It'd taken an hour to teach each housing appliance and modern convenience to Elsa. A microwave. Induction cookers. Radio and television. The washing machine drew a particular fascination. Computers and the internet were off limits for now. Anna gave up explaining the concept of electricity and merely told her that magic streamed out the wall sockets and flowed into whatever got plugged into them. Her eyebrows arched high when Elsa laid her palm directly onto a smoking-hot frying pan to test its heat and barely grimaced.
"Unfortunately the best I can offer now are heated cans of soup," Elsa fiddled with the toaster as the pan of chowder bubbled away, "I promise we'll have something more substantial once I figure everything out."
She flinched when the toaster ejected brown slices of wholemeal bread. Without thinking, Elsa stuck her hand directly into the slot.
"Don't-"
It didn't burn her. She handled the hot toast with bare fingers and ladled steaming portions of clam chowder into bowls for lunch. A sudden compulsion overtook Anna and she wanted to snatch hold of her hands. Doesn't it hurt? But she passed it off as dead nerve endings from frostbite or time travel and made a mental note to write it in her reports.
Elsa completed their soup with sprinkled Dill sprigs and black pepper from their NSA-sponsored spice rack.
"After you."
A good minute was spent blowing on the soup before Anna took a sip. Velvety smooth and punctuated with flavour. "Have you had much soup like this in your time?"
"More flour and butter. Less cream. This works fine though," Elsa sat upright, paper towel tucked into her nightdress as a napkin, "I'm accustomed to eating this with smoked herring."
"We could get some at the supermarket tomorrow, it's a short drive away."
Elsa tilted her head, "you're letting me out into the world? So soon?"
"Well, yes - there's no way the NSA could keep you locked into this house forever. I'm sure we'd get bored shitless with each other by the end of the week."
She tore off a hunk of bread, "I did spend a significant portion of my childhood alone in a palace. So I'd reckon my endurance for solitude far exceeds yours."
Anna didn't know if she meant it as a joke, but laughed anyway.
"We'll need to get you some clothes as well, something befitting of your status in this new world," Anna paused for a sip, "but for the rest of today - all we have scheduled are interviews and some exercises to jog back your memories."
The Queen immediately stood up and moved towards the wine cooler. A bottle of Merlot was already drained and it wasn't even twenty-four hours.
"About that," Anna raised her voice, "perhaps we could remain sober for this part."
A visible frown broke on Elsa's face when she turned, "You deny me the comfort of a drink after lunch?"
"Well, yes," Anna narrowed her eyes at the visible discomfort on Elsa's face, "or I'll tell you what - one glass of wine for dinner if you're forthcoming with your answers. We can work towards that together, can't we? You've already had a bit this morning."
"I-I don't know if I can," Elsa dipped towards the half-finished soup, "but perhaps I'll try - for your sake."
"For yours, actually," Anna corrected. But the Queen already bore a smile on her face. Enough to make Anna want to give into her.
After the dishes had been cleared and laid neatly on the rack like little porcelain soldiers, Anna took out a legal pad and pen and sat across Elsa on the living room couch. She'd have to type all this out again on her Macbook - but she reckoned Elsa would clam up at the magical half-eaten apple that glowed bright white and displayed mystical diagrams.
Elsa crossed her legs and fiddled with her fingers. Her entire body appeared wound tight against the impending questions. Anna threw her into the deep end.
"So by now I'm assuming those NSA goons told you exactly how and when they snagged you from the 19th Century."
"Your people told me that I would've died," Elsa sucked in a deep breath, "and they snatched me from the jaws of death for a new life in your world. For what purposes, they have not mentioned."
"Neither have they told me," Anna said out loud, ignoring the fact that this house was more bugged than a beehive, "though it'd help both yourself, and me - if you could tell me a little more about what you last saw. If you may."
A flicker of doubt passed through her eyes. Fading in the calm presence Anna sought to establish with her subjects. She shifted closer and appeared to put Elsa at ease. At length, the Queen described bits and pieces of the war of the Sixth Coalition. Forced marches through the bitter cold. Unending lines of gun carriages and horses. Ranks of infantry. Red and Green uniforms. Bayonets like porcupines shadowed in the sunset. Through Elsa's words she heard the horses' neighing. Cannonfire. Screams of dying wounded men. Anna felt the futility of war echo in familiar pulses each time Elsa's voice broke with memory. The details were fuzzy at best. None of the events matched Anna's own notes about the Battle of Leipzig where a last ditch charge by Arendellian Cavalry stopped the Prussian centre from getting overrun. Elsa had personally led the attack and supposedly died shortly after.
"Do you remember the advance? The accounts state that you charged into the fray without care for your own safety," Anna pushed through her hesitation, "what do you recall about that?"
"I recall thinking, what a bloody mess we've made of things," Elsa looked away, breath coming in sputtered starts, "lying in the snow after. Poor mare's flank shot through a dozen times. My crushed ribs. I inhaled smoke and breathed blood. Right before my eyes fell shut I saw a doorway to heaven. Pure white light. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The hand of God Himself reached down and tore me asunder."
Tears had fallen from Elsa's eyelids. Pearlescent like crystal shards against faint freckles. It ached to see Elsa like this, far more than any Ukrainian nurse talking about the men who came back with missing limbs. Anna held out a paper tissue to Elsa. Their fingers brushed again. This time, Anna felt her ice cold touch. Like she'd plunged her entire arm into a frozen lake. She looked up at Elsa snivelling, but said nothing of the matter.
"It'd help me understand you better if I could hear your reasons for entering Arendelle into the conflict," Anna resisted the urge to reach over and comfort her, "and why you chose to lead them into battle."
Elsa's head jerked up. Glimmering stare that tied her throat into knots. For a moment, she feared Elsa would stomp off and shut herself away like last night. The woman tensed hard, paper tissue crushed into a tiny ball as she searched for words that appeared to elude her. Watery eyes darted left and right.
"We're being listened to now, aren't we?" Elsa whispered. Soft like a leaf in the breeze.
Anna met her eyes. She gulped. Nodded.
Elsa's voice returned to normal, "When news of the war broke and Prussia brokered Arendelle's aid. I agreed because I sought a means to end this war on the continent. Unfortunately it appears my intentions were misguided. All I managed to do was foster a new generation of hatreds that'd spillover into yet another war. And another."
And another. And another.
The words echoed in Anna's head. Two hundred years and no end in sight. Cannonballs became cruise missiles. Tanks and fighter jets substituted Sabre and Horse. Bayonet charges turned to suicide drones. She looked at the pen in hand. Shaking with the fever of Donetsk still hot in her veins. Before she cast a glance at Elsa's slender fingers. Visibly quaking under same wretched memories that plagued them both.
Anna had grown up on a background diet of classical music in her DC home. Courtesy of her mother's tastes. She'd invested her ample CIA department chief salary into a Bang & Olufsen surround sound system capable of reaching frightening decibel levels. Though she typically kept it to a light hum around the house. Not wanting to distract Anna from studying for all-too-important standardized tests. By twelve, Anna could pick apart each movement of symphonies she never knew the names of. Tempos and tonalities. The lyrical quality of string and brass. She'd learned to tune out the emotional highs of a crescendo as her mother busied in the living room with intelligence work. With her first paycheck at Dunkin' Donuts, Anna bought noise cancelling earphones and signed up for Spotify premium. Her playlists filled with Jay-Z and Kanye West.
Over the course of an afternoon, Anna gradually soaked into the melody of Elsa's voice. It rose and fell as she spoke at length. Delicate pronunciation and verbosity like the gentle trickle of a symphonic orchestra. When emotion got the better of her; talking about the generals who led their men thundering into the valley of death - she felt the rhythm of her voice crescendo to ever-higher crests. Her own spirits rose in tandem. She even asked Elsa to switch to Danish for awhile. Just needing to hear her native language. Thick and smooth like treacle. It took a few instances of repeating herself before Anna realised Elsa was asking for wine.
"Vin?" Elsa switched back to English, "I think I deserve a glass. And so do you."
The sun hung low over the woods. Stained glass sky ochre and scarlet. Crumpled tissues littered the coffee table.
"You're really thirsty, aren't you?" Anna flipped through her notes, "Or are there other reasons behind it?"
A hollow echo boomed behind her ears. Blood rushed behind her eyes as she looked at Elsa's crumpling. It was too easy to see the same symptoms mirrored in her colleagues. In herself. The late nights at random bars. Hooking up with women off tinder. Thinking Marie could provide anything beyond scant, shallow comfort and a hug goodbye in the morning. A bandaid over a gunshot wound. Anna refilled a glass of water and slid it across. The first cracks showed in Elsa's resolve. Fingers curled into her nightdress.
"You promised," Elsa broke.
A year ago, Colonel Henderson drove an hour to a shit-hole bar outside Fort Bragg at 2am to drag her from the depths. Anna was fully intent on driving back to barracks wasted on a fifth of vodka. There was no mention of this in her performance appraisal. No warning letter or reprimand that came the next day. Just a namecard on her desk for the Base Counsellor. Anna never found an opportunity to thank her until now.
"No," Anna said firmly, "it wouldn't do you any good."
Elsa leapt from the couch, "What would you know about doing me good? You're supposed to help me!"
"Because I know, personally, that alcohol is the one unhealthy coping mechanism that hasn't changed in two hundred years."
The words shot through Elsa's ears as she strode to the kitchen. A raging, ethereal angel floating on misguided resolve. Flustered gasp when the wine fridge wouldn't budge.
"You locked it!" Elsa's voice thundered across the living room. Like the ominous opening notes of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. "Do you take me for a child?"
"I respect you."
"Venglist?" a tearful plea came. Singular word stinking of betrayal and hopelessness. Anna turned long enough to see Elsa disappearing into her room. The deafening slam of a door cracking a new chasm through her heart.