blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow

Hey, babes. I don't have a ton to report, but I figure what I do have is worth an update, so here we are!

stefanie

So the main thing with me is that I'm going to Asia in a week. I'll be in Tokyo, Kuching, and Singapore over the next month, visiting family for the Lunar New Year. I'll have internet access, but free time in private with my computer will be limited, so tags will be very slow. If you want me to try and wrap up our threads this week, I understand! If you don't mind me chipping away at them bit by bit, that's also neat. Either way, let me know below!

Additionally, if I can get my threads to reqs length despite my trip, I'd very much like to bring Gu Miyoung from Wicked Fox sometime in February. She's a wee baby, a 17-year-old Korean girl with a lot of issues that have her trying to keep everyone at arm's length so she can remain in firm control of her life. She's also a gumiho, a nine-tailed fox that maintains her immortality by eating the souls of men. She's a good babie and I love her.

But again, that depends on making sure I actually hit reqs length on my November and December threads. I have links for January, but I'd like to start some threads for Elsa at NYE as well, if anyone is interested despite my impending absence.

elsa

• I saw Frozen 2. Elsa is due for some items, and this movie gave me a plethora of options. I won't list them here because I don't want to give any spoilers. It was a really good film and a great successor to Frozen and I really hope you'll go see it if you haven't already!


• She's also due for a canon update. I would like to do this in February, both to give myself time to return from the trip and rewatch F2, but also to give others time to watch before I post it. I haven't yet decided if this will be a private or a public post? On one hand, she'll want Jessica very much and it'll be very overwhelming for her. On the other, I'd like to give her an item to trigger the update and that would be in a very public location, so... lots of Feelings in public is probably the route we'll go.


• Elsa and Jess are getting engaged! SCOTT, when are we setting this to, are they engaged already or are we waiting until it's done, I keep meaning to ask and forgetting, help


• They're also, at some point in 2020, getting unmasked, although anyone who knows Elsa is welcome to hardcore suspect she's Snowdrop anyway, since she's not doing a ton to hide her powers.


• If anyone wants Elsa to help protect/save their pups at NYE, let me know!


• That's my baby and I'm proud.

The ring is burning a hole in Elsa's pocket.

The nice thing about making her own clothes is that all her outfits have pockets in which to burn holes. The other nice thing is that, after an age of indecision and wavering, she's managed to pick a ring she thinks — hopes — Jessica will like. She's not sure it'll much matter in the moment; it seems to her that, when a proposal occurs, any ring will do. After the initial excitement passes, though, she wants one that's going to make Jessica happy.

So she's nervous. Which, really, seems kind of ridiculous, or at least she tells herself it is. They've been together for four years. It's really high time one of them proposed, because, at this point, it's inevitable that they intend to be together for good and, anyway, she was catching herself thinking about it way too often not to do something about it. Daydreaming about marriage is fine, but why only dream about it? Fantasies are pleasant, but, she imagines, not nearly as good as the real thing.

And, God, but she loves her. It makes her heart flutter, thinking about doing this, thinking about what she might say, thinking about forever. And maybe a place like this doesn't allow for forevers, but that's all the more reason to take their chances while they have them.

So the ring. In her pocket. Elsa is all nerves as they head out. It's not too often that they get a chance for a date, between their jobs (official and unofficial both). She intends to take advantage of this one — a quiet night where, hopefully, no crimes will be taking place. There's no particular occasion, but it feels right, just seizing a moment for themselves. On one hand, she's pretty certain of Jessica's answer, certain that they're both in this for good, but on the other, isn't there always the tiniest chance of something going wrong? An emergency?

A no.

No. They love each other. They want this. It's not like there's never been hints or talk of a lifetime together. Nothing to worry about.

But she's Elsa and she worries anyway.

After dinner, she leads the way out to the beach, to the cove where she once built a castle. She likes to come out here sometimes to play and practice, enjoying the privacy of a spot where people rarely intrude.

"Should I build something?" she asks, smiling in spite of her nerves, and waving a flurry of snow through the air, light as mist.

Living in Darrow is a compromise. There are things — so many things — Elsa can do here that she never could have in Arendelle. There's a freedom she never dreamed of, even after she thawed the kingdom. Back home, she would always have been the queen, and there are more rules and duties that come with than then freedoms, all the more so for the power she possesses.

But there are things she misses, too, and always will, most of all at this time of year. It hardly seems worth celebrating Santa Lucia Day without Anna, for one. She still puts up a tree, but it isn't as fun without Anna there, and there are times when looking at it makes her feel more melancholy than happy. There's no Yule Bell in Darrow, no way for them to ring in the season properly, and that wouldn't be right here either. That was a tradition meant for their kingdom, their people, their family.

There are times when it feels like she doesn't have any traditions for Christmas at all. They'd started to form some here, but Anna is gone now, and no amount of wishing seems to bring her back.

On Christmas Eve, Elsa goes ice skating in the park.

It's not quite a tradition, but it's something she enjoys. Though it's easy enough to do at any time of year, between indoor rinks and her own abilities, she prefers this, gliding across the ice outdoors, surrounded by warmth and laughter, by couples and families. Like so much else, it's bittersweet; she can't help, sometimes, remembering the fun they had as children, skating with their parents. But that's part of the joy, too.

Eventually, she leaves the ice, the blades on her boots melting away. The plan is to head home, simple as that, but something stops her in her tracks. There, beneath a tree beside the rink, stands an old trunk. It catches her attention before she processes why, and then, in the next instant, there it is; she's stopped not simply because it's strange, but because it's hers.

Making her way over, she kneels down in front of the trunk, and for a few moments, that's all she does. She's been in Darrow long enough to know that such things happen, of course, but it's not something that happens to her. She knows what she'll find in the trunk, but still she hesitates, half-convinced she'll find something else instead, something awful, though she doesn't know what. The city plays such tricks.

Slowly, she braces herself and lifts the lid to reveal rows and rows of identical satin gloves, a small toy, a wooden box, and some other knickknacks. There is, for a moment, a burst of panic at the sight of them, as if something might compel her to lift a pair and pull them on, as if the mere feeling of fabric encasing her fingers might trap her again. She can't even bring herself to touch them.

It's a relief to her when she glances away and spots the stuffed toy laid out beside the gloves. She picks him up and smiles. "Sir Jorgenbjorgen," she cries, delighted, and hugs it close.

[ Find Elsa near the skating rink in Petros Park with her item, which she hasn't yet finished exploring. Open to all until this says otherwise. Although set to Christmas Eve, I'll link this in January. ]

It's supposed to be a perfectly normal morning. Elsa is supposed to wake up and go to work, sell flowers, go see her girlfriend, maybe fight a little crime. The night before was absolutely ordinary, so she has no cause to believe anything else will be true of this morning.

Except that when she wakes up, the bed seems a lot bigger than usual. For a few moments, she's not at all sure where she is, the room small and unfamiliar. Even the comforter is different. She sits up, looking around for Anna or her parents or anything she recognizes, little hands tight in her sheets. There's someone next to her, but it's not her sister. Frost skates over the fabric, her heart thumping in her chest. The frost is halfway up the wall before the chill makes her feel a little more awake, better able to take in her situation.

Darrow. Of course her sister isn't here. Of course her parents aren't. They haven't been for years. She still forgets that sometimes, ready to tell them about her day, but this is different. Somehow all of that feels far away now, as if Papa might walk in and take care of all this at any moment. But he won't, because she's not in Arendelle and he's dead, and she's about to cry.

She can barely remember how to undo the ice in the room, looking down at her hands to find them smaller than they were last night. She's smaller, swimming in the nightgown she went to sleep in. It occurs to her that she should get up and look in a mirror, or that she might be having a strange dream, but she can't seem to make herself move. What if she can't make the ice stop? What if she's too small to stop it? None of this makes any sense. After a couple minutes, she lays back down, pulling the blanket over her head and curling into a ball. Maybe if she goes back to sleep, she'll wake up normal and the ice will be gone.

It's not as if they talk constantly through the day. Elsa has a job, a girlfriend, heroing on the side. Anna has a tendency to get distracted by the new and wonderful things she still somehow manages to discover in Darrow, years after they first arrived. Elsa loves her for that, among the hundreds of other reasons to love her sister. To her, the world is always fresh and beautiful and exciting. For Elsa, it's wonderful and frightening in equal measure, still a place to be negotiated with caution, no matter how much better things might get.

So not hearing from Anna for a few hours isn't cause for too much concern. She might have forgotten to check her phone, distracted by something or someone new. The battery might have died. There's no knowing what it is now, though Elsa can't help it if it still unnerves her when her texts go unanswered for so long. That heavy, sick feeling in her stomach only grows as the time passes. She leaves work and there's still no answer, and it's not as if this has never happened, but it still frightens her. There is more in her world now than her sister, but Anna is, will always be, the most important part of her life. No matter how much time they have together, she still sometimes feels as if she's catching up, trying to make up for all the time they lost. All that time... it's the one thing that still makes this power sometimes feel like a curse, remembering what the fear took from them.

Anna's supposed to meet her at the flower shop, though, and though she's sometimes late, she always arrives eventually. They'll walk home and Anna will regale her with breathless, mixed up stories of what she's been up to all day. Whatever's kept her must have been exciting.

So Elsa waits outside the shop, not wanting to miss catching sight of her sister. The first glimpse of that red hair and that bright smile always helps to soothe the uncertainty.

But the minutes tick by and Anna never arrives. 30 minutes, 40. Elsa picks up her phone and this time she calls instead of texting. Even with her sister, she's not fond of phone calls, but sometimes it's easier anyway. But it rings and then it clicks, and before Elsa can get out a hurried greeting, a placid voice is speaking. The number you are trying to call...

And the pit in her stomach turns to ice.

The rush home passes in a blur of fear and frenzied thought. She's heard of this, of course, but it doesn't mean — it can't mean —

Her sister is gone.

The apartment is dark and still, with nothing to suggest Anna has been back at all since the morning. Elsa hurries back outside onto the street, looking up and down. There has to be some sign of her. It has to be a mistake. "Anna!" she shouts, walking to the end of the block and stopping herself short. She doesn't want to wander too far from home. Just in case.

The rain has softened from drops to snow, but Elsa ignores the wind howling around her as the snow comes down ever harder. There's more and more of it with every passing minute, until she can hardly see up the street, and she knows she has to stop, she has to stop it, but she can't. She can't even think about it, clutching her phone in case it rings, running to the other end of the block.

"Anna!"

Usually when they meet up, it's on a roof somewhere or at the flower shop. Elsa doesn't really think much of it. These are the places that are quick and convenient, especially for them. If they're just going to head up high anyway, what's the point of coming to the door?

Today, though, there's nothing really planned, no real purpose to her visit. She's nearby, so she decides to stop in, that's all. It doesn't occur to her to text or call first, though these things come much more naturally now than they once did. Anna loves texting. There doesn't seem to be a real point, though, as she knocks at the door, waiting for Jessica to answer.

Showing off might be a little bit childish. Striking a balance between modesty and pretending to have actual confidence has been something of a fight for Elsa for years, though, so she doesn't really care. She's been feeling more and more sure of her abilities these last few months, and that means the world. Even if she still has her doubts, she's mostly certain she knows what she's doing, which is a far cry form how she felt less than a year ago. It makes her whole life easier.

If there are two people in the world she would credit with helping her find her footing, they're Anna and Jessica. They've both seen firsthand what Elsa can do, of course. But she's been itching to show Jessica more for ages now, so when a chance arises for them to both get away for an afternoon, she takes it.

It's easier to go out at night sometimes, even if she pays for it when she gets to work on those mornings. With both of them working, though, it's the time when they're both most free. It's easier, too, to let loose on the city streets and roofs late in the evening, when it's darker and only a few people will see her and she knows it's for a good cause. She doesn't want to be always hiding in shadows, though. The sun is bright today. That's just how she wants it.

There's a cove a little way up the coast, outside of town, isolated and shielded from view by the cliffs. The beach there isn't much, but it's space enough for her to work, so she tells Jessica to meet her there. She brings a picnic lunch and a blanket to sit on (if only because it occurs to her that Jessica might get cold, even if she won't), but she keeps both off to the side, leaving as much clear space as she can. Frowning to herself, she studies the area. The ground is a bit rough with shells, kelp, and rock, but she can level it off with a layer of ice for the foundation. After that, it should be fine.