The audience burst into applause. Anna included, admittedly trying to prove herself louder than the rest of the crowd. "for my next trick, I'll need a volunteer from the audience. Usually I use Kristoff as my lovely assistant, but… I mean, you all saw the state of his arm earlier. I don't want to add to that."
Tianas arm beside Anna shot up. Anna looked incredulously at her. "You're volunteering? I thought you hated being in the spotlight?"
Tiana, arm unwavering, glanced briefly at her and then smugly returned her gaze back to the stage. "You're right. But I'm not volunteering myself".
Her friends words rang and echoed in her ears until she understood the meaning. "Ti, you don't mean—"
"Oh, but I DO mean."
Anna's eyes shot out of her skull and she threw herself against her friend's side. Tiana laughed maniacally as Anna attempted to stifle her.
"You don't think I noticed how you stared at her during the intro? Not to mention how you became an absolute PUDDLE when she stood near you!"
"Tiana NO!"
"Tiana YES! Hey!" She cupped her free hand around her mouth, "I have a friend here who would just LOOOOOOVE to—" Anna shoved her hand on Tiana's mouth so all that could be heard from them was muffled yells and cries of protests. To Tianas pleasure and Anna's dismay, the squabble only served to bring the performer's attention to them.
"Alright, you in the back! You've made yourselves very clear," she smiled bemusedly, "though I can only take one volunteer..."
Tiana pushed against Anna's back and then her butt, "hey!" until she stood.
"Come onnnnn," Tiana placed her hands on her friends shoulders, "what's the worst that could happen? That she likes you back?"
"Wait, what—" Anna sputtered and, with a final helpful shove, she propelled forward to the stage. "What's the WoRsT that could... oh Ti, just you wait" she mumbled and grumbled. The spotlight both guided and followed her down the stairs. She looked up and— woah. The super hot, super attractive — is she wearing spandex— performer was watching her. Watching her! Her mouth was moving, surely that raspy sexy voice was saying something important. When she'd reached the stage, her ears registered the audience applause. The blood and adrenaline passing through her head must've been too loud. One thing she did hear over everything else was Tiana, screaming,
"THAT'S MY GIRL! GO GET HER!"
She briefly covered her eyes out of embarrassment and also from being blinded by the lights. As she neared the performer, of course her name is Elsa, it's so freakin attractive, she could feel the sweat gathering in her palms and— good god it was hot up there, why was it so hot?! Elsa and her stupid smirk weren't helping. What was the right move here? Does Anna say something first? Does she, what, stand here? Right here?
"Uh..." Anna felt her mind go a million miles a minute.
"Hi."
The soft voice beside her made her look up.
"H-hi me?"
She blinked back her surprise and met the other girls eyes. A slight, almost shy nod as they held their gaze. Wow.
"Oh! Um, hi?"
Elsa seemed pleased with this greeting and turned to face the audience. "Give it up for our beautiful volunteer!"
Anna could feel herself fizzle and short-circuit at the word 'beautiful'. Get a grip, she thought, it's a performance. She's supposed to say junk like this. Despite trying to bring herself back down to earth, her caveman brain kept thinking 'pretty girl called me pretty' and stood awkwardly without actually dragging her knuckles on the ground.
Elsa kept things moving. "Have you ever seen any magic close-up before?" She asked directly to Anna.
Anna thought about that one time that her friend Ryder had snorted a hotdog into his nose and then hawked it out of his mouth loogie-style, but didn't think it was worth mentioning. "Nothing other than what I'm seeing right now."
Oh god. Was that as terribly flirty as she thought it was? A quick glance at Elsa told her that, yes, she read it as a flirty gesture, as surprise lined her features. Maybe a blush too? Anna's caveman brain thought hopefully. But it was hot up there. Maybe it's not a blush. Maybe I didn't say anything flirty. And if it was, maybe, just maybe, the mic didn't pick up what I said and I can get away with this scot-free—
No such luck, as Anna heard a stupidly familiar voice in the audience yell "woah-ho Romeo!" Oy vey.
Elsa cleared her throat into her mic, "now, before we get to the big league magic, she and I have to develop a bond of magical proportions, that which can only be achieved with—" and did a terribly dramatic flourish with her hands, "a card trick".
"Wow!" Anna couldn't help herself. Where did those cards come from? And— aw man, she was part of the act too! Gotta focus. Elsa held the fanned-out deck towards her and mouth was moving, crud, what was she saying?
"—any card!"
Ah, yeah.
Anna ran her pointer finger over them and picked the one that just felt right. Elsa asked her to look at it, then place it back in the pile without showing her. As she did so, her fingers brushed against Elsa's and she jerked her hand back from the contact. Maybe a little too forcefully; Elsa gave her a weird look. She just gave a weak chuckle back.
"Okay! Now, drumroll please!" She shouted, and a snare from who-knows-where let out a long dramatic roll.
"Iiiiiiiiis THIS your card," there was an anticlimactic reveal of the absolute wrong card, punctuated by a cymbal crash.
"Uhhhh," Anna didn't know what to say, especially not with Elsa wearing the cutest, dopiest expression; her eyebrows urging her to answer, "it's, ahh..."
Elsa looked between the card she'd held up and the girl onstage and then feigned confusion.
"This isn't your card?"
Anna bit her lip and shook her head in response.
"What was your card, then?"
Anna apprehensively answered, "nine of spades," and then felt sort of bad because Elsa was holding up the eight of clubs and, you know, that's close enough that she could've just said 'yes' and maybe saved Elsa some embarrassment.
But Elsa patted her sides and flipped through the deck, mumbling "nine of spades, nine of sp— it must be around here somewhere. Nine of spades, you said?"
Anna nodded, and Elsa leaned in to whisper:
"Are you ready?"
Before Anna could even think about answering, Elsa made a wide gesture to the curtain just behind them, "maybe it's been right here the whole time!"
The curtain dropped to reveal a humongous ice sculpture of a giant playing card, and not just any ol' playing card. The nine of freakin' spades.
"Wow!" Anna shouted and the audience roared with applause. The giant card towered over them and she craned her neck back to look at it in all its glory. It was a few feet thick and tall as the ceiling, held up by wooden structures similarly precarious to the ones the acrobat used. How did an entire wall of ice get there? And how did it have the right card carved into it? Magic shows were an entirely new concept to Anna, but she didn't think that it'd be THIS exciting. She barely registered Elsa addressing the crowd before turning back to her.
"That was amazing! You did the magic!" She said, making eye contact. Elsa smiled all big and her eyes crinkled all cute-like, and Anna could feel her smile grow too. She could get a pretty good look at the performer now; even through the stage makeup, there were her pillowy rouge lips, adorable light little freckles sprinkled across her nose, and of course those striking eyes now so close. So close. Anna could see her own reflection in them. Elsa was staring right at her, and Anna thought in that moment that maybe, just maybe, she was thinking the same kind of things. There was a certain something floating between them, a palpable something that made her heart go gooey and lightning zing through her. And then the roaring crowd flooded back in and Anna felt the real world coming back before she could classify this moment as a capital M Moment™️.
And then before she could shake away any of those feelings, she realized that the audience was screaming, not cheering.
She looked to the crowd, then to Elsa. Elsa's eyes were locked on the giant ice card behind them. Anna followed her wide-eyed gaze as towering ice sculpture weebled and wobbled and cracked down the middle. Her eyes met Elsa's panicked ones. No, that's not right. Elsa looked downright fearful.
It tipped over, half of it teetered backwards and safely away from the two girls. But the other half slowly rocked forward and its shadow descended upon them. Anna was frozen in place until she felt Elsa shove against her shoulders to push her out of harm's way. Anna's eyes stayed connected with Elsa's until she landed hard on the floor and had to shut them. When she opened them back up, the block of ice was nowhere to be seen. Instead was a smattering of ice scattered on the stage floor, as if it'd just hailed in the one area. And there in the center stood Elsa, arms held in front of herself, unscathed.
Anna could only gape in absolute awe.
Elsa barely moved from her position. Anna could see and hear her chest moving with how heavy she was breathing. The stage lights dimmed. It was only then that Elsa seemed to realized where she was and what had happened and, with a final, sorry look at Anna, blinked quickly and ran far behind the curtains. One of Anna's hands came up pathetically as if it would stop the performer from running.
"That's all we have for tonight, folks! Please make your way to the exits!" The ringmaster's voice came overhead.
Anna didn't realize how long she'd been staring after Elsa's departure until she looked to the dissipating crowd. Most people had made their way to and out of the exits, though a few people lingered— perhaps to clean up after themselves, perhaps to be looky-loos and watch what'd happen next, perhaps some of them were honestly stunned. Anna sure was. But she managed to pull herself up and walk off the iced-over stage. Up into the walkway between the arena seats and to where she finally caught up to Tiana.
"Are you alright?" Tiana's hands were tight on her shoulders.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Was that supposed to happen?"
Anna thought about Elsa's eyes. Her beautiful eyes, and how they looked when Anna was nearly beneath the block of ice. "I don't think so."
They soon left the tent with the crowd and saw daylight, but there was something nagging at Anna that she couldn't stop thinking about. Something tall and blonde and frightened.
"Ti," Anna grabbed at her friends arm, who then turned and looked at her, puzzled, "I have to go find her."
"Her as in... the magician?"
Anna nodded.
"She thinks this is her fault. I have to let her know that everything is alright. She made sure I was alright. Like, look! Look at me!" Anna presented herself and Tiana gave her a once-over.
"You look gay. We went over this— you asked me if your outfit was gay enough and I said no so we picked that outfit specifically so you'd look even gayer."
"No, I mean, like, no bumps or bruises, no scratches, no limbs hanging off— I came out of that practically uninjured."
"Other than a brain-damaging crush," Tiana added not-so-under her breath.
Anna ignored her comment and looked back to the tent. "I have to let Elsa know that everything is okay."