The Love That Bonds Us

Chapter 6 : He's Not Just Royalty

Seeing the war from the opposite side was actually extremely insightful and almost made me empathise with the people of Arendelle, as I wasn't the only person to have lost someone. In fact, I'd learnt that Arendellians may have been even more affected - I often wondered how my family and friends were taking the news I'd vanished, but I was just one person and many more families here had lost someone close to them, just as Elisabeth had told me.

"Alright alright." Halima said finally, her grin wide and her eyes dancing with joy, "I think it's time we pack up and set the table for dinner. Don't you think?"

About one hour later, we had eaten and were settling ourselves in the two armchairs of the living room beside a blazing fire. The cold sun was beginning to set and a dull blue light spilled in through the window. Halima had recently been patiently teaching me needlework and we sat together to create fine art by our own hands.

However, I was more of a carver than a weaver or a seamstress.

Halima shortly began telling me about what had happened in the Castle - there never seemed to be a 'normal' day in that place.

"He's just overworking himself and neither Arianna nor I can do anything to stop him." she was saying; by now she had long since discarded her embroidery.

"Why?" I asked, furrowing my brow in concentration as I carefully wove the colourful thread through the soft material.

She rubbed two fingers against her temple in exasperation, and closed her eyes, "He doesn't like to talk about it. I think it's because of his father's death - he can't really come to terms with it despite believing that he has and is dealing with it the only way his subconscious knows how. Personally I believe Runeard put too much pressure on the both of them, expected to much, and now Agnarr just feels guilty, bless 'im. Only his mother could really talk to that boy." she gave a deep, regretful sigh.

"Why should he feel guilty?" I asked, finally looking up and dropping my hands into my lap.

"He's never done as his strict father asked." she rolled her eyes, "Complete nonsense if you ask me. And then there's General Colden; they drive each other round the bend."

"Ah." I said, before turning back to my embroidery.

"It's been rather a stressful day come to think of it. Agnarr was in such a mood and had Colden running around after him like a dog. I never do understand that man. One moment he's hating the King, the next moment he's doing everything necessary to clean up the boy's messes! He's a bad piece of work, but I'm getting off topic." she waved a hand to indicate she was going back to her original point, "At some point in the day he just started shouting at everyone in sight. Well, Arianna gave him a stern telling off, I can tell you. I could hear them screaming like anything at each other."

The more I heard about the young royal's sibling rivalry, the more I came to appreciate and cherish my own relationship with Embla; of course, we had had the occasional sisterly squabble, but it never esculated to a flat-out shouting match as we loved and cared for each other dearly and didn't like to argue.

"He cooled off a bit after that though, thank goodness."

"Sounds crazy." I mused.

"Indeed. But how's your day been sweetheart?"

I looked up, "Well, towards the end I've been rather busy, but I've just spent most of my time reading and needleworking, having done most of the housework yesterday. Tomorrow I'll go into town and buy some more groceries as we are running low. That's why we had only soup and bread for dinner. But I want to make a shepherd's pie, like the one you made last week."