oc meeting for /frz/

[party]

 

Erek straightened as he steeled himself to make his request. He had practiced what he would say and do hundreds of times on his long journey to Arendelle. He let out a quick sigh and then spoke. "Queen Elsa. I have something I'd like to show you, and I think you'll find it most interesting. Permission to approach the throne, your majesty?" A crowd had gathered by now, watching Erek and the Queen with curiosity.

 

With a look of caution and just the slightest amount of hesitation, the Queen replied, "Granted."

 

Erek purposefully made his way up the short steps in front of the throne and stopped a few paces from the Queen. "Would you be so kind as to create a snowball for me?" A second later he grinned and promised her, "I won't throw it at anybody, I swear," as he extended his hand towards her.

 

Elsa couldn't help but smile at his promise. With a quick flourish of her left hand above his right, a ball of fluffy wet snow appeared in his open palm. "Will that do?"

 

Erek stared at it with wonder in his eyes. "Truly, your majesty, your power is a gift from the gods," he said finally as he stole a quick glance at the queen. He could feel his cheeks grow warm and he was powerless to stop the grin spread across his face. "Now, please watch closely. It's nothing compared to yourself, but I have a gift of my own."

 

He took a step back and closed his eyes. Erek had to concentrate for this to work. He wasn't even sure it *would* work right now. He'd never shown this to anybody before and he could feel the hot stares of a ballroom worth of faces all aimed straight at him. And to make it so much worse, the Ice Queen herself was there and she was focused solely on him. To say he was nervous would be the biggest understatement of his life.

 

But luckily, after a few seconds (or years, he couldn't be completely sure) of waiting, it started. The wet snowball in his right hand slowly started to grow colder and colder until it began to freeze solid, starting at the bottom where it met his palm and gradually working its way over the entire sphere. He was left with a smooth sphere of solid ice in his hand. Erek opened his eyes cautiously and, after a brief look at his hand to make sure it didn't just happen in his mind, let out a huge sigh of relief.

 

The crowd, which hadn't breathed since the transformation started, let out their collective sighs, as well. The Queen looked at Erek, her bright blue eyes wide open, astonished at what she just witnessed. Anna moved towards her sister without taking her eyes off of the mysterious lowborn stranger who had just captured the attention of every noble in the room. She whispered to her sister, "You're not the only one anymore! Maybe he can help you understand your power even more."

 

Elsa looked as though she was about to respond when Erek spoke up, "Your majesty, your highness," he said quickly as he moved his gaze from the Queen to the princess. "I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm not quite done yet. This next part won't be as familiar, I imagine."

 

Closing his eyes again, Erek moved the ball of ice to his left hand. Fortunately, this part always came easier to him. He wasn't so nervous anymore. The ice seemed to glow red briefly, then orange, then yellow, before it completely melted in his hand and made loud splash as the water met the carpet beneath him. Unlike when he frosted it over, which had taken nearly half a minute, this display was over in a few seconds. He opened his eyes again.

 

The murmurs in the crowd started immediately. Quickly, before anybody had a chance to ask him, Erek stated, "Frost in the right hand, fire in the left." He took a low bow before the Queen. Almost forgetting his manners, he quickly raised his head to the Queen to apologize for the mess before lowering it again.

 

Nobody dared say anything, waiting until the Queen herself spoke. This display had been for her, after all. She hesitated, but finally found her words. "...Erek, you said? When did you find out you could do this?". She hoped nobody noticed that her throne was frosting over and had been since the snowball started freezing in the boy's hand.

 

Erek raised himself from his bow to reply. "I was seven the first time it happened. I..." He hesitated. He knew he had to be truthful with the Queen but he hated talking about this. "...I lost my temper at another boy and had picked up a stick to strike him. I don't remember what he did or said to provoke me but I was more furious then I had ever been in my life. As I approached him, the stick burst into flame in my hand. I didn't even notice until I was a scant few feet from him. He was cowering, but it wasn't from me. He couldn't break his gaze from what was in my left hand. When I noticed, I looked for myself and saw what had happened. It didn't burn my hand. That was the first thing I noticed, your majesty. Not that I had spontaneously turned a stick into an inferno, but that the inferno was sparing me." Erek paused to catch his breath and try to gauge the Queen's reaction to this.

 

Queen Elsa was enthralled. She didn't speak, all she could do was look at this strange boy and his strange power. She thought she was starting to understand how others felt about her.

 

"I didn't strike him. I dropped the stick in fear and he ran off. After that, I knew I could never let something like that happen again. So I spent most of my time trying to control my emotions and by extension, my power. It wasn't until I was ten that I could do this," Erek said as he raised his right hand. "I still don't know what triggered it. I had known I needed some way to prevent myself from accidentally starting a terrible situation, and one day it just... happened. I had been practicing control over the flame and I passed a branch from my left hand to my right and focused on increasing the intensity of the blaze. I always had trouble creating the flames with my right hand, but I could still control them with it. I never could have expected what happened next. The branch completely frosted over, and the flame died almost instantly. Ever since that day, I felt a little better. I had somehow created the answer to my own power, and I wasn't as scared of it any more." As he finished his speech, Erek mentally congratulated himself for not screwing it up. He was glad he spent so much time practicing, both on his speech and with his powers.

 

Elsa snapped out of her trance and looked Erek up and down. He wasn't overly tall; a hair under six feet if she had to guess. He wasn't much to look at, compared to the princes and other suitors, but Elsa didn't care right now. As far as she was concerned, they were the only two people in the room at the moment. She spoke directly to Erek now, not bothering to watch how she spoke, "But... you needed me to make a snowball for you. Why?"

 

"I can't create snow or ice out of thin air. I need something tangible to be able to freeze it. I don't have as much strength with my right hand as I do my left," he responded. His nerves were starting to betray him again. He was talking with the Queen he traveled so far to meet, and had gone through everything he had rehearsed beforehand.

 

[more][?]

 

A small nudge from Anna brought the Queen back to reality. She spoke again, this time not just to Erek, but to everyone in attendance, "I'm growing tired. It's time I retire for the evening. I anticipate our next meeting," she said as she stood and looked around the room at her guests. On her retreat from the throne, she motioned to Kai to follow her into the hallway.

 

Stepping out of the ballroom moments after the Queen, Kai heard her speak to him in a soft voice, "Offer Erek one of the guest rooms if there are any left."

 

He nodded, "Of course, your majesty."

 

Satisfied, the Queen took her leave of him.