“Elsa?”



“Mm?” Elsa arched one dark eyebrow without looking up from the meticulously-worded trade agreement that was spilled across her lap.



“It’s nearly midnight and you’ve been studying that thing for hours.” Anna sprawled dramatically over the study’s chaise lounge, attempting to look every inch the picture of beatific suffering. “Don’t you think it’s time to call it a night?”



“A queen can’t just ‘call it a night’, Anna,” came the distracted reply.



“Well,” Anna struggled up from her affected pose and propped her chin on the back of the lounge. “What about princesses?”



Elsa smoothed her hands over the parchment in her lap and drew in a quiet breath. “What about princesses?”



“Can a princess call it a night?”

Elsa selected a quill from a cluttered side table at her elbow and jotted a few notes in a small, cramped hand before replying, “Anna, you could have gone to bed hours ago.”



“Well, yeah, but – but not without you.”



Elsa looked up then, her expression a careful arrangement of mild concern, but her eyes were sad and maybe a little longing. Anna hoped it was longing.



“I’ll go to bed soon,” Elsa relented with a small smile. “I promise.”



Anna scowled. “No, I want you to come to bed now. Right now.”



“Oh, Anna–”



“I command it,” Anna interrupted, rising decisively from her seat. She marched over to Elsa’s chair and flopped full-length across her sister’s lap, crumpling the parchment and smudging the still wet ink across the bodice of her gown. “It is bedtime, Elsa. Princess’s orders.”



“You ‘command’ it?” Elsa struggled to keep a straight face as she looked down on Anna, but it was a losing fight. She covered her mouth with one hand, which did little to conceal the edges of a smile. “You may be a princess, but I’m a queen. I outrank you.”



“But I’m your princess,” Anna twisted around to look at her sister, thoroughly ruining her dress and crumpling the trade agreement in the process. “Right?”

“Anna, you’ve stained your gown,” Elsa tried and failed to keep a flush from rising in her cheeks. With Anna draped across her lap, she wasn’t quite sure where to put her hands, and so drew them to her chest. It was a familiar, anxious gesture that Anna noted with a small frown. She reached up and took one of Elsa’s hands in both of her own, brought it to her lips, and kissed the ink-stained fingertips.

“Maybe you can help me take it off then?” She meant to be flippant and maybe a little seductive if she could manage it. What came out spoke instead to a half-hopeful, half-despairing ache that seemed to have taken up residence in the center of her chest.

Elsa gave her sister such a look of sweet, shy adoration that Anna’s heart swelled full to bursting. It wasn’t quite new, this feeling, yet it still caught her off guard. Because Elsa was smiling at her. Elsa was touching her. Elsa loved her. It was wonderful and strange and everything she had ever wanted.

Anna smiled a lopsided smile and sighed contentedly. There was a quiet piece of silence during which they studied one another, each thinking her own thoughts, neither quite believing that this private moment was truly theirs.

It had been months since The Great Thaw, and they had grown close again, closer even than they had been as children. Still, Anna found it hard to believe that Elsa’s door was always open to her. Still, Elsa delighted in even the most casual touch she shared with Anna. Still, they had only just begun to explore that small, exclusive world that new lovers create for themselves.

A log in the cheerfully burning hearth fire collapsed into feathery ash, throwing up a shower of sparks that shown bright as new coins against the gathering dark. The fire shifted and settled, crackling and popping as pockets of sap burst in the heat. The sound seemed to rouse the two from their reverie. Anna squeezed Elsa’s hand.

“So…” Anna’s smile became altogether more mischievous as Elsa shifted beneath her. She was very aware that scant layers of fabric separated them. It was of sturdy Norwegian make, to be sure, but only fabric all the same.

“Right – your dress,” Elsa’s free hand fluttered hesitantly over the pleats of Anna’s skirt. “Should – should I – ?”

Anna sat up, presenting her back to Elsa. One strap of her gown slipped off her freckled shoulder, and she glanced back at her sister. “You should.”

Elsa’s hands were cool against Anna’s skin as she peeled the dress away. She planted a careful kiss on the nape of Anna’s neck, and Anna shivered involuntarily.

“Is this okay?” Elsa drew back a fraction, but her breath still ghosted against the feathery wisps of hair that had escaped the confines of Anna’s bun.

Goosebumps rippled over Anna’s back, and her breath caught in her chest so that her answering, “yes,” was barely a whisper, almost lost in the murmured susurrus of fabric slipping down over bare skin.

She turned then, naked to the waist, eager to catch Elsa’s reaction. Though they had done this several times before, Elsa’s quiet reverence never wavered. After so many years spent consciously holding herself apart, it was a relief to no longer conceal her feelings from her sister. With Anna in her arms, the curves of her body lit by soft firelight, Elsa said honestly, “You’re beautiful.” And that was enough.

Anna’s face lit up. She loved the way Elsa looked at her – like she was important, like she meant something. She found she had to look away if she had any hope of marshaling a coherent thought.

“I know you’re busy all the time,” she said earnestly, picking at the embroidered bodice that was pooled in her lap. “It’s – it’s okay that you have better things to do most of the time. It’s enough that I get you sometimes. I know I’m lucky for that, to get you just a little.“

“Anna, no,” Elsa gently touched her forehead to Anna’s. “You have me all the time. Even when I’m busy or away or working, it’s you. It’s always been you. You – “ her voice caught in her throat, and she tried again, “You mean everything to me.”

Anna kissed her then, full on the mouth, with sweet, slow, single-minded concentration. Elsa smelled like a snowstorm, and as Anna breathed in, she felt as though she had drawn that scent into herself.

It was a long minute before they parted.

“Anna—“ Elsa began breathlessly.

“Kiss me again?” Anna asked. It wasn’t quite a command, but Elsa obeyed, wrapping her arms around Anna’s neck and kissing her in that particular way that Anna had come to love. Elsa’s kisses were a little too hard and a little too urgent, but Anna loved her all the more for them.

All those years, her kisses seemed to say. All those long years, you were all I ever wanted.

Anna loved the way she was loved– so tenderly, so completely. But, as ever, Elsa was hesitant, infinitely careful in all but these most intimate moments. Even then, she usually needed a little persuading.

Anna broke their kiss long enough to lean in and whisper in Elsa’s ear.

“—and call me your princess,” she finished as she sat back, looking very pleased with herself.

Elsa’s eyes widened, but a timid smile tugged at her lips.

“Of course… my- my princess,” she seemed to gain confidence as she said it, and she wrapped an arm around Anna’s waist, drawing her close once more.