#october 2024 contest | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

elsanna-shenanigans · 13 days ago

Text

October 2024 Contest #2: Dark Web 2.0

Words: 6,000 Setting: mAU Lemon: lime CW: drug use, mild violence, some angst, swearing

Tallahassee, Fall ‘22

“You gotta pick up the Molly for Saturday’s party.”

Lost in her homework, it takes a few seconds for Anna to register Hans’s request. She looks up from a dense scrawl of literature notes and spits out her pen. Clattering through a pyramid of adderall bottles.

“What?” she snaps. Hans shrugs and takes another toke, adding to the cloud of Marijuana smoke in her dorm. Hoarse coughing ensues. The flamingo-shaped bong winds up in Anna’s hands. Peace-offering for the favour, perhaps. The thought singes her nerves but she inhales a massive hit anyway. Straight through the glass bird’s pink beak. It doesn’t calm her down. Chicken-shit weed.

“Why me?” Anna spews smoke through her nostrils like Puff the Magic Dragon. Hans smiles and ruffles her hair.

“Because I’ve got a scholarship.”

“And I don’t?”

Hans tips the flamingo at her, “Exactly!”

“Let’s get this straight, Mr. Esteemed-Scholar - it’s totally fine if I get arrested and you don’t?”

“C’mon,” Hans reclines in her bed, “hot chick buying drugs. No record. You’re getting a slap on the wrist at most.”

Anna rolls her eyes, “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“And yet you love me-”

“I don’t-”

“Enough to smoke my weed, that is.”

Anna freezes mid-rip. Her eyes roll back and she coughs violently.

“Fine,” Anna sets the bong against a shelf full of mid-19th century English classics, “what, um, drugs do I need to buy? Or - how does one go about procuring said illegal substances?”

Hans raises an eyebrow, “Haven’t you bought drugs before?”

The thought jogs Anna’s memory through old Breaking Bad episodes at home on TV.Suitcases stuffed with cash. Duct-taped parcels of white powder. Cops. Guns. Her throat dries. She slouches into her chair. Vaguely recalls the last time she sat on the family couch with Elsa’s warm presence beside her. Giggling at Hank’s jokes. A simmering wave of hurt wells beneath her eyelids, but she clamps down the memory with numb indifference. Fucking weed’s messing with my head.

“No.”

“Get on the dark web,” Hans shoulders his backpack, “find a dealer off Silk Road. You’re a smart cookie-”

“Fuck you.”

“Sure thing, sweetie,” Hans pats her head again, like a puppy, “don’t let us down, champ. Party’s counting on you.”

Anna scowls at the door slamming shut. She heaves a window open to let the smoke out; noon sun and fresh air lending some much-needed clarity. Dark Web. Silk Road. Exactly like Hans to know shady shit like this. What a chump. She boots her Macbook and downloads Tor Browser through the horrendously slow college wifi. Eyes widen in rabid curiosity at exactly what Silk Road entails.

Drugs.

Lots of drugs. Filling her entire screen. Anna looks over her shoulder, fearful of campus security waiting to bust down her door. Indexes of suppliers and pictures of powders and crystals. She fumbles around and filters out heroin, crystal meth, cocaine. Until only MDMA remains. Location: Tallahassee.

One supplier shows up: Adderall-Molly-Oxy-Xanax-Valium - 323 area. College students welcome.

Her hands freeze on the chat window. Hasn’t Chris Hansen caught people like this? She ponders a DEA agent on the other end. Why don’t you take a seat over there? Getting hauled before a district judge. Breaking down in tears while she’s locked away in prison. Anna’s pigtails swish around and she shakes off the fear - just get it over with. A test looms next week. Maybe buy some Adderall while you’re at it.

Anna swallows the last of her fears and messages IceQueento set up a score.

***

It’s only ten minutes from Campus. Anna still manages to get lost in the winding dark suburban streets. Cursing herself for nearly driving into Lake Ellis Park instead of Lafayette Park. Despite her best intentions, she’s late. Only one other non-descript black Ford sits in the parking lot. Weird, she thinks. Looking at the car again and trying to place where she’s seen it before. Anna shrugs and dons a face mask. Pulling on a hoodie despite the sweltering humidity and wandering into the park. Streetlights spear the night air. A single, yellow beam broken by a shadow. Streams of cigarette smoke waft from the figure standing stock-still. Her skin crawls at how abnormal this feels.

Ice creeps up her spine. She looks in the pitch-dark bushes, expecting police to swarm her any moment. Each step towards the shadowy figure feels like jogging a mile. The hundred-dollar bills in her hand are damp with sweat and she’s ready to vomit her thumping heart when the dealer notices her. He scarcely turns. The darkness beneath his black hoodie feels like staring into a void. All the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“So, um, drugs?” Anna whispers. Before mentally slapping her forehead. Idiot. Why else would someone stand alone in a park at 1 a.m.?

Anna’s gaze drags the pavement. Afraid of looking into his eyes. Or the handcuffs inevitably going to lock around her wrists. But the deal happens faster than a drawn breath. A swipe of a palm. Twelve-hundred of Hans’s sponsored dollars gone. Two bottles of pills rattle into her slick hand. Great, phew, that was - easy. Cold metal grazes her skin when his hand draws away. She catches a flash of blue beneath the streetlight and immediately recognises a cerulean-blue Topaz ring on the dealer’s thumb.

Wait.

“Elsa?”

Her voice stabs through the void, expecting to find light. The figure freezes and turns. Glaring, piercing blue eyes behind a facemask. Anna’s breath stops. She’d never forget those eyes in four years. She sure as hell wouldn’t forget how they made her feel. Her nerves splinter. She spews the first thing that comes to mind. A continuation of an unfinished sentence from an eternity ago.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Shh!” Elsa hisses, looking around, “You got your score. Now. Get. Lost.”

Knees buckle. She barely hears the departing footsteps over the stampede in her ears.

“Wait, wait, you can’t just go,” Anna cries, stumbling over her Converse sneakers. Flailing fingers catch hold of Elsa’s hoodie and she spins around. Livid rage flares in her eyes. A sudden shove robs Anna’s breath and she slams into the ground. Stars cross her eyes and fade into a gun’s cold barrel pointed at her forehead.

At least she got the gun part right.

“Don’t push your luck, missy.”

Perspiration leaks down her face and she gulps at Elsa’s finger hovering over the trigger. Safety’s still on. She looks up at the glint of streetlights within the Topaz mounted on her thumb. Iridescent blue rays refract like the thousands of memories and unspoken thoughts she’s harboured towards her sister. Right before the hoodied figure turns and clomps into the darkness. The long-dormant sight of Elsa’s turned back shattering each one of those memories into a million jagged little pieces.

***

Tallahassee, Summer ‘18

Elsa marches through the door. Sweat pours off her brows. Track practice’s killed her. She needs an ice-cold soda. A nap. Some TV and ice cream. Preferably in that order. But one look at Agnarr scurrying about the living room chattering on the phone tells her she’s not getting any of those things.

A suitcase stands already packed by the doorway.

“Seriously?” Elsa thrusts out her hands, “Again?”

“Gotta be in Boston two hours ago,” Agnarr mumbles, before shooting her a glare, “oh yea, I promised Anna’s school I’d pick her up after detention. She fought with some kid again.”

“Wait, what?” Elsa clutches her forehead as her mind frays, “How are you going to-”

Car keys sail toward her face and she barely manages to snatch them mid-air. Agnarr brushes past, suitcase in tow.

“Look alive, kid! Bring her straight home, no mucking about,” he points at her, dress shoes clicking down their manicured driveway. A cab’s already pulled up and ready to go.

“You can’t expect me to cover your parental duties all the time y’know-”

Agnarr stops in his tracks. For a moment, Elsa allows herself to hope. Hope that she wouldn’t have to handle Anna’s problems. See her face or feel the ache that comes from dealing with that red-headed girl. But he turns and laughs in her face.

“As a matter of fact, I can,” he points at the Range Rover, “I paid for your driver’s education.”

“Dad, stop.”

The taxi door’s already open. Driver yelling at him to hurry the fuck up. He perches a foot inside and muses, “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Right,” Elsa folds her arms, “because I’m the responsible one, yea?”

“The eldest,” he sneers through the window, “hence, the most responsible by default. Come through for me, kid!”

Squealing tires and a cloud of smoke drag a father from her life again. Elsa stands there in a daze. Wondering if Agnarr would tell the driver about his two daughters and how he’s stranding them for the dozenth time. She looks over at the neighbour’s overgrown lawn. Mr Macpherson back from a hospital night shift and shooting hoops with his son. Elsa sighs. But forces a half-hearted wave when he catches her staring for too long and wondering about a feeling she’s never felt before.

She wanders back inside and shivers at their home’s vacant emptiness. Bone-cold despite the burning sun outside. The housekeeper would’ve left enough boxes of pasta in the freezer for a week. Her room’s probably packed so neatly she couldn’t find anything if she tried. Just as Elsa contemplates going back to school and studying in the library, she crosses over to Iduna’s picture on the mantel and lights a candle. Faltering eyes fixed upon her mother’s monochrome photograph; teary ache blossoming at a woman she’s never known.

“Stop, just - stop,” Elsa seethes at herself. She wills herself to the bathroom and washes her face with ice-cold water. It doesn’t undo the knot of unspoken longing in her chest. But it does help keep her head down as she passes Anna’s room. “MORONS KEEP OUT” sign plastered on the door.

Focus, chem homework. Elsa plods through chapters of Pharmacokinetics. “…rate of drug metabolisation in a patient’s bloodstream measured-”

She yawns. Thoughts wander toward her sister. Vacant-minded stare out the window as she ponders how long it’d take to metabolise Anna out of her brain. Right as she tries to focus back on her notes again, the clock strikes three. She’s torn between leaving Anna to her own devices and continuing the homework.

“…side effects: Euphoria, loss of motor control-”

Fuck it.

Elsa heads downstairs and tries to get the behemoth of a Range Rover to Anna’s school in one piece. It’s nothing, her reflection in the side mirror pales, you’re just picking your brat of a sister from detention. She looks at the other Private school students streaming from the glass-concrete compound and makes out Anna walking with her head down. Hands in her skirt pockets. Fjällräven bag dangles from her shoulders and prim red pigtails that make her look like the most precious person ever to grace her world.

Anna spots the car and immediately walks in the other direction. A surge of annoyance wells within Elsa and she slams the door while getting out.

“Hey,” Elsa catches up to her, “Hey!”

She catches hold of Anna’s arm, only to get tugged away.

“Oh, it’s you,” Anna peeks over her shoulder, “Why’re you driving dad’s car?”

Elsa sighs and tries to phrase an answer that won’t lead to Anna stomping off.

“He’s in Boston for work,” Elsa crosses her arms, “and told me to get you after detention.”

“Great,” Anna glares, “so now I’m stuck with you.”

“What, you gonna beat me up too?”

A glint of a smile appears on Anna’s lips. Rare and radiant like a ray of sunlight peeking through a hurricane.

“I might,” Anna sneers, “if you piss me off as much as that fucking bitch during Lit class.”

“Woah, the language on you, missy,” Elsa snarls, opening the car door, “you learn that in Literature?”

“No,” Anna rests her knees on the dashboard, “just Shakespeare.”

“Yea? I got a quote for you: ‘Though she be but little, she is fierce!’” Elsa sniggers.

Anna smiles, “Twelfth Night!”

Her sister’s beaming now. The afternoon sun falls across her face. Freckles sparse against glowing soft skin. Elsa’s chest clenches at the sight. God, that girl. It’s only a moment of weakness before she catches her eyes wandering to the smoothness of Anna’s thighs left bare from where her skirt had hitched up.

Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with you? The car behind honks. Her face burns.

“Pay attention!” Anna chides, fiddling with the radio, “Are you going straight home, or what?”

“Dad told me-”

“Could we not?” Anna pleads with pouty, puppy eyes, “It’s the first day of summer, for fucks sake!”

“Language!”

“Let’s go to the mall,” Anna gestures at her feet, “my shoes got torn up and I need new ones.”

“I’m not taking you to the mall, Anna,” Elsa retorts, “and you don’t have money anyway - Dad stopped-”

“I’ve still got money from working over Spring Break.”

“You what?”

Anna pauses, “You didn’t know I’d been working at Dairy Queen?”

Silence stretches thin between them. Your sister had a job and you had no idea? What’d you been doing? Studying? Shutting out the whole world? She looks over at Anna, teal-blue eyes and that broken look on her face which always got her way. Or maybe you just didn’t want to feel weak beneath those eyes.

“Ok, fine,” Elsa relents, “let’s get your damn shoes or whatever.”

“Yay! You’re the fucking best!” Anna squeals. Before leaning over and planting a huge, wet kiss on Elsa’s cheek.

Elsa nearly swerves into oncoming traffic.

***

Despite Anna’s promises, she still takes her loving-sweet time to choose a pair of shoes. It ends up being another pair of Converse Chucks anyway. Elsa diligently studies lecture notes on her phone while waiting at H&M. Eyes widen when she notices Anna browsing a rack of bikinis.

It’s summer. Elsa tells herself.

She wonders if she’d get to see Anna in one. Or if someone else will. The imagination needles at her mind and she heaves in relief when Anna leaves empty-handed. The girl’s doe-eyed persistence doesn’t let up, however, and Anna promptly demands they stop by Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. As per summer traditions.

Plain chocolate for Elsa. Berryfudge Cookie-Blast for Anna. She struggles to keep the overflowing cone in one piece. Even when Elsa scoops a spoonful to help.

“No stealing,” Anna snarks.

“Fine.”

Anna slathers her tongue upon the pink and blue monstrosity. An evident shudder slices through her nerves.

“So what’s this I hear about you and that guy, Hans?” Elsa asks. Trying to keep the fantasies at bay.

“None of your business,” Anna pauses and relents, “ok, fine. He asked me out. We might both end up in FSU anyway.”

“And you agreed?”

“I went out with him once,” Anna looks away, sundae threatening to melt onto her fingers, “might go out with him again.”

Elsa fights the stinging in her chest and maintains a stony expression, “That good, huh?”

Anna shrugs, “Hey, sometimes you gotta be sure.”

“First time I’ve seen you cautious about anything,” Elsa sneers.

Anna waves an ice cream-tipped spoon, “Things done well, and with a care-”

“-exempt themselves from fear, yes yes - Henry VIII.”

A huge grin breaks on Anna’s face, “You’re clever-er than I thought.”

“-and you’re-”

Words desert Elsa momentarily. Beautiful. Irresistible. Forbidden. A thunderclap echoes in her soul when they lock eyes. The epiphany shines through clouds of delusion; she’d avoided Anna for so long because it’d inevitably circle back to this self-loathing mess of attraction. The tugging in her chest stops long enough to notice Anna digging at her cone with a spoon.

“Stop stealing my ice cream, missy,” Elsa complains, “you didn’t let me try yours.”

The warning’s ignored as Anna takes a second scoop.

“Stop! And you had to take two bites!”

“Hey, sometimes you gotta be sure,” Anna licks chocolate off her lips.

Mischief surges through Elsa and she leans forward to take a huge chomp out of Anna’s cone. A shrill-voiced squeal erupts and Anna lurches after Elsa’s. It’s messy. Two sisters fending the other off until creamy flecks litter the table.

“Ok! I give up!” Elsa relents, she spots a white smear on Anna’s cheek and reaches over with a paper napkin, “Y-you’ve got crap on your face.”

Their eyes meet. Elsa pauses midway, before moving closer and wiping it off. The tremble in her hand doesn’t go unnoticed. Neither is the blush spreading between Anna’s freckles. The girl crumples the napkin into a tiny ball and drops it to the floor. Her voice descends to a whisper.

“So do you.”

Every muscle in Elsa’s body freezes tight as her sister leans closer and licks the fudge off the corner of her lips. Her heart stops. What’s left of the cone plops onto the table. When her senses swim back, all she sees is Anna’s smile spreading across her perfect lil’ face. All she hears is pounding in her ears. And a stuttery voice leaving her lips.

“D-did you get it all off?”

Anna leans in again. Right before their lips touch - she hears those words. Undoubtedly haunting her dreams for years to come.

“Sometimes, you gotta be sure.”

***

DarkWeb messenger v2022

091622-0201hrs-RubyRose21: u pulled a gun on me???? 091622-0202hrs-RubyRose21: whr do u get off, gawd- 091622-0202hrs-RubyRose21: wht d fuk - did u chnge ur number??? 091622-0205hrs-IceQueen: Dispute not with her - she is lunatic. 091622-0206hrs-RubyRose21: RICHARD III??? WHAT **RubyRose21 blocked**

092422-1044hrs-Perkins36: howdy stranger. care to indulge an old man’s itch for LSD? I work at FSU 092422-1044hrs-IceQueen: no LSD. PCP/Shrooms. 20/tab 092422-1044hrs-Perkins36: Lets do 10. arts faculty entrance at 1am? I have to work late 092422-1045hrs-IceQueen: k

***

Tallahassee, Fall ‘22

Every one of their childhood memories jogs through Anna’s brain as she crouches behind a pillar. The darkness in her soul mirrors the pitch-dark faculty grounds. She bites her lip. Trying to conjure some misdeed or slight or annoyance that made Elsa abandon her like this. It’s useless - she knows exactly what she’s done. Merely avoiding the obvious in favour of deceiving herself that it’s her own fault things are ruined.

It was perfect, Anna thinks, looking at the stars. One perfect, blissful summer before it all exploded like a supernova and left behind a dark void where her presence once lived.

A car rumbles into the parking lot, headlights down. Her jaw clenches. Vengeful words sprout in her mind. Braided through that desperate longing to see Elsa one more time.

The blonde figure approaches. Hands in her pockets.

Anna’s breath knots tight in her chest and she emerges into the dark. Face held aloft to her sister. Elsa staggers back and scowls.

“Fuck!” Elsa hisses, pointing at Anna, “I drove across town to pick up the stuff and it’s you-”

“You blocked me?” Anna’s brows furrow, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“We’re through,” Elsa turns and walks away, only to get yanked around. She reaches for her hip.

“Brave enough to sell drugs on campus but too pussy to pack heat in a gun-free zone?”

“Enough, Anna-”

“You pulled a gun on your sister-”

“Let go of me!” Elsa shoves her back. A visible crest of hurt spikes on Anna’s face at the word. Sister. At getting shut out for years. The violent alienation. Every hate-filled Facebook message and unanswered text and hours spent searching for the shadow of Elsa’s presence boils over into a single tear streaked upon her cheek.

“I…I searched for you, for years,” Anna’s voice strains, “I thought you moved to South Carolina-”

Elsa looks at the concrete, “Why? What do you want from me?”

Anna’s mouth opens to answer, but she’s already walking off into the darkness.

“I want you back, ok?” Anna stumbles after her, “We’re supposed to be sisters! This isn’t normal-”

Elsa whirls around and jabs a finger, “It isn’t!”

The glimmering fury staring back halts the rest of her rant. Her heart cracks a little more when she sees her unadorned fingers. No ring.

“Don’t you get it?” A tear glistens from Elsa’s eyes, “It’s not normal - this thing between us. I’m not normal. That’s why I left.”

Anna looks down at the fist bunched around her shirt. Palpable hesitation in those slender fingers before she slowly lets go. All at once she feels like falling into a darkness. And already she wishes she’d never stepped foot into the dark web. Only to find hurt and heartbreak waiting within its dark recesses. Spreading through her chest with each step Elsa runs away from her.

***

Tallahassee, Summer ‘18

Elsa lets out a shrill-voiced scream as she’s plunged into darkness. Her heart lurches. Whiteness floods her vision and she’s left gasping with scarcely a breath left in her lungs. The rollercoaster levels out but her head feels numb. Beside her, Anna’s sneering - not letting up until they come to a complete stop.

“You were screaming,” Anna mocks.

“Oh god, I-I,” Elsa gasps, knees buckle as she exits the ride, “my throat is hoarse-”

“Hah!” Anna giggles, throwing her arms around Elsa, “That was hella fun!”

“I only did it because you asked me to-”

“Thank you, sport,” Anna walks ahead through the crowd. Frayed denim shorts hug her hips tight. She’s happy. Elsa thinks. That’s all you want for her. Her eyes rove Anna’s thin waist. Bare strip of skin exposed between her shorts and tank top. Her sister’s strawberry scent still lingers from the hug. When Anna looks back and smiles, her heart’s ready to explode.

“Waddya wanna do next?”

Perspiration dribbles down Elsa’s temple. Her heart throbs. She doesn’t know if it’s the rollercoaster. Unease further thrums when her phone pings with Kristoff’s notification. She scowls and mashes a reply before Anna can notice.

DarkWeb messenger v2018

070118-1422hrs-ZZRudolphZZ: 4th July thing coming - any chance we could score more of that Molly shit? 070118-1445hrs-IceQueen: talk later. with my sister.

“Ice cream,” Elsa suggests, but she points at the darkened clouds, “looks like it’s gonna rain though.”

“Is this your way of getting another kiss out of me?”

Elsa’s face reddens, “What? That was not a kiss.”

“Sure, keep telling yourself that.”

Anna’s half-smirk shoots straight through her gut. She’s your sister. Temptation stirs in a pool of warmth. She could be wanting it as much as you.

Stop, Elsa clenches her jaw, you’re a sick freak.

“C’mon, let’s go home,” Elsa feels the first drops of rain on her fingertips, “housekeeper stocked Häagen-Dazs for us.”

Anna gasps, “Chocolate?”

“Brownie Ganache.”

“Yes!” Anna squeals, hugging Elsa tight again. And as she squeezes Anna’s slim figure back, feels that coil of warmth within herself latching onto her soul. Rapidly losing its battle against her sister’s forbidden charms.

***

The deluge fails to drown out Anna’s singing in the car. Bopping along to Rihanna on the radio. Back home, she heads straight to the freezer and retrieves a pint while Elsa tries to remember where they left off on Breaking Bad last night. It’s impossible to concentrate on the show. Taste of chocolate in her mouth. Anna’s legs propped on a coffee table, tanned and soft beneath the living room lights. She looks over at her sister more than once, spoon perched on her lips. Trying not to imagine Anna tasting like Brownie Ganache.

They make it to the season finale. Credits roll. The storm’s still relentless outside and there’s another one brewing inside Elsa when her sister shifts closer on the couch.

“I bought something for you.”

Crumpled packaging parchment sits on Anna’s hand. She finds a glittering Topaz ring set in gold nestled within.

“It matches your eyes.”

A ring. Your sister bought you jewellery. Elsa strains to breathe, “This looks really expensive.”

Anna shrugs, “Dairy Queen paid well, not gonna lie-”

“But why?” Elsa turns the ring over in her hands, “My birthday’s not until Christmas.”

“I wanted to thank you,” Anna bites her lip, “for spending summer with me.”

A well of affection builds in Elsa and threatens to burst. She wants to hug her. Kiss her. Shed that tear on the verge of escaping. All she manages is a terse sputter, “I love you, Anna. You’re my sister - of course I’d look after you.”

Her lungs clam up when Anna reaches and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Self-control crumbles. Elsa leans closer and presses a kiss to Anna’s cheek. When her eyes open again, the girl reacts like she’s just been shot. Touching that blooming spot of red. You went too far. Anna’s scowl bears down on her. She’s never talking to you again.

“Sorry, w-was that too much?” Elsa asks.

The girl softens. Words tug at her lips to be set free, like that dance they’ve teetered around each other all summer.

“No,” Anna whispers, shifting closer, “in fact - it’s not enough.”

Her pulse seizes. Foggy gaze centres on Anna’s half-lidded eyes. Lips separated by a held breath. Beneath the forlorn scream of her conscience, Elsa finds enough lucidity to whisper.

“There’s no going back from this, y’know?”

“I can’t go back,” Anna’s smile curls against her own, “not from someone like you.”

Their lips touch. A graze. A flicker. Tentative. Like tasting each other for the first time and not knowing if it be poison or honey they partake. Right before Anna crushes her lips into Elsa’s and pitches her world upside down. A spoon clatters. Hungry hands paw at her shirt. Her soul plummets through a chasm of sin, but all she wants is to pull Anna right into its depths. Together.

“Why?” Elsa sputters between shallow breaths.

“Because - she had eyes, and chose,” Anna trails kisses down Elsa’s neck, “Oth-”

“Othello, yes,” Elsa clasps her sister’s head, staring into lust-soaked pools of blue, “we shouldn’t be doing this. Y’know?”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Anna bites her lips, before kissing her again, “but I’m choosing to. And I’m choosing you.”

Electricity bursts through her core as Anna hitches a thigh upwards. She hears a moan somewhere. Echoing above the pattering rain.

Shouldn’t.

Her heart plunges into a pool of feelings she shouldn’t be feeling. Mouths whisper words they shouldn’t be saying to each other. Lips and fingers going places they shouldn’t be going.

“Oh my god,” Anna seethes. Arching into her sister’s touch.

God.

Elsa screws her eyes shut and sees Him. Only meaning to ask why something so wrong could feel so right.

***

DarkWeb messenger v2022

092722-2031hrs-JessRabbit: i want crack. Sell it to me. 092722-2031hrs-IceQueen: no crack. read the ad. 092722-2032hrs-JessRabbit: addys den. $500 092722-2145hrs-JessRabbit: HELLO??? 092722-2146hrs-IceQueen: God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. 092722-2147hrs-JessRabbit: Othello. FUCK 092722-2148hrs-IceQueen: you’re not gonna stop, are you 092722-2149hrs-JessRabbit: I want answers 092722-2149hrs-IceQueen: I am not bound to please thee with my answers 092722-2151hrs-JessRabbit: MACBETH? 092722-2151hrs-IceQueen: Merchant of Venice 092722-2151hrs-IceQueen: you’re getting sloppy. im at Hedon on Fridays **JessRabbit blocked**

***

Tallahassee, Fall ‘18

The night sky lights with an occasional flash of lightning and the cold glow of her former home. Within her water-logged eyes, Elsa can’t tell where rain begins and where tears end. It’s not going to end. She looks up at Agnarr’s unmoving shadow on the second floor. Cursing beneath the rumbling thunder as she loads the last suitcase into her new Ford.

No, she thinks, looking back at the ghost of a house, this is how it ends.

The rainwater’s pooling in the driveway now. She imagines pieces of her broken heart washing into the drain. Maybe she’ll find them again in South Carolina. Or in a ditch somewhere. Thunder claps through her ears. Dad’s heated words still booming loud within them. She flinches at the door opening. Shit, I swore she was engrossed in a new episode.

“No!” Elsa screams at Anna, running into the rain, “It’s pouring!”

“What are you-” Anna peers into the car, “Are you leaving?”

Elsa wipes rainwater from her eyes. All it does is burn the clarity of Anna’s shattered expression into her memory.

“I’m going, Anna-”

“Why?” Anna yells. Hair sticks to her face. Hands outstretched, trembling. Agnarr’s folded arms behind the balcony. Coward. Come down here and look what you’ve done.

“I-I’ve kept things from you,” Elsa tries to make herself heard over the rain; impossible with how broken her voice is, “I’ve sold drugs from home a-and…dad found out.”

“What?” Anna shrieks, “You expect me to believe that horseshit?”

Anna steps closer, only for Elsa to hold out a hand. Fist clenches around her soaking wet shirt. A slight glance at Agnarr, still unmoving.

“D-don’t make this harder for me,” Elsa’s lips sputter with rain and tears, “Or yourself.”

“W-was this about what happened between us?”

She looks straight through blurry eyes into the recesses of Anna’s heart. Sees only purity. But instead of affection, she feels the unbearable burden of knowing she’d never, in a million lifetimes - deserve her sister’s love. Agnarr’s still staring at them. Fuck him.

“Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love,” Elsa whispers. Pulling Anna into a kiss laced with the bittersweet brevity of their love affair. You chose this. You knew it’d end up like this and you chose it. Salt mixes with rain. It doesn’t matter. If she had to do it all over again, she would’ve chosen Anna a million times out of a million.

“Hamlet,” Anna whispers back.

Elsa lets go of her sister. Driving away with nothing set in the GPS. Before she turns the corner from the suburban street where she grew up, looks back one last time and sees the shadow of Anna’s figure kneeling in the driveway. Head in her hands and sobbing in the pouring rain.

***

Tallahassee, Fall ‘22

Anna pulls up to Club Hedon and realises she should’ve read the Google reviews. Or a dictionary. Hedon. Hedonistic. Friday-night revellers dressed like it’s Halloween on crack. Rampant display of flesh and latex and skintight leather. She watches a bare-chested man walk past her car in a gas mask, nipple clamps flopping in the humid night air. Fuckin’ hell - is this Elsa’s new scene? She digs through her memories. Blonde hair perpetually buried in her books. Now selling drugs to college students and hanging out with folk who look like they belong in an S&M dungeon. Or perhaps this was one.

Three realisations hit her as she crosses the parking lot. She drove. She left her fake ID in dorm. She’s wearing a college t-shirt and skinny jeans.

She might as well be a goth at a nursing home. Standing in line with blackclad partygoers plastered in pasty-white makeup. Her head swims at the red-velvet wallpaper. Broken neon lights and the faint thump of rave music behind the door. The queue moves quickly. She quakes in her sneakers before the hulking mass of a bouncer. The skinhead takes one look at Anna and goes red-faced with restrained laughter. He waves her in.

It’s smoky. It’s loud. Red-and-green lasers lace between raptured arms like an unholy Evangelical church service. Muscle-bound men cavort with ladies dressed in corsets and fishnets and sky-high boots. Her throat goes dry. Chest clenching hard when she spots Elsa staring from across the bar. No more running away. No shadowy ambushes. Just a leather biker’s jacket and that effortless blonde braid she’s dreamt of a million times.

A shot of vodka sits ready when she approaches. Those eyes. Sultry. Possessive. Shattered with regret. She dives within them, searching for hope. Comes up empty. But finds it in the Topaz ring on her thumb. Anna downs the vodka and stares her sister in the face.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

“Tempest,” Elsa smiles, “not your scene then.”

“And it’s yours?” Anna quirks an eyebrow.

“I’m here for work,” Elsa looks away, “drugs don’t sell themselves.”

Vodka swirls in her head and she clutches the bar. Words tangle in her throat. She could run away again. Disappear like a ghost in the night, leaving her clutching at a shadow destined to forever elude her. Anna struggles to piece together a sentence.

“Did you really get kicked out because Dad caught you selling dope?”

Elsa looks down and fiddles with her ring.

“No,” Elsa locks eyes with her, “I left because he caught us.”

Her chest implodes. The music pounds in her ears.

“Why on earth didn’t you say so?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Elsa’s fist quakes around the vodka, “call Dad a bastard but he was right - this would’ve been way more damaging if neither of us knew how to deal with it and just let it go on.”

“And you just left?” Anna rifles her hair, “Without saying anything?”

“I removed myself,” Elsa shoots back, “a-all I meant to do was give you a chance to be normal. We couldn’t have done that so close together-”

“Yea, right. Normal.” Anna steps closer and closes a hand upon Elsa’s. The bar’s sticky. Sweat leaks down her collar. “Look where normal brought us. Right back to each other.”

Elsa squeezes her hand back, “I-I’m not normal, Anna. This thing I felt towards you. I’ve tried so long to treat you like a normal sister - and I just couldn’t-”

A fingertip on Elsa’s lips cuts her off. Cold and sharp like her words. Rife desire flares within her eyes in time with the flickering laser lights.

“If you can’t be normal towards me,” Anna breathes a vodka-laced wisp on her lips, “then be abnormal.”

“-abnormal?”

“Hurt me, use me, abuse me,” Anna’s unwavering stare captures Elsa in a trance, “you’ve already messed me up so bad by leaving. I wouldn’t mind a bit more pain-”

“Anna-”

“-as long it comes from you. As long I get to have you in my life.”

Darkness floods Elsa’s eyes.

A tug on her wrist pulls Anna towards the dancefloor. Bodies bump around like she’s buffeted in a stormy, black sea. Guided by an icy-white braid leading through the chaos. Arms close around her waist. Amidst the dense press of flesh and leather she can’t tell where her hips end and where Elsa’s begin. A warmth spreads up her neck as Elsa kisses between each freckle. Terse whisper in the noise somehow audible like she’s speaking straight to her heart.

“You’ve no idea just how abnormal I can get with you.”

Anna shudders beneath Elsa’s touch. Her chest stirs. That perverse hunger she’s forgotten bares its ugly fangs. The abnormal part of herself so easily hidden behind the facade of college, literature, Hans. All the normal she’s meant to do in life. Save for the one person who truly made her feel normal.

Entangled in Elsa’s limbs. Ensared within a dark web of sin. Hips and breasts flushed like that summer afternoon on the couch - feels as natural and normal as breathing itself.

A hand snakes around Elsa’s neck; eternal blue eyes melt her last resolve. She drags Elsa deep and kisses her with four years of desperate longing from the shadows. Pulling away to gasp for air, Anna awakens on the altar of unbridled surrender to Elsa’s lips. Her name whispered like the thrumming hymn in her heart. Instead of a sacrament, she tastes cigarettes and vodka. Instead of penance, she offers guilt and lust. In place of salvation, Anna darkens her soul with sin. Burying her conscience with each kiss Elsa peppers on her skin. Her lungs enrapture with worshipful piety. Straining to breathe in the holy temple of Elsa’s vanilla scent.

One more verse flutters through her mind.

“You have witchcraft in your lips,” Anna breathes against her sister’s neck.

Elsa’s eyes widen. She ponders for a moment while their fingers interlace.

“As you from crimes would pardoned be,” her words a mere humming breath against the heartbeat in Anna’s neck, “let your indulgence set me free.”

#Elsanna #submission #october 2024 contest #prompt: web #Lime #cw: drug use #cw: violence #cw: angst

4 notes · View notes

elsanna-shenanigans · 13 days ago

Text

October 2024 Contest #1: Caught In Your Web(Flake)

Words: 5k Setting: Modern AU Lemon: no CW: Armed robbery

Anna places the small jar of lutefisk on the final uncovered rune on the floor. Consulting the heavy book in her hand one more time, she scoots the jar a couple of centimeters to the left. She stands up and maneuvers out of the summoning circle that took all afternoon to sketch. Though calling it a circle is a bit of a stretch; with all the intricate connecting lines and pathways, it looks more like a web. Or a snowflake.

A webflake, if you will.

Looking at her handiwork with one hand on her hip, a jolt of caution passes through her for the first time. Despite weeks of research, planning, and material gathering, she’s still not one hundred percent confident this will work. Summoning a goddess isn’t as simple as building a birdhouse or making a beef wellington; one wrong step and she could find herself in eternal servitude to an ancient demon.

She takes a deep breath before uncertainty overtakes her and looks at the instructions one more time. The goddess’ faded image leaves a lot to interpretation, but if she’s anything like her bio says, then this will all have been worth it. Without further ado, she recites the well-preserved incantation.

I call to thee the queen of wind and skyThe master of snow and frostWho holds the weather in her graspAnd whose breath turns the clouds a silver greyI am humbled and in awe of your majestyAnd seek your presence here and now

As soon as she utters the last word, the candles along the web’s borders extinguish, bathing her apartment’s living room in darkness. There’s a harsh crackling noise, like the sound of ice breaking, as the outline of the web is traced with a glowing blue light from the back to the front.

The glow envelopes the entire room and Anna has to cover her eyes with her arm. The intensity reminds her of when she stared at the sun too long as a kid, and yet it also feels surprisingly nice. Warm. Like stepping into a big hug. But before Anna can embrace the light, she’s startled by a voice that echoes inside her bones.

“Who dares summon Elsa, the Goddess of Winter, before her season of need?”

Anna puts her arm down but keeps her eyes shut, waving in the direction of the voice. “Uh, h-hi! Hi? That’s me, I did that. My name’s Anna.” Under her breath, she mutters, “Holy shit, it actually worked.”

“You are either very brave or very foolish to summon me during the peak of summer. State your request, mortal, and I will judge whether it is one or the other.”

Her booming voice is a discordant choir, surrounding her real voice like a needle in a haystack. Anna dares to open one of her eyes and sees a feminine silhouette with dark voids where her eyes and mouth should be. “W-Well, uh, your highness– I mean goddess! I’m…not sure what you want to be called.”

“Call me by my name.”

“Oh. Okay then, uh, Elsa– beautiful name, by the way– I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out?”

“…what?”

“Just for like a couple of hours.“

“Foolish mortal, surely you jest.”

“Nope. Do you like frozen yogurt?”

“Frozen yogurt.”

“Yeah, it’s like ice cream but fake.”

“I am aware of the concept.”

“Oh cool, well there’s a really good frozen yogurt place like five minutes from here. I can drive us, if you want.”

“If I…let me see if I have this correct.” The blue glow shrinks away and the darkness fades as Elsa’s form becomes tangible, and visible, and…stunning. The soft features of her face more than compliment her thin yet curvy figure, and her sequined dress and hair– both white as snow– add this etherealness to her already ethereal…ness.

“Whoa,” Anna says.

When Elsa speaks again, the distortion has fallen away and Anna can hear her true, silvery voice that is just as attractive as she is. “You went through the effort to perform my meticulous summoning ritual simply just to…have my company?”

“Ah, it wasn’t that complicated,” Anna lies. “But yeah, that’s about right.”

Elsa raises her eyebrows and crosses her arms in a surprisingly sassy gesture. “You understand that I am a goddess, correct? I have spent centuries quelling wars, bestowing boons onto great warriors, and weaving the threads of nature with my fingertips.”

Anna shrugs, “You’re free to say no.”

“…”

“I mean if you want to.”

A few more divine seconds pass before Elsa sighs and walks past her. “I will grant you half an hour,” she declares.

***************************************

Anna sits back down at their small circular table, holding out the one of two spoons she had in her hand to Elsa. “Here you go, they only had one big spoon,” she says with the same gleeful smile she’s had since they hopped into her fully paid off 2003 Kia Sorento.

Elsa takes the spoon, still sporting the same skeptical look she’s had since slipping into the passenger seat of the creaky, squeaky 2003 Kia Sorento. “Thank you,” she replies.

“No problem.” Anna looks down at her cup of frozen yogurt, gleefully scooping a spoonful of the peanut butter flavored concoction covered in Reese’s pieces, mini peanut butter cups, and more peanut butter. “I’ve always wanted to try this place, you know?”

“I was under the impression that you have been to this establishment before,” Elsa says, tucking her spoon into her plain, naked cup of sherbet.

“Oh, no. I mean I’ve wanted to– I hear people talking about it all the time when they don’t think I’m listening– but I never have.”

“I…see.” Elsa is sitting with the straightest posture, as if slouching for even a second would leave a permanent wrinkle on her majestic dress. To be honest, it’s kind of weird. “I must admit, of all the mortals that have summoned me, you are the first one to express such simple ambitions.”

Anna scoffs and puts down her spoon. “Uh, simple? I–” She puts up her finger and picks up her spoon again to take another bite of her frozen yogurt. “Mmph, that’s so good. Anyway, I’m offended. Going out to eat on your own isn’t ‘simple’, it’s weird and scary and uncomfortable.”

Elsa crinkles her nose as if she’s smelled something bad and takes a bite of her stupid rainbow sherbet. “Three hundred years ago, I aided a lone woman in labor while she fought off wolves in her cabin. She’d whittled a crude spear from one of the legs of her table.”

Anna looks at her companion with pursed lips, “I mean…there are different kinds of ‘scary’.”

“No, mortal, I do not think there are. If this is a matter of anxiety over doing things alone, you could have asked me to create a temporary companion.”

“I do have a temporary companion.” Anna points her wet spoon at Elsa. “You.”

Elsa somehow sits up straighter. “I am not ‘temporary’ and I am certainly not a mere ‘companion’. I am the goddess of winter, something I am certain you know, and I would advise you to remember that.“

Anna grins, “Yeesh, the books said you had a bit of an ego, but I didn’t think it would be this big.”

“Is that right?” Elsa stands up and makes for the door with a flourish of her hair.

“What? Oh, come on.” Anna picks up their cups, pushes both their chairs in, and follows Elsa outside. The perfect summer afternoon makes the deity’s dress sparkle in the sunlight. “Elsa!”

Elsa keeps her stiff demeanor as she paces down the sidewalk, heels clicking against the concrete with discontent. “I will not be spoken to in such a tactless way by a mortal with no sense of probity.”

“I’m twenty-five, of course I don’t have property.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Anna groans, wondering how Elsa could walk so fast in heels anyway. “Could you please slow down?”

“And why should I?”

“Because we just passed my car and our frozen yogurts are already melting,” Anna reasons. “And I’m sorry?”

That, of course, manages to get Elsa to stop in her tracks– almost causing Anna to collide with her partially exposed back. The taller woman turns around, eyeing the apologetic summoner with discontent. “Do you truly mean that?”

“About the frozen yogurt? Yeah.” Anna holds up the cups of fake ice cream soup.

“Not–” Elsa rolls her eyes and, with a flick of her wrist, the frozen yogurts retain their original shape, seemingly unfazed now by the heat. “Do you truly feel remorse for your disrespect?”

“I…” Anna sighs. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m not good with the whole talking or making friends thing. People always tell me I can be insensitive and not good with social cues and stuff.”

“Tactless,” Elsa repeats.

“Yeah, that too, I guess. Anyway, I’ve always been a big geek about myths and stuff, and I found this old book at the library about summoning rituals. I figured if regular people didn’t like me– uh, mortals, I guess– maybe not regular people might. Like me, I mean.”

Elsa crosses her arms, her striking blue eyes searching for deception or deeper meaning in Anna’s lighter blue ones. “You used sacred knowledge to befriend a divine being?”

Anna squeezes the back of her neck and bites her lip; it’s probably for the best that she doesn’t leave any more details out about her crazy plan. “I used sacred knowledge so I could…befriend you.”

Throughout her twenty-five years on this strange, isolating Earth, Anna has done some crazy things. She’s taxidermied a fox, and even did something called a Cupid Shuffle. But none of that compares to seeing Elsa’s eyes widen briefly and knowing that she just surprised a goddess.

Elsa, quick to regain her composure, takes the cup of sherbet out of Anna’s hands. “It is not wise to let this go to waste,” she says.

Anna smiles, eating a triumphant scoop of her peanut butter monstrosity.

***************************************

Despite their first meeting ending…okay, Anna hesitated in calling upon Elsa again. She still did it, but not that confidently. As expected, Elsa emerged from the webflake with some exasperation over being summoned by the mythology enthusiast, but she didn’t abandon her. After all, Anna promised her more rainbow sherbet.

For the first couple of months, that’s how things worked with this odd pairing. Anna would summon Elsa, Elsa would tell her she has more important matters to attend to, and then they’d spend an hour or two together eating frozen yogurt and shooting the shit.

By the fifth visit, after Anna had spent almost two hundred dollars on lutefisk and painted the webflake onto her apartment floor, Elsa had finally let her guard down.

“You provide interesting company, mortal. At least more than most of my past summoners,” she tells her while they’re at an exhibit for scenes from Shakespearean plays recreated with insects (aptly called To Bee or Not To Bee).

Anna cautions a grin again, "I do, huh? More than that actress who wanted you to teach her how to be a goddess for that one superhero movie?”

Elsa frowns, “I tolerated her until she thanked a different god in her award speech.”

“And that general who asked you to freeze the rivers so invading ships couldn’t reach his ports?”

“The arrogant fool forgot to supply his troops with the means to survive the weather.”

“What about that prince who wanted you to kill all his brothers so he could become the heir?” Anna asks.

“All interesting summoners in their own right, but their lack of morals and strong hubris filled me with regret for aiding them.” She puts her hands in the pockets of a jacket she borrowed from Anna and sighs, “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

“What?”

“From The Tempest,” Elsa answers as she points at a glass casing where a fly seems to be communing with a spider surrounded by purple cotton balls.

“Oh.” Anna leans forward, hands pressed against the glass right next to the sign that says not to press against the glass. She examines the scene with pursed lips. “I never liked reading Shakespeare. His stuff never made any sense, it was like every sentence was some kinda word puzzle.”

“His contemporaries also thought as much.”

Anna looks back at her with a raised eyebrow, “You met Shakespeare?”

“No, but I knew of him.”

“How old are you?”

“I do not believe social customs have changed so much that it is no longer rude to ask a woman about their age.” Elsa frowns and looks away from Anna’s curious gaze. “But, if you must know, this will be my thousandth year of existence.”

The gears in Anna’s head start cranking until a look of recognition crosses her face. “Wait, so that means…we need to celebrate! One thousand’s gotta be a super big year for gods, right? When’s your birthday?”

“Curb your enthusiasm, mortal, we do not gauge the passage of time as you do. The concept of a ‘birthday’ means nothing to us.”

Anna’s enthusiasm grows in defiance. “Oh, so then it can be any day. Like…next Tuesday after I buy more nettles?”

Elsa places her fingers against her temples and closes her eyes. “You are far too presumptuous.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” Without thinking, Anna places her hands on top of Elsa’s surprisingly firm biceps, trying to get the goddess’s attention.

The result is cataclysmic. In her exertion, Anna manages to pull herself closer to Elsa, whose hands find purchase atop the woman’s shoulders. Anna’s eyes travel across the landscape of Elsa’s face in a way she’s never experienced before. This close, she can see the flurry of freckles across her nose and the faint pinkness on her snow white cheeks. This close, she can smell the pine needles that dissipated from her apartment floor. This close, she can hear a shiver of breath and the sudden thumping of her heart.

Thoughts she’s never entertained before scatter around her mind like snow in a snowglobe, but before she can make any sense of them, they’re interrupted by one of the museum’s security guards.

“Romantic epiphanies are against the rules here, ladies,” he says, pointing his baton at a sign above them. “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

***************************************

They don’t end up celebrating Elsa’s birthday a week later. In fact, Elsa doesn’t answer her summons at all.

At first, Anna thinks she must have gotten the components wrong, or maybe Elsa was needed somewhere else. She tries again the next day, but Elsa still doesn’t appear inside the glowing webflake. The week after, she tries again. And the week after that. And the week after that.

Two months later, Anna is sitting on her knees in front of the harsh white light that illuminates her weary face. She recites the incantation with the clarity and reverence that surely must have been missing in her last summoning attempts. But still she’s met with the same loneliness that had plagued her all her life.

In a desperate whisper, the words “Elsa, please.” escape her lips.

The visage of the wintry deity appears in mere seconds, though it’s only her silhouette. “I am here,” she says in her spooky, multi-layered voice.

“Elsa…” Anna stands up, wincing as the pressure on her knees is finally relieved. She had played this scenario out in her head so many times, and each time her opening words had changed. Now, all she can say to start is, “Did I do something wrong?”

Her plea is met with more familiar silence.

“I did, didn’t I?” Anna continues. “At the museum, I felt something when…when we got close. And you probably sensed something, of course, since you’re a goddess, and it freaked you out.”

“A goddess does not freak out,” Elsa states.

“Then how do you explain this?” Anna gestures frantically at everything in front of her. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for two months and you haven’t answered. If this isn’t about me, then is it about the birthday thing? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was that touchy of a subject.”

“You did nothing wrong, mortal. It–”

“Anna! My name is Anna, and you know that!”

Despite Elsa’s lack of facial features, Anna can tell she’s left her speechless once again, but this time she finds no satisfaction in it. This time, she feels a tightness in her chest and throat that’s unbearable, and the only remedy seems to be the one thing that’s never come naturally to her: talking.

“I know that I’m stupid for thinking that I can just call you to hang out whenever, a–and I know I’m even stupider for feeling how I feel. But every time you answered me, and every time you agreed to do something stupid with me, I thought that meant something. I thought that finally I meant something to someone. Which, I guess, is the stupidest thing about all of this, because you’re you. Elsa. The century-old goddess of winter who can control the weather and stop wars and freeze frozen yogurt. And I’m…I’m me.”

It seems she’s wrong, the tightness only worsens with each word she speaks. Nonetheless, she’s stepped into this storm of her own doing, and the only way out is to keep going.

There’s a newfound tremble in her voice as continues; Elsa stays where she is. “I–I promise I won’t call on you again. This is the last time. I just– this is the first time I ever really felt close with someone, and when you stopped answering me, it hurt. And I don’t know why, but I needed you to know that.”

Elsa lifts her hands and seems to look at them, “I…understand.”

“You do?”

“More than you can ever know.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean?” Anna steps forward even though she knows she can’t enter the space that Elsa is occupying; she can’t sever the connection. Elsa must know this too, and yet she still steps back. “What can’t I know?”

“I have said too much.”

“Elsa, that–that’s not fair.” Anna wipes her face with her hand– tears, just what she needs. “I opened up to you, I told you how I was feeling.”

“I never asked you to do that, and it is better for you not to know.”

“You can’t decide that for me,” Anna argues.

“I can when it comes to this,” Elsa replies.

“What does that mean?”

Elsa doesn’t say anything at first. She takes a tentative step forward, her aura overtaking Anna in a way she hasn’t experienced since the last time they were together. It’s strong, intoxicating, and warmer than the light that surrounds her. Even more so when Elsa’s ethereal hand starts to slowly move towards Anna’s face. And for a moment, Anna believes that everything will actually be okay; the impossible could actually be possible.

But a moment is all it lasts. Elsa drops her hand, clutching it against her other one, and steps back. “I am sorry, this should not have happened.”

“No. No, Elsa please.”

“Goodbye, Anna,” Elsa says as she turns and steps away from the webflake.

“Elsa!” Anna shouts as she leaps forward with her hand outstretched. But it’s too late, the goddess is gone and in her place is a cold and familiar darkness. Anna stumbles to the floor, knocking over the stupidly expensive jar of lutefisk and an extinguished candle. This time, she lets the tears fall.

***************************************

It’s crazy and discouraging how quickly life can change. Two months ago, Anna was having a pseudo-picnic lunch on a beautiful summer afternoon with a beautifuler goddess. Now, she’s eating a gas station sandwich on a park bench watching a couple’s only outdoor yoga class.

Wild.

A month later and the finality of her last conversation with Elsa still hasn’t sunk in. Her heart clenches in agony every time she thinks of the way her stoic face used to falter after Anna’s said something dumb, and when she drives by the frozen yogurt shop on her way to work, and especially when she sees the space on her floor where the webflake used to be. Funny how much she can miss someone she never actually had. And she says as much to the random guy sitting next to her on the bench.

“I mean, she’s a goddess. She’s immortal and has all these goddess responsibilities and stuff, I was never even close to her league. But I…I was stupid and I thought I had a chance. It’s not her fault I was too ambitious– which is ironic considering one of the first things she told me was I wasn’t ambitious enough.” Anna sighs and wraps up what’s left of her sandwich. “Anyway, thanks for listening to me complain. What did you say you needed again?”

The man, with a gun pointed right at her, repeated, “Your wallet? I’m robbing you, remember?”

“Ah, right. Thanks for reminding me.” Anna taps her temple. “And, uh, no you can’t have my wallet. Sorry.”

The man grimaces, “The fuck do you mean ‘no’? I’m not asking for it, I’m telling you to give it to me.”

“And I’m telling you that you can’t have it. But if you’re hungry, you can have the rest of my sandwich.” Anna holds the possibly expired ham and cheese sandwich towards the robber.

He swats it away with his non-pistol-wielding hand, a stray goose snatches it away and leaves Anna alone to fend for herself like a dick. “Do you think I’m fucking around here? This–this thing is loaded, okay? It has bullets! I will shoot you if you don’t give me your money.”

When the man slaps her hand away, it manages to knock some lucidity back into Anna. This is actually happening to her, and there’s no escaping it. She places her hand back on her lap and gives the robber a serious look. “Shoot me.”

The robber stammers but tries to cover it up with a laugh, “What?”

“Shoot me,” Anna repeats.

“What are you trying to do, bluff me?” He points the gun up and down as if to prove it’s real. “You–You don’t think I’ll do it?”

“I mean this feels like your first time trying to rob someone, but I think you’re capable of doing it. You probably need the money for something important, which I understand, but I just…” Anna sighs and shrugs, “I don’t know. I guess I’m just done.”

The robber lets out another humorless and disbelieving chuckle. “I get it. You think this is all one big joke, you think there are cameras or some shit. Well, guess what, lady? This ain’t some kinda joke. This is real life, and if you’ve got a death wish, then I’d be happy to–”

He’s unable to finish his threat before a blast of white covers him and traps him in a cube of ice.

“By the Nine Realms, what do you think you are doing?”

Anna turns to see Elsa advancing with a hand pointed guardingly towards the frozen criminal, complete with an annoyed look she never thought she’d see again. “Elsa?” she says as she stands up and looks around. “How are…did someone summon you?”

“No, I came of my own accord.” The goddess eyes her handiwork, swiping a finger across the physics-defying ice. Inside, the robber looks at them with terror-filled eyes. “And it is fortunate that I did.”

“So, you just happened to be in the neighborhood and saw this guy trying to rob me,” Anna says, her question sounding more like an accusation.

“I did not say that.”

“Then how could…” Anna tilts her head. “Wait, you were watching me?”

Elsa looks away.

“Elsa, look at me.” If it were any other deity, Anna would have been smitten a hundred times over for sounding so demanding. But Elsa doesn’t do that, she looks back at Anna with such intensity, as if she’s fighting some sort of unseen battle. She knows she needs to choose her next words carefully. “Are goddesses allowed to stalk people?”

“Omnipresence is not the same as stalking.”

“I’m not asking about omnipresence, I’m asking you if you can be wherever and see whatever you want at any time.”

“That’s–”

“And why is it me?” Anna steps forward, knee now resting against the park bench that separates them. “The last time we talked, you said goodbye. I don’t know if ‘goodbye’ means something else in your pantheon, but to us mortals it means ‘I don’t want to see you again and also I’m gonna break your heart and make you feel like you’re unlovable’.”

“Is that how I truly made you feel?”

“Yes! No! Ugh, I don’t know and I hate it!” Anna digs her hands into her hair. “I’m constantly shifting between feeling so angry that I want to punch a wall to feeling cold and empty to feeling so sad that I start crying. You wanna know how many times I’ve cried since you left? Twelve times! I don’t like it.”

A guilty frown appears on Elsa’s face and she briefly looks away, “I am sorry, I never should have made my presence known. And I never should have answered your initial summoning.”

Anna groans and throws her hands up, “No, that’s not– you can’t just do this again, Elsa. You can’t leave and make me feel like shit, and then come back and make me feel all warm and happy and angry and– god I hate how beautiful you are! And you can’t just say you’re sorry and then leave again.”

“Then what is it that you want?”

“You!” Without thinking, Anna reaches out and grabs hold of Elsa’s arm as if she’ll disappear again if she doesn’t. “You stupid idiot, I want you. And I know I shouldn’t because you’re a goddess and I’m…well, I’m me, but I can’t help it, okay? Goddess, you probably don’t even feel the same way. What am I doing? Maybe I’m the stupid idiot.”

Elsa’s breath catches when Anna’s hand makes contact with her arm, and it leaves her entirely as she hears that raw, tender confession. A tense silence lingers between them; she ensures it doesn’t last. “You are not stupid.”

Anna sighs, “Oh great, so I’m just an idiot, then.”

“You are neither of those things.” Elsa takes Anna’s hand off her arm and cups it with both of hers. “But it is foolish to think…that I do not feel the same.”

“You…” Anna shakes her head, “Shut up, you don’t mean that.”

“I do.”

Anna feels Elsa squeeze her hand; her fingers aren’t as cold as she thought they’d be. Wait, is it profiling to assume the goddess of winter would have cold skin? Shut up, Anna, that’s not important right now. She ekes out a response, “Elsa…”

“The feelings I have for you are ones I have not felt for a very long time. But I remember them well.” Elsa takes a breath and looks at Anna with an intensity that almost makes her blush. “I wish for there to be more between us, Anna.”

And now she is blushing. “I…b–but I can’t even summon you anymore. I got rid of the summoning circle, and imported lutefisk is really expensive.”

Elsa smiles and gestures at herself, “As you can see, I no longer need to be summoned.”

“You don’t? So, does that mean you’ll pay me back for all that stuff?” Anna chuckles nervously, and she watches as Elsa once again reaches up to touch her face. This time, there’s no hesitation; no stepping back. It gives her a sense of comfort– a sense of belonging– that she’s never felt before. And it also makes her hella weak in the knees.

“I will give you anything,” Elsa replies. “Name it, and it is yours.”

“Okay, well that’s a pretty long list. But what I want right now…” Anna runs her thumbs across the back of Elsa’s hands. “…is to kiss you.”

Elsa obliges, closing the last bit of space between them to give Anna exactly what she wants. What they both want. Kissing a goddess is an indescribable feeling, like seeing an unseen color or hearing a new melody no one has ever heard before. It’s exhilarating, replenishing and life-affirming. For a second, Anna believes she’s immortal as well.

Suddenly, however, Elsa breaks from the kiss and looks at Anna with concern. “I do, however, think we should talk about how willing you were to die just moments ago.”

Anna rolls her eyes, “Oh please, you know I didn’t mean it.” And she picks up where they left off.

#elsanna #submission #october 2024 contest #prompt: web #cw: robbery

4 notes · View notes