Agdar had always been a light sleeper, so the single hesitant knock on the door woke him immediately. He didn't stir other than pull the covers up over his chest, keeping his eye on the door: an assassination attempt wouldn't be made on a night when the aurora borealis was so bright that the light streaming in through the window illuminated the door, much less be pre-announced by a knock on his bedroom door.

The door opened a little way, and a small form slipped in, closing it behind her.

Elsa padded up to the bed, paused to look around to get her bearings, then went to the head of the bed on Agdar's side.

"Poppa?" she asked softly and hesitantly, putting a bare hand on the covers.

"Yes, Snowflake?" he whispered back.

"Is it over?" she started wringing her hands.

"What's over?"

"The training. The times in your room. It's over isn't it?"

"Why do you think that?"

"I'm back with Anna, in our old room. My powers are under control, and she won't bother me about making a snowman with them." pause, "So we don't need me to do that training any more in your room, I guess, don't we? With you? You and me?"

"Well, Elsa, its true that you don't need to, but does that mean you don't want to?"

She paused, thinking, then smiled, her dawn smile lit up by the auroras, "Yes, I want to!"

He reached out, took her hand, pulled it to him, and kissed the back of it "I do too." he said, smiling. He let go of it, "You're just beginning to find out what you can do, snowflake, and I want to find out with you. I'm glad you want to too."

She leaned forward and tried to climb up to kiss him, but he just shifted his head and let her peck him on the forehead, "Good night, Poppa!"

"Good night, Snowflake."

Elsa headed to the door, stopped, turned, and asked, "Poppa?"

"Yes?"

Pause.

"What about the Bishop helping me find more powers?"

Dear Diary:

Starting separate book. Sorry about the trite introduction to each entry, but I cannot date these entries any more, because I cannot risk have anyone matching up these entries with E's visits, now that her father has finally given permission for me to be her spiritual director. They'll have to be able to read German as well.

GT

Dear Diary:

E. came by today, talking about her day, but didn't mention anything about her powers. Probably needs to get comfortable with me. Patience...I've waited 14 years with no clue that she is why I was sent, no exiled, here. I can wait longer.

Drat. Time to go to the Royal Council meeting. Oh Lord help.

GT

Dear Diary:

E. visited again, complained about how her tutor and her sister are not getting along. Met the crone myself, so I cannot blame her.

Things are looking up: she left me with a palm-sized snowflake.

It's not melting.

Incredible.

GT.

Dear Diary:

Finally! She talked about the accident, then eased into the question of what powers were possible to her. No wonder she was taking her time: one 'power' used to be too much to deal with, and here I am presenting a menu of about 12 more! I went through the usual lists. She seems most attracted to healing: not a surprise, considering she injured her sister four years ago, and her...family business puts an emphasis on backup plans and contingencies. She also seems to think it would make her, and thus her other power, more socially acceptable. Poor girl! I will wait a few years before breaking the news to her that that only works if she got shipwrecked on a barbarian occupied island in the middle of nowhere. Odds are, she could heal everyone in Arendelle of the Black Plague, and there will still be a few clods, fools, and knaves who'll stone or burn her, yelling that she caused it in the first place. Of course she'll still try, kind heart!

Given her first power, getting burned looks very unlikely, so I'm working her up to combating the stones, since she floated that cross of ice and the snowflake (which remains unmelted and hidden in my desk). That will take some convincing, but the child is young, mentally flexible, and untouched by the non-expectations of the religiously pretentious. Perhaps those four years away from church did more good than harm. Or probably did good by doing no harm.

We'll have to start small. But every time I open my desk to get pen or paper, and see that snowflake...

GT

Dear Diary:

Success! She floated a pfennig! Excellent. Broke that fixation on ice and snow only, although I am sure that will always be her power of preference. That also matched that flash mind picture I got earlier of it, meaning prophecy has been added to my own list of "powers" as well, as chapter 14 suggests. That'll make training easier in the future. It also suggests that getting powers is also a matter of being around others with powers. The reverse is definitely the case, since for every action there is a reaction, an opposite, something that kicks back.

The coin is in my desk, on top of the snowflake, to remind me that this isn't a dream, that 14 years of mentally rotting in this deceptively pleasant intellectual and scholarly backwater wasn't a mistake, a waste of time, a retirement, or a firing. I'll probably get it set into a key-chain so I can keep it on my person and not lose it.

A pfennig today. Perhaps the North Mountain in a few years? What am I saying? There were two feeding of the masses, and the Master fed more people with less food to start with, and ended up with more afterwards. That means things get easier the bigger the challenge. I may be limiting her by limiting myself to just the North mountain and in a few years. Must watch out for that.

The good Lord knows Arendelle needs the living space, although where we'll put all the mountains currently around us is a puzzle. For some reason, she suggested Weselton, but I told her doing that would provide only a momentary pleasure, and is bound to get her talked about. Both of us got a strangely bad feeling about dropping them into the ocean. Better look at the passages again.

Bah. We'll figure out WHERE later.

Going out for a walk in the royal gardens: life just became...marvelous.

GT