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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"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.

"Well, a week isn't too long," Elsa says slowly. "I guess it's not so bad." If she can control her powers. That's the big issue for her here. If she can just figure out a way to keep them in check, she'll be fine, but that feels like a big if right now. And she's not sure how well-equipped she is to cook, for example, or if she should still be going to work. Do Darrow's child labor laws apply when you're only temporarily a child? "I guess I should call out of work... sick?"

"Or maybe... text? Email?" Jessica said, suddenly wondering at how she'd need to do the same. She had enough previous employers that would report that she was unreliable without adding to the list. "Your voice is a little... different. They might think you're a kid playing a prank. I mean, you are a kid, just not... playing a prank."

"Oh, no," Elsa says, shaking her head, "I wish it were only a prank. I'll text." She's a little worried about doing even that. Her hands are smaller now, and she's a clumsy enough texter even as an adult. Still, it has to be done. She can't go in to work like this. She's not even sure they'd let her handle the big scissors in this state.

"I hope this is an acceptable way to call in sick," Jessica said, craning her head to look around to see if she could remember where she'd left her phone. She did not exactly have the height to look around as effectively at current. "I guess if our employers were from outside maybe they'd get it. 'Oh, one of those things.' People from here, I dunno."

Elsa purses her lips, thoughtful and a little annoyed. "Does it even happen to people from here?" she asks. "That doesn't seem fair." She's never noticed it being a problem with any of her co-workers, but then, she also hasn't had to deal with it herself until now, and she's been in Darrow for years. She doesn't really want to move away from Jess at this point, but she should probably get this over with, so she scoots away to get her phone off the dresser.

"You know, I don't know," Jessica said, thoughtfully. "But I've never heard of it happening to them."

Her close friends were, generally, from elsewhere, so she couldn't say for sure, but it seemed like she would have heard about it if it had. "You're right, that's not fair. We get singled out."

"It's not our fault we're not from here," Elsa says, pouting a little, though she'd never call it that. As things that happen in this town go, honestly, being small probably isn't the worst. At least no one's trying to kill or kidnap them. Frowning, she opens her messages app and taps out a message to her boss. "It should happen the same to everyone."

"Or it shouldn't happen at all," Jessica said, sticking her arms out directly in front of her and frowning at how little they projected. "People should only wake up with their body all different if they want to wake up with their body all different."

Elsa nods emphatically. "They shouldn't just make you do or be things," she says, even if she isn't sure who they are. "It's bullying, is what it is, pushing people around 'cause they can." It's different if people want to change and maybe they have powers that let them or something. This is just weird and unsettling and maybe dangerous.

"That's exactly what it is," Jessica said, having dropped her arms to rummage for her phone and begin tapping out her own sick day text message. She paused, though, caught up by the appropriateness of the analogy. "Getting their kicks changing everyone's bodies around. I wish I could get my hands on 'em."

Elsa nods fiercely, little brow furrowed. "Maybe someday," she says. "You never know." They'll probably never actually find out who or what is behind all this, but they can certainly dream. It just isn't right that something they've never even seen has so much control over their lives. "But I guess for now, we just gotta go with it."

She's not very good at that, though.

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