Chapter 9 – This Is Reality

Given the popularity of "Frozen," it didn't take long for lines and pickets to form outside the Orlando Police Department headquarters where it was rumored the alleged Elsa was being held. Crowds blocked South Hughey Avenue and vehicles took up spaces normally designated for municipal use. These weren't the size of gatherings for sports teams, musicians, or celebrities, but more than one cop suspected after viewing the videos which kicked it all off that this could easily get out of hand.

The Orlando Chief of Police declared information regarding this woman and her apparent supernatural powers remain contained. Not secret, but also not "announcing it on the streets for everyone to hear."

Those who interviewed Elsa all said the same thing: she's scared, confused, and whatever abilities she does have manifest themselves most strongly when her emotions run high. The Chief's daughter, exactly of the age when "Frozen" would be most appealing, found herself in for a surprise.

"Chelsea, Daddy has a marvelous surprise for you. But I can't tell you what it is or show you until you make me a promise."

"Is it an Elsa doll?" Her eyes became the size of saucers.

"It's better. I need you to swear that you will not tell anyone, not even your friends at school."

"Frozen on DVD!" shrieked Chelsea. That such an eventuality would not require secrecy did not cross her young mind.

One ride in the Chief of Police SUV later, Chelsea stepped into the station. It was the same place she remembered from "Bring Your Kid to Work" day—a slightly foreboding gray building with narrow windows. No customary stop to say hi to the receptionist as her father hustled her into an elevator. Several floors up, and Chelsea wondered whether the office air conditioning (which her father always complained about) had gone nuts since he'd insisted she wear the warmest clothing in her closet. The kind needed to visit relatives in Massachusetts.

"Snow?"

She could almost feel the cold of the metal door handle through her glove.

"ELSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Utterly ignoring piles of fluff, Chelsea plowed through obstacles and leapt over a chair that had been used by interrogators. She nearly knocked the other woman over.

Elsa couldn't understand why this child insisted on hugging her or endlessly talking about how she'd "always wanted to meet" her. That said, she preferred excited children to anything else she'd experienced in this world so far.

"I expected you to be cold!" said the girl. "I'm Chelsea."

Elsa laughed nervously. "Well, everything around me is cold…"

"Do the magic!"

"But I already did" insisted Elsa. "This whole room…" The Queen's mind darted back to the night she longed to forget, even though everything worked out (from a certain point of view) in the end. Reluctantly, she conjured a small snowball that shot toward a low ceiling, exploding into crystals and flakes.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaay!"

[…]

"Ugh. Even if my phone wasn't cracked and dying, I have no data" complained Sasha as Liz pulled into a brightly-lit parking lot of a resort "near" enough to Disney World to sell themselves as being "conveniently close" to the attraction but with "off-site prices."

The three of them checked in with what little luggage they had (a single suitcase) and flopped into their beds. A few heads turned at Anna in passing, but without her full Arendelle garb few gave her a second look, especially since those who would be most interested were already in bed at this late hour.

The next morning, Anna woke first. She had difficulty deciding whether she should wake her fellow travelers, or see about that thing that looked like a very fat version of the Jamisons' TV. During the time she wasn't operating the "car," Liz spent much of her effort explaining various facets of the world to Anna. Thus, she understood that to operate the "TV," one needed the "remote," another rectangle covered in "buttons" ("Not the kind on your dress!"). She found it next to the clock, something else she'd never seen before. Handless clocks, horseless carriages…

"Weird" she whispered to herself. Anna still couldn't get over the notion of having no physical connection to a machine, but telling it what to do without another human to operate it.

"Today on CNN Newsroom" blared out of the TV, "the unusual saga of Frozen-come-to-life continues. A man strongly resembling, and claiming to be, the character Hans of the Southern Isles was found in a remote area of Norway today. He led a group carrying crossbows and pulling cannons. It's incredibly hard to believe, but here are some photos from Norwegian law enforcement…"

"No!"

This yelp woke Sasha.

"So it is true!" she taunted.

Anna's glare could have melted iron, but while "Frozen" the film got some things wrong, her massive poofy bed-head was not one of them.

"Look, looklooklook!"

"We just want to make the world aware of the threat of a sorceress who will stop at nothing to deceive. We were working with an alliance of others to reign her in until all this happened."

"What a load of…"

Anna's face turned slightly red at hearing Sasha use a word she'd been expressly prohibited from speaking, ever. In fact, no proper lady of Arendelle would ever soil her lips by saying such things, even if as applied to Hans, it wasn't untrue.

"We have to get to Elsa!"

Groans alerted the two to Liz's gradual rejoining of the waking world.

"Whuzzgoinon?"

Sasha and Anna took turns explaining, though they needn't have bothered as CNN's Newsroom continued to talk about the subject in question.

"…extremely unlikely, but combined with the events of last week at Disney World in Florida, some serious minds are starting to support the notion that something beyond the grasp of our current science is occurring."

Yet another angle on "Elsa blasts ice in Disney World" played out.

"No coherent explanation has been put forward, and initial tests of residual water from this episode have not turned up anything unusual. Barring some high-tech special effects, which Disney World again denied today, we are looking at either the most well-coordinated prank ever, or…something else."

Nobody wanted to be the first to suggest supernatural causes on national news.

"Protests at the Orlando Police Headquarters grew larger today, though the department still will not confirm that the self-identified Elsa is being held there. There have also been claims made on the internet that a shockingly-accurate lookalike of 'Anna' has been spotted in the American heartland. More after these messages."

A/N: I "visited" the places I described here via Google Maps, so descriptions are necessarily limited/inferred/made-up.