Chapter Text
From her early years, Elsa Nilsensdotter played a game during long afternoons spent at the house of an astute Bavarian Governess. While her father worked at the Municipal office transcribing letters until his eyes nearly gave out and her mother tailored delicate French-styled gowns for Noblewomen and Socialites until her eyes really did. The game involved sitting at a make-believe tea-party with one perpetually ruddy-faced Heidi Huber. Fräulein Huber had crafted an elaborate card game while her mother was away looking after children of aristocrats and gentry. Often leaving both girls to their own devices. Which was how the complex game of Kingdoms and Empires came about. It involved conjuring cause-and-effect storylines drawn from a deck of her own authorship.
Lord Tavington summons an army to your borders. How do you respond?
Surely an annual tribute shall keep Tavington away from our Kingdom.
I shall raise taxes on the peasantry to pay this annual tribute.
Alas, in protest, the farmers have sacked your palace with pitchforks and knives. You spend your last moments tied to the stake while they burn you alive.
Macabre stuff for seven year-old girls, perhaps - but it never failed to reduce Elsa and Heidi to a fit of giggles. She’d added her own cards to the deck, cut from borrowed sheets of letterstock Frau Huber had left lying around the house. They were surely intending to return them. If only they could get over Tavington’s lumber embargo, the paper mills would start running again! Nothing as dishonorable as stealing occurred in his make-believe world of Kingdoms and Empires. Oh no, that’d surely lead to a one-way trip to the gallows. Which wasn’t nearly as bad as it sounded. Since it usually signalled a break for clotted cream, scones and actual coffee.
Hence, it’d be clear to see how everything in Elsa's life had been reduced to a simple equation of cause and effect. A habit of foreseeing the consequences of her choices. Wear a cardigan in spring and sweat like a pig come noon. Forgo an extra roll at lunch and have a grumpy tummy by supper. Sit too close to the hearth and develop a nasty cough. Choices and consequences. Cause and effect. Elsa liked to think she had a knack for seeing things which were yet to pass. Debated and argued within the council of ministers in her very own head. She’d assembled the motley crew of nobles that mimicked the fictional council Heidi had developed for their game, though Elsa coined her own names for them. Lady Pain who screamed out loud each time she banged her knee on the kitchen table which always got in her way. Captain Hunger who grumbled when food wore thin near the end of the month. Chief Thirst made his complaints known during the summer heat. And above them all: Lord Pride. A haughty man who thumped the table each time he couldn’t get his way. Elsa hated this man the most. And yet there was no denying how much space he took up in her brain. How fiercely he roared each time she stood up to Heidi repeatedly changing the rules of the game and insisting that she was right. A shrill voice that responded in kind to Frau Huber offering her extra food to take home. Elsa, we know your parents aren’t well-to-do, please take this as a gift, you’ve been such blessed company to Heidi.
It was Lord Pride who spoke on her behalf.
My parents are fine, thank you very much. They’ve left me here of their own volition and do not require your charity.
Nonetheless, the Hubers found a way to bypass Lord Pride and simply stuffed the bread into her lil’ satchel and sent her on her way. In the evenings when Fru Nilsen picked up her daughter to head home. Eyes weary with tailoring but still beaming with pride at the pretty ribbons Heidi had knotted in her hair. Did you have fun with the Huber-girl today? Enjoy it while it lasts, school will start in a year and you won’t have much time.
School.
Elsa had caught glimpses of school to and from the Governess house. Books and teachers and children singing songs that resounded through open windows like the scent of lamb pie from the bakery sill. In this life she’d imagined an adventure to be embarked within those four walls. Even Heidi fantasized aloud about it. Thought of the uniforms they’d wear when they’d reached the upper grades. Books about far-off lands; Gulliver’s travels. About what made the sun shine and the clouds drift on winds and how sailors found the new world. It’d be like stepping into another universe within the white brick building, and they’d get lost in the idea of school between their lazy afternoon games. As much as Elsa treasured her time with Heidi, she couldn’t wait to start school. Like she finally reached the age where she could start the rest of her life.
The rest of her life that commenced from the moment she tottered between her parents’ linked arms in the fall breeze. Listening to housewives haggle for potatoes and the clink of Blacksmiths hammering horseshoes and mama asking how the hell they were going to make this month’s pay last. Lord Pride wanted to scream at them. Just watch when I finish school, I’ll make so much money it'll pour out your ears. She giggled at the image. But just when Elsa was about to open her mouth, a sudden ringing noise stopped her in her tracks. Loud. Snatching everyone’s attention as it stole the wind from their lungs. The entire town stopped and turned to its source: a church bell swinging from its steeple. The only thing that moved amidst a sea of frozen people. Even the horses stopped slurping from their troughs and listened to its ringing.
Cause-and-effect sprang to life in Elsa’s brain.
It’s ringing because there’s a huge announcement.
The birth of an heir, perhaps.
Or a princess has finally gotten married.
Or Lord forbid, the death of our King. An untimely tragedy.
But for once, Elsa’s premonitions were proven wrong. A mistake Lord Pride took with great disdain. Crossing his arms as a herald announced from the Town hall’s steps.
As a result of a tragic and prolonged battle with illness,
Her Royal Highness Princess Christina has passed away.
Sixteen words that held the entire town spellbound once again, like sunflowers tilting towards the sun. Instead turning towards the North Mountain. The fabled volcano that overlooked all of Arendelle with its eternal Snow-capped peaks. Slopes that brought irrigation to its farmers and filled the storehouses with grain. Now gazed upon with such a tightened sense of dread Elsa tasted in the air. A knife upon her pale cheeks. She couldn’t discern why. Couldn’t play cause-and-effect as to why the entire town looked towards the North Mountain. Only knowing in the hollow few minutes of silence that passed standing between her parents’ feet; that there were forces beyond her knowledge she could never control. Never understand the consequences of. Fated to be blown about like a leaf in the wind.
Because the very next effect that occurred was the North Mountain exploding with the fury of a thousand Suns. Raining ash and flaming brimstone upon their heads.