The Love That Bonds Us

Chapter 5 : The First Of Many Meetings

AGNARR

I paced around my room.

I now knew why my father had wanted me to take more responsibility. Atleast then I'd have had some previous experience of the weights that would be placed on my shoulders.

Instead, I'd been too bone-hard stubborn and was now under heaps of stress without knowing a way to relieve myself.

It had only been a couple weeks since I'd returned from the Forest, but there was a lot of work to be done and I wasn't even officially King yet! My advisors weren't technically allowed to give me much because I wasn't of age, but they did anyway. It must have been a strategic thing, because they thought I'd always come back to them for help. But my stubborn head wouldn't let me; I had to do this on my own.

I had also grown to understand Colden's frustration with me - he was used to an experienced King who could make the right decisions in minutes, not an immature, irresponsible King who had no idea what he was doing.

I still spoke back a lot to him though; that part would never change. He was just so terrible at keeping his anger contained and it quickly became one of my favourite past times to try and annoy him with little tricks and comebacks. I also frequently exercised my limit, to see how far I could go. The answer is not very far at all.

Luckily Halima was around to help me keep my head. Even then, she still thought I was taking too much pressure on myself, but she didn't understand that I had an obligation as the not-yet-crowned King to serve my people in any way that I could, especially after being completely ignorant to their real problems for so long. I had helped them, sure, but not in the way I should have - Colden made sure I never forgot that.

I suppose I also felt extremely guilty: now all I wanted to do was to be a son my father could be proud of.

Anyway, my sister, Arianna, had returned from her holiday to Corona at my urgent request. She had been as equally devastated as I had been to hear about our father's tragic death; but, given time and a very depressing funeral, we had both come to terms with it and went back to a drastically changed life.

She'd also taken to scolding me whenever she thought she needed to (believing I was unnecessarily stressing myself just as Halima did), so I tended to avoid her whenever it became necessary; which never really worked as she had this annoying habit of always knowing my whereabouts. I loved her all the same however and enjoyed her company most of the time.

Halima entered my room then with a steaming mug clutched in her small hands.

"Good afternoon your majesty." she said, handing me the mug.

"Afternoon Halima." I said, before taking a large gulp of the warm drink, slamming the mug down on my table, rather aggressively, and wiping my mouth.

"Agnarr. Walk with me." she put an arm around my shoulders - squeezing tightly so I couldn't wriggle away - and firmly led me out into the Castle Grounds, where we walked around in silence.

This was the exercise Halima used most often when it came to calming me down, and usually it worked - seeing the tranquility of the garden.

"How's Iduna?" I was able to ask after a while.

Halima had told me a lot about the young girl she'd found in the streets two weeks ago. Iduna didn't like talking about what had happened to her parents, making her an orphan (or that's what Halima reckoned she was anyway) and Halima, being the understanding soul that she was, never forced the girl to explain anything.

So Iduna was a bit of a mystery.

"Oh she's such a delightful girl, Agnarr. I really should introduce you." Halima answered, fondly, "She's carefree and longs for adventure - though she once said she's strayed a little too far in that. And the way she talks sometimes," here Halima chuckled, "you'd think she'd never been in Arendelle before!"