Vanaheim was outside God's jurisdiction. Naturally, the two of them weren't about to use a church ceremony. Natasha, by temperament, had no patience for anything cookie-cutter—if everyone else did it one way, she would insist on doing it another. The more unconventional, the more unique, the more she liked it.
Bella racked her brains. Drawing on the history of Vanaheim and the customs of its various peoples, she ultimately put together a grand ceremony modeled after the wedding of Aragorn, King of Men, and Arwen.
When the ceremonial cannons thundered, every subject in the kingdom gathered as one. Everyone wore their finest clothes and filled the great plaza.
The nimble-footed fauns scattered handfuls of petals across the wedding grounds, each petal carrying a blessing.
Bella wore a suit of finely wrought black chainmail, the pauldrons, bracers, and knee guards engraved with the lion emblem of Aslan. A high-collared dark cloak hung from her shoulders, and she strode out from the east with the morning sun at her back—a symbol that Arendelle was a kingdom of the East.
On her head sat a royal crown set with 2,004 diamonds, 15 sapphires, 12 emeralds, and 6 rubies, weighing 2.2 kg (4.9 lbs).
This time she carried no staff. Her right hand rested lightly on the hilt of her sword as her gaze turned westward.
Natasha emerged in a flowing white gown that trailed behind her. Following elven custom, she held aloft a banner depicting the open sea and a great ship, walking with measured grace.
Her queen's crown was extravagant beyond measure. According to the elven advisors, it had belonged to a queen of the ancient human kingdom of Angmar. After Angmar's fall, a vast hoard of treasures had been plundered by Smaug and carried to the Lonely Mountain. Now every last piece of it belonged to the Kingdom of Arendelle.
Bella took Natasha's hand, and together they ascended to the twin thrones above.
Music struck up on all sides. An elven singer raised her voice in a soaring, festive melody. The Narnian fauns proved they had quite the artistic streak, joining in time with the beat and breaking into joyful dances.
Even the dwarves pounded their great drums, sending up their own thunderous blessings for the newlyweds.
"This is so boring..." Natasha's face was all smiles, but she was quietly grumbling to Bella under her breath.
"The ceremony, Nata, the ceremony—this is our big day!" Bella was fairly sure her face was about to crack from smiling. Events like this were pure torture for a free-spirited psion. She was running on willpower alone.
The two stood ramrod straight, fingers interlaced, smiles fixed firmly in place.
"Hey, do I have the right to inherit your kingdom now?" Natasha asked.
Bella's reply was ironclad: "Of course."
"So if I poison you, can I take the throne? 'Queen' sounds so lame! Honestly, I think I'd make a perfectly good king myself!"
"Ahem—ahem..." Bella choked on her own breath. Natasha rushed to pat her on the back, looking every bit the devoted wife, even smiling sweetly at the little rabbits and squirrels watching from the distance.
The coronation celebration for the King and Queen of Arendelle lasted the entire day. As for the urgent matters of governance—improving livelihoods, mediating tensions between the races, rebuilding social structures—Bella had absolutely no idea what to do. Her solution to problems, her answer to conflicts, was to throw money at them. Find even the thinnest excuse and out came the coin. Arendelle might have been short on many things, but money was not one of them.
Money could paper over most conflicts, and time would take care of the rest.
Many things that felt like insurmountable crises today would, ten or twenty years later, not seem like crises at all.
After the wedding, Bella left Natasha in Arendelle to rest. In her view, centaurs, elves, and dwarves were all more trustworthy than humans. The air here was cleaner, and the ambient magic would be good for the baby.
She brought Natasha to meet the leaders of several allied factions in the region.
The dwarves still maintained that women without beards weren't attractive. The elves, on the other hand, were thoroughly supportive of their marriage between two women. Only the humans over in Lake-town had some snide remarks.
Before leaving, Bella also entrusted her Sting to Natasha. With this sword, she effectively held a king's token—whether it was to muster the army or to issue commands, she had the authority.
"Do you know about Angmar, to the north?" Just before Bella departed, the elven prince Legolas Greenleaf relayed a question from his father.
"I do. What about it?"
"Some of our scouts have spotted a few fell beasts in the Angmar region. They're far smaller than Smaug, but they're still a threat. Your griffins and Pegasi don't have the upper hand against them."
Bella thought about the fell beast the Witch-king of Angmar used to ride in the original timeline. Didn't someone lop its head off with a single stroke? Pathetic things. Were they really a threat?
Still, for Natasha's sake, for little Elsa's future safety, she nodded. "Fine. I'll handle it. Just give me some time."
She made two round trips back to Earth. Massive quantities of military hardware—surface-to-air missiles, aircraft, anti-aircraft guns—were transported to the palace at Arendelle. Power supply wasn't an issue either. There was nothing an Arc Reactor couldn't handle.
With her wife safely settled in Arendelle for a quiet pregnancy, Bella felt an enormous weight lift from her chest. Knowing Natasha's personality, she'd never sit still for long, but Bella still considered Arendelle far safer than Earth.
Back on Earth, Bella spent several days on Clone Island. The little ghost girl Violet Harmon's clone body was nearly finished incubating. Her resurrection was entering the final countdown.
The hacker Root was also on Clone Island during those days.
Bella talked with Root about the aftermath of the Cabin in the Woods incident. The situation on the ground had been utter chaos at the time, so learning after the fact that Root had made it out unscathed—even though the two of them weren't particularly close—was a genuine relief.
Root pulled out a photograph and showed it to her.
The man in the photo had a somewhat rigid face, a square jaw, and resolute eyes.
Bella had no idea what she was looking at. "What's this? Who is he?"
"His name is Reed Strucker. I met him on a dating site. Graduated from a top university, good credit, and he's a district attorney." Root chuckled. "Handsome, right? I'm sure Reed will make an excellent father." She rubbed her belly, her expression dreamy and lovestruck.
Bella was usually oblivious to things that didn't concern her directly, but she was far from stupid. She connected the dots in an instant. "So... you used your hacking skills to steal my hidden files? I was sure I'd deleted everything."
Root smiled. "Looks like you didn't delete quite thoroughly enough."
Bella's gaze turned cold. "Ms. Groves, I believe you've crossed a line."
Root pressed her palms together. "Sorry, sorry. I genuinely didn't know you were researching that kind of technology beforehand. I stumbled across it purely by accident."
Her apology didn't carry much sincerity, but it at least gave Bella an out. For Shaw's sake, she couldn't press the matter further.
"You should know what I'm capable of. If you ever cross my bottom line..."
"Of course, of course! You're the boss. Whatever you say!"