Disclaimer: Frozen and it's characters are copyright to disney
Chapter III: "Mysterious and Spooky"
Sunday night proved turbulent in terms of sleep. Anna had never been a vivid dreamer, and rarely recalled any details. In spite of this, she had awoken several times from slumber in a thin sheen of sweat, a chemical cocktail of fear coursing through her blood with a pounding heart. She didn't have much recollection of the dream, and even had a sense that some part of it had been good. Really good. What she did remember was "teeth". Sharp, gleaming teeth.
The idea of suffering through the dreams again kept her up later on Monday night, but come one AM, she crawled into bed, defeated by exhaustion. When she roused several hours later, at first she thought it must have been the dream. She recalled teeth.
Then she heard it. A bellowing cry coming from her livestock. That grounded her like a bucket of ice water, and she lunged from her bed, ignoring her instability as she grabbed for her rifle and bolted down the stairs for the back door.
As she burst through the screen door, she lost all sense of reason. She was positive she had locked them away. But no, they were stampeding across the pasture in a frenzy, bucking, spinning, screaming bloody murder. With a couple of quick, panicked breaths, she took off after the cattle and sheep, ready to dive headlong into the chaos, when she spotted an enormous black mass practically flying away from the herd.
Ten meters out from her berserk livestock, she screeched to a halt, sliding in the mud as she dug in her heels and pressed the butt of her rifle against her shoulder just in time to spot a brighter form dart after the first. Anna let loose a roar of pure rage and fired, the bullet whizzing close enough to the pale figure to glance across it's shoulder, stopping the creature dead in it's tracks.
There was a low rumble of a growl that carried through the ground and hit the redheads ears like the thrum from a bass. The girl was suddenly incredibly dizzy and nauseous; that thing was an abomination. A monster. It's head was slowly craning to look at her. The sky rumbled menacingly after it, the light of the moon becoming overcast as stormy clouds rolled in.
With her hands trembling harder than they ever had in her life, Anna popped the bolt on her model 70, something strange prompting her to scream, "Freeze!" She couldn't think. She could barely breathe. She was relatively certain she may have actually pissed herself.
It stopped moving. The girl wanted to pull the trigger, to do it while it was giving her order a moments thought, hesitating. She found she couldn't. If she wanted to speak another word, at this point, even that was beyond her.
What little light remained from the overcast sky brought out the golden reflection of the monsters eyes as it's gaze bored into her. Something about the fact that it's stare held a staggering degree of intelligence caused a flash of Sven to cross her mind. When it's line of sight shifted, aqua pools followed, terror dawning all over again when she spied two dead sheep, and a mangled cow.
Anger and fear bubbled up in her gut again, and she prepared to squeeze the trigger. As the creature looked away from the corpses, she found herself lacking the fortitude again. She didn't know what the fuck to do.
Sensing that Anna couldn't do it in, the beast very gradually, cautiously, began to rear back on it's hind legs, stooping awkwardly as it slowly spread and raised it's arms, front paws... hands... "what?", open in the universal sign for disarmament and surrender.
"What..." it was monumentally turbulent to form words for the redhead, "What are you?"
No answer was forthcoming, and she was forced to blink back angry tears of impotent fury. What she saw after that fraction of a second when her eyes opened again, drew a cry of utter disbelief. She was crazy. She had to be crazy. This was insanity.
Standing the thirty or forty feet out where the abomination that had made her feel sick had been, stood Elsa, back to her, hair untamed, hands lifted in the universal sign for disarmament and surrender. "Breathe, or you'll pass out." When she heard Anna gasping for air she arched her back a little, stretching and tilting her head back to eye the foreboding sky, "I didn't take these heads from you. I came here to intercept-" she paused, correcting herself, "to stop him. The one who did this."
Anna's gasps were interrupted by pitiable sobs. Empathy had never been a strong point for Elsa, but she tried to sympathize with the terror she could smell on the air, "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."
Human in appearance or not, the sharp ears of a beast could pick up on the fact that the redhead had lowered her gun to her side, trembling violently as she stood barefoot in the mud.
The next several minutes were an internal war for Anna. She could still shoot. But she wasn't a murderer. So for ten minutes, Elsa waited patiently, showing no sign of betrayal or hostility. Eventually, the girls sobs died down to sniffles, and her breathing grew even.
"What are you?"
"A monster." Elsa didn't flinch or hesitate with her reply.
"If that's true, why the fuck should I trust you!?" Anna's tone was accusatory.
"If I killed your animals, I'd be covered in blood; I didn't commit this crime. And if you trust me, I can help you."
Another ten minutes of pregnant silence. Elsa was growing uncomfortable holding her arms up, her fingers going numb.
"Can you explain this to me?"
The woman nodded in what was now near pitch darkness, "I can do that."
Anna didn't say anything else, and it took a moment for Elsa to realize that the redhead had begun a sluggish, almost drunken walk back toward her house, opting to follow as far as the front porch. When the redhead disappeared inside, she seated herself on the steps, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her head on them as she thought over the events that had just played out.
It took an hour and a half for the redhead to emerge again, showered, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and a coat, with a cup of coffee in hand. She stood behind the blonde for a moment, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh, "And, you're stark freaking naked."
It was an eerily calm statement. Elsa gave it some thought before cautiously replying, "I suppose in contrast to discovering your neighbor to be a werewolf, nudity is a trivial concern."
Smacking her lips with a bob of her head, Anna made to sit down next to Elsa on the steps of the deck, "That's one way to put it. So, am I insane? Did you slip me a hit of acid at lunch? 'Cause I don't think I'm ever eating at your house again."
The blonde paused, licking her lips and nervously combing her fingers through her unruly hair, "That was an honest coincidence. My cousin just wants to make friends since it's seemed that we'd be here for a while. Tonight proved fruitful, however. I got close."
A wave of resentment rolled out from Anna, and Elsa sucked her teeth, "Sorry. I apologize. I didn't mean- well, I tried to get here before him, but he must have been closer to this location than we thought."
With a long, low breath, the redhead sipped her coffee, letting her temper be soothed, "Well, you probably saved the rest. Olaf and Weasleton lost a lot more."
"And I'm sorry about that, too. If I could have prevented it, I would have."
The pair fell quiet as Anna continued to gather her wits, though after a while, Elsa spoke up again, "Maybe I should take you to talk to Kristoff. He's more of a people person than myself."
"You don't say," the needling sarcasm wasn't missed, but the blonde figured she deserved it. Anna gave the suggestion consideration, regardless. "Fine. Get in the truck, naked girl. I need answers."
It was a long and awkward ride to the Bjorgman place with a very bare, very attractive woman riding next to her.
"No homo," she told herself, "Right. Because that makes things not gay. Oh my God, I'm not gay. Stop it. She's not even human. Chill the fuck out."
When the truck pulled into the drive, Kristoff banged his way past the screen door and jogged down the steps up to the passenger side door, flinching when he caught sight of the gash on Elsa's shoulder. Then the fact that she had just arrived in Anna's truck occurred to him.
"Oh, what the fuck, Elsa?"
"I almost caught him-"
"And then what!? She shot you and he gave you the slip!?"
"Well, to be technical, she shot me after he escaped-"
Kristoff leaned angrily through the door of the truck over his cousin to glare furiously down at Anna, "You fuckin' shot her!?"
Offering a deadly look of her own, Anna scoffed at him, "That's been established."
"Kristoff! Calm the Hell down." Elsa grabbed Kristoff by a thick shoulder, shoving him back out of the door with one hand, sliding forward slightly in her seat as if to block Anna from him. He only pushed against her hand for a second longer, giving in when he recalled that even with his superior size he couldn't overpower her.
"Take Anna inside and let her make her own coffee." That earned her an incredulous sneer. "I mean it."
Looking like he might argue, he turned and motioned to the redhead, then grunted in what she could only guess was a signal to follow him. Things were already tense, so she decided not to fight and leapt out of her truck after him, leaving Elsa there to have a moment of peace.
Once they were inside, she crossed her arms and stopped solid, glaring up at the back of Kristoff's head, "Who is 'he'?"
The burly man halted cold, shoulders slumping as he sighed, "Just come into the kitchen and fix your coffee. I'll answer your questions in there."
"I want-!"
Kristoff wheeled to face her, encroaching on her personal space as he jammed an angry finger against her shoulder, interrupting before she could continue, "I don't give a fuck. My cuz comes riding up the drive buck-fucking-naked and shot, by you as it so happens, and now she wants me to translate for you and let you touch my coffeemaker. So we're gonna have a seat for this discussion."
Anna raised her hands defensively and stepped back from him, eyes wide, "Fine! Have it your way."
The house was quiet until she was done fixing herself a cup of warm comfort and seated at the dining room table. It was for the better, giving the blond man a chance to cool off. Kristoff sat across from her, hands clasped together on the table in front of him as he stared down at his interwoven fingers.
Anna couldn't think of what to say, now that she was there.
"I know you're probably thinking you've lost your mind, but you haven't."
"So, what? I'm supposed to believe your cousin has some gypsy curse on her or something?"
"No! It's not like that."
"You're saying she really is a werewolf? A monster?"
Kristoff separated his hands and clenched them into fists. She thought he was going to debate that Elsa wasn't a monster, but he didn't. "She was born that way. A lot of us are."
A silence permeated by confusion. "You're one too?"
"Well, sort of. I've got the blood, but not the change. Sven too. Sort of." The man rubbed anxiously at the side of his neck.
Anna closed her eyes. She found his explanation vague and annoying. "You're gonna have to explain that."
Leaning forward on his elbows, Kristoff lifted a hand to rub at his furrowed brow, "Okay. So, werewolves. Most of them are born into it. It's a genetic trait. But some of us can be born into the family, lacking the gene that enables us to change. We're still tougher and have stronger senses than an average person, but we can't change our form. We're called the ken."
Anna opened her eyes, finding his elaboration to be more acceptable, "Go on."
"Then there's animal-ken, like Sven. He can change some, but not into a humanoid."
"And Elsa?"
The blond man hesitated. Anna was about to press him when the woman's voice carried over them, "I'm the were. I put on the skin of the animal. I have the change."
The redhead turned to look at Elsa, now clean and clad in simple shorts and a tee. Shaking her head, she cast her gaze to the floor, "This is kind of hard to wrap my head around. So how 'bout I ask something a little more simple: who is 'he'?"
The blonde woman hummed thoughtfully, stepping over toward Anna and pulling the chair from the end of the table to perch on the same side as the redhead. Anna couldn't decide whether to scoot her own chair away or not.
"Well, ya see, Elsa here-" Kristoff yelped at the top of his lungs, jumping in his seat and crashing his knees against the underside of the table, sliding back and gripping his stomped upon foot.
The redhead gave Elsa a look of contempt while Kristoff whined, which once again left her unaffected, "Sorry. We're only allowed to disclose so much. But he is an escaped criminal from our home, a place we call the caern or coven."
Anna wrinkled her nose in distaste, "Coven? Like witches?"
Both Kristoff and Elsa frowned at that, sharing a bitter look. "We dislike the comparison," Elsa finally disclosed.
"So the map?"
The man tilted his head, looking over at Elsa again for an explanation, still in the dark about the earlier events that took place in the private study.
"We're tracking his movements."
All were quiet for a while after that, until the redhead spoke up, "Why me?"
"I never intended for you to see me, or even know I was there. Your friend, Olaf, was smart and stayed away from the pasture, so when I came looking, he never knew." She paused, seeming to be gauging if what was on the tip of her tongue was appropriate, "Guess he's not a scooby."
Anna cracked a smile in spite of herself, closing her eyes and letting loose a breath of exasperation. The smile was short lived, and perished in the next void in conversation. Her voice became solemn, "I don't think I can believe any of this. You're the best liars I have ever met, but you're liars." The redhead glanced sadly between them, sliding her chair back a bit to stand, "I'm going home, and I really hope that I don't see either of you again. Ever."
The fair-haired duo flinched. There was no anger in her tone, just regret and despair. She was hoping it was a bad dream.
The split-second of hesitation before she moved to turn away gave Elsa the chance to lunge upward from her seat, slamming her hands against the tabletop with enough force for the sound of it to send the others jumping away, "You can't!" It was an order, not a request. A demand.
"Elsa! For God's- fuckin', just let her go!" Kristoff motioned to the girl with an open hand.
"Kristoff!" Elsa's tone was chastising, turning her gaze to him with a look of utter disappointment. "We did this to her," she added in a reasonable tone. Then, more pitifully, "I did this to her."
"Hello? I'm standing right here! Did what to me!?" Anna interrupted, and both swung their eyes to meet her before looking back at one another. Her temper was beginning to spike again, "Is this some," she waved a hand, searching for a comparison, "Mafioso bullshit where, 'ohhh, you know too much, now you work for us'?"
The blonde woman looked back and forth from Anna to Kristoff, taking on a grave expression as she pleaded silently with her cousin.
"Els..." the man sighed, slumping back in his seat and slapping a hand over his face in frustration. When he peered up at her again from between his fingers, he groaned. The look of hurt she was currently displaying broke his mental fortitude.
With his shoulders giving way, he stared down at his lap and took a deep breath, then looked back up at Anna, who seemed about to blow a gasket, "So, remember that part where I said you haven't lost your mind?"
Elsa looked away from the both of them, shame written on her countenance. Anna's mouth fell open, aghast.
Kristoff finished the confession with a deeply set frown, "You haven't. Yet."