Anna of Arendelle wants to do the next right thing (pleaseletmein) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-07-31 20:48:00 |
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It had been under a week since she’d had her first Dream and while Anna had woken up feeling hurt by the familiar isolation and distance from Elsa, she had (mostly) moved on. Elsa had talked to her, they set up a weekly lunch date and now they were planning a sister trip! So clearly things were going to be fine here and she didn’t need to worry so much about her older sister disappearing out of her life all over again.
Right?
Even with the planning of a sister trip and the fact that Elsa seemed to have finished her own Dreams, the Dreams that Anna had woken up from that morning had those concerns come right back. Coronation day! (She even got a dress out of it!) The gates being opened! Running into a cute guy and then Elsa being crowned queen and reuniting and trying to bond. It was all going well! And then Anna said they should keep the gates open and Elsa said no and the fear of things going back to how they once had been…
Well, Anna couldn’t deny that fear was always in the back of her mind. It had only been like two weeks since the two reunited. It made sense she would worry about that even if she wanted to believe otherwise. Even so, by the end of the day, the worry hadn’t really abated and she wanted to do something fun and so the 23 year old found a cute outfit to wear, did her hair (and did her best to hide the white streak she’d woken up with five days earlier) and went to a bar.
She didn’t have much of a plan. But cute outfits and drinks tended to be a good distraction even if it wasn’t one she used often. Of course it was a Friday night, which meant that it was rather crowded. So the first time she felt some guy next to her brush his hand across her backside, she figured it was an accident. The second time he was a bit bolder and she just looked at him.
“Could you please remove your hand?”
With him seeming to be sorry and doing so, Anna went back to her drink only to feel the hand again and much bolder. Okay. Not cool. And so without giving it anymore thought, the redhead quickly spun and punched the guy in the nose.
“I said stop!”
What a week. Kenzi had her first dream and it was quite an experience. She had no one. No brother, no dad. She was on her own. That in itself made Kenzi hate her dream life. She couldn't imagine a life without her family.
Some asshole drugged her in the dreams but the bartender saved her by…literally sucking the dude's face or something. Their essence Bo had said. Then there was kidnapping and the cool but weird hand touch thing Bo could do. The fae trying to kill her and Kenzi coming to the rescue.
It was a lot to process. And honestly she kind of just wanted to forget.
So when her friend from work suggested a night out drinking and hanging out she didn't refuse. Her friend had just been departing and Kenzi was making her way back for another drink or two before heading out. Standing at the bar she was listening intently to this drunk girl's conversation about the last Tinder date she'd been on but another voice pulled her attention away.
Kenzi turned just in time to see a woman haul off and deck this guy. She moved a little closer. "Nice one," Kenzi remarked. "You okay?" she asked.
It was a bit satisfying seeing the creep stumble back, even if she did jump some as he yelled and called her a bitch for breaking his nose. But honestly? She had told him to back off and he didn't listen. So it wasn’t like she was going to just let him get creepier and creepier in how he was groping her. No thank you.
“Well maybe next time you’ll listen when you’re told to not be a creep!”
Yeah. That was really telling him as his friends led him out of the bar. Blowing a strand of hair from her face, the redhead blinked as she heard someone next to her make a comment and looked at the woman in confusion.
“What? Who, me?” She really hadn’t meant to cause a scene or anything. Oops? “Yeah, I’m okay. Totally okay.”
Mostly.
She couldn't help rolling her eyes when he called the other girl a bitch. Was that every guy's instant insult defense? Because it wasn't even an insult.
Kenzi watched as his friends helped him off.
"I mean not that you can't obviously handle yourself. Because you definitely put him in his place. I just wanted to see if you were okay." Which she hoped the girl did not find weird. She would have stepped in to help her if she needed it. But from what Kenzi had witnessed, she was more than capable of defending herself.
It really was a pretty trite insult and go to. But it wasn’t like Anna cared all that much. Okay, so she tended to wear her heart on her sleeve and was probably more trusting than was healthy but that was totally besides the point. She had a wicked right hook when she needed it. But still, once she knew that yes, Kenzi was talking to her, Anna gave a nod.
“Aww thank you! But yeah, I’m good! Goodish. Maybe a bit weirded out but…” Shrugged. Because why not have some word stumbling over and the like? Five years of being able to actually talk to people who weren’t nurses or doctors or her parents and she had yet to really find that stride of not oversharing or clamming up randomly.
It was an overused insult on a woman. And one that Kenzi didn't even take as an insult. Her and her friends greeted each other or called the other a bitch and it's really lost its wow factor, especially when coming from the opposite sex.
"Buy you a drink?" Kenzi asked her, motioning to the bar. "I'm Kenzi by the way.”
It was definitely overused. True Anna still took some offense but that probably was more tone and demeanor and just not being as used to it given growing up isolated for the most part. Even so, it had happened, it was done and now she was getting a friend out of it. Maybe? Anna liked to think so. Though she did get flustered when she realized she forgot to introduce herself.
“Wow, right. Hi. I’m Anna. Sorry about that. But yeah, a drink sounds good.” Smiling embarrassedly, the redhead went to the bar.
“A drink should help with the weirdish-goodish feeling. And the extra adrenaline burst.” For the itty bitty thing that Kenzi was, she’s gotten into a few altercations. Both on and off the clock.
Kenzi was incredibly social. She could strike up a conversation anywhere. It was a gift if you asked her. She had met several people because of that!
“Nice to meet ya, Anna.”
“Well that sounds good to me.” After all, she wasn’t really a fan of the weird feeling. And while she’d already had one drink, it wasn’t like another one was going to be a horrible idea. Not after what happened and now she was making a friend so the night was definitely improving on that scale!
“You too!”
“What are you drinking?” Kenzi asked her, squeezing her way into an open area at the bar. She waved, getting the bartender’s attention, as he was mixing drinks for a few people on their right.
“Here with friends? By yourself?” Kenzi asked while they were waiting for their drinks. She didn’t want to hold her up or take her away from her friends.
Answering the question on what she was drinking, Anna just shrugged at the next question on if she was there with friends or by herself, “Just me.”
Which probably wasn’t the smartest plan. Or so she’d been told. Usually it was good to have people with you, support and all. But Anna wasn’t too worried.
Maybe not but Anna seemed like she could hold her own in Kenzi's opinion. The bartender set their drink's down in front of them in exchange for the cash and moved on to serve the next group.
"Oh, cool. I was here blowing off steam with a friend. Long week. You too?" she asked.
Smiling in thanks to the bartender, Anna took a sip from her drink and then nodded at the question, “More like day. But pretty much, yeah.” Because the rest of the week had been fine. It was just waking up and suddenly worrying that despite her claims, Elsa would end up rebuking and shutting her out all over again.
“Bad day?” Kenzi asked, sipping on her own drink. She almost asked if it was dream related. Because that’s what everyone seems to talk about but she held off. If she didn’t have any dreams, then Kenzi didn’t need to bring up that subject.
Anna shrugged. “Eh, kind of? Mostly just old worries resurfacing because of a dream. So I just woke up off and that led to a weird day.” Given it was mostly just old worries, there was nothing inherently peculiar about mentioning a dream. The subconscious mind was very strange after all.
“Like a normal dream or one of those dreams we’re all talking about on the network?” It was possible it was just a regular old dream. Those were the dreams Kenzi liked. She had fun dreams. Like houses made out of pizza or candy. She however was not a fan of the other kind of dreams.
Or it seemed that Kenzi could be aware of the network. Sure. Why not. It was strange how that worked out. She had come to a random bar just to relax and next thing you know, she’s making friends with someone also on the network.
“The second one.”
“It’s so weird, right? Everyone talks about their dreams and they continue like a story.”
Since being part of the network it was kind of hard not to miss. Every other or every post sometimes talked about dreams in great detail.
“Are yours the scary wake up with injuries kind?” She had read a great deal about that too.
“It is. I mean, my sister had them and she told me about them when we met up after I got back so I was prepared. Or I thought I was because well...I don’t think anything can actually prepare you completely.”
But it was true. It was like a story and she did like her stories and yet she wasn’t so sure about what she felt about them. She had to believe that things would work out, Elsa hadn’t warned her about anything major. But the latest one just brought up all the bad feelings and worries.
“No, not scary. Lonely at first. Now there’s a coronation and meeting people but then it’s all ‘oh things are going to go back to how they were’ and yeah. Though sudden white streak of hair was unexpected. Yours?”
“How’d that happen?”
Anna wasn’t wrong about that. Kenzi has read plenty about the dreams and talked to people about them...but it wasn’t the same as experiencing it yourself. Especially the first one.
“My brother and I aren’t in each other’s dreams. I was drugged by some guy in a bar. This chick saved my life..by killing him. And that was just the beginning. A lot happened all at once in mine.”
“Apparently I got hit with ice magic in the head? I’m not sure really, it’s what my sister says. It was healed but the memory was removed in the Dreams and then I guess I lost the memory here as well.”
Shrugging, Anna took a sip of her drink as Kenzi spoke, her eyes widening.
“That must be so weird, not having your brother in your Dreams. And also that sounds like a lot just for one Dream but for that only to be the first one??? Wow. Are you okay with it??”
“Ice magic? Sounds kind of cool. Except for the part where you get hurt.” Being able to have powers of some kind sounds pretty cool. But that’s from an outsider's perspective.
“It is really weird to not have him in my dreams. He’s got a different family in his. Different friends.” Kenzi didn’t like that. At all. Her little brother should have been. “I don’t know. It’s definitely a lot to unpack. I’m also alone, on my own in my dreams. And these two guys wound up kidnapping the girl who saved me. And did some weird whistling thing that just. Who by the way saved me by face sucking the dude to death.“ Kenzi had started talking much faster, speaking about parts of what happened. “And wondering what happens next while not wanting to have another at the same time. Man did I wake up with a headache from whatever the hell that was.”
“I mean I think it is. Even with apparently getting hurt. But now I don’t remember anything about the ice magic in the dreams which is weird.” And led to her and Elsa being isolated but it wasn’t her secret to tell so she had to keep it vague.
While some people might not be able to keep up with the speed of Kenzi’s speech, Anna was able to and she was just in shock at what she was hearing. There really wasn’t much she could say to all of that. Because really, what???
“That sounds...wow. Just...wow. I can see why you'd get a headache and need to unpack it all.”
“I feel like all the dreams are required to be weird.” Some had zombies. Some were born in space.
That’s exactly how Kenzi felt. Especially since her dream didn’t even end there.
“I haven’t had one since. So at least there’s that? Maybe it’s giving me time to process. That or find a therapist,” Kenzi joked.
“Maybe they are. I don’t know.” It would make sense at any rate if dreams were supposed to be weird. If they were going to have any sort of sense that was. Anna wasn’t so sure there was much rhyme or reason but she’d only had a few dreams herself so who was she to make a definitive statement on them?
“Time to process is definitely a good thing. So that’s something.” That was Anna, trying to find a silver lining and be optimistic.