By the time Elsa woke in the morning, the apartment was empty. Anna had left a note in the kitchen area for her.
Called into work for you, you're off until Wednesday. Breakfast in the fridge. Back around 5 PM. Love u
She smiled, the handwriting just as playful and elegant as her sister's. Despite her assurances before bed, Elsa had still been nervous to sleep with her sister's doppelganger, knowing that this Anna was romantically attached to her. Her nervousness was unfounded; Anna had been snuggly, but not inappropriate in any way, something she was grateful for. Having Anna sleeping next to her felt like home.
After putting on the same clothes she'd worn the previous day, she looked around the apartment, wondering where all the clocks were, then finally noticed that many of the small metal boxes throughout had the time in numeric format, a far cry from the usual clocks in the palace. It was already almost 11 AM; she never slept that late at home. Usually Kai or Gerda would be rousing her just before dawn to begin her days.
Elsa wandered into the bathroom to wash, looking in the mirror. Despite all the change around her, nothing looked amiss at the woman in the mirror. If this were all a dream, it was at least a dream that hadn't changed her. Her vision blurred as pangs of longing for her home clenched at her heart. The modern world was astonishing, to be sure, but home was home. As she scrubbed her face, she wondered what was happening with her Anna. Was time moving at the same pace in the castle? Was she missing, Anna searching frantically for her?
She dared not go outside alone into a world that was dizzying, that she didn't understand, so she made do looking around the apartment for the day, reading books and maps, trying to orient herself as best as she could. Anna would be home in a few hours, they'd go to dinner together, and perhaps she could get some more answers.
The two women walked hand in hand into Samurai Express, a small cafe on Boylston Street. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows let diners watch passersby as they ate sushi off of pale wooden planks, on plastic-coated placemats covered in photos of individual pieces of sushi. At each slightly wobbly table, tall cups were filled with paper-wrapped chopsticks and bottles of soy sauce. Music in an unrecognizable foreign language played in the background; Elsa only caught a few letters of English here and there, mostly something called "BTS".
Anna led them to a table in the far corner of the restaurant, gallantly pulling out the laminated wood cafeteria-style chair for Elsa, who exaggerated a bow as she sat. "Thank you, milady," Elsa grinned, unfolding the flimsy paper napkin across the magical fabric of her trousers. The decor in the shop was so foreign, she had no idea what class of establishment she was in. Was it formal? Informal? Peasant? "Are… are we dressed appropriately for this place?"
Anna snorted as she unwrapped a pair of chopsticks and broke them apart. "Elsa, this is a fast food joint. As long as you're wearing clothes, you're fine. I see you found my yoga pants, though."
"I… did, yes. I guess I did? Is that what these are called?" Elsa said, looking down as she gently pinched the stretchy fabric. "They're so comfortable! Much more comfortable than…"
"Than what?"
"Than… umm… other clothes that I saw in the drawers." Elsa looked around at the table, everything unfamiliar. Though she'd learned of Japan's existence from her tutors, she'd never seen anything Japanese outside of a book in her life. "I've never had… I mean… I don't remember having this before. What… what should I request? What did I have… the last time I was here?"
Anna reached a hand across the table, her brow furrowed in concern. "Hey… is this too much for you? Is this too overwhelming? We can always get something to go."
Elsa tilted her head. "To go… where?"
"To go. Takeout. You know, food to take home." Anna's head matched Elsa's tilt, as she stared at her wife, biting the very edge of her lip with her teeth. Something felt more off to her than normal. On the way home from the clinic yesterday, she'd read up about retrograde amnesia and learned that episodic memory - specific events in the past - were most likely to be affected, but basic semantic memory - how to communicate, the basics of life - usually was not. Elsa not recognizing something as simple as takeout worried Anna.
"Ah. No, no, this is fine. I'm just… I'm not sure what to do, Anna." She took the proffered hand and held it in her own, feeling the soft, smooth, warm skin. This Anna's fragrance was different than her sister, but no better or worse. It still boggled her mind that this Anna was slightly more than a decade older than her sister and almost a decade older than herself.
Anna smiled softly and clasped Elsa's hand in both of hers. "Well… don't you worry, Elsa, don't you worry one little bit. I'm here to take care of you for once instead of you taking care of me. As for the food, don't worry about it, either." Anna turned to the server already carrying food to their table. "Hey Jenny!"
The server, a slightly built Japanese woman, smiled as she plopped down a tray already piled high with a variety of small dishes. "Hey you two. Haven't seen you in… a couple of days," she smiled more broadly. The Becks were quite regular visitors, and almost always ordered the same thing. "Here's the seaweed salad, one order of pork gyoza for you, Elsa, one order of shrimp shumai for you, Anna, and your usual maki combo. Anything else?"
"No thanks, Jenny. I think we're all set," grinned Anna as she practically drooled over the food, chopsticks hovering over her favorite pieces.
Elsa sat stunned, not sure what to even do with the foreign foods all over the table. After watching Anna pick up a piece of a tuna roll, dip it just slightly in the soy sauce dish, and plop it in her mouth, she made her best effort to copy the motions, but struggled to even get the chopsticks into her hands.
Anna frowned as she watched Elsa's clumsy movements. Motor skill degradation was extremely rare in retrograde amnesia, as Elsa struggled with the same eating implements that, two days ago, she operated with the grace of an orchestra conductor. Not that she was any kind of doctor, but none of Elsa's symptoms matched up with retrograde amnesia, at least from the way WebMD described it.
After a few more moments of struggling, Elsa looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching in disdain or scorn and simply picked up the maki roll, dipped it, and ate it. Moments later, an explosion of flavor in her mouth made her eyes bulge. After swallowing, she gasped, "What… what IS this, Anna? It's so good! I've never had anything like this in my life!"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
Elsa nodded vigorously as she took another piece and ate it voraciously.
"That's toro, fatty tuna. You- do you actually like it?" Anna asked, staring at her wife, her lips slightly parted and eyes wide.
"Oh spirits, yes! It's amazing, Anna," she gushed as she ate another piece, oblivious to Anna's reaction. "Thank you so much for bringing me here."
Anna's smile didn't reach her eyes as she ate a couple of pieces of the sushi, watching her wife's eating. Amnesia or not, one's general tastes weren't supposed to change a whole lot… and her wife hated raw fish. Elsa would always get the California rolls with the fake crab meat inside, and usually a couple of cucumber rolls; sometimes, Elsa couldn't even manage that and ordered the fried udon noodles instead.
She mulled over the facts she'd gathered thus far. The person in front of her was younger than her wife, based on her physical appearance - something she'd noticed only after the nurse practitioner had mentioned it. Elsa's hair was more blonde; her wife's hair had strands of white that had lightened it considerably over the years. She definitely had some kind of memory loss, but it wasn't normal. Her preferences were different, especially around foods. Normal things in daily life confused her.
Nothing explained what was happening. The only possibilities she could think of were outlandish - an imposter masquerading as her wife? Alien kidnapping? Anna shook her head, before noticing that Elsa had spoken to her.
"I- I'm sorry, Elsa. What did you say?"
"Oh, I was apologizing for being a bad date, eating so quickly. So… you said I'm a lawyer, but you never said what you do for work," she said, wiping her soy sauce covered fingers on her napkin.
Anna shrugged. "Well, I'm not nearly as exciting as you are, honey. I work at a local ad agency."
Elsa blinked, the words meaning nothing to her. "What… does that entail?"
"Well, for the most part, people hire us to create ads for them. See over across the street?" Anna pointed at a fashion boutique, the windows filled with mannequins showing off a variety of black knee-high leather boots. "When a company wants to advertise what it's selling, we help them."
"Ah! So you hire people like… like merchants do, barkers to let people know something's available?" Elsa thought of the barkers in the city square in Arendelle, shouting out the day's specials. Anna had one of her guards stationed near the square, waiting for the confectioner to announce his wares that day. If her favorite, chocolate truffles from Geneva, were available, the guard was to relay that information back to the palace immediately.
Anna set her iPhone on the table, staring at Elsa once more, as though she were an alien who had just arrived on the planet. "Not… quite. We run mostly digital ads these days - ads on things like phones and tablets. Here, let me show you." She opened her phone's browser to a news page and in seconds, an ad for the boutique across the street popped up, the exact boots in the window on the screen. "See? That way anyone eating in this restaurant, if they hadn't already noticed the shop across the street, would get the same ad on their phones, too."
Elsa nodded, feigning understanding as she wrung her hands together under the table. Whatever a phone was, it was apparently the name of the black glass mirror Anna carried around that lit up and suddenly turned into a small book. At every turn, this world grew more foreign to her. She popped the last piece of tuna in her mouth and chewed silently as Anna just… watched her. "Aren't you hungry, Anna?"
"Hmm? Oh… you know, I'm suddenly not feeling all that hungry. I think I'll get mine to go after all." She bit into a California roll, her eyes staring off into the distance for a few moments before looking back at her wife, her eyebrows knitting together as she arrived at a decision in her mind. "Hey Jenny! Can I get the check please?" she half-shouted, raising her arm in the air.
After dinner, the two headed back to their apartment. As soon as Anna locked the front door, she pulled Elsa into an intimate embrace, pressing her body against the blonde, firmly kissing her on the lips as she threaded her fingers through Elsa's hair. For her part, Elsa stiffened, unsure what to do with a hug that was clearly more than sororal. Anna's hands started to roam down her lower back, and Elsa squeaked, her body as rigid as rock.
"A-Anna… I don't… um, I don't remember…" Elsa stuttered as Anna hiked the hem of the hoodie up off her waist, cool air caressing her skin. Before she could do anything else, Anna spun her around, her warm fingers tracing lines over Elsa's skin, the fingertips feather-light touch walking a path across her lower back.
And then just as soon as Anna's fierce embrace began, it vanished. Elsa turned around and opened the eyes she'd been squeezing closed under Anna's advances, only to confront something even worse.
Anna leaned against the wall, her arms crossed, her brow creased, and her eyes blazing.
"Who are you?"
Elsa gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as her stomach did a backflip. She couldn't put her finger on what specifically just happened, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Anna knew she was lying about the amnesia. "W-what do you mean? Anna, it's… it's me, Elsa. Who else would I be?" she murmured, wringing her hands.
Anna growled as she pushed herself off the wall, encroaching on Elsa's space. "You're not Elsa, not my wife. I don't know what kind of sick joke this is, but you're not her." She stabbed a finger into the blonde's chest. "Who. Are. You."
"You- you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she breathed, her hands ice cold and clammy. She backed into the kitchen and found herself pressed against the refrigerator door. "H-how did you know?"
Anna smirked, the lopsided smile still not reaching her eyes. "Elsa- my Elsa, hates fish. With a passion. Won't eat it at all, can barely stand the smell of it. She only goes to Samurai Express with me out of pure devotion."
Anna slowly walked away from Elsa, into the kitchenette area. "My Elsa knows what a smartphone is, and amnesia wouldn't take away the basic motor skills needed to operate one, even if you had no idea what you were looking at. Your language skills and motor skills appear fine."
Anna picked up a piece of mail from the counter idly, twisting it in her hands until the paper gave way, tearing. "My Elsa knows how to use chopsticks. She spent a year in Korea as an exchange student, using those super slippery metal chopsticks. Again, amnesia wouldn't disrupt motor skills without other serious, obvious issues - issues you don't have."
Anna whirled, suddenly closing the distance between the two, her breath hot on Elsa's cheeks. "My Elsa has a tattoo of a snowflake on her lower back. And there's nothing on yours. So I will ask you one more time: who. are. you?"
Elsa bowed her head. "You're right. I'm… not her. But I am Elsa, and you are Anna, and I know you… but not as my wife. As my sister." She held her hands up in surrender. "I… I can try to explain everything that I know, but you may not believe it." She slowly moved from the kitchen to the sitting area, and eased herself onto the couch, squeezing herself into one corner of it. Anna sat down at the other end of the couch, eyes laser focused on the blonde.
"This is going to sound crazy, but please let me finish, and then you can ask questions. I'm Elsa, daughter of Agnarr, Queen of the kingdom of Arendelle. I am 23 years of age, born in the year 1819, the eldest of two…"
Author's NotesJapan didn't establish diplomatic relations with Norway until 1905 when Norway dissolved its union with Sweden. Prior to that, however, Japan and Sweden didn't sign a diplomatic treaty of any kind until 1868, so it's unlikely that canon Elsa would have ever interacted with anything Japanese.
Writing canon Elsa in the modern day is a treat, because there's a lot of "did this exist" and "when did X happen".
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