frozenfractals | there's beauty and there's danger here

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jessica drew

there's beauty and there's danger here

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.

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She woke up cold and not alone in the room, and it struck her oddly that this seemed backwards. She could remember where she was, but it seemed strangely dislocated; she could remember who she was, but it seemed as if she might have been someone else before that, and for some reason her mind was trying to match now against then and failing.

hello my name is jessica drew and i have spider powers and i am a clone

Right. That was right. But why was it so cold? What did you do for cold? Blanket. She would go and get a blanket.

She went to slide out of bed, and found out a few things in very rapid succession: the comforter was iced up and inflexible, such that she had to essentially pop herself free rolling sideways; the distance to the floor had increased; the size of her pajamas had seemingly also increased, so that they remained tangled.

Her head buzzed to say u are about to hit something and then she squawked and hit the floor, the loose ends of sleeves and trousers fluttering in a useless tangle.

Edited 2017-07-31 09:37 (UTC)

It's the sound of someone else's distress that does it, causing Elsa to unfurl herself again and creep to the edge of the bed. It certainly wasn't this big last night, she's sure of that, but here she is, making her way cautiously over the mattress to peer down at Jessica.

It is Jessica, she's sure of that. She's much smaller than Elsa remembers, but it's her. And besides, Elsa is somehow small, too. The how and the whys are beyond her right now. All she can do is keep her hands curled into tight little balls as she looks over the edge, trying to keep the power inside. "Are you okay?"

"I hit my head," Jessica said, because had hit her head and a declarative statement of that seemed the way to go. The world should know.

Elsa did sound concerned, though, and it occurred to her that she should also try and alleviate that. "'m okay," she said, trying to right herself in the tangle of pajamas and managing to twist up onto her knees.

"...you're small," she said, with the same automatic forthrightness that seemed the order of the day. Something was definitely going on, but it was hard to get her head around any of it. It seemed to have hit them both, that much was clear.

"So are you," Elsa says, wriggling around to lay flat on her stomach. She reaches both hands out to Jess to try and help her up, then draws them back. The room is coated in ice; touching suddenly seems a little too dangerous to risk just yet, at least until she can get the room back under control.

That's easier said than done, though. The fact of the ice just makes her nervous, and the nerves just make the room icier. She knows, distantly, that that's the case, but it's hard to contain when everything is very, very strange and unexpected. "I'm sorry it's so cold. I don't know what's happening."

She paused in the act of reaching out to take Elsa's hands, since they'd been withdrawn, flexing them against open air, for a moment unsure of how to proceed. Everything felt a little strange, somehow fresh and unfamiliar. Maybe it was the chill.

She did know she didn't want Elsa to feel bad about that. That much she was still solid about. She pushed her overlong sleeves up until her hands were free and she could use those to haul herself in a single move back up onto the bed.

still strong at least ok that's good

"'s okay," she said. "I don't know, either. I think this is one of those things. Somehow we're small."

Small seems bad. Small seems dangerous. Elsa remembers being small already once and that things were difficult then. She wore those gloves everywhere to help her keep the magic in, but she doesn't want to go back to that. She tries reminding herself that she hasn't had to do that in a long time, but the ice on the walls is worrying.

"I don't think I like it," she says, holding her hands to her chest in two little fists. "What if it doesn't go back to normal?"

"It'll be okay," Jessica said, out of reflexive hope rather than any certainty in that direction. She wanted to be comforting, she just wasn't sure how. Everything seemed to loom larger, the world less knowable.

maybe it's just scarier because it's bigger? that's dumb i can still punch things bigger than me real good

i can't punch us bigger again though

"It'll just be a for awhile thing," she said, tentatively reaching out, not sure whether to try and hold Elsa's hands, balled up as they were, or her arms or what. "It has to be, right?"

Elsa frowns, thoughtful. Everything seems so big and uncertain, and she doesn't like not knowing. It makes everything seem bigger still, and scarier. If she knew, then she could relax, or at least prepare herself and take precautions against her powers, but this could last a long time. Darrow is a hard place to predict.

"Maybe," she says, because maybe Jess is right. Maybe it won't last too long. "But what if I can't control it?" She hurt Anna last time she was this small. She doesn't want to hurt anyone else, especially not Jess.

"You can do it," Jessica said, because even though she was finding herself very unsure of the world at the moment, she was going to have absolute faith in Elsa. She just... couldn't put together how to back it up, as such. It just was, like a reflex in her head.

"You've done good until now, right? Mostly."

And the blips were entirely justified blips.

Elsa considers this, biting her lip in thought. "I don't know," she admits. "Sometimes. But I was little when I hurt Anna."

The memory of it still stings, all these years later. She often still feels very small when she thinks of it; only, now, she really is that small. But even with the room freezing cold, she hasn't done anything bad yet, not really.

"Are you okay?" she asks again after a moment. "It's so cold in here." She reaches for the blanket as she speaks, frowning a little and telling it sternly to be a blanket again and not an ice cube, because Jessica needs it. She can't handle the cold as easily as Elsa can. The ice evaporates as she pulls the blanket closer, reaching to sweep it around Jessica's shoulders.

"'m okay. I'll be okay when I warm up," Jessica said, gratefully accepting the blanket and pulling it tight around herself, making herself into a small blanket lump with just her face above the nose protruding, except when she pulled her chin out to talk.

"You'll be okay," she added, in case that sounded too much like she was complaining of the cold. (It was fairly cold. But there was something hinky going on, Elsa would get it back on track.) "You still know more than you did then. We still remember things. 's good, or I wouldn't remember... anything."

"That would be really strange," Elsa says ruefully. All of this is so strange and overwhelming as it is; she can't imagine how much more so it would be to wake up with Jessica not knowing her. She would have been much more upset than she already is, and she doesn't like to think of that. Bad things happen when she gets upset. Even when she's big, that's the case. She works hard to stay even-keeled, but then things like this catch her off-guard.

But Jessica is right. She knows more now than she did last time she was this small. That has to count for something.

"How can you be little now anyway?"

"...I dunno," Jessica said, head dipping entirely into the blanket as she tried to look down on her own tiny self, before popping back out. "Because I never was little, right? 'm just glad I didn't... disappear."

However whatever this was worked, it hadn't done it simply by winding the clock back. Because then there wouldn't have been a her. The thought of that looming emptiness on a side of her timeline she'd never really considered was alarming, in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on. She pulled the blanket tighter nonetheless.

The thought of it is terrifying, enough to make even her shiver a little. The whole fact of having woken up like this frightens Elsa. The notion of doing so with Jessica simply gone is worse by far.

"It's a strange magic," she says, shaking her head. It isn't as simple as time reversing or they'd have forgotten everything. She feels different, but she remembers. "Please don't disappear."

The worrying thing was that was a danger. She hadn't thought of it until Elsa had stated it so plainly, and it wasn't what she'd meant, exactly, but it happened, didn't it? Probably not because they'd been shrunk out of existence, but it still made her pull the blanket tighter.

"I'm not going anywhere," she swore. She couldn't control it at all -- even if she hadn't been tiny and the world hadn't seemed so far out of her control, she couldn't -- but she had determination. She really didn't want to, and so she was going to tell the world that.

"Okay," Elsa says. Distantly, she knows it's not that simple, but she trusts Jessica. If she says she's not leaving, then she's going to stay put, and, for now, that's that. She won't let herself worry about it, she won't. If she does, she'll panic. She can't do this alone.

There's too much else to worry about anyway.

"Okay, good. This is... a lot."

"This is a lot," Jessica said, pushing one of her (tiny) hands out of the blanket to stare at it, wriggling her (tiny) fingers. Experimentally she flexed, and a strand of webbing shot past her face to connect with the ceiling, startling her enough that she almost fell backwards off the bed and only caught herself by holding on to the webline.

It was silly, because she knew she could do that, but she also hadn't entirely expected to still be able to do that. The memories that weren't hers didn't have anything in them about having powers at this age, because Peter hadn't. It was new.

Elsa yelps in surprise as Jessica starts to topple and then laughs, because, knowing she's safe, it's also funny. "You can still do it," she says, although she realizes after the fact that this is incredibly self-apparent. Either way, it's sort of nice not to be the only one with powers right now, even reassuring. It's become familiar now, the two of them being able to work together. Not that she has any intention of going out and fighting crime while tiny. As powerful as she knows she still is, she can't imagine she's very daunting at the moment.

"That's good to know."

She hadn't done it on purpose, by any means, but she was kind of glad she had almost done herself another fall, now. It was good to hear Elsa laugh, when she'd been so worried.

"Tiny hands can still web," she agreed, hauling herself hand over hand back into a stable position. "I dunno what I'd do with it, but it's good to know."

"You never know when you might need it," Elsa says, pragmatic even at however old she is now — eight or nine, perhaps. At any age, Jessica's powers are useful ones that can help people and protect her. Hopefully they won't have any cause to use their powers, but at least Jess is prepared.

Elsa's not entirely sure she is, but, well, maybe it won't matter.

"I hope I don't have to fight a tiny, I dunno, a tiny Tricerafop," Jessica said, because it didn't seem outside the realm of possibility. It was the kind of thing you'd expect from an adventure where everyone was suddenly kids, kid versions of the opponents.

probably things aren't that neat and if i have to punch a person it's a tall person. that seems more like my life

"A Triceratot!"

"Triceratot!" Elsa echoes, giggling. "You could take him." But she hoped all the same it didn't come to that. They have enough to deal with without fighting anyone right now. She's not sure she trusts herself to take anyone on when she's this tiny anyway. Her powers can be unpredictable, and even if she wants to stop bad guys, she doesn't want to hurt them or make them freeze.

"With my lil fists of fury," Jessica said, putting up her dukes, and then pursing her lips at how tiny her dukes were. If it came down to it, she'd try, because no part of the great power thing came with a must be this tall to also have great responsibility, but she couldn't deny that she was not precisely in full fighting form.

Almost literally about half fighting form, maybe.

"I don't think I'm gonna look for trouble, though. First time ever."

Elsa pulls a face at that. "Yes," she says, "please don't." The ice around the room has started to fade away, but she knows it would only come back stronger if something happened to Jessica. Cuts and bruises are part of the job, she knows that, and she can't expect her to be safe all the time. Still, small as she is now, it could be much worse, and the idea of it terrifies Elsa. She has other friends and things she cares about here, but no one matters to her like Jessica does. "It won't last very long, will it? It's like a — a break."

"It's happened to people I know," Jessica said, and then allowed, "I think. And it lasted... I want to say a week? Not more than that. So I guess... yeah, it's a break?"

It was odd to think about. She couldn't quite remember the last time she'd taken a break. Maybe a day here or there that she didn't do much, but generally even if she didn't have shifts at whatever her current day jobs were, she had the other job.

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