Chapter Text

The royal stables are always peaceful, but rarely completely quiet. Anna knows this, and with the amount of time that she spends in here, she also knows every creak of timber and every scraping hoof. So really, it isn't that hard for her to pick up on the sound of someone else in here with her. She even manages to catch a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye, and shoves down a chuckle as she continues to run the brush over Borr's pitch-black flank.

"Y'hear that, boy?" she murmurs, and watches the stallions gray-tipped ears flicker in response. "Think someone's going to try a sneak attack?"

Borr's soft snort makes her smile. It's a remarkably unconcerned response for a potential attack on the queen consort, but she isn't feeling especially worried, either. Instead, she continues her calm, studied brushing of the large animal, uses her directional hearing to keep track of the rustles as they circle from her right side to her left, and sends careful, calculating glances over Borr's broad back to the large pile of hay that he's occasionally turning his head to.

Another rustle has her adjusting her position just a fraction to the left, and she runs the wide brush slowly over the side of Borr's neck. And counts.

Anna gets to minus three this time, and takes a moment to smile at the increase in patience. Then she has to hop - if not exactly for her life – and swing her legs around until she's laying flat atop Borr's back while a small form zooms past underneath her, and with her hands on the horse's shoulder blades for balance, she smothers a grin at both the poof of impact from the hay pile and the remarkably exasperated look being aimed her way from the stallion's large eyes.

"Foo!" comes the indignant squawk from beneath the hay, followed by a dark head popping out of it and a tiny fist waving in the air. "No good!"

Anna snickers as she slides onto the hay-covered floor - on the other side of Borr, this time – and drops to a crouch before fishing the small body out from between the stalks and settling down with the toddler in her lap. "I'm no good? Listen to you, y'little stinker; who was sneaking up on who?"

Chocolate-colored brows scrunch above moss-green eyes, and Magnus sticks his fingers in his mouth as he seems to consider that. Then he grins, and there's a saliva-coated finger pointing directly at Anna's nose. "Ea!"

"Nuh-uh!" Anna tickles him and draws out the sound of her denial because it makes the little boy laugh that much harder; all the while smiling at his designation for her. The common theory is that it comes from the Saami word for 'mother' – eadni – since that's where Magnus apparently has his roots. "I never sneak up on anyone!"

"Foo," is the scowling response to that particular bit of supreme misinformation; a word Magnus uses whenever he smells something bad, and apparently also whenever he decides that someone is lying. "Ea sneak mama."

"Yeah, I guess you got me there," Anna chuckles, and lies back in the warm straw with her son straddling her front. "Sneaking up on your mama is fun, right?"

"Fun," Magnus agrees, even though he's absorbed in playing with the colorful laces that hold the top half of his mother's practical shirt closed. "Make big boom, snow snow snow, whoosh!" He yanks on the laces like the reins to a horse, and only distracts Anna from her laughter when the collar of the shirt tightens a little too much. "Sparklies!"

He isn't wrong, though Anna doubts that the guards – who had dutifully responded to their queen's startled yell and proceeded to fall all over each other when they reached the ice-covered floor – had been amused. They wear their spiked boots in the castle even now, and it's absolute hell on the flooring.

"Ea?"

"Mm?" Magnus is chewing on the edge of his own collar, and Anna chuckles as she picks a stray piece of hay from his thick hair before smoothing it down. "Hungry, kiddo?"

"Nose."

"'Maybe'," Anna corrects; charmed though she is by his logic that something that is both 'no' and 'yes' should be a verbal mashup of the two. "How about we stay here and play with the horsies for a bit, then? Would you like that?"

Magnus clambers higher on his mother's front with a concentrated scowl, and Anna swallows down a yelp because oh, God, those aren't handles. He settles over her ribs, at least; resting tiny hands on her shoulders and leaning over with a very severe – for a going-on-two-years old - frown on his face. "Den go mama?"

Somehow, she manages not to smile. "Absolutely," she promises seriously. "Then we'll go find your mama. Your sister should be awake by then, too."

"Lulu," Magnus identifies, and sits back in a way that makes Anna glad that she didn't have a big lunch; especially when he starts bouncing idly. "Lulu and mama. Good."

"Glad you approve." The laugh becomes almost painful to hold down when Magnus then sprawls on top of her with unconcerned abandon; his arms curling around her neck and a sigh warming her chest that's long and contented and bordering on hedonistic, and so like Elsa after a long day that Anna has to almost bite her lip through to squelch her grin.

She manages, though, and curls an arm around him as she marvels all over again at how big he is now compared to when she first held him, and how tiny he still is that the span of her hand from wrist to fingertip is still longer than the small of his back is wide.

Their son. In nature and law if not in looks, and in love, if not in blood.

Magnus' breathing deepens steadily as his body grows heavy against her, and Anna's heart swells with affection until she has to close her eyes against a sudden onslaught of tears; one that will probably always transport her back in time to that one evening in Elsa's study.

"I love you so much."

Borr nickers softly and lips at Magnus' hair, and Anna reaches out a hand to rub the large, soft nose while her lips press a lingering kiss against her son's head. "I love you, little prince."

"Love Ea," is the sleepy, lip-smacking reply. "Love mama."

"And Louise," Anna adds with a smile; stroking his back soothingly.

"Lulu," Magnus murmurs, and yawns way bigger than someone that small should be able to. "Love Lulu."

She holds him a little tighter and kisses him again. "That's my boy."