’s hand, and squeeze it encouragingly.

“Be careful, pet,” Lady Marit warns, “I do not trust the things in those mountains, and nor should you.”

“Come back to me safely,” Hans pleads, with her. Gives her another kiss.

And is forced to watch as she leaves him behind, again, only her cat trailing behind her.

“What made the Queen go all ice-crazy, anyway?” asks the guy that Anna has hired to help her get up the North Mountain, to Elsa. Kristoff, he said. Under normal circumstances, she might not have needed the help—she knows several variations of tracking spell that might have lead her straight to her sister—but being alone in a magical storm on a mountain is probably not a great idea and since he’s an ice harvester, by trade, he probably knows what he’s doing on a mountain in general. Much as she loves Hans, much as she would really have liked to take him up on his offer to join her—oh, she can just imagine how much warmer they would be!—he really is better equipped to be in charge down in Arendelle than to being out here. The Southern Isles aren’t particularly mountainous, after all.

“I introduced her to my fiancé and she panicked a bit, I think at the idea of throwing a wedding?” she explains, holding onto Kitty for at least a little comfort, “She tried to frame it as, like, we don’t know each other, because it had been a while since we’d seen each other, but he’s been my best friend for years. I know him better than I know her, at this point!”

Apparently she’s always known Hans better than she’s known Elsa, actually. Considering she had no idea that her sister was hiding magic from her. That possibility hadn’t even crossed her mind. But Kristoff, helpful though he might be, doesn’t need to hear that whole vent.

“We were able to follow Anna’s trail to a castle made of ice,” Hans explains, low enough only she can hear, when he and the search party he’d led come back with an unconscious and bound Elsa. Marit feels for her elder niece, she does, but she fears for the younger, especially with her familiar now perched on Hans’ shoulder, “There was no sign of her from there, and the cat seemed more agitated than usual to be away from her, as though they were separated forcefully rather than Anna leaving him with Elsa on purpose. I’d like to try again. Alone, so I can use magic to track her.”

“What happened to Elsa?” she asks, even as several of the guards take her towards the tower.

“Weselton’s men,” Hans hisses, and Marit looks to see they’re bound, too, “Tried to kill her. She nearly put them down, herself, which wouldn’t have been a tragedy, necessarily, they are thugs. But even in self-defense, I couldn’t see the news that Elsa purposefully killed anyone going over well once the crisis is resolved, so I stepped in. Talked her down, threw off Francis’ aim. She got hit by some debris, but I’ve been keeping her under with some sleeping powder, to get her back safely.”

Smart boy, she thinks, proud. Still…

“If those thugs attempted to kill her, they did so under orders,” she reminds him, “Anna left you in charge. That means you now have a diplomatic problem in the form of the Duke. You can’t leave until that’s dealt with, and you shouldn’t leave until we can ask Elsa if she knows anything of Anna’s whereabouts. And no, dear, you aren’t leaving alone. That mountain is dangerous enough in good weather. The only reason I let Anna leave without human accompaniment in the first place is that the longer she waited, the further Elsa might slip out of reach.”

“She’s not alone anymore. We stopped into a trading post while we were tracking her—Wandering Oaken’s, I think it was called? He told us that she left with an ice harvester she’d hired as a guide.”

Oaken—isn’t normal, Marit thinks. Isn’t human. She’s met him before; she’s fairly convinced he’s a trickster spirit of some kind. But if Anna and Hans both encountered him and were safely able to leave, that’s something.

And an ice harvester will know the mountain, at least. Will, hopefully, know exactly how to avoid the things that are worse than Oaken, that are out there.

Anna’s head is fuzzy from the cold and it’s pounding, hard, but she doesn’t think the trolls took any of her memories or otherwise messed with her mind. Doesn’t feel any different. She supposes she’ll have to ask Hans or Aunt Marit, to be certain that they didn’t do anything to her.

Trolls. Kristoff was raised by trolls. If she didn’t know better, she might not be as terrified as she is, right now, but she’s studied enough magic and magical creatures to know that no matter how benevolently they present themselves, those things are dangerous.

And they always, always, always have an agenda. Bad enough they’d tried to forcefully marry her to Kristoff—it seems like they might have done that to anyone he brought to visit, regardless—but they’d told her what she needs to break the spell Elsa accidentally hit her with, an Act of True Love, without so much as asking for anything in return, and that’s suspicious at best.

But, as Gerda and Kai hustle her back into the palace, she looks at her forget-me-nots, and sighs in relief. She still has Hans. True Love’s Kiss should work, so long as she gets to him, in time.

They’re left, together, in the privacy of the library, and she explains what happened. Well, the really important bits, for now. Elsa struck her accidentally, she needs an Act of True Love. The please check my head for magic residue part can wait, she figures.

“Oh, Anna,” Hans breathes, as he leans in close, “If only there was someone out there who loved you.”

But there is! And it’s him! The ink of her ring hasn’t changed, which means his intent hasn’t changed, which means he still loves her and wants to marry her.

She grabs his hand. The cold’s making her weak but she knows him. Knows he loves her. Knows this is wrong.

“You love me,” she tells him, forceful as she can, “Hans. Look at me. I know you’re lying, just—why?”

He pulls away. Automatically. Goes on about wanting the throne, about how Elsa would have been preferable, like it’s some sort of script he’s reading, written by someone who doesn’t know them. Like he’s being forced to—

Oh, no. There’s something in his head, isn’t there? She was so hung up on the idea that the trolls might have messed with her mind that she didn’t stop to consider they might have somehow bewitched him. They may have even—had her carry the spell right to him.

They wanted her to marry Kristoff.

Get the fiancé out of the way, they’d said. She’d thought that if she could still remember Hans then they hadn’t actually done anything.

But it’s not Hans, talking to her.

“Hans, please,” she begs, “come back to me. Fight that thing in your head. I need you to listen to me, I need you to come back. You’re stronger than whatever spell this is! I know you are!”

There’s a flash of him, across his eyes. She sees it, for just a moment. Then the spell takes over again, a dark, hard-edge to his gaze that doesn’t suit him at all, and he closes and locks the door as the thing in his head threatens to kill her sister.

Marit walks into the library, led there by Anna’s familiar, just as a snowman is about to help Anna out the window.

“What is going on here?” she asks. Takes in the state of her niece—hair turned white, hands and lips blue, and tries not to panic.

“Hans is under a spell,” Anna answers, “I think it was the trolls. He’s going to try and kill Elsa. I have to stop him.”

It sounds more like the work of the Duke, to her—perhaps screaming sorcery at others to distract from using it himself—but if Anna has a reason to suspect the trolls—even though they’re far more likely to want to protect Elsa, if only because of her magic—then Marit won’t argue, just yet. Not until everything is safe and settled.

By the time she finds Hans and Elsa, on the fjord, she’s so close to frozen that it’s really mostly spiting that thing in his head that’s keeping her going. It’s taunting Elsa, about her. His voice almost sounds genuine, almost, but Anna knows him better and knows that if she really was dead he would be so much more devastated than this.

Before he can draw his sword, she throws herself between them. Wraps her arms around Hans, tight, because she needs to—get through to him, somehow.

“Elsa, run, he’s been enchanted,” she manages, “Hans, I know you’re still in there, I know you are. Fight it.”

“How did you figure it out?” asks whatever’s talking through him, almost amused.

Not just a spell, then, if it can react. Possession? Can the trolls do that? They can take and twist memories, but she doesn’t think she’s ever heard of them possessing someone.

“Said—all the wrong things,” she tells it, “Don’t know either of us well enough. Hans didn’t come here to marry into a throne, he came here to marry me. Loves me.”

“You can’t stop him forever,” it says, “You’ll be dead soon enough, little princess, and your sister will follow. I’m sure he’ll mourn you, but, well. King Hans of Arendelle will be such a good proxy, won’t he? I might just keep him.”

But Anna—she doesn’t feel weaker, suddenly. She feels stronger.

“Arendelle’s throne is my sister’s,” she tells it, “and Hans Westergaard is mine.”

Hans’ eyes clear of darkness, just a fraction, go wide at the sight of her. She grabs his jacket, pulls him in close, kisses him, like both their lives depend on it, because, well, maybe they do. Whatever is in his head, trolls or something else entirely, it’s not stronger than their love, it can’t be, or it wouldn’t have forced him not to kiss her in the library.

For a moment, she thinks the enchantment must be fighting back. But then his arms wrap around her, tender as they’ve ever been, and her eyes flutter shut as he actually starts to kiss her back, and warmth surges through her, searing away the ice that’s affected her for so many hours, now.

“Anna!” Elsa’s voice sounds panicked, and not nearly far enough away given that she told her sister to run. But she opens her eyes, as Hans breaks the kiss, and she sees that they’re both wreathed in his fire. Which, yeah, she can see how that might freak Elsa out. She’d have no way to know, after all, that Hans can’t hurt her. That he loves her so much that he just—instinctually keeps her safe. Always has.

“I’m okay!” she promises. She’s better than okay, even! Her sister is safe, Hans is safe, she—actually she can’t remember ever feeling as warm-in-a-good-way as she does, right now. Like Hans’ fire is inside her, safe and protective, not just surrounding her. Hans reaches up, cradles her face in his hands, leans in to kiss her again.

“Missed you,” he says, against her lips, just like he did when they were first reunited, before this whole mess. She giggles.

“I was only gone for, what, a day? Two?” she teases, “I’m pretty sure there’s going to be times before we get married that we have to be apart longer than that. I don’t think Elsa’s just going to let you move into the palace before the wedding. Besides, one of us has to go home and get our dragon.” That said she’s been awake for way too long and she’s absolutely exhausted, so as soon as she can she’s finding someplace quiet and crashing, and she’s dragging him with her for snuggles, whether anyone else thinks it’s appropriate or not.

“If she doesn’t,” he whispers, so only she can hear, “Then I’m stealing you away to elope, Anna. I’m not being apart from you for that long again. We can get our dragon on the way.”

Oooh. She does like the sound of that, she decides, as she pulls away from him, because, well, things are still a mess and she really shouldn’t ignore Elsa right now. After everything.

But, maybe once everything is sorted and they’ve had their nap, she’ll talk him into stealing her away in either case.

Elsa stares at her hands—without gloves, it’s been so long since she was in any room of the palace other than her own without her gloves and it feels so strange—as she explains, to her sister and her aunt—and Prince Hans, who hasn’t left Anna’s side, has refused to leave Anna’s side—about the incident. About when she struck Anna in the head. About when the trolls told her that fear would be her enemy and how everything had gotten so much worse, from there.

The shadows swirling around Aunt Marit’s dress grow agitated, as she tells the story. Embers of fire crackle along the Prince’s form, and Anna acts perfectly unbothered about them, even with one of his arms around her, possessive, even with the fact that she must feel that heat.

She tells them about how, when Aunt Marit had taken Anna to the Isles, it had gotten even worse. She was a child, dealing with magic she didn’t understand entirely on her own, and she was convinced that the reason her parents didn’t mind that her sister had been taken away was that she was dangerous. Because she’d already been shutting herself away, to not hurt Anna, so didn’t that mean she wasn’t doing enough, to keep her sister safe, if they thought sending Anna to another country would be the best thing for her?

Aunt Marit crosses the room, to her. Pulls her into her arms.

“I’m sorry, Elsa,” she tells her, “I saw how poorly the isolation was affecting Anna, and I had to do something. I knew that you would still have your parents, and I thought—”

“No—you were right,” Elsa agrees, “You couldn’t have taken both of us, and Anna needed you more. I just… I didn’t understand, until you brought her back, that it wasn’t about keeping us apart.” That it wasn’t her magic that Aunt Marit thought Anna needed protecting from, but being shoved to the side and forgotten. Even then, knowing that her Aunt trusted her not to hurt her sister didn’t help her trust herself. Not after the years of telling herself you are the problem and you need to control it.

“I could have at least spoken to you before I did it, Elsa. Should have helped you see my purpose. You were old enough to understand. Instead, I decided on a course of action, and carried it out, and hurt you, however unintentionally.”

Part of her just wants to collapse, into her aunt’s embrace, and weep. She’s forced herself to be alone for so long and—and her family, what’s left of it, still accepts her, somehow. Her aunt is apologizing, to her. It’s more than she could have even dreamed of, in some ways.

Most of her knows they don’t have time for her to fall apart. She was able to cause the blizzard to recede, but that doesn’t undo any of the damage it caused, or solve the mystery of who, exactly, enchanted Prince Hans into betraying her sister and attempting to usurp her.

“When did you start feeling not yourself?” Anna murmurs, putting a hand to Hans’ temple, just a bit of the gel-like substance on her fingers that they tend to call truth potion, even though it’s not technically a potion at all. It draws out even things that even the person it’s used on—in this case, him—might not consciously know. He holds her tighter, as she does, eyes fluttering closed at the touch, as they hide away in one of the palace’s smaller sitting rooms.

“Right before you got back,” he breathes, “I was—telling the nobles I wanted to search for you again, and one of them said I was—all Arendelle has left. And it was suddenly the only thing I could think.”

“One of the nobles?” Anna repeats, and he can hear her frowning, “One of Arendelle’s, or a guest?”

He tries to relax, let the magic do its work. He heard the words. He knows he did. The question now is who said them—and maybe, perhaps, if they were an enchantment in and of themselves, or if they merely triggered something that had already been placed on him, earlier.

“Guest,” he murmurs, certain, “The—Blavenia. The dignitary from Blavenia.”

She takes her hand away, pulls out of his hold, gently. He opens his eyes, tries not to pout at her as she goes over to the workstation they managed to convince Gerda and Kai to help them set up, starts to gather together the ingredients for something a little less hands-on than truth potion. If the Blavenian dignitary has magic himself, enchanted Hans, himself, then they aren’t going to want to get close enough to actually use truth potion.

He joins her. Of course he does. They’re a team, they have been since the day they met, and in this it will be no different.

“You have a plan?” he asks, taking off his gloves, setting his jacket aside, rolling up his shirtsleeves. Anna glances at his arms and goes a little bit red, biting her lip. Mmm, she doesn’t know yet, does she, how not having her or Lady Marit around to teach him magic meant he’d had to focus on other pursuits—and how considering his brothers, the most practical thing to attend to had been the sword, in case he’d had a need to defend himself, because they don’t know about his fire or his interest in magic generally and keeping that secret, in case of a real emergency, seems far smarter, where they’re concerned. He thinks—is fairly certain, based on that glance—that she’ll appreciate the muscle he’s built, with that focus.

“Well,” she hedges, wiping the remnants of truth potion off her hands, and then turning and cleaning up the spot at his temples, “Not so much a plan as a known problem. Which is that it wasn’t just a compulsion for you to act wrong. Because whoever it was pulling your strings talked to me through you. So they know I know it wasn’t actually you.”

He shudders, a bit. The whole thing had started—badly enough. All Arendelle has left, in a loop through his head like it was the most beautiful words he’d ever heard, even though that was, actually, probably, yes, I want that, you can’t take it back. Then Anna had been back in front of him, asking for a kiss, and every piece of him that was himself had fought back against that stupid invasive thought, but before he could actually kiss her, the enchantment had yanked him away, and it was like something else had taken over his mouth. Had taken over his entire self. He’d been unable to do anything but watch in horror as he left Anna to die and then attempted to kill her sister.

“They thought they had won,” he realizes, “They thought—” that Anna and Elsa were both as good as dead, because of what they’d done to him.

“Which means they are arrogant,” Anna says, agreeing, but simmeringly, dangerously mad, in a way he wasn’t even sure she was capable of, because she’s always been so cheerful and kind, “And that means they won’t bother trying to run, because they’ll think if they just stay calm and act like nothing happened then they can get away with it. We just need to figure out a way to expose them. Or get them to expose themselves. But! We should probably also make something protective, for us and Aunt Marit and Elsa, so that they don’t manage to enchant anyone again.”

“Grounding potion?” he suggests. Technically it’s meant to dispel harmful magical effects that are already in-place from unknown origins, but functionally, if used before the harmful magic is cast, it’s essentially a full day of what his sister-in-law, Frederica, has all the time, which is that no magic can be used on the person in question.

“It’s a good thought, but we don’t have any Hartmoss here,” Anna sighs.

“Of course we do,” he tells her, then goes into his jacket, one of the extra pockets he’d had sewn into the lining, and pulling out the vial that rests there, “Just because you left doesn’t mean I stopped trying to cultivate it, like you wanted to.”

She stares at the vivid pink moss, for a long moment. Then she drops everything in her hands back on the workstation, steps closer to him, and pulls him in for a lingering kiss.

“I love you,” she says, when she lets him go again, “God, Hans, I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he replies, soft, “But I believe we have work to do, to protect your kingdom, my lovely witch.”

She’s angry. She is so, so angry. But she’s nervous, too, as she and Hans walk into the throne room, hand-in-hand, and make their way to Elsa’s side.

She surveys the room, watches the faces of the assembled foreign nobles as they take in the fact that she’s alive, that she’s no longer cursed.

None of them look happy about anything. Well, almost none of them. The princess and her consort from Corona are certainly happy about something, but from the way all their attention is on each other she isn’t entirely sure that something is relevant to the situation at hand.

“Your highness,” one of the dignitaries grabs for her free hand before they can make it to Elsa. She glances at Hans, and he nods, minutely; this is the man from Blavenia. The one who at the least triggered whatever curse was on him, if not put it there personally, “You must know that Prince Hans lied, to all of us, and said that you were dead, attempted to charge your sister with treason for it—”

She does know. Hans had been aware while he was enchanted. He had told her about that lie—and the lie that they had already said their wedding vows. A lie they’re about to lean into, just a bit.

“I am fully aware of what transpired,” she says, doing her best to channel her aunt’s sort of command, of a room, as she pulls her hand away, “thank you for your concern. That topic will be addressed, if you’ll have some patience.” The man goes a little bit pale, at either her pulling away, or the words themselves, she’s not entirely sure. Nervous? He does seem nervous, doesn’t he? She pauses. Whoever enchanted Hans, possessed Hans, is arrogant. These nerves don’t fit that, not really.

Unless this was his first attempt at using magic to get something he wants, and he’d thought it was over, successful, but then it fell apart around him.

“Unless, of course, there’s some sort of confession you’d like to make?” she prompts, “As to why you think you can tell me more about what happened than my husband can?”

“You’re not married,” he says, “that was a lie he told us, too.”

“Of course we are,” she disagrees, pleasantly as she can, “Hans and I have been married for years. We just haven’t had a formal ceremony. You see, I didn’t grow up here in Arendelle, I grew up in the Southern Isles, with my aunt. And when my husband made his interest in pursuing me clear, it was after he’d caught me, on a chase through the woods. The Hunt is a tradition of royal weddings in your own country, Blavenia, is it not?”

“The Hunt alone does not constitute a marriage,” the dignitary argues, seems even more nervous.

“Of course not,” she nods, tries not to giggle aloud at the fact that it’s her knowledge of politics and law, her training as a princess rather than as a witch that might actually trip this man up and catch him, “That said, we danced together at the wedding ball of Prince Anton and Princess Maria, which, as I understand, dancing together at a wedding ball is the moment that a marriage is legally recognized in Vakretta?”

“Stricter interpretations would have it as only dancing together at the couple’s own wedding,” says one of the other dignitaries, “but certainly young couples who knew their guardians would disapprove have taken advantage of the vague wording of the law as written.”

“We have promised to marry each other three times,” she continues, only sort of fudging the details—their exchange of forget-me-nots probably only technically counts as one, but this man doesn’t need to know that, “I believe that’s recognized as married in Corona?”

“It’s not the only way,” the Coronan consort says, looking away from his wife for a moment, “but it is one of the traditions some couples like to use. You say it three times, you make it true.”

“But, Your Highness—” one of Arendelle’s own nobles interrupts, “You’ve only recently come of marrying age. You can’t have been married for years.”

“But we adopted an orphaned child together?” she adds, working even harder at keeping herself the picture of innocence, because, well, calling their dragon friend their adopted child is a much bigger stretch than any of the rest of these arguments, “You wouldn’t have us set a bad example and tell our daughter we’re not married, would you?”

“And where is this adopted child of yours, then?” the Duke of Weselton asks, sounds suspicious, “There’s been no sign of one this entire time! You expect us to believe that in an unexpected magical catastrophe, neither one of you showed any concern for your own alleged child?”

“She has remained in the Southern Isles, for now,” Hans says, smoothly, “with the rest of my family. She’s a bit young, for an event like the coronation, and we had wanted to secure Queen Elsa’s blessing for a proper wedding, before we uprooted her whole life.”

He sounds so natural saying it, she almost believes what they’re saying, herself! But she does her best to keep the giddy smile off her face.

“As much as I’ve missed her,” she nods, solemn, “I am so glad she’s safe. I would have had a terrible time concentrating on what needed to be done to fix things, if I’d also had to worry about our dear Scarlet.”

“But he said you had just said your vows, and you died in his arms,” the Blavenian jumps back in, “which are clearly lies, even if one does allow your various—unconventional—combined traditions to mean you’ve been married.”

“I said no such things,” Hans argues, venom in his tone, even as he maintains a veneer of pleasantness and politeness, “Whoever placed a compulsion on me to betray my wife and attempt to kill my sister-in-law did, they just used my mouth to do it.”

“Are you suggesting,” another of Arendelle’s own nobles cuts in, “That someone—someone aside from Queen Elsa or Lady Marit, that is—was using magic? To, ah, make the situation worse?”

“No other force on this earth would have ever caused me to tell my wife that no one loved her,” Hans says, and there’s a general gasping at the declaration.

“So,” Anna says, “Is there something you know that my husband doesn’t?”

“It was the Duke’s idea!” he blurts, and things somewhat dissolve into chaos from there.

“Do you really have an adopted daughter?” Elsa asks, almost too quiet, but apparently she’s startled her sister anyway, because Anna jumps and spins towards her, looks almost guilty as she tries to hide she’s packing a travel bag.

“We-ell,” Anna draws out the word, hesitant, “She’s not. A human child, exactly? But she was hurt and there was never any sign of her mother and someone had to nurse her back to health, so we did. So I suppose saying she was an orphan we adopted isn’t inaccurate, right?”

That does make somewhat more sense, Elsa will admit, than a pair of teenagers adopting an actual child. Than anyone in the Isles letting a pair of teenagers adopt an actual child.

She sighs. Looks away from her sister, at the bag, and then at the floor.

“You don’t have to elope, to marry him,” she says, “I—you have my blessing. We can throw a proper ceremony, if that’s what you’d like.” She has to admit that she hardly knows who Anna is, anymore, that she’s been looking at her as though she was still the starry-eyed five-year-old who was just enamored by fairytales and magic, but she still needs to make the offer. It’s the only thing she can do to even try and start making things right.

“We’ll come back, after,” Anna says, blushing, “We—we know that we can’t just ignore that I’m Crown Princess, and all. But. I want to get married at home. In the Isles. With our not-actually-daughter there. I want to see home again, at least one last time. I—”

“Anna, this is your home—” Elsa tries, heart breaking, just a little bit.

“But it’s not!” Anna stops her, “It used to be. But then you shut me out. And the gates closed. And no one would tell me anything. And I forgive you! I promise I do! You were trying to keep me safe, I understand that! But Arendelle hasn’t been home since I was five. I grew up on an island. So full of magic. And it’s—it’s part of my soul, now. I’m—I’m Crown Princess Anna, of Arendelle. But I’m also. Anna, Apprentice Witch of the Forbidden Isle. That part of me isn’t going to just go away because things are better between us.”

“You forgot one,” mumbles Hans, who has apparently been lying in Anna’s bed this whole time, bundled up under the covers, and Elsa blinks at the fact that she missed entirely that he was there, mistook him for a lump of pillows and blankets, or some such.

“I’m also soon-to-be Mrs. Anna Westergaard,” Anna adds, smiling fondly over at the prince in her bed, “Thirteenth Princess of the Southern Isles. Or—if Rudi gets married after us, am I technically twelfth and his unlucky wife thirteenth? Or do I stay thirteenth because you’re thirteenth? Well, whichever. And as Mrs. Anna Westergaard, I need to actually properly meet my brothers-in-law, so I can instill enough fear into them that they never mess with my husband again. So eloping to the Isles will be much more efficient for that, too.”

“But first, love, stop packing and let’s have our nap, like you wanted,” Hans says, just a bit muffled by the fact that his face is in a pillow.

“You’re—” Elsa gapes, a little, at the sheer audacity of the pair of them.

“Elsa, we were awake for nearly three days,” Anna says, like she’s pointing out something obvious, “Between the coronation and searching for you on the mountain and figuring out who enchanted him, and all. It’s just sleeping. If you think this is scandalous, you don’t want to hear about what happened during the heat wave the Southern Isles suffered when I was almost fourteen.”

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” Hans asks, “Knew it would torture me.”

“Did what?” Elsa demands, warily.

“What do you mean torture you?” Anna asks him, at the same moment, even as she climbs in beside him, “Hans, it was hot, I felt like my entire brain was going to melt, the literal only thought in my head was oh, a swim would help so much right now.”

“I was sixteen, and already fantasizing about marrying you, and you got almost entirely undressed in front of me, what do you think I mean by torture me?” he counters, as he tugs her into his arms. Elsa pinches the bridge of her nose, getting the picture.

“You—well, you should have kissed me sooner, then, if you wanted me to know you were interested before we got to that point!”

Elsa shakes her head, backs out of the room, leaves them be. She supposes that she still has quite a few duties, to attend to, not the least of which is dealing with the fact that half the visiting dignitaries believe her sister and Prince Hans are married, already, while the other half believe they were putting on a show to catch a liar in the act—which they were, technically. But if they aren’t going to have a proper wedding, she still needs to figure out Arendelle’s official stance on the matter.

They’re wed in the same forest clearing where they first kissed. In place of any officiant, there’s only a dragon, nearly as big as a cottage, who forgives Anna for leaving for so long the moment she presents her with a few strawberries and some scratches behind the ear. There is, perhaps, nothing legally binding about their moment, about their exchange of gold rings that rest next to their forget-me-nots and declare to the world that they belong to each other, but Hans can’t imagine any proper wedding suiting his witch-princess anyway, not really. His fantasies, after all, ball and wedding night both, always took place after any ceremony.

They’re still in that clearing when she looks at him, bold as brass, and says aren’t you going to make me your wife, Hans? and, well. What kind of husband would he be, if he didn’t do as his wife asks of him?

Helga’s minding her own business when the shouting starts.

A bunch of fools yelling about a dragon, at the gates. She rolls her eyes and continues to work on the letter she’s writing to her mother.

Then Darcy finds her.

“Mama! Mama, there’s a dragon!” Darcy insists, “and Uncle Hans is on it! With a lady!”

She tries not to react, outwardly, to whatever this foolishness is. Sets down her pen.

“Show me, love?” she asks her daughter, who grabs her hand and tugs her down to the gates. Where there is, in fact, a large red dragon. Which Hans is not on, when they arrive, though he is helping a copper-haired young woman dismount, hands so tenderly around her waist that the sweetness is almost tooth-rotting.

He was sent to Arendelle, on a ship, for Queen Elsa’s coronation. Louisa had said, once, that Queen Iduna had expressed some curiosity about him, in a possibly would like to see him marry her daughter sort of way, and so Lars, as the only one of them he might actually listen to, had suggested to him that he ought to try and pursue the new Queen, and he had never said anything for or against that particular idea but he had been dead-set on being the member of the family to go to the coronation so they had thought that he had taken the suggestion to heart.

How, then, has he come home, on a dragon, with the Apprentice Witch of the Forbidden Isle?

“What is the meaning of this?” her father-in-law booms, arriving on the scene.

“Father,” Hans straightens up, bows his head deferentially, “I would like to introduce you, formally, to my wife.”

Idiot, Helga thinks, and she’s never thought so low of Hans before, but this is reckless and stupid and—

“Anna,” Hans continues, “Apprentice Witch of the Forbidden Isle, and Crown Princess of Arendelle.”

“Hello!” the little witch greets, with a cheerful wave and a brief curtsy, “It’s nice to meet you! I was so happy to see Hans, at my sister’s coronation. I’d missed him terribly, since we left the Isles when my parents died.”

Missed him terribly? That would suggest their knowledge of each other was far more than she ever suspected it was. That they had met more than just that one time at Anton and Maria’s wedding. That he had been doing the exact thing she had been sure he was smart enough not to and sneaking off to the Forbidden Isle. Which, perhaps, would explain Queen Iduna’s questions to Louisa quite neatly—and why he’d been so keen to go to Arendelle.

“I told you she was suitable, Helga!” Louisa crows, somewhere to her right. She waves a dismissive hand in that general direction. Now is not the time.

“You’re a witch and a princess?” Darcy questions, and when Helga looks at her she’s looking at the girl who is apparently her new aunt with something like stars in her eyes.

“I am,” Anna agrees, rubbing one hand along the dragon’s jaw. The thing coos like a bird, at the attention.

“Can I be a witch and a princess too?” Darcy asks, and then she looks up at Helga, “Mama! Please? Can Auntie teach me to be a witch and a princess?” Helga sighs, and looks up at the young lady.

“I would love to teach you,” Anna says, “But, well, we are going to be going back to Arendelle, to live. I don’t think you want to be that far away from your mama, just to learn. That was always the hardest thing, for me, was being away from my mama and papa and sister. Do you think you want that?”

Well. That’s a sensible enough statement, at least, for the rather ridiculous topic at hand, and Helga will admit that she’s impressed. Maybe there’s hope that this isn’t one of the stupidest things Hans has ever done. Maybe.

“No,” Darcy says, just a little bit sad, but then she perks up again, “But Mama! Papa! Couldn’t we all go to Arendelle? Then Auntie could teach me and I wouldn’t be far away from you!”

Helga freezes. Looks for Lars, in the crowd. He knows how much she hates living in the Isles, he always has, but surely he won’t just suddenly be willing to leave because their daughter wants to learn magic. Surely not.

(Though, if concern for Hans need no longer keep them in the Isles…)

“Your mother and I can certainly discuss it with your grandfather,” Lars says, slowly—and she sees that the King’s face has gone an alarming shade of red-purple, though she can’t be sure whether it’s from Hans’ announcement that he’s married a witch, the fact that said witch is also next in line for the throne of Arendelle and therefore he can’t punish his son for the choice of bride, Louisa’s outburst giving away that at least the two of them suspected this as a possibility, or Darcy’s new interest in learning magic; likely it’s some combination of all those reasons, “But I’m not making you any promises right this moment, my sweet.”

“Would you like to reconsider that action?” Anna asks, sweet as she can; even as she does, she holds up her hand, swirling her fingers just a bit dramatically, and Hans conjures a bit of flame to hover in the air above her palm, because it just looks so much more threatening and magical than anything she can actually do on her own.

The twins go absolutely pale, and back away, slowly, before they turn and run the other direction.

Hans douses the fire and Anna giggles, leaning into her husband’s chest and smiling so hard it hurts. Flying in on a dragon had done a lot of the “no one touches my husband” work for her, honestly, but the twins are stupid enough, apparently, that they keep trying.

Unlike the nobles at the coronation—or, well, some of them, anyway—her father-in-law had not immediately accepted that they were already married, without any sort of legal documentation or witnesses. He had, however, acquiesced that he had no objection to the marriage itself, and compromised with them that he would acknowledge the match if they had a proper wedding ceremony before they left the Isles to return to Arendelle.

Unfortunate, how long it seems to be taking for everything to come together, for said ceremony, and how that means they have to keep dealing with his brothers being, well, varying levels of awful, ranging from not awful at all actually Lars to The Worst, the twins, with most of them falling much, much closer to the twins on the scale.

“So, what are you going to do to them, later?” Hans asks, holding her close.

“I haven’t decided,” she says, “But I was thinking that letting them worry about it might be more effective than actually doing anything at all.”

“You menace,” he teases her.

“Witch,” she sing-songs right back to him, “And you knew that when you proposed.”

He leans in, brushes a kiss on the crown of her head.

“I did,” he agrees, “But you stole my heart the day I met you, so what else was I going to do?”