Author's Note: And now we come to my Fairy Tale. This will be three chapters, and I mean it this time. I'm writing this story in a different format/style, because that's how I conceived of this originally. I hope it works out as well as I think it will. The Elsanna is relatively subtle in this first chapter, but that's deliberate. However, I think you'll get a very clear idea of where I'm going with this story's Elsa and Anna in this chapter, and I'm pretty excited about it. I hope you enjoy it too!

I do want to point out that my original inspiration for writing a story like this was the amazing work EthneWinter has done on DeviantArt. Sadly, her work remains incomplete and untouched for some time, but the idea of telling an Elsanna story as a flashback/fairy tale struck me as a very powerful concept. Obviously I don't have the amazing artwork to illustrate a story like Ethne did, but I wanted to give it a shot at telling the Elsanna fairy tale that I came up with some time ago.

Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen or any of the Disney characters held within. All of them are being used under Fair Use, and I have not and will not make any profit from this story.

An Elsanna Fairy Tale

Chapter 1: Pledge

by Jo K.

Run run run away

Like a train rolling off the track

Got the truth being left behind

Fall between the tracks

Standing on broken dreams

Never losing sight

Just spread your wings

-Van Halen, "Dreams"

—O—

"Why the fuck couldn't they have sent me to goddamn Paris?"

Danielle Brooks was not happy. She was twenty-seven, single (thanks to a useless piece of shit ex-boyfriend who had emptied her bank account and stolen her best friend along the way), and now apparently stuck somewhere north of Norway in the face of a winter storm that was either going to end the world or simply strand her in the middle of nowhere for two to four weeks... which might as well have been the same thing.

"Ahhh!" she yelled into her cell phone, which kept replaying an incredibly unhelpful recording about all circuits being busy, or not working, or something else equally worthless when it came to getting back to civilization. With a vicious stab of the screen, hard enough that her short fingernail actually clacked against the glass, she turned her phone off, then slammed it down into her purse.

"Bad day?" asked the girl driving the Land Rover through the swirling blizzard.

Dani looked up, meeting the girl's bright eyes looking back at her through the rear-view mirror. "Shouldn't you be watching the road?" she said, a bit more angrily than she had intended—the girl was doing her best to try to beat the storm to the airport, after all.

"Why? I can't see the road even if I'm looking at it, thanks to the snow," the girl replied blithely, grinning as she finished.

Dani opened her mouth, only to freeze as her lips turned into a smile. "That was good," she said calmly. "Your English is a hell of a lot better than my Norwegian."

"You'll learn," replied the girl, an odd comment from someone Dani really wasn't planning on ever seeing again after she got out of this northernmost corner of Norway. "I lived in the United States for a while," the girl added with a grin.

She really had mostly herself to blame, after all, for not double-checking the travel arrangements the magazine had made for her. She hadn't caught the one-letter difference between the name of the tiny airport barely big enough to land a prop plane and the airport (and larger city) where she was supposed to have flown for her assignment on the Northern Lights, and apparently neither had anyone back at Smithsonian magazine.

The slowing of the Land Rover broke her reverie of quiet self-castigation. "Are we stopping?" she asked, looking out the windshield, only to see a blanket of swirling snow. How is she seeing anything in this?

"We're turning around, while we can still get back to town," said the girl driving, shifting into Reverse as soon as the vehicle came to a stop. "The bridge and the mountain pass are both going to be closed."

"How do you know that?" Dani said, the shrillness in her voice betraying the apprehension at being stranded here in this little slice of the Arctic for days, possibly weeks.

"Experience," replied the girl, looking into the mirror as she deftly turned the vehicle around, shifting back into gear as soon as they were pointed back toward town.

After several tense minutes, including one brief moment of skidding during a fierce crosswind, the snow-shrouded homes on the outskirts of the city of Arendelle were a welcome sight for Dani. She looked down to see her left hand tightly clenched around the door handle; with conscious effort, her fingers slowly uncurled, tendons already aching with stiffness from how tightly she had been holding onto the leather.

The snow was falling heavily, mostly obscuring the figures of the few still out walking, each tightly bundled up against the cold and biting wind. Colorful signs could be seen on multiple buildings, but the snow kept Dani from being able to discern anything about them. And they're in Norwegian, anyway, she thought glumly to herself.

As the Land Rover stopped on the side of the street, the young woman driving turned off the engine and turned around. "We're going in," she said simply before opening the door and stepping out into the swirling snowstorm.

Left sitting in silence, it took Dani three seconds before she quickly opened the door and took off trailing the woman ahead of her, walking quickly but carefully through the snow. Her skin tingled where the snow fell against her face and neck, but the wind and sharp cold it carried stung where it made contact. Dani kept her mouth tightly closed as she leaned forward, trying to hurry but not so much as to fall on a patch of ice. When she finally crossed the threshold of a bright blue door into comforting warmth, she quickly closed the door behind her, pushing against the surprisingly strong wind and interrupting the flurry of snow trailing in behind her.

"Oh my GOD!" she moaned loudly, only to realize that she was in what appeared to be a local pub; thankfully it appeared to be empty save for her driver, a waitress cleaning a table in the very back of the pub, and a woman standing behind the bar, all three of whom were openly staring at her.

"Sorry," she said softly, not realizing she had been quite so loud.

The driver turned away from Dani and walked to the bar, where she and the bartender began conversing, most likely in Norwegian. Seeing nothing better to do, Dani brushed snow off of her coat, then made her way to the bar as well, where she stood just behind and beside her driver. While Dani only picked up the rare word—snow, airport and storm she had already learned quite well—the tone of the conversation between the two young women was friendly and casual.

Finally, after several minutes, the conversation between the two ended.

"Tove says that there no rooms available in the whole city," the driver said, an odd smile on her face.

"What?!" Dani nearly shouted.

"BUT... she's going to let you stay with her until you can get to the airport."

Taken aback by that, Dani froze, staring at the curly-haired brunette she had known for the last two hours. "But I don't know her," she said. "And she doesn't know me."

"Well, the way I see it, you really don't have much choice. Unless you want to sleep on a pool table here."

Dani blinked her eyes twice. Was this seriously happening?

"Karla here tells me that you're a reporter, and that you seem nice, and that she's ninety percent sure you're not a serial killer," said the woman behind the bar, prompting Dani to turn and regard her closely.

A warm smile crossed her oval face, blue eyes nearly shining in the pub's patchy lighting beneath straight bangs of dark brown hair. She was beautiful by anyone's standards, even more stunning than the typical beautiful Scandinavian woman, of which Dani had already seen more than enough over the last few hours to make herself feel inadequate in the looks department. Her English was almost unaccented, spoken with an ease and humor that told Dani that she had been speaking it for quite some time. "Hi," the woman said, extending her hand. "I'm Tove."

"Um, I'm... Dani," Dani replied, thrown off at the other woman's easy demeanor. "Dani Brooks."

"Karla told me about the mix-up with the airport. I have a spare bedroom upstairs that you can use until the roads are cleared."

"Thank you," Dani said, smiling as she nodded. "How long you think it'll take for the roads to be cleared?"

"Oh, hmm," Tove said, her throat vibrating slightly as she hummed to herself, a content smile on her face. "Probably two. Maybe three."

"Two days?!" Dani blurted out.

"Oh, no, no!" Tove said, laughing along with the other girl. "Two to three weeks, more than likely."

Dani wobbled slightly for several seconds, and it was only the swift thinking of the girl standing beside her that allowed her to roughly guide the American into a high-backed stool as she weakly plopped backward.

Tove immediately grabbed a clean white towel and ran it under the nearest faucet, saturating it with cool water before wringing it out and folding it carefully. She moved out from behind the bar and gently pressed the cool rag to Dani's forehead, tsking softly at the woman's ashen color. "Is she dramatic like this?" she asked Karla in Norwegian, getting a shrug of the other woman's shoulders in reply.

"Just met her two hours ago. She's been upset about the weather and being stranded here in general, though."

Dani felt her senses slowly return as she heard the two women converse softly, the words unfamiliar but the tone gentle. She blinked her eyes slowly and turned her head to the right, only to see a pair of pale blue eyes looking down at her with concern in their depths.

She swallowed dryly. "Thanks," she mumbled roughly, reaching up to hold the washrag against her forehead. "Sorry about passing out there."

Tove smiled, but the worry never left her eyes. "You've had an eventful morning, it sounds like."

"After flying all night," Dani added weakly. "Could I get some water, please? To drink?"

"Sure," Tove said. She looked at Karla, who couldn't have been more than nineteen. "How are you going to get home?"

The girl shrugged. "Probably walk. Not risking the company's car on the ice. Is it too early to get something to eat?"

"I think I can make something for you," Tove said pleasantly. "Astrid!" she said more loudly, causing the woman cleaning tables in the back to look up. "Can you get Karla here a menu and a table?" Getting a nod in return, Tove gestured for the girl to move to one of the tables, all of which were currently empty due to the storm.

Dani took a moment to look around the pub. It was pleasant enough, with it early in the day and the pub well-lit, so the dark wood furnishings and walls seemed cozy, not gloomy or oppressive. A large Arendellan flag hung on the wall at the back of the pub, its green, purple and gold shining under the soft light illuminating it. Two dart boards hung further down the wall, with pool tables in another corner of the pub.

Dani turned around in the stool, grateful for the tall back supporting her; she still felt slightly woozy, and she didn't trust herself to try to stand just yet. She cast her gaze to the large windows opening out onto the street outside; the gouts of snow blowing back and forth were far worse than any blizzard she had ever seen despite having living in New York City for most of her life. She could only catch glimpses of the black Land Rover parked just outside, less than thirty feet from the door to the pub, from time to time; seeing the buildings across the two-lane street was impossible.

After a few minutes of watching the storm, though, her eyes drifted to a brightly colored poster hanging on the wall beside the window. The poster showed two women dressed in what Dani assumed was traditional clothing of colorful long dresses with bright embroidery, waving to whomever was viewing the poster. One, a platinum blonde with long, straight hair, was slightly taller than the other, a redhead with her hair twisted into twin braids; they were standing shoulder to shoulder, holding hands while they appeared to be greeting, maybe welcoming, anyone who chose to look at the poster. There was writing on the poster, but Dani couldn't make it out from where she was sitting.

Carefully she stood, testing her balance before releasing the stool. Gingerly she took a test step, smiling when the room no longer threatened to spin out from under her. She walked across the wooden floor, her boots making a soft clomping sound that felt somehow comforting to her. As she reached the poster, she was able to appreciate some details she couldn't see from her previous position at the bar.

The blonde had bright blue eyes, with freckles so soft as to almost be suggestions rather than fact. The redhead had deep blue-green eyes and a face full of freckles scattered across her youthful features. They both appeared to be in their early to mid-twenties, and both were smiling in a way that made Dani smile herself without even realizing it, as if they were sharing some great secret that threatened to spill forth should they open their mouths.

"It's for the festival," called a voice from back across the pub.

Dani turned to see who was talking to her, but she did so a bit too abruptly. She belatedly recognized it as Tove, but too late to keep from reacting. The room briefly spun, but she steadied herself against the wall, being careful not to crumple the poster.

Tove approached her quickly, her right hand hovering just over Dani's arm but hesitant to make contact. "Why don't you go lie down for a bit?" the brunette said, her voice softer than before. "You've had a crazy morning. I'll help you upstairs and show you my apartment and your room and bathroom, then I'll make you some hot tea and bring it to you in just a bit. You can just relax and try to wrap your mind around everything that's happened today."

Dani just nodded mutely. "Thanks," she managed to utter just above a whisper, offering a weak attempt at a smile and getting a much brighter one in return for her effort.

—O—

The vibration in the walls and floor were what woke Dani up several hours later. It was still light outside, and the intense whiteness of the blizzard served to partially illuminate the bedroom she was in despite the curtains being drawn tightly closed. She got up and moved to the window, sliding the curtains to the side; for her efforts, she was greeted with a view out of a storybook.

The blustering, whirling storm had eased, replaced by thick flakes of brilliant white snow lazily descending on a city that looked adorable from her higher vantage point. No buildings in her line of sight were taller than four stories, so what appeared to be the entire city stretched out before her, giving way after several blocks to fields, farms and small houses. In turn, those structures eventually yielded to the forest between the city and what passed for suburbs and the steep, towering mountains that seemed to stretch up to caress the gray sky. Everything was coated with a thick layer of brilliant white, glittering and pristine.

"God, it really is beautiful," Dani muttered to herself. "Even with the blizzard."

In fact, the thick blanket of snow lining every roof, every street, every tree and sign and object unable to escape the steady fall of precipitation, only served to make the tableau presented before her look even more picturesque.

Without any conscious thought, her hands sought out one of her camera bags, and she was taking pictures through the clear glass of the window with her Nikon N90 camera before she even realized what she was doing. After only a second of deliberation, she retrieved the top blanket off the bed she had been sleeping in—it smelled wonderful, whatever it had been washed in—and wrapped herself in it before opening the window, capturing another two dozen shots of the glittering, gleaming arctic landscape before she registered the cold nipping at her face and bare feet.

As a shiver rolled down her body, she tugged the window closed, brushing the few flakes that had drifted inside to the floor.

She found a pair of skinny-fit jeans and tugged them on, followed by a turtleneck and light sweater; even with the heat on in the building and being on the third floor, it was still colder than she would've liked. A pair of thick socks and a light pair of boots went on next; she wasn't planning on getting back out in this weather, and she'd need a coat if she did for some reason, but her feet were cold, and the socks and boots were quite warm. She wrapped a scarf around her neck, tucking it back far enough that it wouldn't interfere with her hands, grabbed her Nikon and left the bedroom.

As she emerged onto the first floor, she nearly hit the server Astrid with the door when she opened it abruptly. "Sorry!" she said, weathering the younger woman's irritated glare for a moment before the server turned away, carrying a tray full of food and drinks out into the pub... which was filled to capacity.

"What the hell..." Dani said softly to herself, looking around at what had to be nearly two hundred people occupying every table, booth, stool and seat, with several more standing around playing pool, throwing darts, laughing, talking and otherwise seeming to have a wonderful time.

She looked out the pub's main window again, just to confirm that it was still snowing, and that there was at least half a meter of snow accumulated outside. At least.

She blinked a few times, but the image of the snow-covered sights outside stubbornly remained visible. "Are these people crazy?" she said softly, barely trusting her eyes.

Finally she began making her way from the anteroom between the bar and the kitchen which housed the door leading upstairs. The chatter resounding through the pub sounded much the same as it would have in English; despite not catching specific words, she easily felt the mood was happy and upbeat, despite the weather.

"DANI!"

Hearing her name called through the din caused her to jump slightly; she turned to see Tove, a grin on her bright face, waving her to come over to the bar.

Picking her way through the crowd, an eclectic mix of mostly younger people in their twenties and thirties but with some older and a few who appeared to be in their late teens, Dani slowly made her way to the bar, where Tove was hurriedly wiping down a place at the closest end of the bar, where a seat appeared to have just been vacated.

"My best seat in the house," the dark-haired woman said with a smile as Dani took her seat in the high-backed stool, the Arendellan's blue eyes eyes alight with energy. "You must be hungry!" Without waiting for an answer, she slid a leather folder in front of Dani. "Here's a menu. Whatever you want is on the house, because you've had such a bad day."

Dani opened the menu, but her eyes never left the brunette's face. "Are you always this nice to everybody?" she blurted out, almost wishing she could snatch the words back as soon as they left her lips.

Thankfully, the vivacious woman didn't seem to take offense. "I always try to have a good attitude," she replied calmly. "It helps me appreciate the good days more and worry about the bad days less." She patted the wooden bar top once. "I'll be back in a minute to get your order," she said, then she was off, moving down the bar to her other customers.

Dani looked at the menu; many of the selections were printed in English or were similar enough to English for her to puzzle most of them out with her limited Norwegian. As she reviewed the menu, her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her that she hadn't eaten anything substantial for nearly twenty-four hours, a small bag of salt and vinegar potato chips on the flight across the Atlantic her only meal over that time.

Once she decided on a simple lunch of hamburger and fries, comfort food that she definitely needed after this morning, she swiveled around in her seat to look over the busy pub. She lifted her camera and began taking some pictures of various people laughing, talking, acting entirely normal. They were dressed warmly, in modern clothes that would be fashionable in New York or Rome or London, but there was something about the scene that was off in some way. How could they seem so happy and normal and calm when it was snowing so fucking much that the roads in and out of the town might be closed for two or three week—

She closed her eyes and mentally calmed herself down. She was here, she was warm, she was about to eat a hot lunch, and she had a place to stay.

She blinked. Did she have to pay? She hadn't even talked to Tove about paying rent while she was staying here. Was she going to have to wait tables? Was it ever going to stop snowing? And why the fuck did so many people here have coppery red hair pulled back in twin braids, or platinum blonde hair done in a long single braid?

Dani blinked twice. She then carefully, slowly looked around the pub, leaving her camera on the table but with her arm threaded through the strap.

She hadn't hallucinated. Almost everyone in the pub, regardless of age, had either red hair with two thin coppery braids trailing down over her—or his—shoulders, or they had platinum blonde hair with a wide single braid of pale hair cascading over one shoulder or straight down the back.

As she inspected the crowd, she slowly realized that most, if not all, of the braids were fake, either attached to caps or hats or outright wigs. There were a few people, mostly women, who had red or blonde hair a different shade than the dominant copper or platinum most of the pub's customer were sporting, but those women too had their hair pulled back into the same style, a wide single braid for blondes or two thinner braids for the redheads.

Dani looked back at the poster on the wall by the pub's main window again. Sure enough, the two women on the poster had exactly the same hair: the redhead's hair was threaded neatly into two thin, long braids that fell on both shoulders, while the platinum blonde had her hair in a single braid that fell over her right shoulder, the side opposite from where the redhead was tucked against her body.

She wasn't sure how long she spent contemplating the surreal scene. The arrival of her lunch, heralded by a savory smell of freshly cooked hamburger that made her mouth water, jolted her back to the rest of the world. "Oh my God, that smells so good!" she said hurriedly.

Tove grinned as she set the white plate loaded with food in front of Dani, golden fries surrounding the hamburger. "I wasn't sure what you wanted on your burger, so I brought you a bit of everything," she said as she placed a small tray with various bottles as well as a small plate of sliced tomatoes, lettuce, pickles and onions next to the plate of food.

"Thank you so, so much!" Dani mumbled around a bite of of a fry, the crisp outside giving way to a fluffy, delicious but extremely hot center. "Hot," she awkwardly said, her mouth open.

Tove quickly shoved a mug of cold water into her left hand, which Dani immediately gulped from. "Spring water, from up in the mountain," the Arendellan woman said with a proud smile. "Better than anything you'll ever taste anywhere else."

After draining half the glass to cool her scalded tongue, Dani took another, slower, drink. "God, that is good," she said after finishing, with just a tiny amount of water left in the glass.

"Things just taste better here," said Tove, a hint of mischief in her light blue eyes.

"Is that part of the charm?" asked Dani, unable to keep from liking the affable woman she had just met a few hours ago, whom she was going to be staying with for the next few days.

"Part of it," Tove agreed. She picked up Dani's nearly-empty glass. "I'll get you some more."

"Hey," Dani said softly, stopping the other woman before she could finish turning around. "What's with the wigs and hair everybody's wearing?" she asked, hoping she wasn't breaking some taboo by mentioning the surreal yet obvious.

Tove smiled even wider. "It's the Festival of Love," she said simply, before she turned around and walked back to the kitchen, her stride light and energetic in her dark jeans.

—O—

"So you celebrate this festival for a whole month?"

"That's right."

Dani looked around, her eyes dancing across the sights laid out before the two of them where they sat, nestled beneath the shelter of a covered bench a block away from Tove's pub, which Dani had learned was called the Two Queens. In addition to her long coat, a thick blanket was wrapped around her body, from the woolen cap on her head to her waterproof boots; Tove was similarly dressed for the weather, but she seemed content to sit beside Dani on the sturdy wooden bench without a blanket.

The winds had calmed considerably, and as a result, the snowfall had become more serene and peaceful, despite it continuing unabated. The snow's accumulation was now approaching a full meter, and Dani hadn't seen a motorized vehicle on the covered roads since she had arrived at the pub this morning.

"Who are the two women?" asked Dani, her journalist's curiosity evident in her tone. "You know. The blonde and the redhead. The ones whose hair everyone seems to be wearing."

Tove laughed softly, and the sound of the honest amusement made Dani smile. "Their names are Anna—the redhead, as you call her—and Elsa, the blonde." She turned to look at Dani, holding the American woman's green eyes for a few seconds until Tove's smile made Dani smile lightly herself. "They're the goddesses of love."

"They're goddesses?!" Dani replied, a bit more sharply than she meant to seem.

Tove nodded.

"Like Norse goddesses? From myths and legends?"

Another nod for a reply, although Tove's smile seemed to dim slightly.

Dani thought for a minute. "I don't remember ever hearing about them," she admitted. "I don't even remember there being a Norse goddess of love." In the comforting embrace of the thick blanket, she reached into her coat pocket and retrieved her Galaxy 5 phone.

"No signal," she muttered at the unwelcome icon at the top of her screen.

"Service tends to go out during the bad storms here," Tove offered softly. "The mountains and the weather are beautiful, but they don't make for very good reception."

The sound of snow crunching under multiple boots made Dani look up. A group of children roughly nine or ten years old trudged through the snow, being led by a stunningly beautiful young blonde woman wearing a bright red coat, most likely a schoolteacher taking her class somewhere, despite the weather. As the class of roughly twenty boys and girls slowly passed by, Dani took stock of how many of them wore either a single blonde braid or twin red braids dangling over their coats. She counted eight "Elsas" and seven "Annas," with both boys and girls seemingly equally happy to dress the part, so to speak. She took one last glance at the class's teacher, noting that even her own hair had been weaved into an intricate single braid dangling over her lowered hood and down the back of her coat.

"Even the kids?" Dani asked, bewildered.

Tove nodded. "The Festival of Love is one of our oldest traditions, and one of our happiest." She took a sip of the coffee from the tumbler she had filled before they left the pub to take a walk. "For children, it teaches them that love is the highest calling of all, something to be cherished, respected and never taken for granted, mocked or abused." She paused for a moment, taking in the dance of snowflakes through the afternoon light, already fading in preparation for the nearing sunset. "For teenagers and young adults, it's a time for expressing feelings to someone who is special to them, without the usual risk of embarrassment or brutal rejection. Being asked out during the Festival is a true honor, and it requires someone to carefully weigh the feelings in her or his heart, to seriously consider the person expressing romantic interest in her or him from all aspects, because not all true loves start out as obvious ones. Sometimes it requires two people taking a chance on each other."

Dani snorted lightly. "Yeah, well, I'm not a good one to try and sell 'love' to," she said flatly. "Having your life savings stolen by the man who said he loved you and stabbed in the back by your former best friend tends to kill the concept of love."

Even through the shroud of her blanket and her thick coat's sleeve, Dani could feel Tove's hand, fingers covered by her blue mitten, gently squeeze her left arm.

"I am very sorry," Tove said, her face taut with concern that didn't look the least bit forced. "Being betrayed like that is terrible in any setting, but for it to be by for someone who says s— he loves you is unforgivable."

Dani nodded, unable to tear her eyes away from Tove's worried face. I just met you, she thought. How can you genuinely be so concerned about my well-being?

Tove looked across the street, over the buildings to the surrounding mountains that ringed the small town. They shone even in the weak light allowed by the thick clouds, their white sheen pristine in its intensity. "The Festival of Love gives us the opportunity to reveal our feelings for those we care about, without fear of humiliation or resentment. If someone is not interested, then after taking the time to carefully consider the other person's feelings, she or he would then respectfully decline the offer of pursuing a romantic relationship."

"And it doesn't screw their friendship?" Dani winced. "Or not screw?" She swore to herself and shook her head slightly, aware of Tove giggling softly beside her. "Oh, whatever. You get what I mean."

Tove nodded, still laughing slightly. "Yes, I get your point. No, declining someone's romantic interest must be respected just as much as offering that interest to begin with, especially during the Festival. It takes great courage to reveal feelings for a friend or acquaintance, and a friendship should never be lost over feelings that are only meant to be positive."

"Well, that's just disturbingly progressive," Dani muttered.

"That's the way it's been in Arendelle for hundreds of years," Tove replied. "Ever since Elsa's and Anna's reign."

Dani blinked her eyes a few times. "Their reign?" she asked, confused again. "But I thought you said they were goddesses."

"They are, but they were Queens of Arendelle first." Tove's expression was playful, her smile quirky, but her eyes told Dani the Arendellan woman wasn't just teasing her.

"They actually ruled the country?" Dani blinked to remove a flake of snow that had just landed on her eyelashes. "They were real people?"

Tove nodded. "They're regarded as the greatest rulers Arendelle ever had. Their descendants still reign today. Queen Marte can trace her family line back nearly a millennium."

"Good God," Dani whispered. "That's... pretty impressive." She looked up into Tove's blue eyes. "I got bored with those ancestry sites by the time I hit my great-grandmother."

The two women looked at each other for a few seconds before Dani's composure dissolved into sputtering laughter, followed quickly by Tove breaking into laughter as well.

—O—

The sun had set several hours ago, but Dani still was wide awake, the combination of time change and her growing appreciation of this country as well as her present company keeping her energized.

As she watched Tove, Astrid and several other servers she hadn't met yet work the tables of the pub, she couldn't help but smile. This day had started out a complete disaster, an utter clusterfuck, but now she was...

She was actually enjoying herself.

The realization nearly made her spill her glass of water. (Seriously, water? After a day like today she should have been well into her third mojito, or maybe just some straight vodka. But the water here was so damn good!) She sighed as she decided to just give in to the absurdity of it all.

She flicked on the display on her Nikon, scrolling through the last few pictures she had taken in reverse order. Tove, smiling despite busting her ass all day in the pub. Tove, filling beers for a group of university-age young men and women. Astrid, looking directly into the camera with a look of annoyance mixed with irritation. Karla, her curly-haired driver from this morning who had shown back up at the Two Queens this evening, looking off to the side and trying not to act like she was checking out Astrid's rear—which she totally was—while Astrid was leaning over a table cleaning it. Tove, pointing at something she apparently found quite amusing. A picture of the snow continuing to fall outside, illuminated by the dim glow of the streetlights. A group of men and women, all wearing wigs or hats with twin red braids or a single blonde braid, posing in various embraces or implied kisses in front of a large picture of Elsa and Anna.

Dani switched the display on her camera off again, replacing the device in the carrying case on the table in front of her. She looked around the pub again, now beginning to empty out as the hour grew late.

"What time is last call?" she asked, raising her voice to get Tove's attention where the brunette cleaned glasses behind the bar.

Tove smiled as she looked up. "Whenever I say it is," she replied cheekily. "One of the privileges of owning the pub."

Without even meaning to, Dani suddenly yawned, letting her arms lift toward the low ceiling as she stretched. "Think I'm going to get ready for bed," she said as soon as her muscles relaxed enough to allow her to speak again. She gathered her camera and bag, then stood and carried the water glass to the bar, stopping as Tove drew near, the same happy smile on the woman's face that always seemed to be there.

"Thank you again," Dani said sincerely. "For letting me stay here." She looked around the pub. "This may sound crazy, but I've actually had a really fun time today."

"Even with being stranded in the mountains with a crazy woman like me," Tove said confidently.

Dani smiled in reply, something she had done more today than she had for the last three months. "Even with that."

Tove took the water glass from Dani's hand, placing it on the shelf below the bar surface to be washed later; she then lightly covered Dani's hand with her own for a brief moment before jerking it away. "Sorry!" she said quickly, grimacing awkwardly. "Not everybody likes to be touched, and I have to keep reminding myself of that."

Dani kept the smile on her face. "It's okay," she said softly. "You have to be who you are, huh?"

"Yes," replied Tove, her smile once again back in place. "Go on up. I'll try not to wake you up when I finish up down here."

Dani nodded, then made her way to the door leading upstairs.

—O—

Despite her best efforts, which included taking two diphenhydramine capsules from her travel kit, sleep refused to come for Dani. She lay in the small but comfortable bed for nearly thirty minutes before she finally slid the covers back and sat up. She picked up the small LED travel light she had placed beside her bed and clicked it on, the blue-tinged light casting a soft but adequate glow through the room.

As she stepped out into the narrow hallway, a dim flickering of light from the larger living room drew her attention. Nervously, Dani crept toward the apartment's main room, switching off her light and moving as silently as possible. She peered around the corner to see a low fire, casting a warm orange glow across the otherwise-dark room despite the diminutive height of the flames.

The lack of a protective screen in front of the fireplace immediately surged to the front of Dani's mind, and she was already several swift steps into the living room when she heard the distinctive sound of someone sniffling in front of her.

From her previous position, Dani had been facing the rear of the large couch in the room, and it being silhouetted by the firelight had kept her from recognized the outline of part of a head lying on one of the couch's armrests. But when she heard the noise indicating someone else was in the living room, her eyes reassessed the couch and its now-visible occupant at the same time her heart rate erupted.

"Oh my GOD!" Dani gasped, nearly dropping her light as she took in the sight of Tove lying on the couch, now wearing a long t-shirt and satin shorts. The glistening trails of tears down the woman's cheeks reflected the fire's light. "You scared the shit out of me!" she said loudly as she reached to her neck to check her heart rate, confirming that it was indeed racing wildly.

"Sorry," Tove replied weakly, sniffling and wiping her nose with a tissue from the box beside her. "I was trying to be quiet and not wake you up."

"New York time," Dani said with a weak smile that she quickly realized was lost on Tove, whose attention was once again fixated on the small fire. "Sorry for yelling like that," she added as she sank into the chair beside the sofa, the soft fabric smooth on her bare legs where her sleeping shorts ended. "It is your home, I mean."

Tove nodded, oddly pensive and, for the first time since Dani had met her, utterly still.

For several minutes the two women were quiet, both watching the flames dance around and between the logs in the fireplace, a fatal but intimate embrace. The silence stretched from awkward into uncomfortable before finally passing into an uneasy calm as the two of them just sat quietly.

"It's warmer in here," Tove finally said, her soft voice breaking the silence like a foot carefully dipping into a still pool. "My bedroom gets cold," she said quietly, her voice trailing off in a way that told Dani's instincts that there was more being left unsaid.

Suddenly Tove looked up, her face grimacing with embarrassment. "That was not a proposition!" she said vigorously, the force of her pronouncement surprisingly. "Oh gods, now you're going to think I had some ulterior motive for inviting you to stay here!"

Admittedly, Dani's first reaction to Tove's somewhat cryptic comment had been to worry if the sweet woman was going to make an uncomfortable advance toward her, especially given her own precarious situation at being stranded in a foreign country with no other obvious place to stay. But seeing how contrite Tove was about the awkwardness of her statement, combined with the Arendellan woman breaking down into sobs at what truly was an innocuous (if unwise) turn of phrase only served to further Dani's confusion.

"Hey," Dani said, leaning forward, her fingers hovering inches away from Tove's bare feet but hesitating to establish physical contact. "Hey," she tried again, a bit louder, then again before finally reaching out to grab Tove's left foot.

Instantly Tove jumped, pulling her legs back beneath her. Fear flashed through her eyes for a brief moment as she locked eyes with Dani, startling the American woman as well. Then recognition seeped into Tove's face, and her features instantly softened, the trepidation melting away visibly as she slid into a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her legs as she clutched them tightly to her chest on the far side of the couch.

"I... I didn't mean to upset you," Dani stammered, still significantly flummoxed at Tove's reaction to so simple a gesture. "I'm really sorry." She felt her own eyes begin to burn with shame, having seriously upset Tove, who was being incredibly kind and generous by letting her stay here for an indefinite amount of time.

Tove's eyes were closed, but the firelight continued to highlight the tracks of tears down the brunette's cheeks. Though she was crying silently, it was anything but gentle, if the way her body shook were to believed.

After a few seconds' deliberation, Dani gritted her teeth and lifted herself from the chair, moving slowly to the sofa, where she sat as lightly as possible, at the opposite end from Tove. The couch was large enough and Tove was curled into a small enough package that a good three or four feet spanned between them, which Dani hoped would be enough to keep her host from breaking down further.

"Tove..." she started, unsure what to say briefly before deciding to just say what her heart was telling her. "Tove, if there's anything I can do, please let me know," she softly spoke. "I don't know what's going on, or why you're so upset, but you seem like an incredibly kind, good person, and you don't deserve to be hurting like this."

The whisper was so soft that Dani couldn't make out the words, and it took thinking about it for a few seconds to realize that Tove had uttered anything at all. "What... What did you say?" Dani asked finally.

"Didn't realize you heard that," Tove muttered morosely.

"Well, I did. Will you please tell me what you said?"

Tove sighed before looking up into Dani's eyes. "I said, 'Neither do you.'"

Dani was left speechless by Tove's admission, her mind whirling as she relived the gut-wrenching events of the last few months: her boyfriend's repeated infidelity, her best friend's betrayal, the discovery that her bank accounts were cleaned out, the financial quagmire that awaited her when she finally made it home after this blizzard—if she would even have a home to return to, considering her rent check would almost certainly bounce.

"You have walls up, Dani," Tove said, leaning slightly forward on the couch but not relaxing her legs from their protective position between the two of them. "Your pain is obvious, and understandable, but beneath it, there's such a joy for life, for art that is so beautiful. I can already see it, with the way you let yourself go into your photography and the life and beauty you capture in those pictures, when you can let go of those burdens that haunt you and just allow yourself to appreciate the world all around you."

Dani looked around the den, the dark walls roughly illuminated only by the shifting, dancing glow of the fire. "Today, for the first time in a long time," she said slowly, "I was taking pictures because..." She trailed off to wipe her eyes with the heel of her right hand, then shifting into a slightly more comfortable position reclining back again the arm of the sofa. "I was taking pictures because I was moved by the images, by the scenes. Not because it was my job."

She stopped glancing around the room to meet Tove's eyes again, their color now a golden glow in the firelight. "Photography... stopped being fun a while back," she admitted. "It was my job, and because of that it became reduced to just work, a duty I had to fulfill. Throw all the other shit in my life onto it, and I just stopped seeing the joy that I used to find with a camera in my hands."

Dani smiled, and she did nothing to lessen or restrain the expression. "Until I got here," she admitted quietly.

"Arendelle is a special place," Tove said softly. "I left for a while. Moved to America, stayed for a few years. I worked different jobs, saw several states, but I never found any place that felt like home."

"So you came back here."

Tove nodded. "Not all of my memories here are happy ones, but that wasn't Arendelle's fault."

Dani pursed her lips briefly in a look of consideration, then spoke. "You know, I'm not exactly the most thoughtful person, but..." She sighed, realizing how stupid this had to sound. "I'm going to be here a while, then I'll be gone, and I'll most likely never see you and anyone you know ever again..."

"Careful what you say," Tove said, the ghost of a grin crossing her lips. "You don't know what the future holds for you."

"Yeah, well, this one I'm pretty sure of," Dani replied, smiling. "So if you, like, want to talk to somebody about... things..." She lifted her arms and shoulders in a weak shrug. "I'm here. And I'll listen."

Tove shook her head. "Tradition in Arendelle is that the visitor is the one who must tell a story to the host." Registering the emotional barriers that quickly fell into place over Dani's face, Tove smiled sadly. "But you're in no shape to share your story with me, just as I am with you."

Tove leaned forward and gently gripped Dani's left ankle. "Thank you, Danielle Brooks," she said sweetly. "For caring about me, and trying to help."

Dani felt her cheeks flush slightly. "Well, you seem like a really sweet person, and all I've seen you do since I met you is try to make other people happy, serve them really fucking good food and alcohol, and be the personal savior to a stupid American who probably would have frozen to death by now if not for you."

Tove smiled, the warmth of her hand lingering on Dani's bare leg for a few seconds before it was slowly, hesitantly taken away. "While I don't want to talk about myself, I do have a story you might be interested in," she said slowly, leaning back against her end of the sofa in a position mirroring Dani's.

"Oh?" asked Dani, curious. "What kind of story?"

Tove's smile grew as she paused for several seconds before speaking. "The story of how two sisters who experienced terrible loss and tragedy growing up fell in love with each other and went on to become the goddesses of love," she said smugly.

Dani sat up straighter. "You've got my attention."

Tove cleared her throat softly. "This is the story of Elsa and Anna, who began as sisters but became lovers and eternal mates, two young women who lost nearly everything they loved while still in childhood but in the process found happiness and love with each other. Their love was so powerful that it defied law, nature and even the gods themselves, in tragedy and triumph alike..."

Author's Afterword: For clarity, the parts of this story that are narrative, with Tove telling the story of Anna and Elsa, will be in italics. I've wanted to write a story with this element in it for some time, and now I've finally managed to get enough of it together. This will be a three-chapter story. The next two chapters will have MUCH more of Elsa's and Anna's story, as well as more examination of how their legend continues to influence this modern Arendelle. The fairy tale that makes up their story is as much a part of my overall story as the modern segments, and weaving the two together to tell both tales at once is the challenge I've set for myself with this work. I hope this comes out well, but it's taken a LOT of time to come up with a way to present this tale that feels smooth enough to post. Please bear with me, both in terms of the story as well as the time, since I seem to be writing very slowly for the last few months.

Jo