The Invisible (Jelsa)

Chapter XXXII

Eira did contact them, after an painfully long year. Even though Elsa told him not to, Jack couldn't help but look for his daughter whenever he left for winter-making. America may or may not have experienced some horrible weather when he got particularly frustrated, but all he wanted was to tell her he was sorry, and tell her to come home. He never found her.

The letter was curt when it came, sent from a general place where although Jack searched around, he deduced she had merely been passing through the town when she'd sent it. Clever girl.

A year later, she sent a picture along with the note.

Mom and Dad,

I am well, healthy, and settled. I am happy, there is no need to worry. Kai is wonderful. We had a daughter, and her name is Heidi. She seems free of any magic. Thankfully. I cannot tell you where I am at the moment. Maybe one day, when it's all passed over and I'm not still angry, I'll let you meet her. Here's her picture.

Best,

Eira.

The sepia picture was a family portrait. Kai looked like a man, his face with a scruffy beard and the crinkles around his eyes when he smiled. Eira still looked a child to Elsa, though, and most agreed that she looked to young to be the mother to the baby that was bouncing on her lap. At about three months old, the child's face was like a cherub. It seemed to have inherited it's mother's strawberry blond hair, and her father's dark eyes.

"Damn. She's adorable."

"I feel old." Elsa moaned, cradling her sides, "I'm a grandmother!"

Out of any of the castle dwellers, Heimdall took Kai's abrupt departure the hardest.

"He was my best friend." He just muttered after the note was found, jutting his shoulders up and hanging his head low between them, "And he didn't say goodbye."

"Would you have let him, had he woken you?" Rin asked reasonably, recovering from her heartbreak with much chocolate and wine.

"I don't know!" Heimdall moaned, "But I thought...I thought he was my brother. He was the best man at the wedding."

"You did break his nose." Aoife pointed out as she gave his back a couple of pats.

"It's a guy thing. I punch him, I'm done. I told him I needed to get it out of my system. It was a very revealing night. I wasn't mad by the time I went to bed though. I wish I'd told him that." Heimdall said, swimming in his regrets.

"If he didn't say goodbye, perhaps you didn't deserve his friendship." Aoife said firmly, "Now get up. He's happy with his life, the little bugger." She cussed sourly.

After the news of Eira's baby spread, Rin and Heimdall were taunted endlessly.

"She beat both of you! And you're married, Heimdall!" Alfsol chuckled.

"I don't see you settling down." Heimdall poked him in rebuttal.

"I enjoy the single life, my man. And I'm not required to produce an heir. Are you and Aoife having...problems?"

"Not in the slightest." Aoife replied one day, overhearing the cousins' insistence, "I just thought it would be weird for the kid to have an uncle only five or six years older, that's all. And we're in no rush. We enjoy being together with as little responsibility as we can at this age." That shut him up, knowing better than to argue with her.

Rin was also taunted, by different people, for her stone-hard resistance to meet any guys who might be interested in her. Elsa saw the same resilience that had developed in her when she had been shut in, and only hoped a man like Jack and did for her eldest daughter what her husband had done for her.

In all, the day the letter arrived was a very hard day indeed, and much were the months to follow it. Life continued, of course, in lieu of the two places that sat abandoned at the dining table, and no one ever put food there but at the same time no one ever told the maids to put the plate away. Gavner had a look on his face, "They'll come back one day." He said with assurance.

"How can you be so confident?" Jack asked.

Gavner shrugged, his hair turning white at the roots, singling to Jack just how long they had been friends. "Oh, intuition." He said, and Azura agreed with him.