"Well, it would seem as though my little sister is behaving exactly as I expected her to," Elsa said dryly as she used a clipper on her nails. "How did she react when she saw her inmate I.D. card?"
"I...can't really say, ma'am," Kristoff admitted as he scratched some hair on his chin. "I left as soon as I placed it in her pocket."
"Kristoff, for the final time, you can dispose with the 'ma'am' when we're alone," said Elsa, brushing the remains of her finger nails off of her desk with a sheet of paper. "But you also had no business chaining her up like that without asking me first."
Kristoff bit his lip. He was well aware that Elsa seemed more "open" with him than she was with most of her staff, but still wanted to choose his words carefully when addressing her.
"Forgive me, Elsa, but you've never gotten on to me for doing it to an inmate before," he said somewhat cautiously, hoping that he wasn't overstepping his position as an officer. "She made a threat against you, and action needed to be taken."
"Kristoff, my boy, if we did that to every prisoner who said something nasty about me, none of my girls would ever leave their cells."
"It's still not the sort of behavior we should let her display on her first day inside," Kristoff said, a little more defiantly than he may have intended. "The sooner she learns her place as a convict, the better."
Elsa placed her clipper down and rubbed her face. Kristoff couldn't help but notice that her gloves were still on, as they had been for the entire day.
"I suppose her missing dinner isn't necessarily a bad thing," she murmured.
"Elsa, if you don't mind me doing so, may I ask why you're wearing your gloves?" Kristoff asked, continuing to hope he wasn't placing his job in jeopardy by doing so. "I mean, I thought you had that all under control now."
Elsa took a sip of her tea before speaking. Now it seemed as though she was the one choosing her words attentively.
"I have my bad days," she said wearily. "But that's not really something I need the prisoners to know about right now."
Kristoff just nodded. Trying to pry his boss for more information than she was comfortable giving tended not to be a very good idea.
"Have you spoken with Calhoun?" she asked him, apparently wanting to move on to another topic.
"I did," Kristoff replied. "But she seemed confused by why your sister should be referred to that way from now on."
"She's as stupid as she is tall," Elsa said, flipping through the massive amount of paperwork on her desk. "I'd fire her if she weren't so good at taking orders."
She sighed again as she picked up a printout of Anna's mugshots. She appeared to be studying them, in the same way in which certain art critics attempt to dissect paintings.
"You know, you can tell a lot about a woman by her mugshots," she said, not taking her eyes off of her sister's face. "Some have pissed off expressions. You can tell that this isn't their first rodeo, and unlikely to be their last. Many of them probably spent most of their childhoods in juvie. Then there are the ones who look scared. You can guess they got involved with the wrong crowd, and that they've never gotten so much as a timeout from their parents before in terms of incarceration. But Anna? Her mouth is wide open. She reminds me of a lost child at the mall. She just looks dumbstruck. Like she can't even figure out how she got here."
Kristoff observed that there were small dark circles under Elsa's eyes which her makeup failed to hide.
"Ma'am, when did you last sleep?"
Elsa looked up at him blankly, as though she had just snapped out of a trance.
"There you go with the 'ma'am' again," she said, her voice now displaying just a hint of annoyance. "And as for sleep, I know I got some...night before last maybe?"
"You could go home early," Kristoff offered. "I can easily get someone to finish off that work for you."
Elsa shook her head so delicately that even the very movement seemed to strain her neck.
"No, Kristoff, I should do this myself," she said, giving him a smile which somehow suggested sadness. "We had 27 prisoners processed into this prison this morning, which means I have 27 new items to catalog into our database."
"Is that how you view your sister now?" Kristoff asked her. "As another 'item' for your detention center?"
He prayed that his question came across as friendly curiosity instead of as an accusation.
"As far as Arendelle is concerned, Anna is no longer a human being," said Elsa emotionlessly, though she was rubbing her head as she spoke. "My job requires that I treat her as such."
"Be that as it may, is there any excuse you could come up with for delaying the release of Merida from the hole?" Kristoff inquired, taking a step closer to her. "We both know that she's going to want to make Anna a member of her 'club' first chance that she gets."
Elsa said nothing at first, silently opening her drawer to pull out a small jar of pills. After popping a few in her mouth, she frowned.
"Kristoff, I don't need to remind you of who Merida's father is," she said morbidly. "You think that Frozen Heart can function without his funding? You think he'd be amused to find out I keep his favorite girl in solitary confinement all the time? Much as it pains me, I have to treat Merida like the other inmates. Besides, it's not like she's killed anyone since she got here."
"Do you really think it's going to stay that way?" Kristoff asked her. "Many of the guards here wish that Arendelle still had the death penalty so she could be given the rope and the chair, and then have her body thrown into the gas chamber, just to be sure."
"Blondie continues to serve her purpose," Elsa answered firmly. "All the women here are terrified of her tale...including Merida."
Kristoff winced. The very mention of the name "Blondie" was sometimes enough to make his left shoulder hurt.
"I hope you're right, Elsa," he said, deciding that he had probably taken up enough of her time by now. "Do you know when you'll be leaving tonight?"
"Oh, I'm sure I'll be done in a few hours," said Elsa, her strangely depressed grimace returning. "But another cup of coffee would be wonderful if you would be such a dear."
"Of course," he said, giving her a slight bow before turning to leave. But as he looked around the office, he took note that Elsa's folding bed was already set up, with a thin white nightgown folded up next to its pillow. He could tell that the warden of Frozen Heart had no plans of leaving her prison anytime soon.