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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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."

"Oh, no, we used the same halls," Elsa says. "I think that's just some castles. We used to nearly run into them when we were little, careening down the hallways. Or not so nearly, once or twice." She smiles and shakes her head. They've been holy terrors before everything went wrong. She supposes some of the servants must have been happy when all that ceased.

"Oh my god, that's so cute," Jessica said, almost in protest, tipping her head back to lay against the back of the couch. "You were scamps! You were little terrors! I don't feel bad about your leg at all, now, it's just the bill come due for your hooliganism."

This was a lie, she absolutely still did. But there also a weird sort of temperance in the idea that a broken leg was the sort of experience she should have been allowed as a child.

Elsa laughs, nose crinkling up in pretended indignation. "I was no such thing," she says, but it lasts mere moments before she leans back against the couch, grinning. "Alright, I was. But in my defense, it made Anna so happy. We used to sneak into the kitchen to try and get dessert early." She has to wonder what they thought, all the servants, when she stopped running wild. It must have been such a change of pace for everyone.

"Scamp," Jessica declared, leaning in to teasingly rub her nose against Elsa's. "A rapscallion. Well, you're an injured hooligan, so if you're good, maybe you can have dessert early."

Injured as Elsa was, this might involve Jessica cooking. She was better at it, now, or at least less terrible. Sometimes the food even got cooked.

Elsa laughs. "And what does being good entail?" she teases. "Because I'm injured, so I expect an early dessert." She deserves that much, she thinks. What good is there in being hurt if one can't get special treatment? Leaning her head against Jessica's shoulder, she reaches to hold her hand.

"Well, no hooliganism, obviously," Jessica said, threading her fingers though Elsa's and tapping their linked hands very gently against the cast, then raising them to her lips. There was, obviously, less potential for hooliganism with her leg the way it was. Also, she couldn't say it was eating all your dinner before dessert, because obviously that was not at all part of it. "No careening down the hallways, no knocking over the servants. Which I suppose is me. Um, what else. Manners! You have to ask nicely for the things that you want."

Admittedly, she didn't mind -- sort of the opposite of minded -- the odd bit of being ordered around by Elsa, in certain circumstances, but they were doing a bit. They could mix it up.

"What if I like ordering you around?" Elsa teases. She doesn't really consider herself bossy, just, occasionally, authoritative, but there's fun in it sometimes. All joking aside, she doesn't expect to knock anyone over for several weeks; at least in Darrow, there's an abundance of superheroes and she doesn't have to worry that her absence will prove to be too much of an issue. Gently squeezing Jessica's hand, she leans over to kiss her. "I will try to be good."

"Well, if you're good maybe you can order me around a little," Jessica conceded, because how could she not, even as it threatened the purity of her bit. She didn't really have a consistent, structured system for what constituted good, here. She couldn't, because the trick was she was incapable of declaring Elsa not good.

The kissing was an especially good start, of course, in any assessment. She snuggled into her side, mindful of her leg, stroking the hand linked in hers with her thumb. "Now, manners. What would you like?"

There isn't much of anything Elsa can think of to ask for, but there must be something. That's part of the game. Really, though, her leg is annoying and something to be mindful of, but it doesn't really hurt right now, which is about as much as she could ask for.

"Another kiss," she suggests, pleased with herself for it.

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