Note: My intention is not to take credit out of another person's work, I'm just using it to start my own, and with some hope, being well received for this exceptional principle.

Sequel to 'My Sister's Mistress' by Jessica X and Cartesian Planeswalker

Prologue

From the zenith of emanationism.

The epiphany of a sunny and clear day manifested itself as a gleaming sign of demiurge blessing through an small glassed window in one of the wooden walls of the stateroom after hours of faint darkness where the vision of flotsam were lost from sight.

"Anna!" Shouted the young woman with disquiet as awareness took strength in her mind after her eyes opened faintly. The shock was brief but the relapse was taking its time to quieten down as she reclined her head again on the pillow. She was still quite taken aback over last night's event after absconding from the revelation of her feelings. A chagrin, now an insipidity as far as she could tell laying on that bed damp to the quilt.

The thunders and lightning had stall during her short sleep before reaching port. Her pain was dulled, but also her senses, it wasn't anything a pandiculation can't solve and make her gain some strength to convalesce. What kept her in her place was something that stopped being a pressure against her bowels, someone to nourish, to keep away from fever... or chilblain. Her newborn daughter, Clara, a suckling child already embracing her mother's bountiful and stuffed breast with instinctive desire to quench the thirst to continue living outside the womb before her mother was even awake. Such a realization marked a beam of joy in Elsa, the young woman, now a young mother's face. She caressed her child's thin hair, it's coppery brilliance was the only needed sign that brought her around the belief she made the right choice. It costed everyone's life, but it was worth it.

But Anna, her sister who went against all odds to be granted with a pyrrhic victory had to deal with a repudiation harder than ostracism alone.

After a fair amount of time the baby released her distended nipple and went into a dormant hiatus of satiety.

Funny enough, it was cumbersome to stand untidy hair and bedraggled blankets, so Elsa got up from the clammy sheets her hips and feet were resting on and roll up her hair in a single braid.

Still humid and naked waist down, she sauntered through the small stateroom to sit on a small and mistreated bench, her intimacy feeling cold at the touch. The weight of a failed responsibility made her lean and cover her face with both hands, tears running through her fingers, falling over her bare thighs. Somehow her

freedom required far more exertion than what she anticipated throughout the months. The whispers of Clara breaking the frigid silence Elsa was enveloping herself with. She looked at the baby's direction and noticed odds and ends she could find a use for. After cleaning herself and dress properly, she walked out of the cabin with the drowsy baby in arms, making her way up to the deck of the ship.

The stevedores were unloading their hidden riches within multiple trunks. And Anna was standing in front of the captain, surely discussing irrelevancies.

Indeed, they berthed well.

"It's really a hunky-dory aftermath. Has my partner instructed you with something else?" Asked Anna to envisage an inadvertent.

"Not quite" Anna sigh at the answer.

"I thought so" She searched in her cloak's pocket, took two gold coins and handed them to the captain careless.

"It'll bode well for your ship and crew to reach for other docks before stepping on Arendelle again."

After a short meditation, the captain closed his hand around the coins. He didn't take it as a bribe, the was no reason nor desire for it to be so.

"Yes... I agree, there is a climate here to bypass for my milieu's sake. My ship will accost to the southern territories with no leeways."

"I also suggest you to use it to careen your ship." Anna remarked feeling accomplished. The captain faked a cough for her to pay attention to his eyes which were looking behind her. She turn around to see Elsa walking upstairs with her newborn covered with a blanket.

"I'll inform my boatswain." The captain said as he walked down the ship. "I wish you an auspicious travel." But Anna didn't reply, as she hurried with open arms to Elsa, who, delicately offered Clara to her after a quick reaction of abstinence on Anna's part.

"Please, hold her up here." Begged Elsa with a peremptory undertone.

Before being able to reply anything to her, Elsa went back downstairs to come back with a wooden crate and a glass bottle staggering over it. Anna looked at it without dissemble.

"What..."

"Her navel string and the afterbirth, they are lined with clean linens and soaked in whale oil. And..." Elsa lowered her head.

"Yes?"

"Mother's wedding dress..." Clarified Elsa with a growing sorrow that transcended towards Anna as the young sister understood the overtone of such things and the rehearsal about to take place. Elsa placed the lid on the box and lock it. Then they lowered it slowly down to the water on a length of rope, watching it bob on the surface as Anna dropped a lit match given to her by her older sister. It went up in flames right away, and the burning crate floated steadily away from the ship, carried by the calm ocean's gentle current.

It was a mesmerizing event for both before Elsa produced from the cloak's pocket a parchment, now sealing it with a cork inside the glass bottle to later be tossed it into the water, surely with heartfelt words in it.

"And that?" Anna asked as her fingers trailed through the whitish peach fuzz on their daughter's head.

"It was a letter to Rhys," Elsa replied sadly. "Telling him everything. That I'm so sorry we had to leave, and about our child. I know he'll probably never see it, but… it made me feel better to write it all down." She wrapped an arm around Anna, resting her head on her shoulder. "I have to believe he'll forgive me someday..."

At that, Anna turned Elsa slightly so she could embrace her more fully, carefully trapping Clara between the warmth of her two mothers. "It's okay. In his heart, I'm sure he has to understand why this happened, and... he knows who I am, he always knew I came first in your life. He'll work through it eventually."

Elsa held Anna tight, melting into her embrace as she cried softly. She took Clara from her and cradled her against her breast. "I hope you're right," she sighed. Elsa winced in pain as she turned to move. Her whole body ached from her protracted labor. "Will you help me get down the stairs?"

Back in their small cabin, Elsa laid back in bed with little Clara resting on her chest. She would be the best-loved, happiest little girl in all the world if Elsa had her way. As she gazed down at her baby, a smile broke through her tears.

"Oh look, Anna! She's awake... oh, look at her beautiful blue eyes!"

"They sure are!" Anna breathed, bending as far over the bedside as she could to gaze into Clara's crystalline irises. "Oh, those definitely came from her mommy!" Unconscious of her actions, her arm draped around her lover's shoulders as she leaned farther in. "It... it was all worth it. Every moment we had to go through to get here. I mean it, Elsa."

Elsa smiled sadly at Anna. She wasn't sure she felt that way now, but she knew she would with time. "Clara was worth it," she said softly. Then she paused. "But… I never, ever want to be pregnant again." She sat up slowly, leaning against the headboard. "Listen, Anna, I've been thinking. We need to talk about what we're going to do when we reach Corona."

"We do." Fidgeting for a second, Anna more or less blurted, "Do you want me to be the husband? Because if you do, I will, I'll go into town and buy things we need, and you can stay at home with Clara – or I could get a job in a livery, or a smithy, I- I'm strong enough! Plus, I've been learning fencing here and there, so I ought to be able to protect our home if I keep practicing! But I guess our first job will be to find a house, won't it?"

"The husband?" Elsa chuckled, bemused at her sister's sudden excitement. "I think it would be best if we told people that I'm a widow and you're my sister or cousin. But… if you want to get a job, that's fine. Yes, we'll need to find a house. A place in the country would be best."

With a nod, Anna leaned one hip against the bed. "The peace would be good for us and for Clara, but... I'm not sure we should let on we're sisters." When Elsa seemed surprised, she added, "That could make it easier for the soldiers of Arendelle to track us down, if they know two sisters live nearby. Saying we're both widows of two brothers is better. Besides..." She took another deep breath. "Um, us being sisters would confuse Clara when she's older. Honestly, she's bound to notice we don't treat each other like relatives, no matter how hard we try to keep it from her. Maybe she's as thick-headed as me, but it's just as possible she'll be smart like you, and it's more important to me that she knows we're in love than that we're kin."

"You're right," Elsa agreed reluctantly, shifting to get more comfortable. "That's probably best. I just hope she'll be alright growing up with two mothers. So we'll say we're from Corona, and that our husbands died at sea." She paused to mull over her words. "We shouldn't stay in Corona, you know. We should go farther – ideally a country that isn't allied with Arendelle, one that wouldn't cooperate with extradition even if we were found."

"But I liked the idea of Corona..." After a few more seconds, Anna nodded glumly. "We can't stay, though. You're right. We'll buy a horse and cabriolet... or rather a cart there, and... and we'll just go further inland. Miles and miles. Somewhere, there'll be a place for us."

"Somewhere," Elsa repeated softly, squeezing Anna's hand. "It'll be a hard road, but… as long as we're all together, I know we can do it." Clara gave a little yawn, and Elsa held her close for a small kiss. "Isn't that right, little one?" she crooned. "We'll always have each other."

Anna placed one hand over Elsa's where it supported their daughter. "Always." Was Anna's inimitable return.

No crew member of the complement were at sight to witness their expression of commitment.

There was no more a reason to keen, the hurricane of cloudburst and tide waves suddenly disappeared in an intimate hereafter horizon Elsa wouldn't struggled to embrace.

It took her quite some work to keep her posture as she walked down the ship. Anna took a final look at the flames licking up from their evanescent past with sedateness. A stinging filled her heart, but she fought it down and forced it away, as to char any physical memory before that day. A buoyant ball of fire, the burial of her previous self and the sign of the sempiternal union's parturition. There was also the bottle floating adrift and a wish with pertinacious resistance for it to find its destiny that my never dispirit.