章 31: Chapter 27
~ Coloring the cold ~
Narrator POV:
Elsa's thought-back to last week gets interrupted as Kai opens up the big door to the hall, which she and the maid are in.
Both of them look towards it and they see an older and composed man walking steadily behind Kai.
They walk over and Kai steps aside as he introduces the man "Queen Elsa, this is Valdemar Frans Magnus II"
Valdemar bows his head "It's a pleasure to finally to meet you, Queen Elsa" He states.
"Raise your head, sir Valdemar" Elsa says courteously.
As the man does that, he's surprised to see a maid standing beside the Queen.
He didn't see Diana, as she was behind the Queen while he was walking towards them.
"So this is the one that got hired by Rosa? Queen, what do you think, will he do the job?" The maid openly asks the Queen with a smile.
"Well as you said, Rosa hired him, so I am sure he will suffice" The Queen answers Diana.
"Well if you think so, Queen, then let's get to it"
"Okay, but shouldn't we explain it to sir Valdemar first?"
Diana steps closer to Elsa, as she cranes her head towards Kai to talk to him "I suppose, My Queen. Kai, bring over the thing that I told you about"
Kai simply nods and starts walking away to leave the room.
"What thing?" Elsa asks.
"The thing that will save us a lot of time" Diana answers/
"You are not going to tell me until the very last moment, are you?" Elsa asks after a sigh.
"I could, but where is the fun in that?"
Valdemar being ignored the whole time after his initial introduction isn't how he thought things will go down when he finally gets to meet the Queen after her growing up.
That should be the most important thing to him at the moment, the way his first impression would go, but now, something else came up that's far more important and that is how... Disrespectful a mere maid is acting towards the Queen as if she was in her and his league as if they were... friends. So he couldn't help himself but scoff out loud "A maid should know her place"
And just like that, the chat between the Queen and her maid has ceased as the two of them look at the forgotten man.
There's only silence as the two look at him, Valdemar sees a frown forming on the Queen's face, so he opens his mouth to apologize, but not for his words, but for interrupting the Queen.
At the same time, Elsa does the same, as her frown deepened she thought of berating the man.
But neither of the two managed to do, as the Maid got to it first.
"So you're one of those, huh?" Diana says shaking her head with a shrug of her held-up arms.
Both, the Queen and the man, didn't quite understand what the Maid meant, but they didn't have to think about it for long, as Diana continued.
"Is Rosa playing a trick on me after all of those... adventures I put her through while working with her?" Diana thinks out loud.
The artist is about to say something to interject the thoughts of the maid, but he doesn't get the chance yet again.
"Well, whatever" She shrugs and puts her attention back at the man "Look here, ol- I mean, Valdemar" The man's eye twitches at being referred to without a title, any shred of respect in the person's voice and by his first name by a maid, all at the same time.
"I am not going to be here for hours trying to teach you how to view and treat your own people and your own maids, or whatever it is that you have to serve you. You can't teach an old dog new tricks after all" The man's eye-twitching subsides, only to be replaced by an openly seething glare, as he was just called to be a house animal.
"All I am going to say is one simple thing. Think before you speak, it doesn't matter who I am, or who I was, right now I am a maid for the Queen, in the future, I could be a nanny for the Queen's children, thus securing the lives of the next heir to Arendelle's throne, before this, I could've been selling fruits in the market, thus indirectly having fed the Queen and her loved ones without them knowing"
Elsa can't but hear that every example, be it that they are somewhat over the top, are about her in some way. This makes her feel slightly creeped out. But then she remembers that this isn't the worst offense of her maid when it comes to her and that feeling of creepiness dissipates, thus leaving her calm again.
"None of that matters. Just know that because of everybody else you are where you are right now. Your parents that made you? A person that grew crops and cattle which made possible to have food on your table? The cooks that prepared the ingredients which were bought by your servants, to begin with? The maid that served you those food dishes? The people that paid you for your craft? Without them you'd be nothing, you'd have nothing, if not for them, you'd probably starve to death, as you most likely can't even tell apart a fork from a spoon. So next time? When you think that somebody isn't acting like how you think they should act, keep it to yourself"
The man getting embarrassed by a maid has a red face full of anger, but before it could explode and his mouth speak out his mind, the maid says something else entirely that makes his face turn blue when it was red prior to it.
"But seeing as you view yourself above myself, you probably won't take anything out of whatever a 'mere' maid could say to your magnificent self. So, let me do this instead. You are above me, but you are below the Queen and me, my mind and my body are a happily owned property of said Queen, thus when you mock me, you also mock the Queen. Are you instigating that the Queen is pathetic by being served by me? That the Queen isn't smart enough to surround herself with better people? Or is that the Queen is unworthy to be in your presence because she can treat a 'mere' maid better than you could ever hope to treat yourself, yet another person? Hmm?" Whereas Diana started with a mocking and playful tone, she ended it with an uncaring and calm gaze, showing that she was finally done with him.
The man, having forgotten his anger and most of what the maid said before she brought up the Queen, opens his mouth to try and disagree with such ridiculous notions, but yet again he doesn't get to say a word, as the maid who was seemingly done with the man, nails the nail further in by actively finishing him off in this one-sided argument.
"Whatever you were just going to say right now, save it. Trust me when I say this, I don't need you, there are other artists that can be here instead of you. So before you lose your voice by whatever blabber you've had in your opened mouth and the opportunity to paint the Queen, keep that mouth shut" The Maid finishes calmly, but with a stern voice that surprised even the Queen.
Valdemar clenches his palm into a fist to try and stop himself from speaking his mind, as he gazes at the Queen and at the disrespectful maid.
"Remember, you are here not because of the Queen or even me, you got the chance to be here because of Rosa Knight and she's quite protective of me, so imagine what would happen if she would hear that you said something bad towards me, we wouldn't want whatever idea she would have for revenge to happen, now would we?"
After Diana finished speaking, this time for real. Her many sentences spoken were followed only by silence, after a few, but tense, moments of said silence, the Maid breaks out a charming smile, as if she just didn't go town on the poor man and she innocently says "Good boy"
Valdemar's eye twitches and his fists clench even harder.
He wouldn't want to lose or give others an opportunity to be the first to paint the new Queen of Arendelle, the only reason why Lady Rosa saught him out was that he was the one to paint the late Queen Iduna and the late King Arthur, over the decade or so that he had done, other artists popped up, better, fresher with new and exciting ideas, hell, he himself has a few proteges that have more or less reached his level of expertise, so with those thoughts, at last, he swallows his pride and ego and calms down.
Elsa, who was silently looking at the one-sided conversation between the two, didn't say anything and just ignored the outcome, Diana went overboard that's for sure, but the maid did say what she herself want to tell the man... Just with less dramatics and harshness and with an add-on mention of Lady Rosa.
And coincidently, Kai enters the room right after the argument, did he wait on purpose? Maybe he was just slow to come? Neither of the three will ever know, as one of them, the artist wouldn't dare to ask him, for all he knows he might get another berating session from one of the Queen's servants, the other two don't care.
But nevertheless, he brought the thing with him. And that thing is both higher and wider than Elsa and Diana combined, it also has two pairs of wheels attached to it and it's hidden with a thrown blanket on top of it of.
"Thank you, Kai" Diana says happily, having moved on from the previous conversation as if it never happened in the first place..
"Just doing my job" He says first then bows his head "Now if you'll excuse me" And turns around to leave, after leaving the thing near Diana.
"Okay, let's begin" Diana states and then removes the sheet from the object and all of its glory is revealed to the Queen and the old man.
"Ta-da!" The Maid shows it off, striking a pose with open hands pointed at it and shaking her palms messily.
"All that for a mirror?" Elsa asks actually disappointed, she expected... something bigger and extravagant for all the talk that her Maid spoke over the few days before today.
"Hey, it has wheels on it, isn't it fantastic?" Diana states having taken fake offense to the Queen's tone and statement.
Elsa doesn't say anything to that and just looks unimpressed, Diana seeing that she won't get anything else out of it, just goes on with why she needed the mirror in the first place.
"Anyways, Queen, come closer and stand in front of the mirror"
Elsa does just that and she looks at her reflection. Diana also moves to stand next to Elsa, but a little bit too close for her comfort, they are almost touching shoulders.
Diana felt Elsa stiffening when she got closer, but seeing as the Queen didn't say anything, she didn't move away. She has to start somewhere after all, so why not breach that line bit by bit.
"Well, my Queen, this is where you come in. See our reflection? Try to create perfect statues to the side, out of your powers, with as many details as you can. This also doubles as the start of our training"
"Okay?" Elsa looks at the reflection of them and starts doing her thing, first she creates the shapes in appropriate sizes, then she focuses on the easier details, such as the arms, legs, and the form of the head. After that, it looks, more or less, as two figures of women.
She recreates the look of their clothes and lastly with a little bit more focus, she finishes the heavier details, the eyes, the fingernails, the imperfections, which basically only Diana has, and even the crumpled clothing lines.
Elsa breathes out a little and turns to face Diana "How'd I do?" She asks.
"Hmm... So you know how I mentioned that this will also count as the start of our training?"
"Yeah?" Elsa asks while turning around to look at the statues of her and Diana.
"It seems that I lied, this won't be the start of anything, but the resuming of my immense growth of respect for you, as you've made us look perfect" Diana comments with sparkly eyes.
"Are you sure? Something seems off" Elsa says uncertainly.
"I am sure and the more I look at it, I think that my ice counterpart looks better than the original"
"Hmm" As Elsa examines the statues more, she absentmindedly says "I disagree, the real thing looks better" And she didn't get to finish the full sentence, as she wanted to add the detail that it looks 'more alive' to it, as she realized what she just said. She quickly looks away from the statues to the maid only to see her with an ecstatic smile on her face.
"Hehehe, the Queen's first direct compliment about my appearance, hehehe" Diana whispers to herself, but Elsa managed to hear it because of the distance. The Maid, nor the Queen even registered that she accidentally called her a 'thing' as she had the statues in mind. Diana puts her hand into one of her handy pockets and pulls out a dirty paper with a pencil.
"Why do you need that?" Elsa asks, not really wanting to hear the answer spoken out loud that she already knows.
"Why else? Than write down the date of when you first complimented my looks" And with that Diana starts writing it down.
"That is creepy" Elsa comments.
Diana pauses "Huh, I suppose it is"
"So... Are you going to stop?"
"Nope" The Queen's question gets instantly shut down and the maid continues to write it down.
Elsa tiredly sighs with the thought of what else has her maid written about her passing through her mind and then looks back at the statues. As she looks at them, she finally understands why Diana had the idea for her to create their statues in the first place. She at first had her doubts and was skeptical if this would work out to be faster, however, most of that doubt came from herself and her not believing in herself to create perfect lookalike statues of ice.
She smiles proudly to herself as she thinks that Diana never had doubt in her, she wholeheartedly believed in her. This gives her a confidence boost for the future, she also gets excited about when she will get the opportunity to test out more of her capabilities, as she herself has no idea what she can do. But for some reason, she has an odd feeling that if her maid sticks with her... Not that unsticking Diana from her would be an easy task, she will learn more about her powers. Oh and there was a brief thought that the process of taking the paintings will be faster, but that was forgotten rather quickly.
Diana having finished writing it down, steps past the Queen to physically check her part of the statue, knowing if she touches Elsa's, the Queen might take it the wrong way and punish her and not the good kind of punishing either.
She wraps her palm around the wrist of her ice statue and pulls with some strength, not moving it in any way, then she also squeezes to see if she can somehow break it, but seeing as she's not the strongest she realizes that it was not the smartest move, so she moves on with the last test. She lets down her head so that her ear would be near, as she knocks on the icy hand a few times, subsequent hits increasing in power, just to hear if it's hollow, it's not.
"Queen, could you break my statue's arm off?" Diana asks, moving away after having finished inspecting the Queen's work.
"...What?" Elsa asks blinking in confusion.
"That or create several arms just like this" Diana points at the part she pulled "While I trust in Rosa's judgment to bring a talented artist... Even it's somebody like him, I am not so sure if any of those artists would have any experience to paint over ice, so Valdemar will need to try it out first to see what he needs to do to get it right"
"Ah... Yeah, okay" Elsa agrees to the request after a slight pause, sometimes the things her maid says throws her for the loop, this was one of those times, who just casually asks to break off their own arm off? Even if it's just a statue.
After that moment of thought, Elsa creates six ice arms "Great, good job, my Queen" Diana comments, but just as quick as those words left the Maid's lips, the arms quickly changed into shapeless cylindrical blocks of ice, because as the Queen felt uncomfortable looking at severed arms.
Diana doesn't comment on the sudden change and picks up the ice blocks, they aren't as heavy as she thought they'd be, it's ice after all, but somehow they are light, she carries them to the silent old man, who was to the side left on his own.
"There you go, now it's your turn, time to do what you got sent here for. Take these ice blocks and paint them in the colors of my arm with half of it being in the color of my clothes"
"Can I ask, why?"
Diana openly rolls her eyes "You are here to paint, not to ask questions, what does it matter, why you need to do something... But since I am in a good mood, it's because after you get used to painting on ice, you will paint multiple statues of me and the Queen, like that trial one that the Queen majestically created. Which later will be used as model pieces for dozens of other artists to paint normally on paper. Does that answer your question?"
"... Yes" He says after a pause, as he needed to calm himself from the blatant mockery from this maid again.
"Good, get to your job, we won't interrupt you, so don't interrupt us when are talking. And if you will need some help with something, only come to us when we aren't speaking" With that the maid turns around to go back to the Queen, only to see Elsa make her way towards them.
"Actually, don't draw clothes, just the skin" Elsa comes up to unexpectedly say to the man "We can just dress the ice sculptures as if they were mannequins, thus less time to waste on different colors" She explains.
"Ah, good idea, my Queen" Diana says after bonking her head with the head of her palm "Can't believe I didn't think of that" She also adds, with her eyes looking to the side, an action which gets an eyebrow raise from the Queen.
"Yes, Queen Elsa, I will get right to work" Valdemar states and with a bow of his head turns around to walk to his table with plenty of painting materials already ready for him. Time for him to experiment and see what works on ice. He's also relieved and happy to be away from that maid.
"Say..." Elsa starts getting Diana's attention "Are you sure you didn't think of using the ice sculptures with actual clothes?"
"I swear I didn't think of it. Tough to be more truthful I didn't even try to think of anything to help the guy, I wanted to make it harder for him, but the Queen is too kind for her own good and let him off easy" Diana says smiling.
"Of course, so, what now? Do we just wait?" Elsa throws out another question.
"I mean, we could wait and do nothing, maybe eat some snacks or something. Oooor, we could prepare all the ice statues with different poses so that we wouldn't need to do it later"
"Then let's create the sculptures first, the sooner we finish our part, the sooner we can relax" Elsa states.
"My Queen's words, as always, are correct, let's go" With that, both of them walk back to the mirror.
"So, do we keep that one?" Elsa asks while looking at the first one.
"Hmm... No, I don't think so, it's just us basically standing in a relaxed manner, it would work for pretty much anything else other than what we're doing, we need something that would make people go crazy for. None of this basic stuff"
"If you say so" Elsa simply says and prepares herself to make the ice statue of them two disappear, but that action gets interrupted by the maid.
"Unless... You give them to me" Diana says this while subtly looking away from the Queen's gaze.
"Do I even want to know what you're going to use them for?" She asks more herself than Diana, but she receives an answer anyways.
"I don't know what I would do with them... Yet"
Elsa sighs "Fine. You can keep them"
"I appreciate it, my Queen"
"Anyways, what poses were you thinking of? Since you don't want... Basic ones, whatever that means in your strange head" The Queen asks.
"Well, last week when we were talking about it, I've said that five poses would be enough, but let's make this a little bit more interesting, by making it 'game-like', how about we do six poses, we think of three each, would the Queen like to do that?"
Elsa ponders on that suggestion for a good minute and finally answers "Yeah, why not" She keeps herself from making the comment 'how is that game-like in any way'.
"Sweet, thank you for agreeing to do it with me. Let me start it off with something simple" Diana says, then she looks at their reflection and thinks for a bit about what pose to strike with the Queen. Something cute perhaps? Or something sensual? Something that shows that their friendly towards each other? Or something that shows her total obedience to the Queen? So many options.
"Okay, I think I have something, for this first one, let's stand apart from each other, the Queen will have her back turned towards me with her hands behind her back in a walking position, while I, the maid will be behind her, turned sideways, as if the Queen just walked by me, in a standard respectful bow"
Elsa subtly breathes out a breath she didn't realize she was holding, she was expecting something... More risque from her maid, seeing as they didn't seem to set any restrictions on this posing 'game'.
"Okay, we can do that, let's see" The Queen moves away from Diana, stands in place, gets her hands behind her back, then tries to show in some way that she was moving mid-step.
Meanwhile, the Maid does what she was supposed to do, which is quite easier than what Elsa has to do, as she has to just stand in place, while Elsa has to make it seem like she was moving and most of the time it may look somewhat awkward when a person tries to walk in place.
But the Queen quickly gets it after trying a bunch of different walking poses, in fact, she just walked in different ways and eventually did a little circle with a simple regal walk, and as she got into position just stopped in her step, thus creating a perfect illusion of her walking away from Diana.
And with that Elsa creates the ice statues of the two, but unlike in the mirror where they are further away from each other, in the statues they are closer, practically next to each other.
"It seems I didn't do it right" Elsa comments while looking at the statues after she stopped posing.
"Actually, I think this is better than what I envisioned. I think if we were further away from each other, the painting would be less coherent, so this is better" Diana says after coming to stand near the Queen.
"I suppose you're right"
"Well, we have one down, now it's the Queen's turn to choose a pose... And for your information, it can be anything... Anything that the Queen wants it to be" Diana finishes slowly with heavy implication on the word 'anything'.
Elsa however ignores the not-so-subtle invitation and just thinks of something simple and easy.
"Let's stand facing each other, look down at my hands as I create something, just like a child would when I do it outside the castle" Elsa throws out her first pose suggestion.
Diana nods smiling, not minding one bit that her 'suggestion' was completely shut down, and gets into position, she even acts like a 'child' would with and freezes in an innocent open mouth surprised face.
Elsa stands in front of her and then looks back at the mirror, to see the reflection of them and she starts making the ice statues to the side, after several seconds the whole thing is finished.
Then she moves close to the ice statues and makes a simple snowflake above the palms of her ice self.
"I really like it" Diana comments looking at the sight.
"Me too, though I think that your face might be... a little over the top"
"Meh, kids overreact at everything and the Queen wanted a child to be the one gazing upon your Royal awesomeness" The Scarlet Angel states with a shrug.
"I suppose that's just what I get for specifying. Well, Do you have your second in mind already?" The Arrendellian Queen asks.
"As a matter of fact I do, first we will need a thin slab of ice, could the Queen provide it?"
Elsa raises a quizzical eyebrow, but does it anyway "Now what?" She asks after an ice plate appears in her hands.
"Hand it over to me, then I hold it behind my back, lean down, puff out my chest and my cheeks in a childlike, pathetic anger, pouty manner because I am looking at the sitting Queen on her fifth cup of hot chocolate"
"... Really? Who's the one that keeps on bringing them to me before I even get to ask for another one?" The Queen asks baffled.
"Well me of course, but I am just doing my job, the Queen could refuse my hot chocolate generosity once in a while. But I suppose my hot chocolate is too good that even the Queen can't escape its clutches" Diana says cheerfully.
Elsa rolls her eyes and just hands over the ice plate to the maid, who takes it with a proud smile and she gets into the pose after she says "Also make a small ice table with several cups already empty, while the sitting Queen holds one near her mouth"
"Okay" Elsa simply says and makes all of it happen with ease, for somebody that never used her powers, she's quite adept with them. Must be complete instinct. Or she may just know all of her capabilities locked deep inside her mind and she just needs to find a way to understand them.
And now with both of them in the pose, Elsa again looks at the mirror to see how to make the ice sculptures, while she makes them appear. Both of them hear the happy snowman's voice below them.
"Hi Elsa, hi Queen's maid"
Elsa doesn't look down as she has to finish the statues, but Diana does "Hello Olaf, what are you doing? Where's Princess Anna?"
"I am playing hide and seek and I don't know where Anna is, she's hiding from me, I am trying to find her" Olaf explains, looking around everywhere as he says it, even between the little space of the Maid's legs.
Elsa finally having finished creating the statues, has the thought of making one pose with Olaf, so before she loses the opportunity, she bends down to pick him up.
"Olaf, why don't you get on top of the maid's shoulders, maybe being higher up will help you find Anna"
"Good idea Elsa" Olaf says happily and the Maid understanding where this is going, allows it to happen without any objection. Not that she would anyway, as before Olaf turns into an angsty teen version of himself in the second movie, this version, she actually liked. Hopefully, he turns that way in two years and eight months and not in three weeks or something.
"Now, look to the side" Elsa says to both of them, the maid spins to the right, while Olaf spins to the left, now both of them look too different sides, which makes Elsa chuckle at the sight.
Before they stop looking at different sides though, the Queen gets in the frame, turned with her back facing them, then she looks at the mirror and with a lot of focus makes the statues, these ones were made faster than the previous ones.
"I don't think Anna is in this room, I can't see her even when high up" Olaf says.
"Ah, that's too bad, how about you go to that room right there, and maybe you'll have more luck finding her there?" Diana says lowering him to the ground and pointing to one random door from the dozen that are visible.
"Okay!" The snowman adds happily and just moves on.
The two look at Olaf going further and further away from them and soon he leaves the room altogether.
"Well, that was an unexpected event" Diana comments as she looks at the newest addition to the statue collection.
"And it's good that it happened, I didn't have anything ready, would've had to think of something" Elsa explains.
"I see. But unfortunately for me, because of that happening, I myself have nothing in mind at the moment, so why doesn't the Queen make herself a seat to sit down and I go check up on the artist, while I scratch out an idea out of my head?"
"Go ahead" Elsa says and creates a chair, well it's more of a throne, but nevertheless she sits down and lets out a relaxed sigh as she does, which is quite weird seeing as it's ice... But somehow it does its job of relaxing the Queen.
With one last smiling look at the Queen, Diana moves to the very end of the room, where there's a table with many opened, unopened, dry, wet, clean, and unclean painting supplies, with a few ice slabs openly thrown to the edge of the table, seemingly having been failed experiments.
The Maid comes up to the side of the table, seeing that the man is quietly working without having noticed her yet, and stays silent, in wait for him to talk to her, as she doesn't want to interrupt him beside it gives her time to think of something.
after a minute or two, the artist finally sees somebody standing beside the table, so he looks to see the maid, and a scowling frown immediately appears on his face.
"What do you want?" He asks as calmly as he can, which he didn't do a good job of because it came out with open aggression.
Diana ignores it however and plainly asks "Is everything alright here?"
"Of course, it is" Valdemar answers and looks away from the maid, with this action showing that he doesn't want to talk to her any longer than he has to.
But in the corner of his eye, he can still see the pesky maid standing there, unmoving.
With a tsk coming out of his mouth, he again faces her. seeing her with a smug smirk, he knows why, as he hasn't cracked the case on what he should do with the ice for the paint to stick to it.
The two look at each other for a moment, but the man relents first, he sighs and finally speaks "Not everything is okay, the ice is unlike everything that I've worked with so far, every time I try to add paint, be it watered down, or not, it just swivels down as if it was never there, the only proof of any paint ever being on it, is the fact that some of it stays at the bottom when it slides down, but it's just a pure mess" He explains, comically pointing to the general direction of the three 'ruined' ice blocks.
Diana throws a quick peek at them, then looks back at the artist, who went back to looking at the left clean ice blocks.
She doesn't know if painting hasn't reached the more experimental ideas for art at this time, she wasn't much for history, or it's this specific artist that has no ideas on how to work on untraditional things, or if it's just the universe of Disney that's like this.
"Have you tried drying the ice as soon as the paint was applied to it?"
"Huh?"
"Well I don't really know art, or at least in the form that you do, but isn't painting all about letting the paint dry? So if on the normal equipment of paper it dries slowly after you painted most of the work, then maybe on slippery surfaces like Ice, you need to do it fast? Like you paint one part, then let it dry, then paint some again just to let it dry, then you continue, after you finish? Would something like that not work?"
"Hmm... Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what, that could actually work, now that I think about it, I didn't try to think outside the box, because my eyes were on the table and the materials on it. Haha, yes, of course" The artist loudly exclaims without paying attention to the maid.
He picks up some random paint, a palette, and water, then two of the ice blocks, and without another word he just dashes out of the room.
"Hey, hey, where are you going?!" Diana shouts after him, but she gets ignored.
The maid blinks in the direction of the door that the artist ran through.
"D-did he just run to the garden?" Diana speaks her thoughts out loud "Well at least it's sunny outside, so it might work, even if it will be slow. Could've just asked for a fire or something, it's not like this is the finished product, he only needed to see if it worked"
The maid then looks towards the Queen, who was also looking at the door, albeit more confused, as she only heard the bang of the doors opening and then closing, she didn't see the man leave, as she was relaxing with her eyes closed.
Diana blinks at the Queen, but then a playful smile etches onto her face "Now that we are alone" she whispers underneath her nose and makes her way back to Elsa. The Queen in turn stands up from her place of sitting.
"What was that?" Elsa asks after Diana makes her way back to her.
"Nothing, the artist had to go somewhere"
"Okay...?" Elsa lets out confused.
"Anyway, none of that matters, I've got my third idea for the pose"
"What is it?"
"Well, first, can the Queen first sit down on the throne again?"
Elsa silently complies with the odd request, but just as she sat down, the maid quickly knelt before her and took one of her legs into her hands.
"Hey, hey, what are you doing?" Elsa exclaims trying to pull away her leg from the grasp of the naughty maid, without any real strength put behind it, as she doesn't want to accidentally hurt the maid or herself. thus because of that, the Queen's attempts were unsuccessful.
"Hmm? Oh, little ol' me?" The maid asks innocently while gazing at the Queen "Nothing much, just doing a maid's job, changing the Queen's footwear" Diana says while 'massaging' the Queen's legs, though the term 'groping' would be more fittable to this event.
Elsa breathes out the breath she was holding, for now trying to ignore the soft palms on her legs, she says to her maid "Then can you at least not do it with that look on your face?"
"What look?" Diana asks with a tilt of her head, but her hands haven't stopped once.
"The one you have on your face right now" Elsa says again.
Without Diana's realization, her face morphed into a gaze of half-lidded eyes, with her mouth practically drooling, salivating at the fact that she was holding Elsa's perfect legs, it was as if she was looking at a juicy steak like a hungry beast would... Well, it's more like a child looking at a piece of good candy because the Maid's face really doesn't transfer the idea of a 'beast' really well.
"I am looking at the Queen like I always do"
"Right... Can you stop with your fingers already?" Elsa asks, moving on from Diana's face looking off because she realizes that there's no helping the helpless.
"Oh, yeah, of course" Diana stops immediately after being asked to.
"Can we move on now? We are here to do a job, not to play around"
"Okay, well then let me just" Diana pauses mid-sentence, as her hands go down to the heels of the Queen.
"Umm... Diana?" The Queen lets out with a shallow breath.
"Yes, my Queen?"
"I thought we will move on, what are you doing?"
Again, the Maid's head tilts to the side, but this time with confusion "The pose?"
"Wait... You were serious about it?"
"Well, yeah, I am just changing the Queen's heels, that's the pose" After Diana finishes saying that, she softly grabbed the end of the Queen's leg with one of her hands, and then with the other hand, she took off the Queen's heel halfway and stopped there, it now looks as if she was midway through putting it on instead.
Elsa sighs "So what was that earlier?" And throws out a question.
"Well just as the Queen said, just me playing around since we are now alone for the moment"
"Fine, but don't make a game out of touching my legs"
"No promises" The Maid says with a cheeky smile.
Elsa rolls her eyes "Okay, let's do this seriously now"
"As the Queen requests" With that, the maid bends her head down to look at the Queen's legs, to show that she's looking at the heels as she changes them.
The Queen herself tries to morph her expression to what she would look like at the morning when Diana actually changes her footwear, it doesn't happen often, but when she doesn't feel like using her powers to make clothes, Diana helps her change, at first she was against it, but with some, persistent, persuasion from her Maid, she let it happen, and it felt quite pleasant being taken care of like that, so now she does it a tad bit more often. But not too often enough as to not give her Maid the idea that she enjoys it.
But this was the very first that Diana touched her feet in this manner, or at least she thinks that this is the first time, like all the other times that something like this happened, she was quite sleepy, so perhaps she missed it.
After several silent seconds, the Queen feels that she's okay now, then looks at the mirror and her feeling was correct, her face was calm again. So with that, she finally creates the ice statues perfectly, just like the other times.
Diana not wanting to be told off again, immediately puts back Elsa's heel as it was before and backs away while standing up.
Elsa doesn't pick up on Diana's actions, as her mind is already trying to think of some sort of humiliating pose to avenge her assaulted majestic feet.
And since she hasn't stood up from the throne yet, a great idea pops into her big blonde and beautiful royal head.
She creates something from her ice, which Diana sees, and to her, these things are quite familiar. As she started using them practically every day since she became Elsa's maid, except not so icy. It's a duster and a bucket with a broom inside it.
And Elsa answers the maid's untold question on why she made them "For my last pose, I will be sitting and you will pose your actual job, which is cleaning, go on" The Queen waves her hands as if she was shooing away a child.
The Maid raises an eyebrow at the Queen, normally Elsa has an excellent poker face, so in normal situations, this may come across as nothing but what she says, but whenever Elsa feels playful that expert poker face dissipates into a sneaky, but not subtle enough, smug looking grin. So it's not hard for Diana to see that something's amiss here.
After a moment of pondering, however, Dina just shrugs and goes along with it, since she had some fun of her own, why not indulge in the Queen's antics.
And so, the maid gets into a position, she sets the bucket near her feet, realistically it'd be a little bit further away as to not knock it over and spill the water everywhere, but seeing as it's an empty ice bucket, that doesn't matter.
And she gets up to her tippy toes as if she was reaching for a high spot to clean with the duster, her legs don't even move or wobble at all, she took up ballet for a month or two, most of it was too hard for her, then even younger body, but she retained some knowledge of standing on her toes, so when she became a maid, she practiced standing in a ballet form so that it would be easier to clean, it took a lot of time, many failures and a lot of feet pain, but she has managed to succeed.
"I'm ready" Diana says to the Queen.
"Okay" Elsa says a little bit too cheerfully, it's as if Diana heard Anna instead.
And not any longer than the 'okay' that Diana heard, she appears to have faceplanted onto the ground with quite a loud thud.
It seems that the Queen was looking directly at the mirror, as she made a slight bump of ice underneath her maid's legs to make her slip and fall, and as she fell, the Queen immediately made the statue of Diana's fall, both with a ridiculous and surprised face and a form unbecoming of her.
Elsa chuckles as she, quite proud of herself, says "Now your fans will see that the fabled Scarlet Angel isn't so perfect after all and can be clumsy at work" But the Queen doesn't hear a retort, or any kind of answer for that matter, which is unlike Diana.
"Diana?" Elsa calls out turning away from looking at the statues, to where her maid is, only for her eyes to widen as she still sees Diana on the ground.
"Diana?" The Queen calls out her name again, hearing no answer nor any sound really. As Diana hasn't let out a sound even when she was falling or after that fact, she stands up as fast as she can and moves towards Diana.
Did she hit her head badly and get knocked out? Did she get injured? But they did this before and nothing bad happened, but what if? These are the frantic thoughts running through Elsa's mind. But there's also something way darker creeping in the back of her head, something very specific that travels to her heart. Elsa gets down to the floor to pick up and turn around the limp body of her maid.
Elsa frantically looks over Diana's body, mainly her head, to see if she's hurt or bleeding somewhere, seeing no blood and only a small bruise on her forehead from hitting the ground, she sighs out relieved, at least it's nothing major. Of course, Elsa doesn't know medicine, but some basic knowledge, mainly whatever her parents used to tell her back when she was a child, well it was to her sister as she was prone to getting herself hurt, but still. So she has no idea that even a bump of this magnitude could be quite dangerous for a person, especially when they are not prepared or if they just landed wrong.
Elsa makes her hand omit some ice particles as she moves her palm towards the bruise on Diana's forehead. She knows that Diana doesn't feel any cold just like her, but in theory putting something cold should still work to mediate some of the pain.
"I didn't think this would happen, I just wanted to get back at you a little, I'm sorry" Elsa whispers out worriedly as she keeps her palm close to Diana's forehead.
But as she was thinking if she should produce more ice to help out more and go and try to call somebody for help, she heard something. That something was below her, it was Diana not being able to withhold a snort, she succeded in stopping it midway, but it was already too late.
As Elsa paused, her worried face morphed into an annoyed one instead.
Now, instead of producing more ice to try and help her, the Queen instead just slapped the bruise which was already there, maybe a bit harsher than she wanted, but she didn't feel guilty about it even as Diana let out a pathetic scream with both of her hands going to her forehead immediately as a flight or fight response.
Elsa pushed herself off the floor and turned around to walk toward the throne. She had an ice statue of herself to finish, as she didn't add one to the previous statue and made only that of the stupidly annoying maid behind her.
And while Diana was writhing on the ground, Elsa accomplished said goal.
After that, she sat down on the throne, with her head on her palm she looks at a completely different side from her maid.
Elsa heard the maid standing up and walking towards her slowly.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry for doing that, but I had to" Diana apologizes, her apology sound only half sincere.
Elsa however isn't having any of it and just ignores her, by continuing to look to the side.
Diana sighs and scratches her hair, after a moment of silence she moves closer and slides down to the ground to sit with her back against the throne, it's a bit uncomfortable, wishing she had a fluffy pillow at the moment, but it's fine overall.
"Was the Queen worried about little ol' me?" Diana asks in a happy manner.
"I wasn't" Is all that Elsa answers.
"Mhm... 'Diana?', 'Diana!?'" The maid imitates the Queen ending with a chuckle.
"Hmph!" The Queen harumphs and doesn't say anything.
Diana shifts her tone to more of a serious one as she asks "Is this because for a moment you thought that you've hurt me with your powers like... You know" Diana purposefully leaves out the end inconsideration, but Elsa understood that she was implying about her sister.
Elsa's hands tremble, not out of cold, obviously, but from Diana's words, more or less the same words as the thoughts she had somewhere back in her head.
Normally Diana would take silence as a no, as anything told is more credible than mere silence. She never liked when people would interpret silence as an agreement in any way, but this time, maybe because it's Elsa, or because it's the universe of a somewhat cliche movie, but she goes against her morals and takes this particuliar silence as an affirmation to her question.
"Elsa" Diana calls out, this time Elsa does look towards the maid, as she never really used her name before, it's always 'Queen' this 'Queen' that, there was another nickname before, but that has stopped when she asked for it to be stopped "Maybe promising that I wouldn't get hurt by you and nothing bad will happen to me in the future would make you feel better, but that's unrealistic and one big unkeepable promise. Who knows what will happen in the future. So, instead, I will say that I won't do anything like that ever again, that's a promise. I take my promises very seriously, sometimes too seriously" Diana finishes the end cryptically.
Elsa breathes in and then breathes out, her hand seizing their shaking "You'd better not" She states with a small smile.
Diana chuckles lightheartedly "Or what?" The maid cheekily challenges her Queen.
"Or... Or I will replace you and get another maid to serve me" Elsa haughtily says, more or less having moved on from what just happened and now falling into Diana's playful mood.
The maid snickers quietly at the Queen. Not quietly enough though, as the Queen hears it.
"Why are you laughing? I was serious"
"Yes and I am not in love with the Queen"
"W-what is that supposed to mean?"
"The Queen wouldn't be able to manage such a hard job as exchanging me, The Queen doesn't feel enough coldness inside her heart to do so"
Elsa ignoring the bad joke about her and ice, says "Try me"
Diana shakes her head while smiling, but the smile doesn't last as it turns into an almost believable frown.
"Alas, it is far too late for that My Queen, the humble Maid can not do such a thing, as she has promised herself to the Queen, so neither of them will ever know if such a future where the Maid leaves the Queen by her order will come to fruition" The maid acts out melodramatically with one of her hands on her forehead while the other one is on her heart.
The two look at each other in silence after that "Are you done?" Elsa breaks the ice as she was not impressed.
"Yeah, I think I am" Diana says in her normal voice.
"Good" Is all that Elsa says as she turns around in every direction to inspect all of the statues she's made.
"Is your head okay?" Elsa asks quietly.
"Wow, my Queen just insinuated that something's wrong with my head, what tragedy" Diana says while fake sobbing.
Elsa can only put her fingers between the bridge of her nose and shake her head tiredly.
"Hehe, I appreciate the Queen's question. But I am completely fine, it will take a lot more than that to take me down" Diana smacks her chest with her arm in a poor salute.
"On the other hand, maybe there is something wrong with your head" Elsa comments after looking at the Maid.
"Eeeeeeeeeeh?" Diana quite loudly and yet pathetically lets out.
Elsa chuckles "I meant the bruise on your forehead, it will leave a mark, dummy"
"Oh" Is all that the Maid lets out. And a peaceful silence commences between the two.
But it doesn't stay that way for long as the Queen throws a question the Maid's way "So now what? Seeing as we are done with what we set to do" Elsa adds.
"Actually, if the Queen doesn't mind, this awesome maid would like to request one more ice statue"
"Why?" Elsa asks, not acknowledging Diana's self compliment in any way.
"Well, while we were playing this 'choose a pose' game between us, I've had a thought, why not have an ultimate, super, mega, awesome, scrumdiddlyumptious prize. And unlike others, that will have multiple, there will only be this singular one. So, whoever gets it, can... I don't know, brag about it? Worship it? Sleep with it? Whatever it is that they would think of doing with it" Diana finishes her explanation "Also, in every other pose, we more or less were apart from each other, not actually connected in any way, so I wanted one that's just us, relaxed and in some people's eyes, intimate"
"First of all, scrumdilim- scrudumdidilip- I can't even say that word, what was that? And second of all, yeah, I don't see why not, making these ice statues is not that difficult anyways" Elsa agrees with the request, not before she mentioned the ridiculous mess of letters to come out of her Maid's mouth.
"Great!" Diana says breaking out into a big smile "Now, we don't even need to move-"
Elsa doesn't hear the rest of Diana's explanation of the pose, as she just looks at her incredulously for her first point being completely ignored, thus zoning out.
"So, are we ready? Queen?" Diana calls out to Elsa, actively snapping her out of her reverie.
"Huh?"
Diana blinks a few times, before shrugging and re-doing her explanation "So, we don't need to move from our spots whatsoever, we are already in the pose, I mean the Queen can strike a different sitting pose if she wants to, but all I will do is look in front of me with one of my legs up. So whenever the Queen's ready, make that ice statue happen" Diana finishes.
Elsa nods, realizing that Diana has already turned away from her, so she didn't see her movement, she speaks instead "Okay"
Then Elsa thinks for a bit, in what way should she sit, but finally just does a simple cross over with her legs, putting her right one over her left and she shifts slightly to the side, one of her arms landing on one side of the throne, the fingers of the said hand are basically above the maid's head. And with the other hand, she put it on her lap.
And since Diana's already ready and waiting for her, she gets right to making the last statue. She also uses more focus on it, a lot more than all of the previous ones. She doesn't want this one to have any imperfections. Thus it also takes longer to finish it. Of course, going from a dozen seconds to three dozen isn't that 'longer' but it's still something.
"And it's done" Elsa says and she thought that the maid will stand up or even turn her head to look at it, but to her surprise, she doesn't. Diana just keeps on staring in the same way as the pose, in front of herself.
"Is something wrong?" The Queen asks.
"No, nothing, I'm just happy" Is all that the maid answers.
Diana's answer is met with silence from Elsa. So the Maid lets out a question of her own.
"Not going to ask why?"
"Hmm... Normally I would, but this time, no, for some reason, I have a feeling that you wouldn't answer me" Elsa answers.
"Ah, the prophecy foretold intuition of a womanly figure, I see that the Queen of all that is freezing has manifested it and inducted it into her frozen pool of many powers. When will it strike again? Oh, the humanity!"
Elsa rolls her eyes at the dramatic over-the-topness that Diana just said and chooses to stay silent.
"So... Do we just go now? I mean, we've done our job and our artist has... Run off somewhere. We could go to Queen's bedroom and I could bring some snack for us or something" Diana states.
"I supp-"
But before the Queen could answer the maid, the doors to the room bang wide open, and a shout of the aforementioned old man rings in the hall "It works!"
Both of the women look at the man.
And one of them, the older, hears the younger one click her tongue inside her mouth and whisper "I just had to freaking jinx it" below her nose.
~ End of Chapter 27 ~
週次パワーステータス
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