Strangers, an iceburns oneshot

Epilogue

Author's Note: Based on a prompt: "Words I never said." Inspired also by the beautiful painting "Dream Of The Rain" by Leonid Afremov on deviantArt. (This was originally published as an installment entitled "Words" in my series of drabbles, In Pieces, but it really belongs here.)

***

Epilogue

*

She's surprised when she hears the tapping of rain on the windows.

It's unusual to see it in early spring, much less for there to be a downpour like the one that ensues; in fact, it's rare enough that the entire Council pauses for a minute to observe the storm outside in the midst of yet another discussion about a trade dispute with Weselton.

(Or perhaps it was Odens, or Madris—she'd stopped listening a long while ago.)

Even when they resume the meeting, it goes on for much longer than anyone could have anticipated, eventually turning into gentler showers.

She can't help but be drawn to the sight as she goes from one appointment to the next, glancing up during pauses in conversation and in-between signing letters pushed in front of her. Even the excited shouts of her teenage nephews as they engage in their countless competitions around the palace (poorly contained these days by an elderly Kai and Gerda) are not enough to distract her entirely, though they occasionally earn from her a lightly disapproving look or a barely-hidden smile of amusement.

In any case, she's sure that it'll be over by nightfall, and is disappointed at the idea that she won't get to go out and experience it herself; she rarely does these days.

But it goes on and on, right into the evening.

*

"I'm going for a walk," she announces to Gerda.

The older woman stares at her in surprise - she's only just finished getting her ready for bed, and her light blonde tresses flow freely behind her back, her face unmarked by cosmetics, clothed only in her evening robes - and frowns.

"In this rain, Your Highness?"

The queen smiles.

"In this rain."

*

There's a wonderful sense of freedom in the drops that patter against her cheeks and forehead as she steps out of the castle, her feet treading lightly along the stone path from the guardsmen's door at the gates.

She draws her cloak a little closer around her face as she nears the street lamps; though she loves her people, she cannot afford to lose this chance for privacy.

Not that there are many of them around to see her—the late hour, combined with the rain, has made sure of that.

She can't remember the last time she went unaccompanied like this somewhere, let alone into the city, and certainly never in the rain. She's glad she did, though, as she takes in the dim glow of the lamps and the warm colours they cast on the cobblestone streets below - the reds and yellows of flickering flames, the dark greens of the trees, the cool blues from the fjord - and she's sure she hasn't seen something so beautiful in many, many years.

(Not since—)

Her heart stops when she catches sight of him, and the rain turns to hail.

"Hans."

He appears to her just as he did the last time she saw him - like a phantom passing in the night - and in the blur of the rain, and lights, and snow, she assumes, just as before, that he is nothing more than a vision.