Holy goldfish, if this isn't the comfiest, snuggliest place Anna has found herself in a long time. The space between Elsa's coat and her soft, fuzzy jumper is pure bliss. It reminds Anna of when she was a kid, the way she used to pile all her plush toys onto the bed, throw a blanket over them and just sort of burrow into it. This is even better though, because of how warm it is. The steady rhythm of Elsa's breath, rocking her like the ocean, the soothing energy of her magic like crashing waves on the shore.

A firm hand on the outside of the coat supports Anna's weight. It's a relief to finally relax her muscles and retract her claws, having clung tight to the branch for the better part of the day. She almost feels like she could nap.

Anna nestles her head in the top of the coat's opening, just under Elsa's chin, and takes in her surroundings. They are heading quite deep into the forest - deeper than Anna usually goes. Deeper than anybody usually goes. Even with her superb night vision, she can tell it's close to pitch black and they aren't following any trail. She has no idea how Elsa isn't stumbling over logs and rocks, or walking into trees, or just straight up getting lost.

'Where are you taking me?'

'Home.' Elsa says, as though it's obvious. Perhaps it is obvious. There may have been a clause about this in the six million page soul-binding contract that she signed without fully reading. Perhaps this counts as abandonment, and Elsa is invoking some kind of ancient finders-keepers law.

Magic forums online are full of stories about familiars getting kidnapped, stolen, swindled, fraudulently inherited or otherwise acquired and soul-bound through shady means. But they are highly skilled familiars with special talents and years of acquired arcane knowledge. Anna is far too ordinary to have to worry about anything like that.

'Do you mean, like, your home? Or my home?'

Thunder rumbles across the sky, rattling Anna's bones, and she instinctively pulls her head back down into the coat, like a turtle into its shell, curling into herself. Another hand comes up to hold her tight, through the coat. Despite how nice it feels, how safe and secure, she resists the urge to purr. They've just met. No need to make things weirder than they already are.

'Sorry,' Elsa says, 'I should have been clearer. I thought we would wait out the storm at my house. Then I can take you wherever you need to go.'

'Oh.' Why is Anna's heart sinking a little at this? Did she want to be kidnapped? Damn, it seems like part of her did. Still, she remembers her manners. Who knows what important business this witch was attending to in the storm? Or when the next storm will be? She could easily have ignored Anna. 'Thank you so much for your help. I thought that dog was never going to leave! I hope you didn't use up too much mana.'

'Use up… mana?' Elsa sounds somewhere between perplexed and amused. An odd reaction to a reasonable concern. Mana is money, after all. It's livelihood for any working witch or wizard.

'Uh… yeah?'

'I have plenty of mana. You don't need to worry about that. We're almost there.'

Oh, crap, now she's probably offended. Anna has learnt the hard way not to let on when Hans is low on mana, and half-assing his spells. Wizards hate revealing their weaknesses. Rather than dig herself any deeper, Anna decides to keep her mouth closed for the moment.

Hesitantly poking her head back out of the coat, she spies a little cottage nestled in the drooping trees. A full on, traditional witch's cottage, like the ones in Anna's childhood picture books. A tall, pointy roof covered in moss, crooked chimney, gnarled and tangled tree roots growing into the walls. It's surreal - Anna didn't know people still lived like this.

Warmth hits her face as soon as the door opens, and Anna hops down onto the floorboards, a little regretful to leave the cosiness of Elsa's coat. It's surprisingly spacious inside, and very tidy. A log smoulders in the fireplace, casting dim yellow light around. Each wooden shelf protruding from the wall seems to house only one thing, and everything is perfectly spaced apart. A shelf for bottles. A shelf for crystals and rocks. Shelves for vegetables, herbs and fruits. A plain broomstick rests against the wall in the corner, old and scuffed with no ornamental trim, just a few faded runes up on the gnarled handle. Probably an ornamental heirloom. Nobody really rides brooms any more, these days, except for ceremonies. It's rare to even find a working one for sale anywhere. Most of them are collector's items and cost thousands.

'Sorry, it's not much. I don't usually have guests over. Actually, you're the first.'

Elsa lights a series of lanterns hanging from the ceiling and places a tiny cauldron on the hearth, stoking the fire into life. It's odd that she doesn't just install a light bulb or a stove, considering there's a laptop sitting on the table next to a milky blue crystal ball - she obviously has electricity out here. It seems like maybe she's just an odd kind of person.

'I'm very honoured!' Anna passes a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. She can't help but notice the titles on the bottom shelf, directly at eye-height. A series of fat, ornate books with gold trimming. The works of Dr Ignatius Von Schrunard, a legendary academic figure to the witching world and the mainstream science community. Well, if Anna wasn't intimidated already…

Developments in the field of electromagnetic energy and its relation to modern magic: volumes I to V.
On consciousness and the multiverse: volumes I to III.
Ancient Witching Lore and its correlation to modern understandings of quantum physics - studies in the manipulation of time, space and reality: volumes I - VI.

'Wow, Von Schrunard? I didn't realise you were so, um, advanced.'

'Oh, no.' Elsa says, softly as though she's trying not to wake someone, though Anna can smell that there's no one else here. 'They were a gift. I don't practise at that level. I don't really practise much at all, these days, actually.'

'What? That's crazy! Why not?'

'I just don't.' Something tightens inside Elsa, under the softness of her voice. Minute muscle twitches in her neck and stomach that Anna can only sense in her extra-perceptive cat-form. She's hit a sore spot. Elsa confirms it by changing the subject. 'Would you like some tea?'

'I would love some tea! But um, I'm not really supposed to have caffeine-'

A splintering crack of thunder startles Anna into a jump, and she scrambles backwards. It's futile - she falls off the chair. It's rather humiliating, and she is grateful she cannot blush in this state. She expects to find a laugh on Elsa's face. She knows what to expect by now. Her siblings find it so hilarious when she does "funny cat stuff" like fall off chairs or get her head stuck in chip packets.

But Elsa doesn't laugh. Only a smidge of concern is painted across her soft features. 'This tea is okay for you. I drink it a lot when I feel…' Her eyes move upward, as if to indicate the storming sky, 'nervous.'

It's unclear what a competent witch living alone in a beautiful, cosy cottage in the woods has to be nervous about. Certainly not getting chased by dogs, stuck in trees or yelled at by her boss. But again, Anna bites her tongue, knowing better than to ask something so personal of a stranger. Instead she jumps back up onto the chair and waits patiently as Elsa has already tied back her luscious hair, and is measuring herbs and sprinkling them into the little cauldron with careful fingers and an intense gaze.

Anna watches her own reflection in the crystal ball, tiny tongue lapping at the steaming concoction in the teacup before her. It's always a little shock to see herself. Even though she can see her fluffy paws and legs and belly, and feel the world around her with her whiskers, and literally see and smell magic, she still somehow expects to see her freckled human face staring back at her.

'This tea is really good.' It's really more of a potion than a tea - she feels the gentle magic spreading through her body, melting her worries away. The next crack of thunder doesn't even shake her.

'Mm.' Elsa absentmindedly rubs circles in the crystal ball with the tip of her finger. It takes her a few seconds to respond. Her eyebrows are slightly creased, like she's deep in thought, a million miles away. Worrying about something. 'It helps.'

'I hope I didn't interrupt anything?'

'No.' She rests her chin on one palm and gives a little smile that doesn't reach her eyes. There's something kind of sad about her. Anna can sense these things. Maladies of the heart. Burdens on the soul. It's the way that her shoulders hang forward like there's something heavy resting on them. 'Nothing much. I was just walking, enjoying the rain. I've always liked storms. But what's a little one like you doing out on the edge of town in this kind of weather?'

'I was working. My wizard sent me out to get rat skulls-'

'In the rain?'

'Oh, no, it was sunny when I left. I just…' Visited her mother. Took a nap. It's her own fault, really, 'I got sidetracked.'

'Why didn't he come and get you? Is he sick or something?'

Well, one could argue he is sick, but not in the way Elsa means. 'Oh, he's, you know…' Taking dick pics and eating donuts, she doesn't say. 'Busy. Suuuper busy. I work for the Westergaard franchise, actually. So, yeah… We're always on the go, you know.'

'Oh, yes. The Westargaards, with the boy curse, right?' Elsa keeps a very neutral expression on her face and opens her laptop, revealing a rainbow sticker on the lid. Hopefully she doesn't have some kind of beef with them. If there's one thing old witching families love, it's dramatic family feuds that last for centuries. Sending familiars out to spy on their nemesis, having a nemesis in the first place, duelling on tower tops in the rain, casting intergenerational curses, like the boy curse - no Westergaard man has sired a daughter in three hundred years.

'Hans, is it?' She asks with an eyebrow raised, turning the laptop around to reveal a picture of the man himself on the Westergaard website, above the store location and opening hours. He's dressed in dazzling robes, red with silver trimming. A blurb below fluffs up his magical education and various specialisations.

Anna nods.

The crystal ball glows as Elsa waggles her fingers on top of it. 'Let's see just how busy Mr Westergaard really is…'