#f. elsa

[tretramonti]

"Ariel?" Elsa whispers, trying to knock and hold a large basket at the same time. "I heard you weren't feeling well. I have some things here that should help. Are you feeling up to company or should I leave the basket on your desk for you to explore later?"

Ariel at least made it far enough to get dressed, but curled up on the sofa clung to a blanket and several extra pillows afterwards. Once she had found out she wasn't dying, Carlotta had been kind enough to explain and inform her that many women could go about their days with some difficulty.

Evidently, she wasn't many women.

She looked up, half torn between not wanting to see another human face again and desperately needing any sort of reassurance that the world wouldn't collapse.

"Company would be nice. Thank you, Elsa," Ariel's last word trailed off as the dull, exhausting ache somehow migrated to her spine. "Tell me it's not always this terrible."

[tretramonti]

Ariel had learned much about human culture, and despite its complexities, her conversations with Eric left her with no doubt about his love for her.

Their situation--a husband, a wife, and a lover, was as unique among humans as it was commonplace among merfolk. She had been welcomed in spite of human culture. Ariel had grown to accept that, even if her human family didn't match the effortless ideal of a mer one. The hierarchy of wife and lover meant nothing to her. She could set herself apart from the label's relevance in human custom.

At least she could until the moment Elsa had shared with Ariel the news of her pregnancy. After all, wife and lover could hold the same place in one heart but not in one human covenant.

Ariel had been thrilled--of course she had! Merfolk celebrated families and she'd known so many children raised by more than their father and mother. But somewhere in the back of her mind she couldn't hide the thought that she would have children, too, as would have been completely normal under the sea. But on land, the thought was scandalous at best, life-altering at worst.

Out of wedlock was the term. Wedlock, as if childbirth could violate the terms of an imprisonment.

As much as the turbulent dread pooled in her, Ariel owed her family honesty about her conflict and confusion. She owed it to the human who might have the best chance at understanding, who was carrying this precious child now.

"Elsa," Ariel peeked in the chamber door, speaking with more quiet hesitation than she ever had. "Is now a good time to talk?"

[tretramonti]

🛁 for Eric

Send 🛁 for a bath thread - accepting

Baths were meant for relaxation after expending his energy, which Eric hadn't been able to do for weeks. He had to take respite instead from all the time spent in bed and wheeling, then limping, then painfully walking. He'd had his sutures out and still sported an angry bruise, but at least could begin to maneuver. Instead of physical exertion, Eric poured his energy into doting on his wife again.

He pressed a kiss to Elsa's cheek, and then ran a damp hand over the slope of her neck down to one shoulder, sinking a gentle weight into the muscle there with the pad of his thumb.

"How're you feeling?"

[tretramonti]

“How many fingers am I holding up?“

"Trick question," Eric grinned dizzily, the laudanum hitting his empty stomach harder than he hit the deck. "None, just pretty eyes..."

[tretramonti]

comb

Eric leaned back into her touch, sighing, "Our salamander child hasn't singed it yet. Max, though--he's very pouty."

[tretramonti]

@wintersovereign (cont.)

"Oh--I'll be fine," Eric mumbled, prone, with his face full of ice...or deck. He wasn't sure. One side ached too much to move for a moment, but he tried anyway, wincing and staggering...first rising to his knees, and then, shakily, his feet, his stance lilting precariously to one side.

By now, he thought a crowd of sailors might be gathering, but he could have imagined it.

"Well, I-I don't usually--" the world started to tilt again.

[tretramonti]

@wintersovereign

Eric handed Elsa a whittled seahorse, elegant and finely-detailed. It fit squarely into the palm of Eric’s hand, which would make it far more sizeable in hers.

“A thank-you gift from Max for all the icicles. He likes to chew on them. He’s taken to whining at me when they’re gone, but all I have is a little cypress from home and a knife.”

He’d seen many a sailor pour their worries into the subtlest carvings, spending hours in calm seas turning a block of wood into the shape of their grief. Eric pined into scrimshaw or whittling when he had the time, but his work had never been meant for anything other than waiting until sea winds returned.

Not until this one. The ridges on this seahorse spiraled deeply with time spent thinking of her, so much that seeing it finished surprised him. He briefly wondered if he should reconsider whether this really was a gift on his dog’s behalf.

Telling her would require words...words he didn’t have. He wasn’t a master of small-talk but even as genuinely as he felt, he didn’t have the words for that either. Just a journey’s worth of affectionate, worried thoughts sculpted into a cypress seahorse.

Eric could, at least, manage an invitation. “Would you want to walk with me before it gets dark?”

[tretramonti]

@bornofsnowandice​ asked: ⭐️ (or multiple) for a headcanon about our muses.

Before he got to know Elsa, Eric really didn’t like the cold. He tolerated it, but most of the cold weather he experienced in his own kingdom was from storms at sea, which is a gross wet cold that is as deadly as it is uncomfortable. So while he thought winters in Arendelle would be just as brutal, he learned to enjoy them, especially when in awe of Elsa’s ice powers.

Plus, who doesn’t love some ice magic on a humid summer day?

Also Max’s new favorite hobby is eating magic ice chunks out of shallow water