chapter word count: 444

noir heart: seventy-three

Pity.

Elsa has only felt that particular emotion once before and for only one person, when she left her family to be with Kozmotis. Pity for Anna, who looked lost and confused all the way up until Elsa got into the car to her new life. As someone who finds it incredibly difficult to empathise with anyone, believing misfortune to either be deserved or a simple case of life being life, pity is a strange sensation she only experienced once...and now twice.

She pities Jack. Pities how the people he worked for only used him for his intelligence and deductive skills, and tossed him aside when he was no longer functional. Pitied how the one person who had the greatest chance of putting him back together...walked away. A shattered mess of emotions, darkness and fear, and no-one was there for him.

Alone.

Soon, it's not just pity she feels - how strange it is to actually feel something for someone other than Anna - but protective anger. Closing the portfolio, there's a very real compulsion to forcefully apply it to Rapunzel's head.

But, in the end, that's not particularly conducive, is it?

"I think I have all I need."

She's not sure she does, but there's a suspicion in her heart that the longer she stays, the more likely bad things are going to happen. "Are you sure?" Rapunzel asks in mild bemusement, "You haven't noted anything down."

Elsa merely hands the portfolio back to her host, and plasters a smile. "I have a good memory. Thank you for your hospitality, the talk has been...enlightening."

Rapunzel blinks, and almost looks a little disappointed. "Oh, okay. I'll walk you to the door, then."

Nodding once, Elsa rises from the sofa and walks - practically strides - out of the living room, pocketing the unused notepad on the way. However, compulsion is as compulsion does, and there's a question that's been burning in her mind ever since Rapunzel started speaking.

"One more thing - you say you loved him," she says just as she reaches the front door, whirling abruptly enough to cause Rapunzel to start and flinch slightly in surprise. Elsa draws herself to her full height of roughly three inches taller, and the smile drops like a stone - if only be replaced by something middling between emotionless and contempt.

"...but what kind of a wife watches her husband fall apart day after day until he is nothing more than a shattered vase on the floor, and decides it's not worth putting him back together?"

Rapunzel looks like she's been slapped in the face.

SHOTS FIRED. ALL UNITS, SHOTS FIRED.

As for Judy Hopps, I haven't seen Zootopia/Zootropolis/ZooSuffixHere yet. Civil War is up first for me :D

special thanks to: lady kaalia, hornedgoddess, rainbowcolorw0w, jpbake, ilovecandy11, stefalove, oninoko, vrupd.1992 and chiqanti ceres for the reviews!