CHAPTER SEVEN

To The First Lady

The trolley took them to the Soldier's Field Welcome Center, according to the sign. Anna informed Elsa that, according to one of the books on Columbia she'd read, Main Street connected everything and would eventually take them to the First Lady Aerodrome.

The entrance to the welcome center was an atrium decorated with bright colors, upbeat marching music, mechanical soldier caricatures, and flags. It was probably more welcome and fun when the place had people in it. But seeing it in this light only disturbed Elsa. It was obviously designed to attract children - the Queen's method to indoctrinate her future military, to teach children to grow up and serve her. It glorified war. And it was disgusting.

The lights and power turning off took Elsa out of her brooding state. Electricity buzzed violently from some of the mechanical soldiers, and smoke seeped out from others. Even the metal doors fell, as if putting the building on lockdown.

That was odd. This entire time, she'd never had technical difficulties, aside from civilians manually turning off the power in an attempt to trap her back at the fraternity building with the crows. Why was the power shorting out now? And how were they supposed to get to the airship when they were locked inside?

Elsa approached one of the metal gates and looked at it hopelessly. Her ice magic was good for many things. Opening doors was not one of them, unless she wanted to blast through the wall - a maneuver best suited for last resorts.

"Here! Let me help," Anna offered as she crouched down to the bottom of the gate. She tried pulling it up with her knees. Once, nothing. Twice, still nothing.

"It's too heavy, you're not going to be able to-"

With a cry of victory, Anna lifted the gate with both hands on the third try. Needless to say, Elsa was stunned. Giving the younger woman a onceover, and a dazed smirk, she passed under her to the other side of the steel door.

On the wall across from them was another advertisement. This was apparently for a new vigor. The mere thought of drinking a new one seemed like a very good idea.

"Shock Jockey." Elsa read aloud from the next hall over. "Who needs the power company?"

Anna dropped the gate and joined her as Elsa continued to read the poster in silence.

It also read "Exclusively from the Fink Industries". The name "Fink" made her blood boil. She thought back on that sleaze of a man mistreating those two women back at the raffle, and silently hoped they managed to escape through all the panic she caused. She had hoped she could forget about that man, but it appeared as though he was responsible for a lot of technology in this city. Crooked people ran crooked cities.

"Apparently these guys actually do need the power company." Anna said sarcastically, which got a bit of a laugh out of Elsa. Leave it to her little sister to snap her out of a terrible mood.

Once outside, they got a good view of the First Lady, which appeared to be heading toward the docks. Elsa kept walking toward the gondola ramp, but she didn't notice that Anna had stopped.

"Keep close, Anna." She called back to her, as she neared the ramp. She tried the controls to summon the trolley, but the Tesla coil sparked and malfunctioned. This Shock Jockey nonsense was defective. But it was a good excuse to give it a taste… Maybe they could buy some and- No. They had already been here much longer than Elsa had meant to be. She was so close to getting Anna out of there. She shouldn't dare think about going back to those drinks. She silently vowed to quit right there.

The gondola eventually showed up. Anna scurried in through the doors before Elsa, with some odd urge to be the first to enter. Elsa rolled her eyes as she followed her, and activated the gondola to make it ascend. The doors closed behind them. Luckily, the trolley worked for the two young women.

At least until the car violently came to a halt and the lights went out yet again. Anna grabbed on to the wall for support, and looked around frantically. Elsa wasn't even surprised anymore.

"What's wrong?" Anna gasped.

"The power is out." Elsa said flatly.

"Noooo, really?"

"The gondola runs on Shock Jockey." She ignored the nagging feeling that she should've bought one while she had the chance. "I'll have to fix it… somehow." she said softly, looking around the trolley car. It was habit to her at this point.

On the opposite wall, she saw a little cabinet door labeled "power". She opened it up to reveal buttons and switches. She didn't have an idea of what any of these meant, but she assumed they contained the power to move the car back and fourth. In the back of her mind, she cursed herself and licked her lips, thirsting for that vigor right about now, but it was too late for that. She wasn't about to leap out of the car and slide down the skyrail and backtrack to waste hours of her precious time.

A thought occurred to her. She could try her magic… She looked back at Anna, who was blissfully unaware of what she was thinking about. She hated to use her magic in front of her, or even behind her back. It wasn't necessary for her to hide it, but she felt the need to block off Anna's view of her. Her hands began to glow, applying small amounts of ice to the wires.

A slight buzzing could be heard from behind her as she tried sneaking use of her magic.

"Ah! A bee! How did it even get in here?" Anna cried.

"Hit it with your shoe, Anna, before it stings you."

"But I don't want to kill it!"

"Anna…"

"Oh wait! I have an idea." There was a pause. But as soon as she heard grunting from Anna, it got Elsa's attention and she turned to look at her. Anna looked like she was trying to rip the Songbird poster off the wall from the center outward. "I'm so silly, why… didn't I think… of this… sooner?" On the last beat, her arms flew open, and a bright flash of light practically blinded Elsa.

She gasped sharply and cringed. Once her vision cleared, Anna wasn't standing just inside of the trolley, but she was also standing in front of an open window, and outside was a bright blue, clear sky and bushes with flowers, and the bee flew out to them.

"What is that?" Elsa asked, leary. She had seen Anna do that before, but not sure what it meant or did, she also wasn't sure she wanted to be near it.

"It's a window!"

"I… I know it's a window, but what is that? What did you do?"

"Oh that. I mean, this! This is just a tear. I open them all the time, it's no big deal."

With catlike caution, Elsa approached the "tear" but wouldn't pass the light that divided the cart from the window sill. "What is a tear, exactly?"

"It's like a uh…" Anna tried finding the right words, gesturing with her hands in an attempt to pick the right one. "A window."

Elsa blinked at her. Seriously?

"I'm not good at analogies, okay? It's just, it's like a window to another world. That's all I got." Anna looked out the window and breathed in the fresh air. Elsa found herself enjoying the breeze from outside along with Anna. "You know, sometimes I'd open them up to entirely different places. And I'd walk through them."

What? She would use these… strange door-opening powers, leave for an afternoon, and then come prancing back to her… prison? Her cage? "But you'd… always some back?"

Anna chuckled, but it wasn't because anything Elsa said was funny. "Yeah, I… I did."

"But why? You could've escaped this whole time. You could've been happy. Why did you come back?"

"I don't know… family?"

Family. What family had ever done right by her? What family would keep this wonderful girl locked away? Even Elsa had...well. It was a confusing thing to think about. Staying, even if you had the choice to leave. But wherever this "tear" was opened to, it seemed a lot better than where they were. It was a temptation to walk through it with Anna, and never come back.

Elsa opened her eyes with a sigh, and gasped at the sight of the silhouette of a bird flying through the clouds. It was definitely not her newly-formed paranoia of birds, because it was definitely not the size of a bird. Angry red light shot from the flying creature's eyes right onto Elsa and Anna's location. It was Songbird.

"Oh no!" Anna shouted, pushing her arms together frenziedly.

"Close it," Elsa urged, wide eyes locked on Songbird, who was flying right at them.

"I-I'm trying!" she cried as she tried again and again to close the tear. It was going to get them through that window if she didn't hurry. The beast flew faster, closer, growing larger as it neared them.

"Close it!" Elsa yelled over Songbird's exponentially loud screeching, and Anna's frantic cries of fear.

The window and Songbird disappeared in another flash of light. The window was now the inside of the gondola, where the poster of Songbird remained. It did not provide any comfort. That was the thing, the Aurora, that Maleficent asked her to save? How did she even expect her to do that when all it did was try to kill her?

Anna panted heavily, backed up against the same wall as Elsa, who glared down at the younger woman, disapprovingly. She ducked down in shame, and tucked an invisible strand of hair behind her ear. The gondola had started moving again, which Elsa didn't notice while she was fearing for her and Anna's life. When the bell dinged and the gondola came to a complete stop, Anna motioned to get off, avoiding eye contact.

"I don't really understand what I saw back there," Elsa started, forcing Anna to listen to her. "But it sure as hell looks like a shortcut to getting us killed."

She angrily turned around to face Elsa, putting her foot down in an annoyed gesture that was oddly endearing. "What, you're the only one who gets to have magic powers?" She sassed. In a dramatic gesture, Anna swept her bangs back, and threw her pigtails to one side, in mock of the older woman. "Ooooh, I'm Elsa, and I'm the only person who's mature and responsible enough to do magic!"

"Anna, that's not exactly the way to show you're mature or responsible-"

"PHLLLLBLTTTTT" A raspberry was blown in Elsa's direction. Anna had "won" that argument. Her stomping ahead of Elsa emphasized that point.

Her little tantrum was cut short upon entering the First Lady Aerodrome. Elsa was immediately forgiven. Anna gently took Elsa's hand and skipped ahead with a big smile, excited to finally reach the airship that would take them to Paris. It was a long trip for the younger woman, and she would have lots of questions for Elsa, but those were low-ranking compared to finally leaving. And without that itching feeling to come back to her shining dungeon.

The First Lady was magnificent to Anna. She hadn't seen an airship up close before, let alone ridden in one. While the ship was large, it was average compared to zeppelins Elsa had seen. She had also seen prettier ones that weren't posing as flying symbols of self-absorption.

Elsa sneered at the picture of the Snow Queen which was displayed on the side of the ship. It was tacky and failed to make the zeppelin the least bit aesthetically pleasing. It partially made her pine for a sailing ship, just so she could be anywhere but in the air. At least the gold and burgundy interior was luxurious, and would make for a comfortable trip. Maybe Elsa could even take a nap.

She wished she could feel as excited as Anna, but she wouldn't be until they were miles away from Columbia. Once she climbed in, Anna closed the door behind her with a giggle.

"Oh! Elsa, this is so exciting! Paris!" she came up from behind her and hugged her tightly. Elsa blinked in surprise, not looking at Anna, but down at the arms looped around her waist. She put one of her wrapped hands on Anna's forearm and smiled. "You know, we don't have to just do Paris. We can travel all over the world in this thing! What do you say?"

"I'll leave where we go up to you, Anna." She smiled, looking down at the controls. It appeared as though the ship was capable of navigating longitude and latitude automatically. She put in the coordinates, N48 and E002, and the First Lady did the rest. At least now she could let herself breathe.