A/N: Tell me what you guys think, whether I need more detail or not, or whether the world confuses you. I always want to improve when it comes to something like this.
Elsa was up long before her alarm. The snow-blonde trudged over to the bathroom, hacking and coughing all the way. She threw the mouth guard into a small plastic cup and shoved her face under the tap, gargling the sink water.
Not enough. Not nearly enough. Although the sticky, crackly sensation in her mouth went away, her throat burned. She felt like she had swallowed a spoonful of sand.
She marched down the stairs, caring not for how loud her footsteps were. Into the kitchen she went, filling a cup with tap water. She chugged it down in seconds, then went for another. And another. And another.
"Rough night, snowflake?" Elsa wheeled around to the stove. In her quest for water she hadn't even noticed the other snow-blonde woman making bacon on the stove.
"Just woke up thirsty again, mom." Elsa wiped her mouth and glanced at her mother again.
"You might want to get that checked, Elsa. Maybe you inherited more of your dad than you thought." She looked almost the same age as Elsa, with the same blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Elsa noticed that her mother had a spring in her step as she drained off the bacon. A cursory glance at her neck showed a pair of red welts.
"Dad's not coming down to eat?" Elsa said as she picked up a slice off the paper towel-lined plate.
"Mmm, no, he's a bit exhausted from last night." Elsa refused to think about the wink her mother sent as she replied. "Last night was rough on him. Let him miss your first day for school, snowflake."
"Let me miss what, Aria?" Elsa's father said as he shuffled over and tiredly wrapped his arms around his wife. Towering over the two women of the family by almost a foot, he had to almost double over to rest his stubbled chin on her shoulder.
"Morning, Dad." Elsa gave him a short hug from behind, her hands sinking into the silk bed robe he wore.
"Morning dear. You know I wouldn't miss your first day for the world." He went into the fridge and pulled out a thermos mug, sitting down at the kitchen table with it.
"I'm gonna go upstairs, clean out the bedroom. I'll be right down." Her parents shared a short kiss before she bounded up the stairs. Elsa sat down next to her dad.
Elsa slowly ate her bacon and eggs, scooping up the bit of runny yolk left with her fork.
"So, first day at the institute, huh?" Her father asked between sips. A small line of red residue appeared on his upper lip.
"Yep. Olaf's gonna come pick me up later." She replied.
"My baby girl's all grown up now, going off to college." He wiped an invisible tear from his eye. His shaggy blond hair shaking as he did so.
Elsa smirked. "Dad. you said that at my 18th birthday. You said that at the start of summer break. You said that last week. When am I no longer 'your baby girl'?"
"You'll always be my baby girl. Don't ever forget that." He shook the thermos at her.
"I won't, Dad." Elsa wrapped him in a tight hug.
"You got all your stuff packed? Toiletries, inhibitors, 'feminine hygiene products'?" He emphasized the final point with air quotes.
"Yeah. Besides, I'm not moving that far, just across town. I'll still be able to see you guys whenever I want." She crunched into her last slice of bacon.
"I know, snowflake. It's just… it's been so long." He laid back in his chair. "If asked me eighteen years ago if I was ready to have a kid… I honestly would have said 'hell no'. But… seeing you go, knowing that in four years you're going to leave this town…" He glanced off into the distance. "Sorry bout that. We'd best get your stuff to the porch before Olaf comes."
"You better get some sleep after, though." Elsa pointed at the bags under her father's eyes.
"Yes you'd better, Agnar." At that moment, her mother returned, holding a brown paper bag. "I made this with extra love, snowflake." She gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek. "Remember to take your inhibitors. I don't want your traits going off in the middle of class or something."
Her father laughed sharply. "That reminds me, didn't that happen to you? Oh man, the looks on their faces..."
Her mother crossed her arms. "Yes, and that's exactly why she needs to take them. The mayor outlawed disruptive use of traits for a reason, dear."
Elsa rolled her eyes. "I know, mom. I have no desire to let anyone know about it. For all they know, I just have horns." She gestured to the pair of pale brown horns that curled from the top of her head.
"Conceal it." Her mother started the mantra. The same one she heard throughout her adolescence.
"Don't feel it." She responded with the second line.
"Don't let it show." They finished in unison. She breathed in, stretching her shoulders.
"I love you, snowflake." Mother and daughter embraced, gripping tightly.
"Love you too, mom." Elsa replied.
Elsa sat on the porch of her small house. A two storey building with two yards and a white picket fence. Almost identical to the ones beside it and down the street. The epitome of suburbia.
Some vestiges of summer remained. She sat on one of her suitcases, wearing a short sleeved blouse and jeans. The weather was warm today, and the breeze fresh and calm. She waved at Mr. Johnson across the street mowing his lawn. It was an idyllic picture, if one ignored the fact that Mr. Johnson looked less like a man and more like a blue gelatinous blob.
Armoria, Michigan will show up on any maps program as a run down coal mining town that was a regular victim of forest fires. To the outside, it is completely ordinary, a dead town with no hiking trails or parks or nature. Just abandoned buildings and dead land. In actuality it is a haven. For the mythical, the mutants, the strange. A bustling city that remains partially connected with the outside world, Armoria was the government's answer to supernatural beings running rampant across the country. While vampires might stalk New York City at night and werewolves roam the Oregon forests, Armoria is one place where the supernatural can live relatively normally, learning how to blend in with the rest of society. Other than the residents and the additional signs related to various oddities, Armoria looks and functions like any other city of 100,000 or so people.
"Morning, Elsa!" Mr Johnson waved back with a temporary pseudopod that sucked back into his body.
It wasn't long before Elsa heard a familiar screech of brakes. A red Camero pulled up in the driveway and out stepped a teen with spiky brown hair. He smirked at Elsa, the aviator glasses hiding the mirth that she guessed was in his eyes.
"Sup, dude." Olaf said as he clapped Elsa on the shoulder. She returned the favour, if only slightly harder.
"You got your stuff ready?" He said, looking down at her. He had gotten so tall in high school. Elsa could still remember when Olaf barely reached her stomach.
She started wheeling the suitcases over to the car. Her mother stepped out to greet Olaf not long after.
"Hello, Olaf." She too had look up at her daughter's best friend now.
"Hey, Mrs. Christian." He waved. "I'll take good care of Elsa, make sure she stays out of trouble and all that."
"Of course you will." She reached up to push down the lapels of Olaf's leather jacket. "I just don't want something like what happened two years ago to happen again." She said quietly.
"It won't, Mrs. Christian." Olaf gave Elsa's mom a reassuring smile. "I'll make sure it doesn't."
"I'm good to go!" Elsa called from the car, slamming down the trunk. She walked over and hugged her mother one last time. "Miss you, snowflake."
Elsa pulled away and nodded in response. She got into the front seat of the car, eyes fixated out the window until her house was out of sight.
The only sound in the car was the radio, punctuating the ride with classic rock.
"So… you excited?" Olaf asked as they turned onto the on ramp for the highway.
"Yeah." Elsa gave a small answer.
"You got your course schedule and everything?"
"Yeah."
Olaf shifted his jaw. "It's not going to be like high school. Most people won't know, Elsa. You're not going to be harrassed like that at college. Especially if those asses went to Aurizon instead of the Institute."
The higher education of Armoria was split between two universities, both technically offshoots of the University of Michigan. Aurizon University was on one side of the city, with The Kholis Institute on the other. Since the student population was mostly self-contained, the two were treated more like offshoots of the public school system, with most students just going to the closer one.
Elsa chose differently. She needed to get away, to go where her classmates wouldn't find her. She applied to Kholis, and studied her ass off to get in. Olaf came with her, supporting her move. They had been fast friends since day one. She remembered how they had met, building snow forts in the second grade. Their encounter started with a snowball fight (It was a war to them, at the time) over some snow between them, and by the end of recess they had joined their little forts, laughing all the way back into the school building.
And Olaf had stuck by her over the last decade. They shared everything with each other when they were kids. Toys, food, baths, beds. Olaf was practically another son to her parents.
Olaf ran his hand through his spiked hair. Elsa saw his greyed out eyes squint, like they usually did when he was in thought.
"Sorry… I was just worried. It's probably nothing, Olaf." She sighed. The tension seemed to release from her best friend's body, and they soon fell back into regular conversation, joking about stupid things they did over the summer, or talking about T.V. shows.
"But no, seriously Elsa. Your mom is hot. As. Fuck." He emphasized each word with his head bobbing forward and back. Elsa scrunched her nose. "Dude, not cool. You don't hear me talking about your mom like that."
"Yeah, but that's because my mom doesn't look like a girl from those 'Barely Eighteen' sites."
Elsa buried her face in her hands. "I do NOT need that image in my head, Olaf." She raised it again. "Let me remind you that it's a bad fucking idea to be attracted to an Alu-Fiend."
Aria Christian was something that went by many names. Seductress, Sex Demon, Alu-Fiend, Succubus, Widowmaker. Eternal youth and beauty combined with natural allure and a sizeable appetite made for a combination that was quite disruptive to society if left unchecked. In fact, much of the lust an Alu-Fiend generated was passive. Uncontrollable. Elsa was also one of these.
She glanced backwards, at the bottles of orange pills. Inhibitors. Designed to stop the more disruptive traits that she had. The aura of lust, the pheromones, the natural attention. She was glad to stop them. It almost creeped her out. The faculty would know what she was, but she could pass herself off as a satyr child or something with her horns.
Elsa watched Olaf's fingers tap across the steering wheel, his eyes closed as he hummed to the radio. She was sure he was still watching the road, though. His eyes could see through objects. X-Ray vision, essentially. He always needed something to help filter out the information, to control what he wanted to see. It was that lack of control that let him find out about Elsa's other secret.
Elsa's body wasn't normal. The doctors thought it was a mistake. Her family saw it as a miracle. When she started puberty, she realized there was something that made her more unique than most others in Armoria. She had fully functioning genitalia of both sexes. She found it funny that in a city full of unique people, she was just a bit more unique. As much as she disliked the organ between her legs, she couldn't remove it. It had caused her so much pain in high school, but she wasn't sure if she wanted it gone anymore. It was ironic that in a school full of oddities that she would still be harassed over a biological anomaly rather than a supernatural power.
Olaf had been more than supportive when he found out. It probably helped that they were barely nine.
Olaf's Camero pulled up to the campus curb. "You sure you want to be dropped off here?" He said, looking at the Business Teaching Building.
"Yeah, I still have to go find my classrooms. Classes start Monday, remember?" She got out of the car. "Drop off our stuff at the dorm. I'll call you if I need you." She said through the window before waving goodbye.
She waited until Olaf left to let out a shaky breath. She looked up at the Business Teaching Building. It was a rectangle of glass and steel, classrooms lined with floor to ceiling windows. The second floor cantilevered a good distance out, giving the main entrance a fair amount of shade. The lawn in front was bustling. Elsa saw many people running around, some carrying backpacks, others carrying furniture and boxes. A pair of burly guys hoisted a couch over the crowd, carrying it across the green and down the street.
"You can do this Elsa." She mumbled to herself.
She approached the main entrance apprehensively. Although she was in a steady trickle of people heading in, all she could see was the door swing in and out. In and out. She gripped her phone tight, tight enough to make her joints crack. She stepped through and was greeted by a hallway not too dissimilar to high school, with lockers flanking the flow of people and interrupted at regular intervals by a classroom door. The sounds faded into the background as her ears perked up, waiting for her name or some derogatory insult to be thrown. Her shoulders tensed as she passed by the lockers, muscle memory preparing to be picked up and slammed against the metal doors.
But nothing happened. No one stopped to look at her. She didn't stop everything with her mere presence. Everyone just passed on by, without ever looking at her. She let out another shaky sigh. "Of course nobody knows you here, Elsa."
And then she realized she was kind of lost.