"Come in," Elsa calls softly, careful to let the rest of the house sleep. She feels ripples in the winds of magic as someone catches their breath. Little spikes of pain as they bite their lip. A hammering heartbeat. It feels like Anna but… different. Energetic, but in a different way- more focused, more vulnerable. The door opens.
Rapunzel stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the hall light.
"You're not who I expected," Elsa says, sitting. She straightens her shirt though both women are wearing pajamas so who's really going to judge her?
"Sorry," Rapunzel shrugs, enters, closes the door behind her, flicks on the lights- she's really not so different from her cousin. "I know you'd have more fun with Anna." Elsa thanks her lucky stars that her dead cheeks can't blush.
Elsa shrugs because that's the only way she can think to respond.
Rapunzel continues. "I just wanted to say, Anna's parents don't hate you."
"They sound like they hate me," Elsa says quietly.
"They don't," Rapunzel insists. "They… maybe hate Anna's lifestyle. They don't understand it and weren't expecting it, but they don't hate you. That doesn't excuse it," she amends quickly. "It's not right that they don't support her for who she is, but that's what's going on. They don't hate you."
"That's not better," Elsa replies.
"It's a little better," Rapunzel sits on the edge of Elsa's bed. "It's not worse at least, and they're a lot better than they used to be. Don't let it bother you. It's Anna's fight, and she is making progress."
"Hmm," Elsa says noncommittally.
"I think they like you," Rapunzel nudges the little litch.
"Hmm," Elsa says more committally.
"They do," Rapunzel insists. "They were friendlier than I've ever seen them with one of Anna's girlfriends."
"They don't know that I'm a litch," Elsa says quietly.
"I…" Rapunzel thinks for a second. "I think they would be more… interested… than they would be… afraid? Judgemental?"
"Discriminatory?" Elsa supplies helpfully.
"Discriminatory," Rapunzel agrees. "I don't think they would be Discriminatory."
"I was warned," Elsa replies. "I was warned about a lot of things."
"And I think that was wise," Rapunzel nods. "They definitely can get very… discriminatory. They like you though, I think, and they wouldn't lose their minds if they knew what you are. I think."
"You're asking me to tell them?" Elsa frowns.
"No!" Rapunzel says a little too loudly. "No," she repeats quieter. "I think it's probably not a terrible idea to keep it to yourself for now- just in case- I just don't think they'll be too awful to you when they do find out. Years from now, when you and Anna have been going long enough that they can't deny you're a long-term part of her life, you know?"
"Is that what you came to say?" Elsa frowns again. A sort of pensive scrunching of her pale eyebrows.
"Hmm?" Rapunzel gives a small laugh. "No, I came to tell you we're switching rooms."
"We're…" Elsa's frown deepens. "I'm sorry, what?"
"We're switching rooms," Rapunzel repeats. "Anna's parents are asleep."
"Oh," Elsa nods. She thinks for a bit. "Which means?"
"Which means I want to get laid," Rapunzel says cheerily, "so I want to switch rooms so Eugene can come and give me a good dicking."
"..." Elsa says quite pointedly.
"And if we switch," Rapunzel continues with a wink, "you get to go sleep with my cousin and I'm pretty sure you'll both enjoy that."
"Oh," Elsa says again. She thinks for a moment. "We will?"
"Yup," Rapunzel nods emphatically. "Now shoo." Her hands go to the hem of her shirt and Elsa goes quickly to the door, grateful again that her dead cheeks don't blush.
Elsa knocks timidly at the door. Her hand shakes, which is ridiculous of course because there aren't any physiological processes left to do that. All in her head. And why? It's just Anna. Surely Anna will be happy to see her…
"I'm decent," Anna's clear voice sounds from within. Elsa hesitates. "That means come in," Anna prompts. "Unless you're Eugene because he's a butthead."
Elsa lets a small smile emerge, and opens the door. "What did Eugene do now?" she asks because it's easier than saying "hi I'm here to sleep with you." Was that SUPPOSED to come across as an innuendo or did Rapunzel mean that like literally sleeping?
"Oh the usual," Anna shrugs and turns. "Ate my fucking cookies, but I'm studying to be a scary badass lich girl so this is the last year he tries that!" Her room is, well, obviously hers. Brightly lit and brightly decorated. Dried sunflowers hang from the walls, red or yellow triangular flags for teams Elsa has never heard of in sports she's never cared enough about to learn the rules for. A stream of cheerily glittering Christmas lights hangs around the periphery of the room where the walls meet the ceiling, but Elsa gets the impression that they hang year round. Anna's bed is rumpled and unmade, though it doesn't look like Anna has slept in it yet and they only arrived earlier that day. Elsa glances at the clock- only arrived yesterday.
Anna sits at her desk- it's a cluttered thing, covered with piles of picture frames all smiling friends and family, mountains of loose paper, stacks of half filled journals and half read books. Beneath the mess Elsa can just make out the paint job, white background, pink flowers. "Rapunzel ah-" Elsa chokes. "She said we're switching rooms?" There. That's a nice neutral way of saying it, right?
Anna lets out a smile like sunlight and stretches. Elsa tries to ignore the way her shirt lifts, exposes a few inches of smooth freckled stomach. She tries to ignore too, the way Anna's shirt stretches, outlines her rib cage, shows through its sheer press that Anna isn't wearing a bra. Elsa swallows unnecessarily and is entirely too occupied to notice the mischievous triumph in her girlfriend's eyes. "Ok," Anna says easily.
"We're… um… we aren't worried your parents will…" Elsa screws her eyes shut, counts to ten, and hopes very much that Anna is done stretching when she opens them.
"Nah," Anna shrugs. "Once they're asleep, that's it, they're out."
"Oh," Elsa nods and combs at her hair nervously. "Right. Um. What're you doing?"
"Eh," Anna dips her head and flushes. "Studying. Is that silly?"
Elsa shakes her head firmly and moves a little closer. Why is Anna so damn hard to talk to like a normal goddamn human? Elsa ruthlessly crushes the little voice that reminds her she isn't a human. "Studying what?" She asks instead.
"Your spell book," Anna says. "I mean, it's stupid I guess,but I was curious about a few things and you probably already know all the answers and I could just ask you but I didn't think you'd mind? And I kinda wanted to figure it out myself so you'd be proud of me?"
"I AM proud of you," Elsa says quietly and she isn't sure that Anna hears. "What were you curious about? Do you want me to tell you if I do know?" Magic is a safe thing to talk about. Magic isn't complicated like people or love. Magic has rules you can learn.
"Oh yes please," Anna smiles again. "I'm not really getting anywhere with it. Ok. So, first question. Why didn't the shield of aseph work for you back at the whole Gottle shitshow? It's a relatively low-power spell, if I'm reading it right. Hell, I could probably do it myself- calm down, calm down, I didn't try it. I'm being careful like you wanted, I'm just saying I could probably manage it and you're WAY stronger than me. And I know you tried to cast it a few times, so maybe you were like, casting it on all of us? Except you seemed frustrated, right? And like, this Nagash guy writes it as 'a work of great arcane trickery to deflect missiles great and small from that which one cares to protect,' and holy shit he's a wordy sucker and maybe I can meet him someday and ask him?"
"You can't," Elsa says simply and motions for Anna to go on.
"Right, well," Anna continues. "I guess this Nagash guy was talking about like, arrows and sling stones and things? So maybe bullets are too fast for it or something? But the ones that hit you- sorry, should I not talk about that?"
"It's fine," Elsa says.
"Right," Anna nods. "So the bullets that hit you didn't really SEEM slower or deflected or anything?"
"It didn't work when I tried to cast it on myself," Elsa says. "It did when I cast it on you."
"Is that a hint or an answer?" Anna frowns. Elsa shrugs, and the redhead turns back to her notes scowling. "Is it the 'from that which one cares to protect' part of the description? How much does that affect the actual spell?"
"Nagash wasn't one to waste words," Elsa replies. "Well, he was maybe, but not much. Spells are things of intent. If you don't intend for them to work…"
"I don't…" Anna scrunches up her nose. "Ooooooooh. Ok, Elsa, I'm being serious here, you need to be able to love yourself." Elsa shrugs noncommittally. Anna goes on, "or at least not want to die."
"I don't want to die," Elsa replies. "I just don't really want to live…"
Anna regards her dolefully.
"I just care more about protecting you than protecting me?" Elsa tries. "So, what were your other questions? About magic, I mean?"
Anna blinks with a sort of deliberate skepticism that says she sees what Elsa is doing, and that this isn't over. "Riiiiiight," Anna says and crosses her arms behind her head. "Just one other I guess, and that was about energy conservation? Like, I don't know if magic works outside of physics, or if it's something weird and physics-ey that we don't understand yet or what, but it does MOSTLY seem to obey the whole first law of thermodynamics, right?"
"The first law of what?" Elsa sits awkwardly on the edge of the bed- one bed?
"The first law of thermodynamics?" Anna tries again. "I would have thought, you're like super smart. Like the smartest person I know? No dice? Ok, um, so I'm like super not the person to explain this since I slept through my physics classes because I'm not, you know, all that smart, but…"
"You're smart," Elsa cuts her off.
"I'm not," Anna insists. "Anyway, uh, the first law of thermodynamics is that energy can't be created or destroyed, right? Like, simplest explanation, just off the cuff, you expend energy to lift a heavy rock, but now the rock has that energy since it can fall down and hit something really hard? Like I said, I'm really not the one to be explaining this."
"Ok," Elsa nods slowly. "I think I'm following so far." This is a good topic. Nice and safe, no mention of sex, no way for it to transition that way, interesting too…
"Well," Anna shrugs. "I thought that applied to magic too, right? Like, you want to work a spell, the power for it has to come from somewhere. Except lichee love forever, right? Sure the ritual takes a lot of power, but there's still a world of difference between 'a lot,' and 'infinity'. So I thought that maybe the litch ritual made you live for just like a really really long time, and no one had lived long enough to use it all up, but it can rebuild your body from nothing. That's gotta take a LOT of power itself, right? Like, I don't see another spell that makes something from nothing. And it doesn't seem like litches can "use up" the magic rebuilding their body, right? And what about zombies and ushabti and stuff? I mean, I don't have anywhere near the power for an ushabti or a golem, but you probably do, and that's not THAT much power compared to the litch ritual, and this Nagash fellow talks about things like zombies and golems and ushabti like people have been making them a while, and like some of them are really really old and are still working so where's that power coming from? And what about your book? I mean, maybe it's not truly indestructible, maybe it's just really really tough, but if it's truly indestructible then shouldn't that take infinite power to pull off? Hell, if I'm drawing power from myself- as long as I don't exceed my safe limit- it doesn't seem like it has any negative effects. Sure, if I go over, then it starts to use up my life, but before that point, where's it coming from?"
"I don't know the answer to that," Elsa says. "I don't think anyone does. I've never thought of it like that."
"Oh," Anna says. "Maybe its a stupid question then."
"No!" Elsa looks up sharply. "No, it's not. It's a really really good question. A question no one's answered is a question that needs and answer, right?"
"But I don't have an answer either," Anna protests.
"You don't have an answer yet," Elsa corrects. "Identifying the question is the first step, right? Isn't that part of the scientific process?"
"I slept through most of physics class," Anna reminds her.
"Well you'll get there," Elsa assures her. "You're smart."
"Am not," Anna pouts. Her pout is interrupted by a yawn.
"I'm keeping you up," Elsa says.
"I could say the same," Anna shrugs. "Let's sleep."
"There's one bed," Elsa says.
"There is," Anna agrees, then flushes brilliantly as she catches up. "Um, yeah. So. Um. Rapunzel and I usually just share? When she isn't boinking Eugene. But, uh, you're from like the fifties when everyone was all uptight about things and I'll just sleep on the floor?"
"The fifties?" Elsa asks skeptically. "When exactly do you think I was born?"
"Can't remember," Anna shrugs sheepishly. "Sorry."
"Ok," Elsa chuckles. "When was the war?"
"Um?" Anna's face screws up in concentration. "Would you believe I slept through world history too?"
"I would believe that, yes," Elsa replies.
"Right, look at the time," Anna says and gathers up an armful of blankets. "To the floor with me. Night Elsa!"
"We can…" Elsa is glad once more that her dead cheeks don't blush. "We can share. I mean, it's not… uh… the first time we've…"
She isn't prepared for the cannonball that is Anna. No one could be. She recovers with as much grace as can be managed however. The blankets are divided to both women's satisfaction and the lights switched off. It doesn't take long for Anna's chainsaw snores to cut the night. It takes considerably longer for Elsa's eyes to close, too aware of Anna's nearness.
"Ich liebe dich so sehr," the old litch whispers once she's sure her girlfriend is thoroughly asleep.
AN: So, um, the original plan was for this chapter to come out around this time last year, right? And um, it didn't. This is inexcusable and I do apologize. I offer no defense on my behalf. I do have plans for the rest of this story. I do intend to continue it. I'm just a lazy piece of shit who often suffers from writer's block. As always, follows/favorites/reviews are writing fuel (especially reviews).
On an unrelated note, since so many of you like the pro tips in regards to emergency medicine, here's one. If there's an emergency vehicle behind you with it's lights and sirens going, get the fuck out of the way. It's the law. We're not above asking dispatch to send us a police car, and it's like a $1500 fine per mile that you fail to yield. We don't like running emergent, it's the most dangerous part of the career and that's saying something because we have to go to domestic disputes where people are often fully willing to get stabby. We hate running emergent, we don't turn on the lights and sirens just for fun. If they're on, we're either on our way to a critical call, or on our way to the hospital with a critical patient in the back. You would be amazed how many people will drive for miles with an ambulance on their tail, passing multiple side streets and turn offs, often going several miles and hour below the speed limit. If the lights and sirens are on, there's a reason. Trust me. Get out of the way. Rant over. Sorry. That's just one of my pet peeves.
I'll try to update again this year...