Author's notes: Sorry for updates not being as frequent as they have been. Real life has been interfering with writing, plus I've also been working a lot on Dying, which has also taken its share of my time. In any case, thanks again to all who have given this reviews. They really do mean a lot to me.

Everything seemed to be happening at once. Anna could almost hear her own heartbeat. Her chest had never felt tighter. Was she having a heart attack? Would it matter if she were? She was going to die today. She could feel it.

She wondered what Elsa was going to do with her body after she was gone. Would she have her buried in the prison's courtyard? Would she have her frozen in a block of ice and put on display next to "Blondie"? Would she...

"HANDS!"

Anna abruptly came to her senses.

"Huh?"

"HANDS, INMATE!" a guard yelled. "THROUGH THE BARS! NOW!"

She turned and noticed that Rapunzel's hands were now in cuffs.

"Oh," she went, doing as she was ordered. She winced a bit as she felt the cold steel wrap itself around her wrists.

"Try to stay on earth, newbie" Rapunzel whispered at her sternly. "And remember you have a ball and chain attached to your leg. It will make you trip and fall flat on your face if you're not careful."

Anna, by some miracle, managed to nod her head. Rapunzel was right. If she didn't stay focused, she would be in an even deeper pile of crap than she already was.

She tried to pay attention to what was going on around her. All throughout the cell block, prisoners were sticking their hands through slots in their barred doors, with some of them complaining, but most remaining silent, probably because they were used to this routine by now.

Her mind drifted again. How long did the prisoners wear these hand shackles for? Did they have to eat with their wrists cuffed? Would it make Anna feel any safer if they did? Would it...

"OUT!"

"Huh?"

Once again, Anna suddenly found herself back in reality. Her cell door was standing wide open right in front of her.

"YOU WANNA STAY IN THERE ALL DAY?!" the guard bellowed.

In a way, Anna did want to stay in her cell all day, although she wouldn't dare say that to the guard right now. It would be boring as hell, sure, but at least she wouldn't have to worry about having her ass handed to her by some 300-pound serial killer.

Plus, with Rapunzel out of the cell, she could actually use the toilet with some illusion of privacy intact.

She took her first step out of the cell very, very, very, very slowly, not wanting to trip on her ball as Rapunzel had warned. It wasn't as heavy as she had feared it would be, but boy, did it ever restrict her movement! There was no way she would be able to run anywhere with this thing locked onto her leg. But that was probably the point.

She made her way out into the cell block, the ball making a small grinding noise on the concrete floor behind her. In a way, she felt like a baby taking her first steps...if said baby was stuck in a timeout that would last until the end of her days.

Life in prison. Without parole. To an extent, the whole concept of her sentence still hadn't fully sunk in, although she shuddered a bit every time she thought about it.

She stood behind Rapunzel, in a line of women who were all wearing stripes, all without shoes or socks, and all without their dignity. The guards were herding them around like cattle on their way to slaughter (which seemed appropriate to her, given that she figured she had a few hours left tops before she got herself murdered). There were groans and sighs coming from the inmates (not to mention an unfortunate body odor), but no one said anything, which made Anna decide that it would be best for her to keep her mouth shut for the time being.

Which was much easier said than done, of course. Of all of Anna's bad habits, speaking when she shouldn't was the one that had gotten her into trouble the most.

Well, okay, drinking had also caused her a number of problems.

And, yeah, there was also the whole reason she was sent to the slammer...

Maybe Elsa was right. Maybe she hadn't done a very good job of keeping her life on track.

Once again, she let her thoughts distract her. She imagined Elsa sitting in her office in front of a huge monitor, watching her every move within the prison, a bucket of popcorn seated in her lap.

"Silly Anna!" Imaginary Elsa cackled. "I warned her that she should listen to me, but did she listen? Noooooo! Now I'll get to enjoy watching her suffer for the rest of her life...or, at least, what's left of it."

Imaginary Elsa stuffed her face with popcorn, took a huge sip from a massive cup of soda, and then belched loudly. She grinned as she saw her sister waddling down the cell block, doing her best to drag her new piece of jewelry around behind her.

"This is the best day of my life!" Imaginary Elsa shouted with glee. Imaginary Elsa sucked.

"INMATE!"

"Huh?"

Like a busted kite that was headed for a collision course with earth, Anna felt her feet returning to the ground.

"Do you wanna keep your fancy bracelets on for your gourmet meal?" a guard asked her with extreme annoyance in his voice. "I ordered you to place your hands out twice already!"

"Oh," went Anna, clumsily placing her hands out and letting the guard uncuff them.

He then walked off muttering something to himself, leaving Anna to examine her new surroundings. She was standing in what had to be the single most ugly dining area she had ever seen. Calling it a "cafe" would be like calling a graveyard an ideal place to have a picnic. Everything, from the floor to the ceiling, was some variation of the color grey. The only decorations to be seen were posters hanging on the wall that warned inmates about rules they shouldn't break. There were prisoners everywhere, either in line for food or already seated at tables, and guards marching back and fourth as though they were keeping an eye on animals at the zoo.

She had seen dark alleys that looked more inviting than this.

"Just do what I do, and you'll be fine," Rapunzel whispered to her. "You're new, so everyone is going to be staring at you. It's probably best if you try to avoid making too much eye contact."

"Gee, that's going to be kinda difficult if all eyes around here are looking at me," said Anna as she stood behind her cellie in line for...whatever it was they were about to eat.

"So, find something else to look at," said Rapunzel. "The last thing you wanna do right now is piss someone off because they think you're looking at them the wrong way."

"I thought I was supposed to be your 'big, scary lifer'," Anna said, confused by all of this.

"Just do as I say," said Rapunzel firmly. "Remember, I own you."

"Wow, I had almost forgotten," said Anna, rolling her eyes. "I guess you're going to have to keep reminding me of that."

"Stop talking," said Rapunzel harshly. "The others are already rubbernecking at you."

Anna did as her "master" told her to, but a quick glance around the dining hall proved that Rapunzel had spoken the truth. Everyone was paying attention to her, some appearing curious, while others were staring at her like she was piece of fresh meat.

It was almost exactly like Anna's first day of school...except even more scary.

She took Rapunzel's advice and tried to draw her attention to something else. Her feet seemed like the best option. She looked at them, already getting dirty and black. She started trying to picture what sort of condition they would be in after a few years without wearing any shoes...not that she would ever be able to know. After all, Anna was going to die today.

"What a short bit of entertainment this is going to be," Imaginary Elsa said with disappointment. "Anna gets sent to my prison for life, and gets herself killed on the first day. There's something almost unfair about that. It's like a TV show getting cancelled right after the first episode has aired..."

"Can I help you, honey?"

Anna looked up, startled that she had already reached the counter without even knowing it. A young black woman in stripes was glaring at her, a scoop in one hand, a pot of...something in the other.

"You not hungry, honey?"

"Um..." went Anna, trying to snap herself back into the moment. "Yeah, I'm hungry. So...um..."

The woman made a small snarling noise, and placed something that looked like...something on the tray, along with a milk carton.

"Eat up, honey," she said.

Anna just stared at the tray.

"That's disgusting," said Anna, not thinking before she talked. "How on earth am I supposed to eat that? I demand to speak to the chef!"

The woman's eyes narrowed.

"You're looking at her, honey."

"Oh," went Anna.

I'm already dead, she thought grimly. That didn't long, did it?

"You trying to say you don't like my cooking, honey?" the woman asked, leaning forward to get closer to Anna. She could smell the cooking grease on her skin.

"I...well...I'll try it and I'm sure I'll love it," said Anna, giving the woman a sheepish grin. "You know what? When I look at it again, I can tell it's going to be delicious. But, I don't want to hold up your line any longer, so..."

"There's no one behind you, honey," the woman said dully.

Anna turned back and looked. Sure enough, the woman was right.

"Crap," she said.

"You know, I wake up before all of the other women here just so I can cook for you bitches," said the woman, wiping her hands on a filthy towel. "You think I enjoy doing that?"

"Um...well, it must be nice to get some extra time out of the cell," said Anna, doing her best to make her voice seem friendly as opposed to scared shitless. "Now, I've gotta go find my friend, since she's probably wondering where I am, and..."

The woman didn't say anything. She just folded her arms. And who knew that someone simply folding their arms could be so freaking frightening?

Anna turned, and moved away as quickly as the ball chained to her leg would allow. She had made the cook her enemy. Perfect. Now she would have to worry about being poisoned every time she ate.

She found Rapunzel seated at a table not far away, avoiding the urge to look at any of the other prisoners as she made her way towards her. It was only when she sat down when she realized she was out of breath.

"What kept you?" asked Rapunzel, opening her milk carton.

"I was...um...meeting the cook," said Anna, poking at the bowel of...stuff with a plastic spoon. "I think I just made her hate me."

"Oh, you mean Crazy Frog?" said Rapunzel.

"You know her?"

"Of course I know her," said Rapunzel, pouring the milk into...whatever it was that was in her food bowel. "We used to be cellies. She's really nice once you get to know her, actually."

"Nice?" went Anna, exasperated. "That was hardly the word I would use. She got mad just because I pointed out how gross the food was."

"And you're surprised that would offend her...why exactly?" said Rapunzel as she stuffed her mouth like a woman who hadn't had anything to eat in days. "She puts a lot of effort into what she does here. She used to own her own restaurant, but she got greedy, so she did some...not exactly legal things to increase profits."

"Such as?"

"I dunno, stuff that is beyond a stupid girl like me," said Rapunzel casually. "I think it involved charging the customers for tips they didn't give, meals they didn't buy, shit like that. Anyway, she works two jobs here because she's saving up so she can re-open the place when she gets out."

"And when will that be?"

"In about 30 years," said Rapunzel, smiling for some bizarre reason. "But even with that much time, with the way prisoners are paid here, I doubt she'll have enough."

"We get paid for the work we do here?" Anna asked, surprised by this information.

"Um...not really," said Rapunzel. "Some work doesn't pay at all, including chores that are given to an inmate as punishment. And even the work that does pay only makes you like two cents an hour."

"Two cents an hour?!" Anna went, even more surprised by this information.

"Girl, most of us have no use for money here," said Rapunzel with her mouth full. "I mean, you can use your pay to get yourself 'treats' like sodas and chips from the vending machines. But that's pretty much it."

Anna sighed and just stared at the contents of her bowel.

"Did the food in county really leave you that spoiled?" asked Rapunzel teasingly.

"The food in jail mostly consisted of bologna sandwiches," Anna explained. "They sucked, but at least I knew what I was eating. This stuff looks like mud...or worse."

"It's oatmeal," said Rapunzel simply. "And it's full of fiber, which helps move the bowels, or something. Anyway, you're not going to help yourself out by starving, so why not take a bite?"

Anna hesitated, but came to the conclusion that she would have to eat sooner or later. She was just about to place the spoon in her mouth, but stopped when she noticed a prisoner standing across from her, eyes glued to her face.

She seemed even dirtier than the other inmates somehow, with grime all over her face and prison uniform. She was leaning against the handle of a mop in her hands, her mouth agape to reveal a few missing teeth.

"Who's the newbie, Goldie?" she asked Rapunzel, sounding bored by her own question.

"Oh, she's my new cellie, Cinder," said Rapunzel, talking about Anna as though she were a new pet. "She's real tough, this one. Got herself locked up for life."

Cinder raised an eyebrow, apparently unimpressed.

"This one is a lifer?" she went, her disbelief almost painfully obvious.

"Yup," said Rapunzel proudly.

"Oh, really?" said Cinder, spitting on the floor and then mopping it up right away. "Okay, lifer, who did you kill?"

Anna thought hard. Without revealing why she was really here, what was the single toughest, most bad-ass thing she could say right now?

"Your mama, that's who," said Anna, doing an incredibly pathetic attempt at what she considered to be a gangsta voice.

It seemed like a good idea before she said it, but now that she had...

Cinder just studied her for a moment before speaking.

"I'm going to start making bets with the girls," she said dimly. "My guess is she won't last a week."

She then went back to her mopping and away from the table. Anna had no idea what to say.

"Oh, don't worry about Cinder," said Rapunzel cheerfully. "She's really nice once you get to know her."

But Anna didn't answer. Somewhere in the back of her head, Imaginary Elsa was rubbing her hands together, making the exact same bet with some of her prison guards. She had a feeling that the fictional version of her sister was going to win this one.