I took a deep breath like I was prepping for a trance, then walked back to the living room.
The situation felt like negotiating with a tiny, adorable nuclear bomb.
Elsa remained on the couch with arms crossed. Her expression combined Queen Elizabeth receiving underwhelming tea and a five-year-old denied ice cream.
The paused video game cast a colorful glow across her face, adding to her charm in some unnamable way.
"Look," I began from the opposite end of the couch, maintaining what I hoped was a safe distance. "We need to clear something up."
"Indeed we do." Elsa’s nose shot high in the air. "Your behavior was unacceptably rough. I am a delicate princess, not a sack of turnips to be tossed aside when inconvenient."
I ran a hand through my hair. How had my life come to this—trying to have a serious conversation about accidental boners with an interdimensional elf princess in silky pajamas? "That’s... not what I want to talk about."
"Oh?" One eyebrow arched.
"There’s something you should understand about..." I searched for words that wouldn’t make me sound like a complete creep. "About how you affect me. Physically."
I cringed at myself. That’s a failure.
Elsa uncrossed her arms. She cocked her head once to the left, then to the right, like one of those adorably confused golden retriever puppies on social media.
After a final nose crinkle, her expression softened with curiosity. "Affect you?"
"Yes. You’re... well, you’re very attractive to me," I admitted.
Dear God, was I actually doing this? The amount of cringe was overwhelming, but I’d come this far and had to see it through.
Her imperious expression returned instantly.
Royal hauteur activated at full power, and the sight of the superiority on her face made me smirk in spite of my own nerves.
"Of course I am," she declared as if stating water was moist. "I am very beautiful and dainty. This is an established fact throughout seven realms and three pocket dimensions."
I shook my head. "That’s not my point. When you sit in my lap, or nuzzle against me, or wear next to nothing around me..." I gestured at her silky lavender pajamas. "It has a physical effect on me, and it’s going to create awkwardness eventually."
Elsa tilted her head up to look down at me over her nose, which was hilarious given how short she was.
Her blue eyes watched me intently as she sucked on her bottom lip before finally deciding on her words. "I don’t understand what you mean by ’physical effect,’" she said, though her tone hinted she might be playing dumb.
"I need to be transparent about it," I continued. This sucked.
It felt like giving a mortifying PowerPoint presentation. "I have no control over how my body responds to... to proximity with you. It’s an automatic reaction, like sneezing when there’s dust or sweating when it’s hot."
Elsa’s expression remained puzzled. She cocked her head to the side in an infuriatingly cute way, blinking innocently.
She glanced quickly left and right like she was checking for eavesdroppers in my empty living room.
Then she leaned forward and whispered, "Are you talking about being... horny?"
I almost choked. Hearing that word in her high-pitched, posh, accented voice jarred me. Humiliation mixed with relief that she actually understood what I was trying to explain.
"Yes." My voice cracked embarrassingly. "That’s exactly it."
To my surprise, Elsa rolled her eyes dramatically. "Well, I know that," she said. "Obviously."
"You... know?" I repeated, feeling pretty fucking stupid right about then.
"Of course I know. I’m counting on it." She lowered her voice and leaned closer. "But this is the sort of thing that you don’t speak of! It’s best for a maiden to just play dumb and let these things happen, yes? That’s what all the forbidden romance scrolls say."
I blinked several times, processing this complete reversal. I’d quite possibly just interacted with an alternate dimension.
Again. "Wait. So you knew what you were doing this whole time?!"
"Was it not obvious?" She looked genuinely concerned about her performance. "I suppose my innocent act was persuasive. The royal acting tutor always praised my ability to portray naivety. I convinced the entire court I didn’t know where babies came from until I was ninety-four." She sighed. "I was so young back then."
I blinked a few times at the age reveal, but moved on quickly. "No, you were... convincing," I assured her. My mind raced to catch up. "Are you saying that all of this—the sitting in my lap, pressing yourself against me, changing clothes in front of me—was deliberate? You were trying to... what, seduce me?"
Elsa huffed. "Well, obviously. You are a very, very sexually attractive man, and my fated mate. Of course I’m showing off my physique for you. Of course I’m plastering myself to you like tree sap."
"Say what now?" The floor dropped out from under me. My stomach plummeted to my ankles. "Fated mate?"
Elsa nodded matter-of-factly. "The Hero’s Party is a band of three female adventurers. We are virginal maidens, destined to find the man who completes us."
The way she emphasized ’completes’ made my heart pound. "I knew I would find you here in Earthrealm, though not so soon. When you revealed that you had access to the System, I knew it was you without a shadow of a doubt."
That more or less explained how excited she was to learn I possessed the System. Plus, it explained a lot of other things too. Huh.
My pulse hammered in my fists. Everything had flipped upside down.
All this time, she hadn’t been oblivious to the effect she was having on me—she’d been deliberately provoking exactly that reaction. I was almost weirdly impressed.
"So you’ve been actively trying to... to seduce me?" I struggled to believe it. "Since yesterday?"
Elsa’s regal demeanor suddenly cracked, and her pale cheeks flushed pink.
She looked down at her hands in her lap. "It’s indecent and inconsiderate to make a princess with her maidenhead intact admit such a thing," she murmured. Her voice sounded small, cutesy rather than regal.
She shyly pressed her fingertips together. The gesture looked adorable, but I tried not to be distracted.
After a moment, she patted the seat beside her. "I wish to resume the ruse at once," she declared without meeting my eyes. "I cannot bear the shame of discussing such lewd possibilities aloud."