1. Frozen: Of Frost and Flame

CHAPTER III

Norway. April 12, 1842. Thornglade Residence, Arendelle. Midway through the eleventh hour.

Archer blinked the few hours of sleep he'd gotten out of his eyes and sat up on his bed, yawning. Sunlight was streaming through his window, calling him to rise. In the distance, he could hear the muffled sound of the eleven o'clock bell ringing. "Eleven?" he muttered to himself after counting the tolls. "I must've overslept."

Then his mind replayed the events of the previous day, reminding him of his midday meeting with none other than the queen herself.

"Søren!" Archer cried (which is the Norwegian's way of saying "dang it!"), leaping out of bed. He stared at his sleepy-eyed, bedhead-ed self in the mirror on the other side of his room and threw up his hands in disbelief. "Of all the days to oversleep—"

His exclamation was interrupted by a loud knocking on his front door.

Archer stumbled out of his bedroom as his mother called from the kitchen, "Can you get that, Archer?"

"Yes, Mother!" Archer called back, all the while thinking, Please don't be the queen, please don't be the queen...

Upon reaching the door, he looked through the window and, seeing who it was, sighed in both relief and annoyance.

Opening the door, Archer looked up at the smartly-dressed man sitting atop his trusty... reindeer.

"Good morning, Captain," Kristoff Bjorgman, Duke of Arendelle and current Ice Master and Deliverer, greeted Archer.

"Indeed it is, milord," Archer replied, bending in a slight bow. "I trust all is well about town?"

"Um, yes. All is... quite well. Dang it!" Kristoff coughed. "All this fancy talk makes me feel so royal." He cleared his throat and went on (using his fingers as quotation marks throughout), "Yeah, so, anyways... Elsa sent me. She wants me to 'escort' you to your 'personal meeting'."

One of Archer's eyebrows rose, seemingly on its own. "Escort me?" Archer repeated in disbelief. "I assure you, milord, I am quite capable of making my own way to the castle."

"Not your call," Kristoff said, shaking his head. "And, unfortunately, not mine, either. Because if I had my way, I wouldn't be doing this. And neither would Sven!" he added as a quick afterthought.

Kristoff's reindeer huffed and snorted.

Archer set his jaw and said tightly, "Allow me to don the proper attire, and we can be on our way." He turned around, preparing to head back into his house.

"Hey, uh, Archer?"

Archer spun back around. "Yes, sir?" he forced out with a look of false respect.

Kristoff scratched the back of his head, obviously uncomfortable with asking the question that came out of his mouth next. "Do you and Elsa have a... a thing going on?"

This time, both of Archer's eyebrows shot up. "A thing?" he repeated, saying the word as if it were a vulgarity.

"Yeah, you know... a thing," Kristoff said, shrugging and smiling sheepishly.

Archer narrowed his eyes. "I am insulted that you would think so, sir," he answered, keeping his voice as level as he could. "And for the record, I did not ask to be thrice sent into her presence. That was her decision, not mine."