"What... The hell?" Muttered Elsa, completely lost.
She blinked confusedly as she looked around her.
She still was in Anna's bedroom, but since the blinding flash it seemed... Different.
"...Anna?" She asked, twirling around to locate her sister, whom she was talking with until everything suddenly... Shifted.
However, it was obvious, and she could feel it in both her magic and guts, Anna had completely gone. As well as most of the furniture, apparently, for some reason. The room seemed more empty, and lacked of life. The carpet was gone, and the tapestries had been moved around.
The light in the room also seemed different. Very bright. Has the chandelier always been that bright? Mused Elsa. Wait... Why were its candles lit in the middle of the afternoon?
As Elsa walked forward to inspect the ceiling, which seemed to have an odd set of bright white rectangles, she stumbled on something, and looked down to see ropes. She walked over them confusedly; they looked like ship's cords, but they were red. She noticed that they were linked together by small metal poles, and it formed a barrier that crossed half of the room.
"Why are there cords in front of the bed?" Murmured the blonde with a frown.
She barely made three steps on the other side to observe them that a lady entered, followed by a group of twenty noisy children.
"And this was the Queen's bedroom!"
The lady's smiled vanished. She seemed surprised by Elsa's presence, but quickly groaned.
"What are you doing here?"
She eyed Elsa with disdain, observing her sparkly outfit.
"Are you part of the acting crew?" She guessed, before Elsa could ask anything. "You guys are supposed to meet downstairs, no? For the show later?"
The kids were excited around her, some watching the room, but most of them clearly staring at the blonde. The lady noticed.
"Ugh. You spoiled the children, I hope you're happy. Their parents paid for the full tour, you know. Anyway... Move aside, please." She insisted, since Elsa had been standing still in the middle of the bedroom.
The lady gestured to the children to place themselves all along the cord, and when Elsa observed the move, she saw that there was a small display stand in front of the cord with something written on it. There seemed to have an image that looked like a photograph of Anna on it, but the quality looked better than the pictures Elsa knew. When she made a gesture forward to read the text, though, the guide did a 'shoo, shoo!' gesture.
"You should hurry! Besides, all the kids are staring at you!"
Elsa turned, confused once more, and she saw that indeed, the children were not paying attention to the woman anymore, completely flabbergasted by Elsa's Fifth Spirit outfit.
A little girl dropped her jaw at how sparkly it was up close, and wondered if it were magical. It looked like it was made of ice and snow!
"Are you a fairy?" Asked the child with a beaming smile.
The Spirit blinked at her, speechless.
"I..."
She then lifted her eyes again to the woman who now crossed her arms impatiently.
"A-alright. I'm leaving." Quickly said the blonde, stepping out of the room when she sensed the tension.
She however was clearly stunned, and the guide sighed.
"You lost your way after the restrooms, uh? Turn right in the corridor, then go down the stairs, and the great hall is on the left."
Elsa nodded clumsily and followed her instructions. She lost herself in her thoughts as she moved through the castle, and it was a good thing that she knew it by heart. But that was the thing though; how did that woman know it so well? She clearly wasn't part of the staff.
The blonde couldn't deny the fact that everything seemed odd around her. The decorations were completely different. Everything seemed... Old, yet brand new at the same time...
"Refurbished." She muttered to herself as she walked down the stairs, her hand absentmindedly caressing the handrail.
When she arrived in the great hall, she came to a crazy conclusion. "As if..."
The Snow Queen widened her eyes when she saw the crowd, state, and noise in the entrance room of the castle. There were counters, groups of many different ethnicities, multiple bright lights at the ceiling, large panels with texts on the walls, and everyone was wearing clothes she had never seen before. How was it even possible to make such bright dyes? Some people even were holding a grey box in their hand, that were linked to their ears with two black strings.
"...it turned into a museum." She breathed out, letting out the gasp she had been holding when she got crushed by the sight.
She made slow steps in the room and was overwhelmed by what surrounded her ; new colors, new smells, new languages... She stood in the middle of the room, turning around with a dropped jaw. A young man in the crowd stared at her, looked at his brochure, then stared at her again. He nudged his girlfriend with a smile, and pointed at her with a gesture of his chin. "Hey, look, they even hired an actress to play the Missing Queen."
At the word 'Queen', Elsa twirled around, and frowned at him. What did he just say? Missing Queen?
Her breathing sped up. She walked to him, and asked gently but firmly to see what he had in hand, trying to understand. She hated to be kept in the dark, and this whole situation was starting to drive her crazy.
The young man was too busy taking out his phone to actually notice that she had grasped the brochure out of his hand. He unlocked the screen and asked for a selfie. However, Elsa was too busy widening her eyes at the leaflet to react to the odd word.
On the folded up page was an accurate biographical text on her life including her birth, her coronation, and the moment she chose to live with the Northuldra. Below was a photograph of her, which she recognized as being the last one she took in town, a bit over a month ago. But what ironically froze the blood in Elsa's veins was that the text above the photograph ended with the date of the day, written in bold type, followed by the sentence "was the last day she was seen."
Her breathing quickened, her chest waving more and more every passing second. She dropped the brochure to the floor, and her heart was beating so fast to her ears that she didn't hear the man and woman talking to her.
Elsa looked around desperately, her head dizzy as she started to turn and turn, then her eyes caught a newspaper rack in one of the corners of the room.
She ran to it, dodging people on the way, hurried in her moves. The blonde grabbed a newspaper, and her eyes scanned the top of the front page.
They widened when she saw what was written there, the paper confirming her fears.
Yes, it indeed was today's date. But the year wasn't the same.
"2022." She murmured, and her hands started to shake.
180 years.
It had been more than 180 years.