fandomhigh | Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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!event: welcome picnic

Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

There were chairs and tables set up all across the lawn; some were by the bonfire, for the people who wanted to be warm and central to everything else at the picnic, and some were set farther away from the action, for the people who wanted more peace and quiet.

There was no escaping the glitter though. Sorry, but not really.

[OCD is up! This is the picnic post for general mingling. Roommates, fake siblings and teachers are all here. Since it's outside, the picnic is open to all students, teachers, and townies!]

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There was still a wriggly puppy inbetween Anna's hands, one she was now petting rather reflexively.

"I have," Anna replied. "I mean, I am. Here. I didn't -- know you'd be here. I mean, just now, I knew? Barry told me. But before I came, I didn't know. You didn't know you were here, or else you probably -- wouldn't have sent me? Kind of a huge backfire for you, if you were -- um."

She'd been about to joke, you know, if Elsa was trying to get away from her, but that wasn't all that funny, since she suspected it was actually true.

"You have a puppy."

This was an excellent conversation.

"I have a puppy," Elsa exhaled, looking a little like a deer caught in headlights. She wasn't running, though. She had done enough running from Anna, lately. "He was a gift, actually, just a couple of weeks ago. For Christmas."

Everything was messed-up and probably a disaster. Everything was a disaster. It was official.

"His name is Canute."

"I didn't know you got a puppy," Anna said. "You're -- is that really you, Elsa? It -- it looks like you, and --"

Canute was not very happy that Anna was not giving him her full attention. But 'cute puppy' was seriously outranked, here.

"Someone said you're not you, but -- you are," she managed. "Why are you here? You -- you sent me here and I thought you wanted me to leave. Did you -- did you want to get away, too? Did you --"

She bit her lip, to stop the words miss me from coming out.

"I... I've been coming to school here for a year, now," Elsa replied, wondering if maybe Barry hadn't explained the concept of alternate versions of people to Anna.

... Or if maybe he had Barry'd his way through the explanation, and it had proven to be a little too Barry for Anna.

"I'm me, I mean, of course I'm me. Just the same as you're you. But... you're... older than the Anna I visited for Christmas this year. And you've probably... also... got a me sitting in Arendelle right now."

Yeah, that didn't sound crazy at all, Elsa, good job.

It was less Barry being Barry and more Anna being Anna, and not being able to follow. Plus they'd been derailed about her engagement.

"This doesn't make any sense," Anna insisted. "You haven't been coming here for a year. And if you have, then you aren't Elsa. You just -- look a lot like her and have her name, but you're not -- not my sister. Because she's back home and -- and whoever your sister is, her name might be Anna but she can't be me. Because I'm me."

"You're you," Elsa agreed, gently, patiently. "And... my Anna, back home, is my Anna. And one of my biggest regrets is hiding from her for years and years, on the wrong side of a closed door."

She bit her lip, and then bowed her head a little.

"It's like... ripples in a pond, maybe. They all look the same. They even start from the same place, but one always exists a little bit out from the next one. They're not the same ripple, and they might never even touch, but that doesn't make any difference to the rock you skipped to cause them. I am Elsa. Princess Elsa, of Arendelle. And you're Anna. Princess Anna of Arendelle. And back home, in my ripple, I have an Anna as well. And back home, in yours, you have an Elsa."

The wrong side of a closed door. Anna couldn't breathe, when Elsa said things like that.

So it was Elsa, but not her Elsa. Another Elsa, who might have been. Maybe in that world, Anna hadn't done whatever terrible thing she did, here, to make it all go so wrong.

"Does that mean you're not my sister?" she asked. "Because you -- feel like my sister, when I talk to you, even though I know you're really hers." She managed a feeble smile. "I th-think my Elsa would have run away, by now. We haven't had a conversation this long since we were little kids."

Elsa's heart broke a little more, the more Anna spoke. And she couldn't... couldn't not...

"A little while ago, my Anna came to the island, to visit," she explained, admitted, told Anna softly, not quite able to look up. "I did panic, then, and I ran. Barry coaxed me out again, and we talked, and... I'm trying to be the sister I haven't been, to her. When we lost our parents this time last year, I couldn't even do that. And I regret that. I regret it more than I can express."

She crouched down a little, holding out her hand for Canute to come back and sniff at.

"I'm not the same Elsa as the one you know," she said, softly, "but I might not be that different, either. And if she's anything like me, it... it isn't you. She's afraid. And she's so, so sorry."

"Last ... year?" Anna frowned. "No, no, it was -- it's been three years, since Mama and Papa --"

She let that sentence trail off, because it was easier than coming up with some painful euphemism.

She was dying to reach out, to grasp her sister's hands, but her sister didn't like to be touched. Maybe it wasn't germs, if she had a large dog sniffing at her fingertips. Maybe it was people, after all. This picnic had to be hard for her, then.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Just tell me what I did, and how I can stop it. You don't have to be sorry, Elsa. Just -- just tell what's wrong, and how we fix this."

Three years? Elsa glanced up at Anna, unconsciously wrapping her arms around herself. That would explain why Anna seemed older than hers. She was.

"It's... not what you did," Elsa replied, quietly. "It's what I did, Anna. It's what I'm afraid I might do. And nobody can fix that but me, and I'm working on it. I don't want to hide anymore. I don't want to live the rest of my life not answering when she knocks and asks me if I..."

Well. Anna knew.

"I just have to."

"You don't have to hide," Anna said, reaching her hands out to try, ever so gently, to clasp them around Elsa's own. "I'm not afraid of you, Elsa! I don't know what you think you did, and I don't care."

Elsa looked so sad. Whatever this was, it was eating away at her. Was this why Elsa had been locked in her room for so long? She was -- hiding? Afraid!?

If only it could be like it once was. It had been so simple when they were little. Playing in the cold. Weather just like they had today, in fact. Maybe it was the perfect place to start again.

"Do you ... w-wanna build a snowman?"

It was sheer force of will that kept Elsa from pulling her hands away from Anna when she reached for them. She'd been wearing Barry's gloves long enough now that she could begin to rationalize, to edge out the panic. She wasn't going to hurt Anna. She wasn't. She could do this...

And then Anna asked that question, and the air around them came to a halt, and Elsa's resolve fell in shards around her.

"I... Oh, Anna, I..." Couldn't find words. She couldn't find her words and she'd sworn that she wasn't going to run, not again, not like this. She'd promised herself that she wouldn't. But now she was pulling her hands away to cover her mouth, and taking a few deep breaths - concealdon'tfeelconcealdon'tfeel - and trying so very hard - failing miserably - to keep her composure.

"Desperately."

And then she was backstepping and reaching down to gather Canute in her arms, and hesitating for a moment, trying to will her legs to stay put, before breaking down and turning to run back toward the dorms.

It was a beautiful day. Except that for a moment, the barest heartbeat, there was an extra flurry of snow that seemed to hang dead in the air before drifting away.

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Fandom High Welcome Picnic, Front Lawn of the School, All Day: Part II

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