Who: Elsa and Lily What: Being tethered When: back during the tether plot Where: Lily's Rating: PG
Lily rolled over sleepily, burrowing deeper under the covers as she heard her phone alarm going off. It would eventually stop and go back off in a few minutes as if she’d actually hit the snooze button. Knowing that she wouldn’t actually get up on time was why she’d started setting her alarm for 15 minutes before she actually HAD to be up. Normally she could just drift back to sleep but for some reason this morning she couldn’t and it only took her a moment to figure out why - she wasn’t alone in her bed. Actually she wasn’t in her bed - the pillowcases didn’t feel the same. Had she gone and climbed into Andromeda’s bed last night without remembering? It wouldn’t be the first time she had done that without realizing it.
She opened her eyes, looking around the room for her friend and then sat up in the bed. This wasn’t Andromeda’s bedroom. Or any room she’d ever seen before and she didn’t recognize the other woman in it. “I’ll be honest I have no clue what the hell is going on or how I got here.” She got out of the bed, realizing after the fact that somehow her magic had manifested dropping flowers around her. Lilies actually.
Elsa had gotten to sleep earlier than usual the night before; she had generally been exhausted lately, even if she was mostly healed from her ordeal. So she was a little groggy as she started to wake up, though that quickly dissipated when she realized she wasn’t alone.
The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees before she controlled herself, sitting up, wide-eyed and pulling the sheet up even if she was in fact wearing a night gown. But Elsa’s night gowns tended to be on the thin and flimsy side, so she felt it was warranted.
“How did you get into my house??”
Lily shivered slightly as the temperature in the room dropped, wishing she’d gone to bed in something a little warmer than a tank and shorts as she tried to stare at anything but the blonde on the bed. “I don’t know. I went to bed in my flat last night and woke up here. The only solution I can come up with is that my magic must have gone haywire while I was asleep. According to a friend who’s further ahead in their Dreams than I am we have a spell that allows us to transport places. I’m so sorry about this. It’s been a bit hit and miss on how it works since it started manifesting. I can make flowers show up and I guess teleport places I’ve never been.”
Elsa breathed deeply, and slowly raised the temperature back up to something comfortable before she started creating ice on everything. Leaning over the edge of the bed, Elsa picked up one of the flowers. “Lilies! They’re very beautiful.”
She tucked some hair behind her ear, slipping out of bed and then pulling on her robe from a chair. She offered Lily her hand. “I suppose that explains it. I’m Elsa.”
Lily blushed a little at that compliment to her magical flowers. “Thank you. Sometimes it’s daisies when it just happens like this. But the lilies are my favorite.” She gave her a smile as she reached out to shake her hand. “I’m Lily. Little bit of vanity I suppose with which flowers are my favorite to produce.”
“It’s really lovely. I do like lilies too.” Elsa scooted to the edge of the bed, swinging her legs down to the floor and trying to Not Panic.
Easier said than done, but Elsa didn’t particularly like having a stranger in her bedroom. At least not without inviting one first and Elsa wasn’t typically that kind of person. Ozma aside.
“I wonder what’s causing this.”
Lily was deliberately trying not to look anywhere other than Elsa’s face as she stepped back from the bed slightly, feeling a tug back towards it that she was trying to ignore. “If it wasn’t my apparition than - insanity of living here?” She said, reaching to touch her necklace lightly to make sure it hadn’t been left behind.
For her part, Elsa was mostly succeeding in not admiring the way Lily looked in a tank top. She rubbed the back of her neck. “It might be.”
Lifting her other hand, she created floating ice-lilies around them. “My magic can’t transport anyone, anyway. And I’ve seen… a lot of strange things since I moved back here.”
“At least if it is insanity of living here it’s not random illnesses and demons?” Lily said, attempting to make a joke about the weirdness. “My phone isn’t here. Can I borrow yours to call my roommate? See if she can’t come pick me up?” James might be more free in his schedule but she didn’t even want to try and figure out how to explain this to him. “See if I can’t get out of your hair.” She took a step towards the foot of the bed and felt that tug again, harder this time and as she fought against it to keep moving towards the door she felt something almost snap and launch her backwards so that she crashed into Elsa, landing on top of the blonde woman.
“Oh God I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I don’t think that was anything to do with apparition though. That’s not what’s supposed to happen.” There were risks and Amycus had explained them to her when she’d been over last weekend to flip through one of his books that he’d brought back from whereever he was storing them but it had seemed more losing body parts than crashing backwards into other people. And then the risk was only supposed to be when you were actually apparating. But then he also hadn’t told her that there was a risk of doing it by accident or in your sleep so maybe he didn’t have all the answers. Just more than she did.
Elsa didn’t want to think about the idea of getting sick because of someone else’s dreams, or even her own. She nodded, moving to get off the bed and fetch her phone, but then Lily was flying into her. They landed in a tangle on the bed and it took Elsa a moment to orient herself.
After Lily’s apology, Elsa very gently moved the woman’s hand off of her breast and towards something safer, like her hip, even if part of her immediately missed the contact. “I… don’t think this has anything to do with your magic.”
Lily blushed as she realized where her hand had ended up and another burst of flowers showed up in the bedroom. She sat up carefully, biting down on her lower lip. “I think you’re right. And until we get it figured out...I don’t think we should try to get to far from each other. I’ll have to call my job and let them know I’m taking some sick time.”
“I’m sorry,” Elsa said, looking up at Lily and not trusting herself to move just yet. She was afraid if she did they’d end up in another compromising position and she just didn’t have that in her, at all.
“Even though I know it’s not actually my fault.”
“Don’t be. Time spent not dressed up like a mermaid? I live for that. And I’m getting ready to give my two weeks soon so I promise I’m not broken up about having to miss it.” Lily said, moving slowly back to the other side of the bed. “Do you need to call your work? And can I please borrow your phone to call mine?”
“You dress like a mermaid?” Elsa peered at her, trying to imagine it and immediately blushing. “Er… I’m kind of self employed. I’m an architect and my project right now is still in the design stages.”
Lily tried not to notice that blush as she slowly moved a little further from the blonde on the bed. “I work at the Park. One of the characters I portray is Ariel. The other is Merida. Although we’re supposed to say that we’re ‘friends’ of whichever Princess not that we portray them.” She said quietly, tightening her ponytail slightly.
“An architect? Sounds fun. I’m actually going to be starting medical school in the fall which is why the two weeks notice.”
“Friends of?” Elsa nodded like that somehow actually made sense to her. “Sort of like Santa’s helpers, right? Only with princesses and queens.”
Something triggered in her memory that Elsa didn’t want to remember. Not from her dreams, but from the outside world...Princesses and Queens.
“What kind of medicine?”
“Friends of. Helps keep the magic alive for the kids I guess.” Lily said with a slight shrug. She’d never thought much about the phrasing when discussing her job with people. It was just what they’d told her to say outside of the park. “I wonder if that’s where they got the idea actually...from parents explaining that it was one of Santa’s helpers at the mall when there were 50 or so Santa’s in a town.”
“I haven’t quite decided yet. I’m thinking about family medicine though. Or being a general practitioner. I want to help as many people as I can after school.”
“I’d believe that.” Or at the very least it all came from the same kind of mindset. Children were more intelligent than people believed, but they also had very active imaginations and you could avoid (or get into) a lot of trouble because of that.
“I wish you luck then,” Elsa said. “We need more people like that.”
Lily gave her a smile. “Thanks. And we do. Especially around here I think.”