[audio] cold metal

[bethegoodgirl]

[The whole broadcast is accompanied by the clank of metal and a sound like cracking, shifting ice. Elsa is clearly pacing around her room.]

Someone, please--something has happened to me, I-I don't...I'm in some kind of metal, like, like armor. It's a curse...some kind of curse, it has to be.

[Her voice gets markedly more frantic.] And Anna! I keep seeing Anna in that--I don't know what it is. The black box. She's alone, she's in danger, and I can't reach her! I have to help her. My sister...

[She's silent for a moment, taking time to metaphorically breathe and calm herself down.]

Someone--please tell me what is going on.

Comments

Audio

[donttestme]

[It sounds like someone's first event. While Chell has been keeping to herself more, lately - she understands the confusion and panic from a Wonderland event, especially one that wants to play with their head. And if no one else has explained this to her - someone should.]

It happened to everyone.

It's something this place does.

Audio

[bethegoodgirl]

An...an event? Martha told me about...but I didn't expect anything like this!

How long will it last? And what about my sister?

Audio

[donttestme]

[Oh - good. She wouldn't have to explain too much.]

Three or four days, usually.

[The second part... She doesn't say anything, for a moment.]

If she wasn't here before the event, then it wasn't her.

audio;

[notthesecondworstfighter]

While it definitely feels like it, it's not a curse. Not exactly.

[It's matter-of-fact, but his voice also holds some sympathy. These events are always awful, but they're worse for the newer arrivals, which he has to assume she is. Not knowing what's going on is a pretty good sign of that.]

You must be pretty new, right? Did anyone tell you about the events around here?

audio;

[bethegoodgirl]

I've been told about the events, yes, but I--I didn't think this was the kind of power they had...

audio;

[notthesecondworstfighter]

Well, it's not always like this, but... Yeah. It seems like they have the power to change and manipulate whatever they want. Even us.

Voice

[seekinghome]

::Ed's original plan was to stay in hiding and try to deal with the guilt of having done this to his brother, but then, freaked out new arrival happened.::

It's an event. It'll pass. Just try to remind yourself that it's only temporary.

Voice

[bethegoodgirl]

How soon will it pass...and what about Anna? She keeps appearing on the box...

Voice

[seekinghome]

It should be done in two or three days. And all I can say about Anna is to try to ignore what it's showing you about her. While I know what's causing the armor, I don't know why we're being shown the other stuff.

audio;

[lowkeyangel]

[Normally this would be where Gabriel jumped right in and started to joke, but he can tell that this newcomer (she's got to be new, with a reaction like that) is feeling panicked. So, he decides to be gentler than usual.

Shocking!]

Don't worry, kiddo. It's happened to all of us. Should clear up in a few days.

audio;

[bethegoodgirl]

People have told me as much, but...that also means that Anna might be dead in a few days...

[voice forever]

[akapeanut]

[George's first instinct is to start her response with video, even despite the girl's post being audio-based. She's found she prefers seeing people's faces when she talks to them, which is something to look forward to in the future if she ever goes home, apparently. Telephones and text-chatting were always a little too difficult to make it clear just how little she cared about things, before, and now that she actually does, well.

Hopefully this girl can tell George is trying her best to be understanding, here. Because there is basically no way seeing something rusted and horrible trying to comfort her would at all help.]

You saw your sister too?

[voice forever]

[bethegoodgirl]

[By now she's heard all the explanations and assurances and platitudes. She's not sure what to believe, but she has calmed down a little bit. Enough that her voice manages not to shake in her responses. She's been huddled in an icy corner of her room for several long minutes now, watching the black box against the opposite wall to see if it'll show more of Anna. Everyone says it's not real, but how can she know for sure?]

I did. Anna. [She pauses.] Everyone's seeing someone, aren't they? You saw your sister?

[audio]

[seekingbrother]

[Oh god. Al probably couldn't feel any smaller if he were a tiny mouse and not an empty suit of armor.]

I-I'm sorry, Miss Elsa...this--Wonderland did this based on my memories. Everyone should be back to normal within a few days...

I don't know what the images are there for, but...I don't think it's real. I hope it isn't...

[audio]

[bethegoodgirl]

Alphonse...? [She's calmed down a fair bit by now. She's been hours in this armor, so that's not the part that's scaring her anymore. Panic attacks can only last for so long before they become exhausting. Not that she can even feel exhausted right now, but she's just mentally incapable of worrying about the armor anymore. It's Anna she's still worrying about.]

It's Wonderland's doing, isn't it? People have explained the events to me. It's not your fault. I'm...I just can't stop thinking about Anna. I saw her on the black box, lost in the mountains...

[She's quiet for a bit. There's a few clanking, shifting sounds as she huddles in on herself.]

Is armor alive in your world? Is that why we're like this?

[audio]

[nascensibility]

[A distressed, new voice on the network? Evelyn might have heard her once before, perhaps, but not like this. Fear is a massive motivator in Wonderland's events, and it can spur many of the residents to do marvelous and terrible things, but she can't simply let anguish like that go on in silence.

The new voice isn't the only one suffering, after all.

Evelyn, or the hollow shell thereof, responds in kind.]

Don't panic,

[is the first thing out of her mouth, because she understands that it's the first thing on anyone's mind. Well. That, or apathy.]

Don't panic, my name is Evelyn, I've- I've been here a while. This should only last a couple of days. Your sister should be all right.

[A beat.]

...May I ask your name?

[audio]

[bethegoodgirl]

Evelyn...thank you. I--I'm sorry for panicking, I'm--I've calmed down a little. M-My name is Elsa. Queen Elsa.

[She's still not sure if she should advertise that she's a queen, and more than that, she doesn't exactly feel like a queen right now. Just a lump of metal and leather.]

SURPRISE ACTION

[boyhood]

<sub>[Oh dear, no, perhaps you should panic, Elsa. Perhaps you should believe your sister really is in danger and you're helplessly watching her in the throes of something dark and threatening. Doing so would certainly amuse at least one person in Wonderland, and that one person has little interest and little intention of comforting a distraught woman.

That person also has no care for locked doors.

There's not much that can keep him out unless someone is actively trying, and so he does what any intellectual would do when faced with a curious case of magic and intrigue: he goes to investigate.]</sub>

You don't mind if I drop in, do you?

<sub>[Without warning he's just there, standing by the wall in Elsa's room, an armored figure dressed up in forest designs and earthen hues to contract Elsa's stark, icy form.

And speaking of ice, my oh my, it's quite cold in her chambers, just as each video she'd made to date suggested. Quite the little snow queen.]</sub>

DAMMIT PETER

[bethegoodgirl]

[Elsa has been sitting huddled against a far wall this whole time, ice spreading very slowly out from her as creeping hoarfrost. The fact that she hasn't frozen the whole room yet is testament to the modicum of control she has. She's terrified, but trying to keep calm enough not to freeze the whole mansion.]

[That's pretty much all moot when suddenly there's a voice and an armored figure against the opposite wall. Elsa screams and leaps back to her feet, a bit clumsily as the armor doesn't move quite like a normal body should. She's made of scale and leather armor with a plate mail breastplate, the latter with decorative white enamel made to look like frost. The metal has a sheen of real frost on it as well.]

Who are you?! What are you do-- H-How dare you invade my chamber?

[manicuredangel]

I think we're all trapped in an armor shell right now, dear. This event is extremely disconcerting.

[His voice is gentle, despite the tinny quality to it.] As for what the box is showing you... It isn't real. As difficult as it may be, please try to ignore it.

[bethegoodgirl]

I've heard as much by now. [It's said with sorrow and resignation.] It's hard to ignore...any of it. I just can't...

Audio

[thneedifestdestiny]

[Everyone else has probably gotten to the important parts of the message, so the Once-ler chimes in with the truly important information.]

That black box is a TV. You watch movies and TV shows on them - uh, kind of like stories, but with pictures that move around? But whatever, usually that's all made up, so I'm pretty sure none of this is real.

[Or at least that's what he's going to keep telling himself until proven otherwise.]

Audio

[bethegoodgirl]

[Thank goodness, she was worried she'd have to refer to it as the "black box" forever.]

TV? Moving pictures? [Give her a moment.] Like, the, ah...the video function? The image of Anna, it was moving the way the video does. Though there was a great deal of fog.

[voice]

[tenpetals]

The TV's lying. Everyone says it's lying, the time here doesn't count back there.

[For all that his words are reassuring, Garry's tone doesn't sound any calmer than Elsa's. In fact, he sounds a lot like he's trying to convince himself, which is probably because he is.]

[voice]

[bethegoodgirl]

It's just so hard to see it, even if that's so.