There was no way Anna could pass up watching the show from backstage, but there was something that needed to be done first. She didn't really feel like she needed to be at the rehearsal—she wasn't even hired yet. So, a trip to Mickey D's and two burgers later, she stood at the edge of the stage during the opening act, munching on fries. Her tum tum was yelling that it was at max capacity but her brain demanded more fries and really, who could argue with that.
As the opening act came to a close, Olaf neared her to turn off the fog machine that was on her side of the stage. She watched the group move the set pieces around seamlessly before the fog could clear out completely.
Then Kristoff's set began. Anna crossed her arms, impressed with the speed. Olaf came back, hands on his knees and panting from the quick reset. Anna waited for him to catch his breath before speaking up.
"You guys really work well together."
He kind of looked shocked. Like either he hadn't noticed her standing next to him or hadn't expected her to talk to him. But then he smiled a big toothy smile. "Yeah! Sometimes I'll forget my cue but they've got my back. Plus, I've been getting better! 'Put the chair on the square', see! I got that down."
She smiled at his dopiness. The claps from the audience brought her back, and Hans announced the Freaks and Geeks act. Which was weird, because Anna thought that Flynn's acrobat routine was next in the show. Maybe they changed it up at rehearsal. Serves her right for skipping out to get McDicks. Regardless, Oaken and Rapunzel stood onstage. And Olaf stood next to her.
"—and then there's 'rig two in the blue', which means that I put rig two out when I see the blue lights that we use during Flynn's performance."
"Olaf! You're supposed to be on!" The performers onstage were undoubtedly looking for their third.
"Hmm? Oh shoot. See, this is what I mean. I'm getting better but I still forget." And he waddled onstage.
Anna's heart raced from that simple, itty bitty mishap. And god, honestly, with the way her heart was beating you'd think something worse had happened. Something worse had already happened before, and something worse could always happen, because this was the circus and— sheesh, she thought with her hand clenching her chest, am I ready for this kind of showbiz?
The act went on without issue and Anna breathed a little easier. Flynn's act began not long after. She's glad to see he took her sock advice. Nothing goes wrong in his act, thankfully. Some things seem to creak and bend, but his performance isn't affected. She typed out the slight anomalies in her notes app anyhow so she knows what to fix first when she starts working. If she starts working. Whatever.
Then it was Elsa's turn. Her performance went the same as before; she started in the audience, made her way to the stage, and let it snow. She did her icy tricks and finally called for a volunteer.
Anna's immediately jealous of this stupid volunteer that gets to spend more time with Elsa, some dark-haired hottie with a sickeningly cute button nose. Though, she happily notes, that the performer doesn't call this one 'beautiful' and Anna considers that a win.
Once again, the card trick. Elsa says the wrong card and doesn't seem embarrassed by it, and then the curtain is drawn with the giant ice block of the correct card. Again! How? Anna thought that she'd get a lil sneak peek of something that would explain it because she was backstage, but she didn't see Jack-diddly-squat. It wasn't even the same card as Anna's was, the nine of spades, so it wasn't rigged in that way either.
At long last, Anna got to see what the rest of the performance would've looked like if things had gone right and, boy, it was a doozy. Elsa wheeled out an apparatus from the other side of the stage. It was a flat ice board just taller than her, with cuffs for her wrists and ankles to be locked up. Ice chains dangled from the side of the apparatus. And then she asked the volunteer to lock her up with the cuffs and to wrap the chains tight around her.
Anna couldn't believe her stupid gay eyes. Had the performance last night gone the way it was supposed to, she would've been right next to Elsa! Actively and amazingly touching her! Though she woulda never heard the end from Tiana. So, you know. Double edged sword and whatnot.
Once Elsa was satisfactorily trapped, she addressed the volunteer to the audience.
"So how tied up would you say I am?"
"Haha! Oh, you're serious? Incredibly."
"You would say that there's no way I can escape from these restraints?"
"Not a chance."
"Excellent. You may return to your seat." Elsa glanced to Anna's side of the stage and it was real obvious that she wasn't expecting her to be there again, let alone to be watching her. So Anna gave a lil sheepish smile. And then two thumbs up, for luck's sake. And then when Elsa looked away, Anna smacked her forehead. Two thumbs up, why did I do that? As the volunteer left the stage, Flynn appeared rolling in another rig. This one looked like an aquarium with an impressive pile of fresh snow in it, hoisted about 6 feet in the air. When it was above Elsa, she continued with her demonstration. "Above my head is about 800 pounds of snow. This device has a timer on it, and I have about a minute to escape from my restraints before it all comes down on me. Now, it may look nice and powdery, but this amount of snow can and would crush anything. Even a person. The timer is already ticking down."
She looked at Anna again and honestly seemed to only be talking to her.
"Let's see what happens this time."
The audience burst into shouts and cheers of excitement. Anna herself offered her sideline support as loud as she could, and within seconds Elsa's wrist came free. Anna whooped and hollered her throat raw. The performer seemed to be making progress with the other wrist cuff but struggled with the chains.
Without warning, the pile of snow came crashing down.
"No!" Anna screamed. The entire apparatus that Elsa'd been attached to was buried and Anna couldn't see what had become of the performer. Against her better judgement, she ran onstage and began to dig through the snow. There was so much snow. Why did it have to be snow? Her hands flurried through the white powder, fingers beginning to go numb. She felt another set of hands digging beside her and increased her speed.
"Are you seeing anything yet?" The person beside her voiced. Wait. That voice.
Anna looked up and— holy crap. There, without a scratch, without even a flake of snow on her, was the one, the only, the Ice Queen herself.
"Elsa!" She screamed and hugged her and heard the audience behind them clapping and yelling enthusiastically.
Elsa wasn't really hugging back, and then Anna realized how weird it was to be hugging her. But in her defense, she thought Elsa had DIED (or, less dramatically, gotten injured). And also, the magic trick was really freakin' bomb. And also, Elsa was really cute. All of those things deserved a hug, and Anna hoped she conveyed that fact with a final squeeze and then she scurried backstage.
She watched as the audience gave her a standing ovation, the arena filled with the sound of clapping. There was a moment where Elsa was glowing under the stage lights, smiling just slightly but mostly looking like she was in complete awe. Like she couldn't believe that the claps were for her. Her eyes glistened with what Anna could define as pure happiness. Her face lined with that magic glow that only a circus could bring out. And then she felt like it was a moment she was intruding on, one she wasn't supposed to see, so she averted her eyes.
When the claps died down and Ringmaster Hans took over the stage, Elsa made her way back behind the curtain. She happened to stand just out of range for a socially acceptable conversation, So Anna moseyed on over as casually as she could (read: not casually at all) and cleared her throat.
"That trick was great out there. You were really spectacular."
Elsa's apprehensive, but that magic glow on her face hadn't left. "Thank you," she said slowly and earnestly.
Before Anna could gush anymore, Flynn came up beside Anna. "How'd you like the show?" He said, big stupid smile on his face.
"You just want me to talk about your sock, don't ya?"
"I knew you were looking."
"I'm sorry—" Elsa interjected, eyes darting rapidly between the two in front of her, "—do you know each other?"
Anna went to answer something along the lines of I know he's an ass, but Flynn beat her to to the punch. "You could say we're besties." Which, yeah, that was strange. Even stranger, he threw his arm around Anna's shoulders. He was still warm and sweaty from the workout of his performance. Anna grimaced and punched him where she could reach. He didn't flinch. "Yep, we're thick as thieves."
"Mm-hmm..." Elsa hummed, an eyebrow cocked. "... well, we should get ready for curtain call."
"Yep, meet you out there, Els!"
Elsa, eyebrow still high into her hairline, walked backwards toward the stage. Flynn relinquished his hold on Anna.
"Okay, what was that all about?" She asked, fists firmly planted on her hips.
"Oh, just helping you out. You'll see," and he too went to the stage.
Helping out, yeah yeah. More like cock blocking. Or, like, twat swatting. She was still thinking about it as the performers all lined up and held hands and took their bows. Clitorference?
The cork popped out of the champagne bottle and the family gathered in the tent cheered thusly. "Finally," Hans went around pouring the liquid in each persons glass, "we can celebrate like we were supposed to on opening night!"
He stopped in front of Olaf. The little guy held his glass out and waggled his big bushy eyebrows. "Okay, Olaf," Hans relented and poured an itsy amount of champagne, "but only because tonight was such a good night. You all did so phenomenal. I'm so proud of each one of you."
"Aw Hans, ya big sap!" Flynn held his glass out. "We couldn't've done it without our fearless ringmaster. To Hans!"
"To Hans!" The group echoed, and then sipped their drinks.
Anna sat idly by on one of the free stools, content with watching the group enjoy themselves after a job well done. She wasn't part of them (yet, a quiet part of her hoped), but they allowed her into their celebration anyway. It meant a lot, plus, free booze.
Amidst the chatter and scattered conversations, Kristoff and Flynn cornered Hans.
"So. Are you gonna hire her or what?" Kristoff was all business. Flynn hid behind his champagne flute.
"I'm not sure yet. We were supposed to talk after the show—"
"—Which is now," Kristoff pointed out.
Flynn only gave a knowing he's got you there look, and this was honestly the longest Hans had ever had a conversation with Flynn present where he hadn't talked. That had to mean something.
"You guys really think she'd be a help?" Hans asked.
"I mean," Flynn finally spoke up, "she helped me with my sock thing."
"Flynn, that's not important."
"... it was to me..." the acrobat muttered into his drink.
"I'll go talk to her now," Hans set his glass on a nearby table. He didn't make it halfway across the room before Anna noticed him and sprang to her feet.
"Hans! Uh, Ringmaster Hans. I'm sorry for the whole running onstage thing, I wasn't thinking and—"
"— ah, no worries. It made the act more realistic."
Anna smiled, relieved. Then she recalled her phone and pulled it out of her back pocket. "I made this list of things that need to be fixed sooner rather than later, and then some stuff that could be put off but that should be done eventually."
Hans seemed impressed with Anna's list, very impressed. Anna waited, watching his eyes dart around the screen. After deleting all the notes on how cute Elsa was, there remained about twenty bullet points regarding set design, strengthening certain structures for better loadbearing, and—
"—'types of wood'?" He asked.
"Oh, yeah, that. I noticed that you guys are using some cheap lumber and it's okay for a couple of performances but it's the kinda stuff that's not gonna last very long in this heat with the amount of stress during performances."
Hans looked incredulously at her and frowned. "I've never had anybody who nitpicked this much."
"Oh!" Anna suddenly realized she might've overstepped her boundaries. "I'm so sorry! I just meant that the wood could warp and fail and—" Big dumb mouth BIG DUMB MOUTH!
"No, that's phenomenal. We've never had someone who cared enough to do this. Even Kristoff, while he doesn't seem to mind the building process, he wasn't ever all about it." By now, all other individual conversations in the tent had petered away, the group of carnies honed in on the two of them.
"What are you saying?" She asked Hans.
"What I'm saying, or asking, is are you in, Anna?"
She couldn't stop the stupid grin on her stupid mouth. "I'm all in. Carniv-all in, baby!"
Everyone groaned and Anna relished in it. And then they finally got down, carnie-style.