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The Magic Box, Wednesday

Elsa had taken a couple of days to herself to try to sort out just what the implications of this weekend were. She'd had a sister for a couple of days in Karla, and a lover for an evening in Eleanor, and in the wake of it all, everything was still muddled up in her head. She'd had a chance to speak to Karla, at least, who had assured her that Ange-- that Warren wasn't actually evil, and coming in this morning to see some of the books written in runes had put her worries about Celia's well-being to rest.

She still hadn't spoken with Eleanor.

But! That hardly mattered! It had just been one of those odd weekends, and everything was back to normal now, and Elsa was going to make herself very busy tidying and putting new stock on the shelves and making certain that there were orders placed for the proper incense and gemstones for Lughnasadh, which was in a few weeks. Aloes, rose, sandalwood, carnelian... Plenty of work to be done! No time for fretting!

... Elsa was absolutely fretting.

[OOC: Open, OCD-free!]

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Okay, so, concerning really awkward and horrible conversations Eleanor was dreading, she was one down, and one to go. She should be at the music store right now, but she was entitled to a lunch break, right? And if she didn't take a lunch break to come talk to Elsa, she might just ... keep panicking and end up avoiding her forever, which seemed like it'd be bad. Probably. Right. So.

Right.

So then.

So Eleanor was walking into the store and trying to look totally, entirely normal. And probably failing at that.

You and Elsa both, Eleanor. Of course, one could only look so casual while dusting the same display of crystals for the millionth time.

Elsa glanced up at the sound of the door, and instantly ducked her head a little, blushing awkwardly.

"Oh! Eleanor!"

Halp.

"Hi," Eleanor said, quickly. "Elsa. Am I -- is this a bad time? I can come back, later. I'm ... on my lunch break, anyway, from the music store?"

Oh, hey, was she babbling? Yes. Yes, she was.

This was an excellent time to babble!

"Oh, are you? I shouldn't keep you for too long, then, should I? But it's fine - you're fine - that you're here is fine," Elsa babbled right back. "I mean, I'm just... cleaning."

Or eroding the crystals to dust with a dust rag, at this rate.

"Yes," Eleanor said quickly. "It's good. To be cleaning. I'm glad that you're cleaning, and I'm ... glad that I'm here. Maybe. I'm ..."

Eleanor was going to squeeze her eyes shut and maybe try just plowing ahead with actual words on this one.

"I'm sorry about what happened," she said, except she knew that was wrong when it left her mouth. "Not ... sorry. I can't be sorry. I mean -- I just meant --"

Edited 2014-07-17 01:59 (UTC)

Elsa bit her lip for a second, and then decided to have mercy on Eleanor, leaning forward a little and cutting in.

"I hope it doesn't complicate anything between us, too," she said, softly. "I don't regret it. I can't regret it."

"Me, either," Eleanor agreed, in a heartbeat. "But I would if -- if it meant we couldn't be friends any longer. That, I would regret."

"Not friends any--" Elsa blinked, looking taken aback. "Oh, no, I would never want that. I mean, you're one of my dearest friends, here."

Granted, she didn't have many, but Eleanor was one of the few who had been there since the start. One weekend where they'd been closer than that wasn't going to change a thing, not where Elsa was sitting.

"Mine, too," Eleanor said, nodding. "If you had been -- just someone I didn't know, I'd avoid you and be awkward, but you're too important to me to just ... fade away from you like that."

She blushed before adding, "And ... thank you for a pleasant evening."

It was inappropriate, probably, but it had to be said. Didn't it?

"I..." Well, Elsa was blushing furiously, now, and looking down and straightening out a crystal that was already neatly squared off. Wiggling it about a little on the shelf. "You're welcome."

What else could she say? She'd enjoyed it as well.

"I don't see why we should be any less close than we were before," she added, maybe a touch distractedly. Or at least attempting feebly to seem as though she was. "It was something out of our control, after all."

"At least this time I wasn't a very rude Skywalker," Eleanor said, with a shudder. "I've been meaning to ask you -- the girl that appeared, your sister. Was that -- that wasn't Anna, was it?"

She was blushing again, not from any mention of Anna, or whatever else the blonde girl's name might be, but from the memory of exactly when the girl had appeared, and what, exactly, she had interrupted.

And Elsa's own blush wasn't going anywhere any time fast, either.

"No, not Anna," she clarified. "Her name is Karla, and I had no idea she even existed until this weekend. She doesn't live on the island, and she's a... witch, she said."

There were some undeniable parallels between Karla's life story and her own. Or at least some places where they'd meshed neatly enough for them to be able to be sisters for a couple of days.

Sometime after classes Barry wandered over to the Magic box with his bag of tech. After some of the modulations he'd seen on his own equipment he just wanted to make sure Elsa's gloves weren't affected.

"Hey Elsa," he said walking into the store and looking up at the ceiling. "Well at least it's not fucking snowing in here today."

"No snow," Elsa agreed, offering Barry a smile. "The gloves are still working just fine."

Either because they were actually still functional, or because Elsa was just that much less frightened when she had them on as a security blanket. One of those reasons.

"Hello, Barry."

"Glad to hear it but I just want to check on them to be sure," Barry said pulling out his tablet and returning a small smile. "That whole shitty weekend threw some of my equipment out of whack. Everything coming out of my food replicator tastes like gin."

"You have a machine that... replicates food?" Elsa took a moment's pause at that, blinking, and then shrugged it off. "If you want to check the gloves, then I'm certainly not going to stop you. The last thing I want is to find out the hard way that something isn't working."

She was pretty sure Fosse wasn't equipped to do the same thing that the Grand Pabbie had done for Anna.

"Yeah, the food replicator transforms energy into matter. In this case the matter is food. Stole the idea from Galaxy Quest," Barry said as he started a diagnostic. "Would you try and make something? Doesn't have to be much. A snowball will do. Just trying to get a baseline."

Energy into matter? And Elsa thought that her powers were magic.

"Just a snowball," she echoed, holding out her gloved hands and focusing on forming something. Just something small. Snow. She still wasn't completely certain she was even doing this correctly, but since no snow formed, at least she felt confident that Barry's gloves were working.

And so they were. Barry nodded and grinned. "All right. Looks like everything is working fucking perfectly," he said looking and feeling relieved. "Did you wear them at all this weekend or did the fucking mojo that happened mess with your powers too?"

"My powers were gone on the weekend," Elsa replied, shrugging her shoulders a little as she looked back down at her hands. "I suppose the island figured I had plenty of other things to worry about without having to be afraid of accidentally freezing everything, too."

She frowned a little all the same. Sunday had not been the greatest way to spend her birthday, really.

"Did you manage to weather the weekend alright?"

"Well I ran a gin joint, got shot by a cop and thrown in jail," Barry said with a small frown. "Funny enough, I didn't have... well my usual level of intelligence. Despite being shot I think that's the first time in years I've actually slept. Weird."

"Maybe the blood loss helped," Elsa offered, though she was blinking and maybe a little wide-eyed at the thought of it. "I think your weekend was actually more eventful than mine was. I... sang, mostly."

Such a stretch for this one, truly.

"You're better now, though?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't think I'll get shot any fucking time soon though," he said with a smirk. "And you sang? I didn't know you did that."

He gave her a grin.

"Let me hear something."

Someday, Elsa would learn better than to actually mention that she was capable of carrying a tune, really. People seemed to want proof of that, and while she certainly didn't mind singing, having people's attention on her was something she was going to need some time to get used to.

"I... suppose I could do that. If you're sure, I mean." Because, right, Barry was so often uncertain when he opened his mouth to speak, Elsa. "I would ask if you have any requests, but I don't imagine there's much overlap between songs that you know and songs that I do, never mind songs we both enjoy."

"I'm just giving you shit, Elsa," Barry said with a laugh. "Though if you happen to know the lyrics to Baby Got Back, I'd love to hear your rendition."

And then a thought occurred to him.

"Hey, the radio said something about your birthday this weekend. Was that true or just some part of the fucked up weekend Fandom served up to us?"

It was probably apparent from Elsa's sudden furious blush that she might very well have heard that particular song before, and there was no way in hell she was going to be singing it, no.

So it was very nearly a relief when Barry changed the topic. Very nearly!

"It was true," she admitted, trying to battle that blush down. "I turned sixteen on Sunday."

And she'd spent most of it panicking. Which, really, wasn't much different from most of her other birthdays.

"Well, happy belated birthday," Barry said trying to stifle a laugh.

What? Making Elsa blush was fun!

"Too bad you spent your birthday with everyone out of their fucking mind. If I had known I would have least gotten you a gift."

"I spent part of it thinking that one of my best friends was dead, and another part of it worrying that my employer at the time was going to use me as collateral in a card game," she replied frowning a little. "So far as birthdays go, I'm pretty sure I've had better."

Once upon a time. A long time ago. In a kingdom far, far away.

"Shit," Barry said. "We can't have that. Turning sixteen is like a fucking celebration on my world. Fucking island can't pull that shit on you. We got to throw you a fucking party."

"Throw me a what?"

It wasn't that Elsa didn't know what a party was. Honest. It was just that she hadn't had anything of the sort since she was six.

"Why is sixteen so important? I ... I really don't understand."

"It's your sweet sixteen!" Barry said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "C'mon. Look, everyone had a crappy weekend and now everyone has a chance to have a little fun and celebrate your birthday. Who's going to pass that up?"

Elsa was pretty certain she was grasping, now, for the correct answer.

"Nobody?" That... was the correct answer, right? Nobody was going to pass up a birthday celebration? "And... if we do it on the island, it'll be away from the ghosts in that mansion we've been staying in?"

Which seemed like a definite upside, she had to admit.

"Like the sleepover thing we were talking about?" Barry asked. "Sure. I'll give the hotel a call and make arrangements."

He put his tablet back in his bag and gave Elsa a grin.

"I wonder if they have trampoline beds at the Arms?"

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The Magic Box, Wednesday

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