Author's Notes: There were some continuity/timeline errors in previous versions of this chapter and previous chapters. They don't affect the story directly, just the timeline. They've since been fixed. Whoops! For reference, this chapter starts on August 16th, 2046. Also, a huge thanks to WorthlessFandomFeelings for helping with some early drafts of this chapter. Working with you is awesome.



An array of muted hues splashed across the far wall of the hallway, the daylight hours had all but burnt away leaving the facility feeling drained and subdued. Through the same window that the light had shone through, the passing traffic of the city was not so diminished, but it did little to excite or invigorate.

Elsa herself was not immune to the day's weariness. There was only so much IT work she could tolerate. Technology was one of her great passions to be sure, but solving problems ignites the fire within far more merely fixing them. After entering her room she slumped back against the door behind her and mulled about what she could possibly do with what little time and energy remained. Lolling her head lazily to the right revealed her workstation, to the left her books. The sight of them incited contemplation.

'Do I work, or do I study? Ugh, either way I'll be exhausted before I get a decent flow going. I've had enough or one day. Oh, I wonder what that nice cyborg girl is up to. I've been meaning to call her.''

Elsa trodded over to her chair, plopped down and punched the infolink code into her machine. She fidgeted in her chair as the connection icon spun in place. After it signaled that the connection was established, she leaned over to her microphone and asked:

"Hello? Anna?"

"Elsa! I'm really glad you called, I was beginning to wonder if you would."

"I'm really sorry about that, getting situated here has been a bigger challenge than I had anticipated. Everything's just so different."

"New situations always are. So tell me Elsa, what's your favorite part of Earth so far?"

Elsa felt her demeanor sag meekly. There wasn't much she could say she liked. The work was grueling and mundane, the people outside of the safe house were cruel. She had to stop herself from immediately replying with 'You are, Anna'. After a brief moment of contemplation she offered: "The equipment. On the station we were always scrambling to make due with scraps and shambles, or waiting weeks for something to arrive. Here, I can get whatever I need from the on-site supply store."

"Your favorite part is the supplies? That's depressing. We've got to find something that brings you joy! Nobody deserves a dull life!"

"Well, the food here is nice, it's a welcome change from the synthetic protein packets aboard the station. I must admit I was overwhelmed the first time I had an apple. There was just so much flavor, I don't have the words to describe the sensation."

"You're not kidding! There's so much variety and richness. Oh I could show you so many things. Elsa... are you doing anything tonight?"

"I do things every night... don't you?"

Anna could be heard trying to stifle a laugh. "Not literally you goof, I mean are you available to spend some time with?"

Elsa perked up immediately at the suggestion, as even her affinity for being alone was starting to wear thin.

"Really? You want to see me?"

"Sure!" came the excited reply. "I can't promise it'll be as exciting as last time but I think I'm a good enough host. I think we'll have a great time."

Elsa stood tentatively by the tall, maroon door. Eyeing it from top to bottom, she let out a sigh and pulled her computer out to double-check the address. 'Yes, this is it... What am I waiting for? Have I forgotten how to do something as simple as knocking on a door?'

She knocked. No turning back now. Her whole body tensed in anticipation. Soon she could hear footfalls speeding towards the door.

There in the open doorway stood Anna. Elsa wasn't sure why but for some reason Anna just stood there for a moment, scanning her expression. Not even a moment later Elsa found herself caught in a warm embrace. After a moment she relaxed from her previously tensed state. She cocked an eyebrow before remarking: "You are without a doubt the most… affectionate person I've ever met."

Anna simply smiled, and replied with "You looked like you needed it!" before spinning away and bouncing into the house like an excited child.

"You got that right." Elsa murmured to herself before entering the domicile and closing the door behind her. As she turned around, she gasped and stared at the house's interior, an ineffable mixture of old and new. Tall, rustic features met sleek and polished lines. For all it's ornate homage to eras past, something about the undercurrent of mechanical structure reminded her of the lunar station, whether it was from the thin fluorescent trim lights or the nearly inaudible hum of the machinery within she couldn't be sure.

"Well, here's the living room. Make yourself comfy. You said you liked food, so I've got a surprise for you. Stay here, it might be awhile. Oh, and here's the networking key for the house. You should be able to access anything on the internet from here."

"Thank you" Elsa replied, watching Anna as she skipped away into the nearby kitchen. The couch beneath her sucked her in with its plush, soft consistency. Without even realizing it, she had finally started to unwind from the day's stressors.

'This girl's house is amazing. It's half the size of the station and just so… sophisticated. How does someone even acquire a place like this?' As she continued taking in the sights, she came across something that began to tug at her heartstrings.

'A family portrait. Those must be her parents… She's so lucky. I wonder why they aren't home, it's pretty late. Maybe they're just out and about.'

Several minutes passed, and Elsa predictably started switching gears. Before long she had her computer out and was mindlessly thumbing through news stories, trying to establish mental model of current affairs on Earth. She discovered that biotech giant Evotech was making waves by trying, rather aggressively, to acquire a smaller competitor called CyberDynamics. There were various other pieces, most mundane but a few caught her eye. An announcement of an open-air holographic art display stood out as the most intriguing.

Just then, something entrancing and succulent wafted it's way over to Elsa. Deep-seated animal instincts she never knew she had ravenously took hold, directing her attention over to where Anna was standing in the doorway, grinning with accomplishment and holding two plates in her hands.

"Anna.. what is that?"

Anna smiled at her, and sat down on the next seat over. "Try it first." she said, raising a fork to Elsa's lips.

Elsa paused a brief moment to inspect the foodstuff. It was a small, fibrous chunk of.. something. Pink on the inside, brown on the outside. Whatever it was, the smell was intoxicating, prompting her to snatch it off the fork.

Nothing could have prepared her for the sensory impact that await. In her mind, Elsa scrambled frantically for adjectives to describe the experience, but her experience left her utterly without reference for such a delectable taste. Anna's eyes locked into her own, and Elsa was overcome with the realization that her shocked expression must have looked absolutely foolish.

"Anna, that is absolutely incredible. What is it?"

"It's a beef steak cooked medium rare. I added just a hint of seasoning."

"Beef… wait, you fed me an animal corpse?" Elsa gasped, disturbed that she might have been indirectly responsible for the death of a sentient being.

Anna chuckled exuberantly, mirth greatly exaggerating her motion. "Nope! Nobody around here has eaten a dead animal in forever. It's all lab-grown."

At that, Elsa relaxed. Without another word, she promptly set to indulging in the rest of the meal.

Stretching out and laying down across the remaining space on the couch, Anna settled down and gazed over to a display mounted on the far wall. Seemingly without provocation, it flickered to life. Startled by the sudden burst of noise, Elsa straightened in her seat and cocked her head abit. Sheepishly, she realized that Anna had turned it on using a neural interface.

"You know… I'm still not used to that. Activating devices without touching anything, I mean." She was about to elaborate, but found herself painfully reminded of the experience in the spaceport terminal.

"Huh. I don't think about it much." Anna started. "For all my personal stuff I use a neural interface. I just think and it does what I want." Mind churning in contemplation, Anna scrunched her lips and rolled her eyes up and to the side. "If I touch things, like with buttons and stuff, it's somebody else's. You're a smart girl, you'll get used to it quickly."

'I sure hope so.'

Minutes turned to hours, and Elsa found herself enjoying the show they were watching. It was an old, borderline campy sci-fi show about space travel and bridging cultural differences. One thing in particular really stuck out to her, and she wanted to ask Anna about it.

"For a program set so far into the 'future'... Why does everything look so old?"

"Well, it is old. I can't remember exactly, but uh… sometime between 1987 and 1994?"

"And this is what they thought the future would be like?"

Grinning like an idiot, Anna was clearly reveling in the absurdity of how far off the mark it was. "Ha! It's pretty silly, I'll admit. I mean, the 2360's and no augs or genetic engineering at all? I mean come on!"

Elsa could feel herself getting lighter as a bit of Anna's humor leaked into her. "And those computer interfaces! They're just backlit plastic film!"

"And even with all that, there's still a magic to heading off into the stars and just seeing what's out there. I'm kind of jealous of you. I've always wanted to go off-world."

"What a beautiful irony. I can't tell you how many hours I spent in my quarters staring out the window, wondering what it was like down here."

Several hours and a plethora of endearing moments later, the two finished an episode centered around bigotry and malice. Inspired, Elsa worked up the courage to ask a daring question.

"Anna… Can I ask you a serious question?

"Sure thing!" Came the jovial reply.

"Why do people keep calling me osterkleer?"

Elsa noticed a sour expression manifest upon Anna's face. "I don't know how much you know about people Elsa, but whenever there's a minority... they tend to get kicked around." She dropped her head and shoulders shamefully. "Ever since augmentation technology finally got good, just about everybody and their dog got upgraded. Most of the naturals left are either religious fanatics, or just really unlucky people who aren't compatible. I don't think that's a bad thing, but the way we treat purely biological people is f-"

Anna, clearly starting to simmer, took a deep breath to ground herself before continuing: "... It's shameful. Osterkleer is a terrible word. It means 'weak flesh', and it's always said with hate."

Elsa was starting to comprehend a bit more, but the prejudice asked more questions than it answered. "Why though? With all your upgrades, you're practically a god compared to me. There'd be no reason for someone like you to fear someone like me."

"Well, someone exactly like me wouldn't just not fear you - she'd like you. Others though... fall for the propaganda."

"There's propaganda? Why?"

"Yeah. They're whipping up fear, since most people think that if you don't upgrade - you don't care about being alive and have some kinda death wish. Kristoff thinks that Hans is involved, and I agree with him."

"You mean Hans Westerguard? Isn't he in charge of Evotech?"

"Mmm-hmm." She responded. "They made almost all of my systems and upgrades. It's pretty sweet tech, actually."

Elsa stiffened a bit. "I love science and technology... but not biotech. It's so different from everything I'm used to, and has such incredible power. It terrifies me."

Anna paused, looked away and swept a lock of hair back behind her ear. "Do I scare you?"

For the first time ever, Elsa had an immediate grasp on one of her deep emotions. Without skipping a beat, she replied: "A little… but it's an exciting anxiety. Sure you're one of the most powerful things I've ever encountered, but the way you carry yourself is so exciting. You've got a levity that makes me feel... adventurous."

"An adventure you say? Something tells me you could use one, after all that time cooped up in a space station. Oh! I know just where to go!" Anna sprang to her feet and into the air, then turned around and took Elsa by the hand. Bouncing up and down she proclaimed "Come on come on come on!"

"Anna, it's 21:00. You really want to go gallivanting about?" Elsa could feel her nerves starting to fray, her temporal perception starting to lag and she knew that if she didn't get to bed soon, she'd have a rough day the next morning. In spite of this, she found herself getting up off the couch and moving ever closer to wherever Anna was going to take her.

"Oh come on Elsa, 21:00 is nothing! … please?"

Elsa caved nearly immediately. What was one slow, groggy workday, anyway? She hadn't really enjoyed herself in the months she'd been on Earth, and the endogenous high coursing through her from tonight's revelry juxtaposed harshly against the grating monotony of those same months. She looked back at Anna's eager face and replied: "Okay! Let's go!"

Flashes of silver and red cut through the blackness of the night. In their wake roared the mechanical, otherworldly resonance of furiously churning turbines and compressors.

Mere micrometers lay in the void between utter oblivion and the sleek, powerful car as it tore through the streets, swiftly dodging obstacle after obstacle.

"Anna slow down! You're going to get us killed!" Elsa shrieked.

"Oh come on Elsa, I can pilot this thing just as well as any AI." Anna replied, rolling her eyes and dipping eagerly into the next turn.

"That's no excuse for turning off the autopilot."

Elsa clung to the chair, her fists clasped shut against the leather seat. She closed her eyes and regulated her breathing to a slow, rhythmic pace, desperately trying to keep the minuscule shards of ice on her fingers from growing any larger.

Anna caught a glimpse of Elsa's terror out of the corner of her eye. Sheepishly, she apologized: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. We're almost there."

Anna let off the accelerator, bringing her car down to a more lackadaisical speed. Finally at their destination, they hovered to a stop.

The summer night's cool air, laced with a refreshing dash of humidity, licked it's way across Elsa's skin. Selfishly, she paused to indulge in the sensation. When she did finally float out of the trance, she noticed a smiling Anna standing next to her.

"Walk with me, Elsa?"

Elsa simply nodded, and followed Anna a short distance away from the sidewalk, where they crossed the street and took to the path eastbound, parallel with the river.

After just a few minutes of walking in comfortable silence, the two companions came to a beach side clearing.

"Anna, this place is gorgeous. The architecture of the city skyline is so vivacious, so captivating. That's without even going into how it reflects off the water, scattering into tiny little facets. Like stars in the void."

"Yep!" Anna replied: "This is one of my favorite places. It's super beautiful and always so peaceful. But you know what the best part of all is?"

"What's that?" Elsa asked.

"Plenty of space to run! Whoosh!"

In a flash, all that remained where Anna previously stood was the gust of wind that was her wake. Elsa leaned by a nearby tree and watched as Hurricane Anna tore through the park, twirling, jumping and walking across handrails as though they were a tightrope.

The image of Anna dashing back and forth with her arms outstretched like an aerocraft sparked a rather humorous image in Elsa's mind. Snickering silently, she thought: 'I wouldn't be surprised if a pair of turbines pop out and she really does take flight!'

As Anna began to venture further and further away, Elsa started to feel a bit unnerved by the growing distance. Impulsed forward by the disturbance, she quickly found herself over by one of the piers Anna was running across. As she arrived, she caught a glimpse of a speeding Anna compressing downwards, then exploding upwards, heaving herself into the air.

Elsa stood frozen in shock at the sight of Anna sailing through the air. The gap between piers was, by her estimation, at least 4 meters. What really drove the event home was not the distance, but the cheerful shout from across the water.

"Come on Elsa! Have a little fun!"

"Anna that's at least 4 meters!"

"4.572 to be exact."

"You have a built in rangefinder?"

"Yep! Watch out, I'm jumping back over to you!"

Elsa lurched upon feeling the wooden planks beneath her flex briefly out of shape. She dipped a bit to correct the imbalance, then stood back up to face her companion.

Anna turned around and said "Hop up on my back! I'll carry you across."

Elsa found herself thankful that Anna had already turned to offer her back, since it hid the enormous blush that had seized her face. She didn't want to ruin the opportunity by questioning it, so without a second's hesitation she hopped on up. To her surprise, her companion barely compressed at all at the added weight.

"Goodness gracious Anna, I had no idea anyone could be so sturdy. You didn't even flinch at me jumping on you."

"No sweat, you're as light as a feather! Hold on!"

The pulse of each stride off the ground coursed through Elsa, delivering a crescendo of acceleration. Before long she found herself confounded by the most curious feeling. Each of her nerves were alight with an exhilarating endogenous high. She bared down and intensified her grip until she could feel every ripple and flex of Anna's mighty form beneath her.

Cascading waves of euphoria imperceptibly shifted to an acute dread, as the sight of rapidly approaching water tied Elsa's stomach in knots. She closed her eyes and held on for dear life, braced herself for a swim.

The deluge never came. Instead, Elsa found herself in a far more familiar state: weightlessness. Below her, an entire ocean of pinpoint diamonds flew by.

She opened her eyes and gasped. 'This is what it must feel like to fly.'

As soon as the duo hit the deck, Elsa lost all restraint. "Faster Anna! Faster!"

Elsa was immediately struck with the elation of Anna's response: "YOU GOT IT!"

Several piers and one close-call later, and Anna bounded back onto the beach. As gracefully as she could muster, she lowered herself down to the ground and allowed Elsa to step back onto solid ground, where she sat on a nearby bench.

Anna spun around on her heels, closed her eyes and put a hand to her chest. "Thank you for flying Anna airways, I hope you've enjoyed your flight!"

The quip hit Elsa's sense of humor perfectly, filling her with mirth and invoking a chuckle. "I loved every second of it."

Anna plopped down onto the bench next to Elsa and looked up at the stars, while Elsa was too busy thinking about earlier when she first hopped up onto Anna's back. It was the first time she'd had more than incidental contact with Anna. Or anyone, really. She couldn't get the feeling out of her head, and was unreasonably sore that it was gone.

"Anna, you know earlier when I said I was frightened of biotech?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"I think it's because I have so little exposure to it. May I see your hand for a moment?"

"Sure thing. Here!" Anna held out her right hand, and flexed it a bit, showing off it's range of articulation. Hesitantly, Elsa took Anna's hand in her left, and gently grasped just above the wrist with her right, gently manipulating it so she could see it from every angle.

Anna's skin had an extremely fine texture, soft to the touch but with a suppleness that was unlike Elsa's own. She noticed that there were occasional seams separating the patches of synthetic skin, mostly near the articulation points so that the hand could deform, but there were other seams on the palm and fingers, which Elsa guessed had a higher density of nerve receptors.

"This is some of the finest engineering I've ever seen! Each of your digits is so small, but from what I've seen you do the load-bearing capacity is astonishing… And you can feel when something touches you?"

"Yep! I can feel the wind on my skin, just like you can. That's why I can hold your hand without crushing it."

The explanation was met with more fascinated silence. Anna interjected in a gentle, reassuring tone: "You know, you can hold onto it as long as you like."

Elsa stiffened a bit, blushing at Anna's meaning, but Anna just met the gesture with a loving smile and rolled her hand until she had Elsa's in her grasp.

"See? As gentle as needed." Looking back up to the stars, and pointing to the east, Anna asked: "Elsa… you probably know this, but I've never been able to read a star chart. What's that group there?"

"That V-shaped grouping with a circle at the end? That's Pisces. It's got 17 stars. That bright spot beneath it is actually Jupiter."

"Oooh. What are some other cool ones?"

"Well, over by the moon is Aquarius. It looks a bit different from the station… Well, they all do really due to the change in perspective, but I can translate the spatial difference in my mind."

It was Anna's turn to be shocked. "Really? Wow, what did you spend all your life doing up there in that station?"

"Whatever was needed really, the library on the station is excellent. It's got the latest scholarly articles on just about every subject, so I got to dabble in everything from engineering to cartography. I miss it a great deal."

"Call me selfish, but I'm glad you're here."

"Oh… I didn't mean to sound ungrateful for your company. You're an excellent companion, and a fine hostess."

Anna cocked her face into a wry smile, and gave Elsa a borderline conceited look. "I know you're not ungrateful for my company… You're still holding my hand, remember?"

Flabbergasted, Elsa immediately dropped the cybronic hand and threw her gaze up and away from Anna's face. "It… It's a fine piece of engineering is all. Quite nice... I wasn't… I mean, hadn't forgotten!"

Anna laid back and smiled, content with herself. Minutes turned to hours once again, and before either of them realized, 01:30 had come and gone.

When Elsa finally realized this, she shot up in her seat and exclaimed "Curses! It's already 01:47! Oh I'm going to be a mess tomorrow."

"Whoops! We should probably get going, huh?" Anna replied, simultaneously entering a command onto the small remote she was holding. At its completion, the car emerged onto the road nearby, waiting for them.

"First one to the car is a stinker! Um, no wait, last one. Yeah!"

Even with all of her greatest efforts, Elsa simply could not focus on the task at hand. Error messages stacked up, something was clearly wrong. Perhaps there was a frayed network cable, or the server was simply overloaded from a faulty algorithm, but Elsa's drive to figure out what was causing the extreme packet loss on the network drained little by little, and with each passing minute she spent more and more time gandering out the window and daydreaming.

Last week she'd met up with Anna for the second time and it was a radical departure from her regular routine. Until August, she'd nearly given up on her hopes of Earth being a place full of wonder and intrigue, monotonous work had nearly driven her insane and keeping her cryokenisis a secret was making the endeavor even more maddening. But that night had given her incredible reprieve, and to date, she was still walking on air.

Further compounding the matter was the fact that Anna had invited Elsa back over to her house, and the occasion was only hours away. Shaking her head violently, she tried to clear the fog and get back to work.

And of course, deftly as usual, once Elsa had gotten her mind back on her work, bugs were quashed at an alarming rate. Now that less than an hour remained, she was on the war path, closing tickets, refining blacklists of known botnets, and scanning the network for breaches.

When the clock finally did hit 17:00, Elsa rocketed out of the east wing and towards her quarters in the dormitories. She didn't have much in her wardrobe, it still mostly consisted of jumpsuits and heavy twill cargo pants since she really hadn't caught the fashion bug since the big move,

Once she was satisfied that her appearance was appropriate, she walked down to the T station outside the dormitory and departed on the Red line. At the Park street station, she transferred onto the Green line, outbound towards Anna's residence. She considered using her computer to indulge in some music during the ride, but thought better of it, not wanting to be caught off guard again.

Elsa sauntered up to the door, ready to knock on it with vigor this time, to make up for how embarrassingly meek she'd been the previous time. Just as she stepped onto the doormat, she felt a vibration in her pocket. Pulling out the complaining computer, she looked at its screen and saw that there was a message from Anna.

'I really hope she isn't canceling on me. Well, let's see what it is.'

Anna: Elsa the doors unlocked. Im in the living room. Come on in.

'Curses. She beat me to it.'

"And they've been missing how long?" Elsa asked, trying to get a handle on the timeline of events.

Anna gave her best smile, quivering and clearly feigned. Her eyes gently eased away from Elsa's before responding: "Three and a half months. Now I know that seems like a long time but really they've probably got a good reason."

'I don't know much about people, but I know something isn't right about this.' Elsa thought to herself. A deep, unyielding desire to help fought a ferocious battle against being rude and pushing the conversation into uncomfortable territory. Outwardly, she froze for a moment as she tried to piece together the politest way to say what she had in mind.

"Anna, I'm sure they're capable people, but I can't imagine anything that would require complete silence for three and a half months. I think something is seriously wrong." Elsa carefully watched Anna for any sign of offense.

Anna's breaths drew ever shorter, her lips quivering more and more forcefully. "Elsa, I'm crazy for trusting you with this... but I just need someone to talk to and, ugh, my god you seem so honest." Elsa noticed that the girl in front of her was quaking, almost violently. She put her arms around Anna and tried to soothe her as best she could.

"What is it Anna? You can tell me."

"I don't know if you've heard… but every once in awhile on the news there will be a story about a missing natural."

Elsa started to shift a bit in her seat. "Occasionally. What about it?"

"It isn't just occasional. Someone's… killing... and taking slaves… lots of them."

"What!? Why?"

Disturbed beyond speech, Anna just shook her head in despair before finally finding the resolve to continue. "I don't know, but my dad.. dad would spend tons of time and money trying to get them to safe places… M-Mom would find out where and who was keeping them."

Elsa looked on in horror, first resorting to gently stroking Anna's arm, then awkwardly fumbling the girl in her arms. With each loathsome sob Anna let out, Elsa racked her brain for kind words, but came up blank each time.

"They're dead! I know it! And it's all my fault."

"Anna you know that's not true, you can't blame yourself."

"Yes it is! Just look at me Elsa! I could have protected them from anyone!"

Elsa could feel Anna's deep-set emotional turmoil starting to seep into herself as well. Her empathy for this pitiable young girl began to build into full swing. Just as Elsa's emotional barriers began to come down, she felt the all-too-familiar cold beginning to coalesce.

'No, no no please no, not now! Any time but now!' Instinctively she jumped away from her distraught companion, barely getting away before the bolt of ice that welled up inside shot out and across the room.

Elsa could see the shock written on Anna's face, clear as the ice she had just spawned. She could feel her heart freeze in place, waiting for anything - any sign that she hadn't utterly decimated her first real relationship since the move.

After the sniffles finally subsided, Anna shot to her feet and popped up into the air. "Whoa Elsa… that was cool!"

Elsa just stared at Anna, before folding her arms and dropping her eyelids in exasperation. It took a moment, but Anna finally realized her faux-pas.

Doubling over and snorting at her own foolishness, Anna couldn't contain herself. "Haha, not… not what I meant by cool. Oh gosh I'm so dumb. Really though, that was impressive. How did you do it?"

Elsa felt her cheeks starting to flush and her heart begin to race. Her instincts were pulling her in a slew of different directions, but the cat was out of the bag. There was no hiding her true nature from Anna now.

'Please don't think I'm a monster… please.' She took a deep breath before starting:

"I don't know. I've been cryokinetic for as long as I can remember, but it's never been under my control. It does seem to be tied to my feelings though. Apparently I caught some of your despair."

Elsa noticed that Anna's expression had morphed from one of enthusiasm. A pained frown and pinched eyebrows gave away that Anna had discovered Elsa's pain.

"That's why you came here. You didn't just leave the station, you were forced out."

Elsa just stared at the ground. "Yes. I almost killed everyone when it got out of control. There was this augmented freighter captain who was upset at how long it took us to mine his cargo. He took it out on me and I snapped at him. Before I knew what was happening, the station was unraveling around me." She composed herself, and smiled at Anna. "Before I met you, I thought all cyborgs were the same - cold and cruel. Not you. You're the sweetest thing."

That's when Elsa noticed - Anna's eyes were glowing. She wasn't sure why but Anna had just begun to speak, so she wasn't about to interrupt.

"Well, since I guess this is probably my house now… Just a second." Anna reclined in her chair, and closed her eyes momentarily. "OK, there you go. The house is set up to accept your biometrics - you should be able to get in whenever you want. Consider this place a sanctuary - you're at home here."

"You aren't scared of me?" Elsa asked.

"Of course not! You just showed that won't hurt me on purpose. And besides, if it's like you said and your power reacts to your feelings… You're going to need lots of love."

"Thank you, for everything."

It was in that moment, that Elsa knew with unmitigated conviction that she had to help this kindred soul find her lost parents. It was the least she could do, and perhaps Elsa might even find some answers herself.