frozenfractals | [early October]

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jessica drew

[early October]

Truthfully, Elsa feels incredibly stupid. The ice slide was, in theory, a good idea, yes, but in practice, much more solid than anticipated. Dropping down the way she had, toppling like that — well, she should have seen it coming. She's not eight years old anymore. She can't just plop down on solid ice and expect it not to hurt.

Or, apparently, end in a broken leg.

Explaining it to the doctor wasn't easy, but it's all over now, her leg in a cast as she makes it back to her apartment. She rests on her crutches, fumbling in her purse for the keys to let them in. "Thanks for coming with me," she sighs to Jessica. She wouldn't have expected anything else, but it's still nice to have the company.

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"And you're sure you don't want me to carry you," Jessica said, which was only partially a joke, and the proportion that was varied substantially from moment to moment. She couldn't help but think this was entirely her fault. She'd mentioned ice slides, way back on their first night out, but hadn't considered what kind of learning curve was involved. Probably Bobby Drake had spent a bunch of time practicing in the Danger Room, with all kinds of safety precautions. Professor X hadn't just assumed he'd have natural effortless command of zipping around like that, because Professor X wasn't a dope.

As a result, she was also a little worried about what sort of conclusions the doctor would have drawn from how guilty she'd looked. Probably she was imagining the askance looks. Probably. Still.

"Yes, I'm sure," Elsa says, fond if wry as she glances over. On an impulse, she leans over, too, pressing a kiss to her cheek before she finishes unlocking the door and lets them in. "I'm alright. A few weeks and I'll be all healed up." A few sounds better than an actual number, she figures, and it's true. It's not such a long time in the grand scheme of things. It hurt like hell and this put her out of commission at a time when she's going to be needed, but they'll figure something out. She's not about to sit on the sidelines while everyone's out defending people in the Purge, broken leg or no.

"Okay," Jessica conceded, putting her hands behind her back so she wasn't tempted to give in and do it anyway, ducking her head with the kiss. She'd never thought Elsa would blame her, Jessica was strictly apportioning this blame to herself on her own time, but the casual affection was still nice. It was always nice.

"In the meantime, I am your personal servant. I mean, what else is new. But really. I am very good at grabbing things. I have sticky webs and sticky fingers."

Elsa laughs, fond, heading immediately for the couch. The crutches aren't terrible and they let her get around, but they hurt some, too. She's not used to putting so much weight on one leg when she walks or leaning on anything for support.

"You don't have to cater to my every whim," she says lightly. "I won't stop you, but it's not necessary."

She got halfway to the couch before deciding she didn't want to hover, and instead hovered partway there. Considered going to the kitchen but realised doing so before she had a specific anything to fetch was counterproductive. Perched on the arm of the couch, instead.

"Well, it depends on the whim," she said primly. "We can decide on a whim-by-whim basis."

"Oh, be careful," Elsa teases. "I might suddenly develop a lot of whims just to keep you busy." It's not her way, though; it never has been. She's always been inclined to be as little trouble as possible, and while she's gotten a bit better about that, the urge hasn't gone away entirely. It wouldn't be fair to run Jess into the ground just because she's a little slower and clunkier than usual.

"Then there will be specific whim criteria for deciding, based on how important and/or fun for me the whim is," Jessica said, sitting in a close parody of her formal briefing pose, or as close as it could be when she was based on the arm of a couch.

For a moment, before she sprang up again. "Oh! Hang on, important modern tradition first, I have to find a pen."

Elsa laughs, watching her dart off. She'll be back in short order; it's not even out of the ordinary for Elsa to simply wait here for the imminent return. She's lucky, she thinks, as she waits. She has someone she trusts with all of this — with helping her, with being here, with whatever this business with the pen is.

"Alright," she says, wry, "what is this tradition?"

"We have to decorate your cast," she said, having found, fortunately, several pens of varying colors. "The main thing is getting signatures from your friends and loved ones, but drawings and stuff, too."

She pointed a pen at Elsa in faux-warning. "You have to let them do it, too, or at least leave room for us. No waving your hand-" she waggled the fingers of her other hand in imitation of how Elsa moved hers when doing the magic, "-and doing the whole thing up in sparkly ice right away."

Elsa laughs, head tipping briefly back; the imitation is a deft one. "Fine," she says, "no ice yet." She would have, too, in time, decorated the whole thing in soft swirls of ice just to keep it from being so boring and white. Judging by what Jessica says, though, it won't stay that way for long. "Besides, I think there's more than enough space. I'm not sure I even have as many friends as all that."

"I'm sure you'll have plenty of people to sign it, because people have met you," Jessica said firmly, paused over the cast as she tried to decide how precisely to decorate her section.

Spider-webs are probably out, because of the identity thing.

She settled, instead, for attempting some snowflakes that looked a little like spider-webs, that had the shape of snowflakes and thus could be called snowflakes but contained within them the little dipping lines that evoked spider-webs. She did two of these, and wrote J E S S I C A between them, and then added some hearts above and below. "Voila."

Friendship is a whole different thing in Darrow. Back in Arendelle, she'd had her people. She knew them as well as she could at a distance, she loved them as well as she could in the same way, but she had no friends. She had people to whom she owed a duty and who owed her allegiance. Here, there's a certain thrill in being liked simply for the sake of it, for who she is. She hopes Jessica's right and that she'll find plenty of people to sign her cast, plenty of people to call friends.

"That's lovely," she says, amused by the little snowflakes, the fluidity in them that's so at odds with the things themselves. It reminds her of spiderwebs and she's delighted by that. "Thank you."

"De nada," Jessica said, kissing Elsa on the knee and then sitting back on her heels on the floor in front of her, considering her handiwork a moment before looking up at Elsa. "It is the least I can do. At least, without highlighters or fantastical magic powers."

"I'm afraid I only have the latter," Elsa says, and, on a whim, sends a little of that toward her crutches, decorating them with lacy patterns in ice. Her cast, she decides, she'll leave for other people. She wonders if Amalthea and Matthias will know this tradition, too, when she goes back to work.

She offers her hands to Jessica. "Come up here with me."

Jessica laughed, watching the magic swirl about and decorate the crutches. "Those you can do, there's no crutches tradition," she conceded, running her hand over one in passing before taking Elsa's hands. She came smoothly to her feet and dropped onto the couch next to her. Lightly, because Elsa was injured, so she couldn't just hop on top of her.

Elsa laughs, leaning closer to rest her head on Jessica's shoulder. "Good," she says, "I'm too lazy to undo it now." As though that would take more than a wave of her hand. She doesn't care. She'd rather just get comfortable, as much as is possible while wearing a cast. "Are there other traditions I should know about?"

"For broken bones? Well, let's see," Jessica said, unable to immediately think of any others, which obviously meant it was time to make up obviously false ones. She put her arm around Elsa and leaned her cheek against the top of her head, settling in. "There's the races. I'll coach you, you'll be a shoe-in, even with just one you're gonna have more leg than the competition."

Elsa laughs, draping an arm across Jessica to rest on her other shoulder. "Oh, of course," she says, "the broken leg races, how did I forget that's a thing people do?" She can't imagine how or why that would even be a thing. Leave it to Jessica to come up with the most ludicrous possibility imaginable.

"I dunno, it's such a big event," Jessica said, raising one hand to rest on top of Elsa's on her shoulder, stroking the side of it with her thumb. "I shouldn't say that, I'll accidentally generate one."

Remember that time I accidentally helped Hydra get the whole city addicted to a nonsense sport, and then reclaimed the nonsense sport for democracy but the nonsense sport definitely still exists? Because I sure do.

"Aside from that, I think the tradition mostly is you watch a lot of terrible television and your girlfriend brings you things. A bell might be involved."

Elsa laughs. "Like for servants?" she asks wryly, brow arching. They used to have those at home, the bells and the servants both. The idea of it here in Darrow is mostly amusing. She's so long past the time when she was used to being waited on, it would be strange now. Still, she's certain to need the help. It's a mercy she has Jessica for that here, but work's going to be a nightmare. "Well, I can certainly do the terrible television part. And I wouldn't mind being brought things."

"Oh my god, did you have a bell for servants?" Jessica said, twisting a little, pulling one leg up under her so she could face Elsa without dislodging her arms.

She'd been aware that Elsa had had servants. She just hadn't considered the methodology through which she might have called them, when needed. But of course there'd been a bell, because when people did the bell thing, it was funny because they were evoking that very idea, only in their living room with their significant other. Or spouse.

"Well, of course," Elsa says with a laugh. It's delightful every time she's reminded how much they still have to learn about each other, even after years of knowing each other. There are still stories to be told, even as there are stories to be written. In any case, it all seems very natural to her that there should have been bells. "It's not like we could call them. We didn't have phones. And just shouting their names would have been rude. Ringing the bells let them know where they were needed."

"Are we talking little independent bells, or did you have levers with strings that went down into the bowels of the castle," Jessica said, now fully engaged in trying to picture this. Bells did make sense, as Elsa pointed out. She couldn't imagine Elsa just yelling for someone. Fully ensconced in a chair, totally engaged with a book and ringing a little bell, she could see it. "Both?"

"Levers," Elsa affirms. She's not quite sure why Jessica is so delighted by this, but she clearly is, and it's more than enough to distract her from her leg, which is currently more annoying than painful anyway. She likes that look, the lit up way her girlfriend gets at times when she's fascinated by something. "Well, we had the — they were less levers than ropes on a pulley system, in case we needed someone from the kitchen or in the night. It went straight to the servants' quarters and they could see which part of the castle was calling."

"I mean, of course, they have to know where to go, big castle," Jessica said. She had, naturally, already established the size of her girlfriend's castle. "Fixing those must have been interesting. I wonder if they ran them along those- the servants had their own corridors, right? I don't know if that's every castle or just some castles."

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