Outside The Portalocity Office, Monday Morning

[glacial_queen]

When Karla had fallen asleep last night, she and Elsa had been clinging together right outside the train station, waiting for the train that would take them away from this terrible place forever. Karla had just murdered someone to keep her sister safe, the first person to ever die by her hands, though those same hands had lit plenty of fires in the

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[iceolatedqueen]

The sky was not yet awake, Karla. Elsa didn't have to be awake at least for another hour. Maybe. Probably? She made a mumbly little sound of protest, stubbornly keeping her eyes shut for as long as she was able.

Her brain wasn't quite awake yet, either.

"No Anna, town doesn't go there, put it back where you found it." Back? Town? Wait... Anna? No, that wasn't...

Elsa woke up with a start and a gasp, promptly scrambling backwards and falling off the bench. Elsa did not wake up gracefully, apparently.

[glacial_queen]

"I'd like to hear more about this Anna," Karla said, bending down to offer Elsa a hand up. "If she can move towns like that willy-nilly. Welcome back to consciousness, Elsa. And as normal a Monday as Fandom gets."

[iceolatedqueen]

Elsa needed at least another moment more to sit on the ground, completely bewildered as she stared at Karla's hand. They'd fallen asleep outside? Curled up around one another, no less. And Karla seemed to be alive and well, which was good.

Right. Good.

"Anna... can't really move towns," she offered, holding up her hands a little in a silent, polite gesture to say she was declining the offer of help. Her tailbone would have thanked her to accept, yes, but her nerves most certainly wouldn't. "She's my younger sister. When we were little, she used to wake me up with the sunrise, asking to play."

She pulled herself to her feet and winced. Oh, her bottom wasn't happy with her right then at all.

[glacial_queen]

Karla shifted over a little bit, giving Elsa enough room to sit without Karla being entirely in her personal space. They may have gone to sleep sisters, but they'd woken up as strangers.

"You have a sister then?" she asked with a little bit of envy. "I don't. I'm an only child."

[iceolatedqueen]

"We're not very close," Elsa replied, eyeing the seat for a moment before tenderly setting herself down on the edge of it. Ow. "We were when we were smaller, but things change, I guess."

Yes, that was one way of putting it.

"Our parents kept us apart for a while. It just... sort of stuck." Which was to say, Elsa had never stopped being terrified. "You would have made a good older sister, though, if this weekend was any indication."

[glacial_queen]

"Kept you apart?" Because yes, of course the Black Widow was going to pick up on that part. "Let me guess. It has something to do with all the snowflakes in your psychic scent."

[iceolatedqueen]

Elsa didn't have time to think before she reacted, her eyes turning toward Karla in surprise and her mouth falling open a little. She groped around for words, but only managed a soft exhale before actually managing anything coherent.

"... In my what?"

Yes. Yes, focus on that, instead of the snowflakes. She wasn't exactly keeping her powers a secret around here these days, not entirely, but a near-stranger knowing about the very nature of them with no prior indication was a bit of a shock all the same.

[glacial_queen]

"I'm a witch," Karla said gently. "And I have no idea what you've been raised to believe, but I'm not evil, I don't ride broomsticks, and I've never made so much as a gingerbread house, never mind built a house out of candy."

She'd leave her Uncle Saetan out of the discussion for now, though.

"Psychic scents are an individual marker. It's exactly what it sounds like, a scent that encapsulates who you are. Yours smells like snow. It was only snowflakes before, but now that it's shot through with anxiety, it smells harder, like ice pellets in a blizzard."

Go ahead, ask how she knew what those smelled like. She'd explain she ruled over a Territory named Glacia.

[iceolatedqueen]

Elsa was quiet while Karla explained, looking even a little puzzled as she spoke. Broomsticks? Gingerbread?

"I wouldn't have thought for a second that you were evil," she noted quietly, her gaze turned downward. "You certainly didn't seem that way over the weekend, though I suppose nobody was really quite themselves that entire time..."

Please don't be evil, Karla.

"What... what do you make of it? Of the snow?"

[glacial_queen]

"What should I make of it?" Karla asked eyebrow raised. "Are you asking me to guess why it's there? Or what I think about it?"

[iceolatedqueen]

Elsa's shoulders hitched up a little bit, eyes looking downward again.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "Either of those things, perhaps. You don't seem worried, and I suppose you'd have no reason to be afraid. But you're the first person to just... notice."

[glacial_queen]

"Darling, when you've seen the things I have, it takes a lot of work to become afraid of someone," Karla said wryly. "It's not powers that do it, it's the kind of person who has them. And I can tell you now, you're not a person to fear."

Look, once you were besties with the living myth, other people really had to bring their A game to be impressive.

"I'm probably the first member of the Blood that's ever spent a significant amount of time around you, little Sister. As to what I think it is, I'm guessing some kind of cold powers? Affinity for ice and snow?" She tipped Elsa a wink. "I'm the Queen of Glacia, sweetheart. I know ice, cold, and snow."

[iceolatedqueen]

You know, it was really fortunate for Elsa that Karla kept mentioning things for her to glom onto that didn't involve actually directly acknowledging that she had powers. At least, not right away.

"So... you are a Queen?" Elsa chewed her lip a little, and then almost timidly offers, "I will be, someday."

There was a long pause before she added, "And I certainly wouldn't call it an affinity."

She had no love whatsoever for her powers. She had difficulty imagining why she should.

[glacial_queen]

"I am," Karla said, noticing the deflection. After all, she'd been trained by Ender in it. "Being a Queen works differently in my world than yours, but I rule a Territory now, too."

She tilted her head and asked, "Arendelle?" She'd been wondering where that had come from. "And your parents...?"

[iceolatedqueen]

"Arendelle is my home," Elsa offered, "the kingdom I'll be ruling. And my parents... they died... at sea, a little over half a year ago, now. It was a storm, though. Nothing nefarious."

Only heartbreaking. Only damning.

[glacial_queen]

"Then Uncle Hobart was solely my contribution," Karla said quietly, her hand almost unconsciously reaching out for Elsa's. "Sorry about that. I was nine. You?"