if your doing the prompts i got one. wedding

A/N: Technically, I’m not, but then I thought: arranged marriage au where we haven’t met face to face until now. So sure, why not. I’m sorry this is late!



Prompt: Wedding

The chapel was beautiful.

Solemn, but lit by the warm July sun. Of course, most chapels were beautiful with their long, stained glass windows and candlelit halls. But this one especially was breathtaking. Smaller than others and all the more homey because of it. Anna had chanced a glance into it earlier that day before a maid had discovered her and all but shoved her back into the dressing room. Even if she hadn’t seen much of the castle grounds before her vision was filled with white lace and frills, she could afford to be a little biased. It was, after all, her wedding day.

Well, hers and her future bride’s.

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Anna clamped a hand over her mouth. The young servant to her right recoiled, startled.

Gerda, the Queen’s personal maid, squeezed her elbow. “Your Highness, please. Calm down,” she said. Anna chewed the inside of her cheek as experienced fingers finished tying the strings of her dress. The elderly woman tutted to herself and mumbled something to another girl as she worked. To Anna’s dismay, Gerda soon disappeared from the room to attend to the Queen.

As the clock ticked by and servants flitted to and from the room, Anna found it harder and harder to breathe. And not because her corset was tight.

What if she tripped down the aisle? What if she dropped the ring? What if she forgot to say “I do?!”

The veil fluttered over her head. Anna’s heart pounded in her ears.

“What if she doesn’t like me?”

One of the maids quipped with, “Queen Elsa will.”

Easy for her to say, Anna thought. She had actually seen the Queen. All Anna had were letters and a few silhouette pictures. Anna didn’t mind marrying someone she had never really seen. It was preferable to the long, empty halls of her father’s castle and Anna had stayed up until the candle on her nightstand had nearly died, reading and re-reading her future wife’s words.

The door flung open and Anna almost dropped the bouquet she was holding. Gerda, and the portly man from this morning, reappeared.

“It’s time?” Anna squeaked.

The Queen’s head of staff, Kai if she recalled, nodded. “It’s time,” he said. But the gentle smile he sent her way did little to alleviate the jitteriness in her movements.

When Anna stepped onto the aisle, her mind was screaming don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip.

Heads turned to look at her and goosebumps spread across her arms. She recognized a few of her father’s council and some of Arendelle’s nobility. The choir’s gentle song filled the chapel and grew in intensity until she reached the end. The reverend smiled at her when she stopped in front of him. Anna grinned back. The hard part was over.

And then a hush fell onto the chapel and Anna’s stomach dropped to the bottom of her feet. She turned, following the wave of looks as the double doors opened once more. Her heart jumped up her throat.

The few pictures she had seen didn’t do Queen Elsa justice.

Pale gold hair had been spun into a delicate bun. The sunlight streaming through the windows caught the gleam of the royal crown. Anna’s eyes lingered on bare, porcelain shoulders and her pulse stuttered. She jerked her chin up as Elsa rose up the steps. A flash of ice blue beneath white lace made her freeze. Small ice crystals glimmered along Elsa’s veil. Anna’s mouth went dry.

This was the shy little girl her father had told her about when she was knee-high?

Elsa kept her gaze trained on the reverend throughout the ceremony. Anna forced herself to concentrate on the reverend’s words, but her palms tingled and her head was light.

“I do.”

Elsa’s soft voice snapped Anna out of her daze. She wet her dry lips and stared at her bride. Unshakable blue stared back. Anna’s insecurities resurfaced. What if she was a terrible political asset? Even worse, what if she was a horrible wife? She barely knew the person before her. What could someone like Elsa, poised and powerful, see in someone like…well, Anna.

The corner of Elsa’s lips dropped into the slightest of frowns.

Anna flushed hotly. “I do!”

The tension in the air disappeared. There were smiles all around as the rings were presented. Anna bit her lip as cool, silk-covered fingers slid the gold band on her finger. She took a shuddering breath and reached for her ring’s twin. Anna grasped Elsa’s hand as if it were made of glass. She was about to slide the ring when she noticed something.

Elsa’s hand was shaking.

Anna gasped, a breath fast and nearly inaudible. Her eyes darted to Elsa’s face and this close, she could finally see the fear in the older woman’s eyes. Beneath the veil, she noticed the slight furrow of Elsa’s brow; the tension in her neck. Anna’s heart skipped a beat.

She wasn’t alone.

Anna’s cheeks hurt with the strength of her smile. She slipped the ring on Elsa’s fingers and then brought her hand up to kiss trembling knuckles.

Later that day, her father would tease her about kissing too early, even if the kissing had only been a mere brush and nowhere close to Elsa’s lips. But the tender, vulnerable expression Elsa gave her as the ceremony continued left little room for regret.