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Mulan had never really been sure what she expected when it came to a boarding school for mutants. People tended to compare their powers like they compared favourite books, picking apart and discussing, gossiping in the corridors and between classes. Classes were mostly the same, apart from the addition of fireproof materials and teachers who could read the minds of potential troublemakers, and the rooms were pretty normal as well unless you needed special accommodation. Mulan’s super strength had always been pretty well under control; by the time that the Xavier Institute picked up on her and invited her along, it was pretty much like going to a normal high school.
Only, of course, there was the girl called Rapunzel down the corridor with the healing hair, and there was Adam who was eight foot tall with horns and an awful lot of brown hair. But that became normal after a while as well, and so did people gathering round at lunchtime to watch her arm-wrestle Hercules, who had durability to go with his strength and would have been annoyingly perfect were he not so terribly likable.
She knew from the beginning that she was probably going to have to share a room, but something went wrong in the other girl’s visa or something, and Mulan found herself in a twin room by herself. At least it gave her plenty of room to practice her kickboxing. They kept the room empty, though, optimistic.
It was year before she got a roommate. Her name was Elsa, she was a year older than Mulan, and her English still had a heavy Scandinavian accent. They didn’t share any classes, Elsa didn’t appear to want to join any extracurricular activities, and when she was actually in their room rather than the library she usually wore huge sound-muffling headphones. It took nearly a month before Mulan found out that Elsa was a cryokinetic, and that was only because she accidentally froze the shower.
Out in the real world, Mulan might have been tempted to write her off as snobbish. But she had heard enough stories to know that plenty of people didn’t have parents who were so supportive of their mutant status, and there were horror stories in Xavier Institute that would make R. L. Stein crap his pants
“Hey,” she said one evening, as Elsa was just about to put on her headphones. Elsa looked round sharply, eyes wide, and Mulan was glad she was standing at a distance. Didn’t want to come off too creepy. “This Christmas. You going home for the holidays?”
Elsa licked her lips, fiddling with the headphones. “I do not think so.”
“There’s always a good meal here,” said Mulan, with a shrug. “Plenty of people stay here over Christmas. Me, I like getting a Christmas. My parents are a bit traditional.”
“Traditional?” Elsa frowned slightly, but Mulan could see that there was some interest there.
“Yeah, they celebrate the Dongzhi Festival, you know? Only, not too big of a celebration,” Mulan said. She crossed over to her bed and dropped her bag onto it; the mattress gave a warning sound. At least the extra-sturdy bag was holding up this time. "Tangyuan, dumplings, phone calls to China. My Mandarin isn’t really good enough for that. But it’s the Chinese winter festival, you know?” Well, most people didn’t, to be fair, but that was just one of the good parts of the school, in Mulan’s opinion. There was always more to learn about people. “It’s not as big of a thing as Christmas. As long as I Skype my parents, they’re okay with me staying here.”
Growing up without making such a fuss of Christmas had made it all the more fun in her teens, in a way. Just at the age when most people were starting to think that Christmas was for little kids, Mulan had all but discovered it, and since her parents were happy to let her stay at the school for Christmas, as long as she visited home for the lunar New Year, she took advantage of it.
Elsa gave her a momentary smile, but it was only flickering. “Your words are kind. Thank you.”
Mulan wasn’t sure what to say to that. In lieu, she dug out a couple of chocolate bars from her bag and tossed one over. It might have been more reflex than anything else that Elsa caught it, gloved hands snapping closed around the bar.
“Merida bet me I couldn’t bend the iron bar she’d found this time,” said Mulan, by way of explanation. “Please, take one off me. If I ate all the chocolate I won around here, I’d make myself sick.”
A giggle burst from Elsa’s lips, before she quickly hid it behind her hand. It was the first time that Mulan had seen her laugh, and it suited her more than hiding away in her thick textbooks. Mulan grinned, grabbed her gym bag from beneath the bed, and swung it over her shoulder.
“I should go. Be late for class otherwise. Tell me if Merida gave me decent chocolate or not.”
As she closed the door behind her, she saw Elsa put the headphones aside, even if she did reach for her textbook once again.
They spoke more, after that. Not always over chocolate, but it did seem to help speed their conversations along. Elsa was from a city called Arendelle, where her father was an important politician; all right, so technically Mulan googled that second bit, but once she heard the surname and the city it sort of fell together. She had a younger sister, to whom she wrote long emails to once a week, and who she said was ‘lucky’ not to be a mutant nor to have anything to do with them. Mulan could see a touchy subject when it was in front of her, and did not push the point.
Elsa did indeed have cryokinesis, and though she was taking normal classes more advanced than her sophomore status, she was having to be privately tutored in controlling them because she struggled so much. That part she only admitted to Mulan after shattering a vase in October and turning their room into an icebox in November in fear over an exam.
She had been pleading, horrified, and apologetic. Mulan had not even bothered putting on a sweater, just shrugged and said that she’d felt worse. It was a lie, of course, but she hoped it counted as a white lie.
“Ought to introduce you to Esmeralda,” she said, referring to the recent graduate who now taught dance and was one of the X teams. “Between this and her pyrokinesis, you’d have quite the show.”
“You’re not angry?” said Elsa. There were tears in her eyes, but Mulan tried not to look at them for too long. She wasn’t so good with tears.
“Why should I be? I break doorknobs, you frost the windows. It’s part of life.”
And, around the school at least, it was.
As they got into December, and it became colder outside anyway, Mulan ruefully gave in to sweaters and thick socks. She could not help noticing that outside of their room, Elsa would cover up in layers, covering herself from neck to wrists and ankles. If she could have worn a headscarf without drawing attention to herself, Mulan suspected she would have done. In the privacy of their room, though, Elsa would sometimes shed layers, to tees or strappy tops, even shorts on the weekends, wandering around barefoot while it snowed outside. But she always, even when sleeping, kept her gloves on.
Christmas decorations went up haphazardly, started by the youngest students in their classrooms, then spreading as some of the older and more mischievous students who could fly, climb or otherwise make their way to the high ceilings got in on the act. There were enough Jewish kids at the school that there was the occasional Judaic touch, menorahs in windows and a proliferation of donuts which nobody complained about, it was still a Christmas holiday first and foremost, and soon there was a huge tree in the entrance hall, garlands, people brandishing mistletoe at each other and the general tomfoolery of the end of the semester.
Professor Monroe returned from a trip abroad, intending to start teaching again in the New Year, and Mulan saw immediately that Elsa was smitten. She read up about Professor Monroe, would get distracted from reading to watch her through the window, and Mulan even caught her muttering to herself about asking Prof. Monroe about her powers, and controlling them. She had fallen guiltily silent just as Mulan opened the door, though.
Mulan would be lying if she said that she wasn’t a little bit jealous.
On the day that people started going home for the vacation, it was chaos, and Mulan had no intention of leaving her warm, comfortable bed if she did not have to. For the same or different reasons, Elsa had decided to stay in as well, and was sitting at her desk sketching out architectural forms on her draughting paper.
“What did you do for Christmas?” said Mulan. For some inexplicable reason, history was not keeping her attention while there were screaming children outside and people occasionally flying past the window before being caught and told off by various teachers. “Back in Arendelle.”
Elsa paused in her drawing. “It was not that special. A tree, presents, dinner.” She tucked some stray hair back behind her ear. It was only up in a bun today, and a loose lock dangled right down between her shoulderblades. “As much Julekake as we could eat, of course.”
“Much different than in America?”
She shrugged, but the movement was a little clunky. “Not much.”
“Honestly, I’m still learning about American Chrstmas,” said Mulan. She adjusted her cross-legged position, blanket draped over her shoulders. “I know the general stuff, but everyone’s got these little… quirks. Like, Rapunzel, she prepares all her decorations on November, and waits for midnight for it to be December first to put them up.”
She didn’t add that it was because Gothel had banned Christmas altogether, and Rapunzel went giddy with the very idea of it. That was Rapunzel’s part of the story.
“Or Merida, she does these things called mince pies. Trashes the kitchens, every year apparently. But Professor Xavier approves, apparently.”
“It sounds like there are a lot of different… traditions here,” said Elsa.
“Well, we’ve got people from all over, you know? But I like it,” said Mulan. She turned a page in her textbook before realising that she had not read a thing on it and quickly turned back again. “I was thinking of making a bit of a cooking party of it this year, anyway. Merida can do her mince pies, and Tiana – she graduated last year, she basically runs the kitchen now,” she added, as Elsa frowned again, “can make a dozen different sorts of cookies or whatever. And I make enough tangyuan that anyone who doesn’t want to lose their teeth to sugar can eat them.”
“What are tan-gwan?” said Elsa, her pronunciation probably even worse than Mulan’s. Grandmother had spent years playfully refusing to let Mulan eat any until she could pronounce it correctly.
“Type of rice balls,” said Mulan. “Why don’t you come down to the big cooking evening, give them a try? You can make that…” she waved a hand, and tried to remember the word that she had only heard Elsa use once. “Yule cake.”
“Julekake,” Elsa said. “But… I would probably not be very good at it.”
“Trust me, Tiana could salvage anything. And at the very least, you have to see how much of a mess Merida can make.”
Somehow, their cooking night managed to get organised. Tiana was not so much actively cooking as trying to keep an eye on everyone else, occasionally using her long tongue to snatch cooking implements from across the room before anyone could do anything regrettable with them. Covered in flour and produce all-new colourful curses, Merida seemed to be wrestling her mince pies into submission as much as actually cooking them, while Ron Stoppable – not technically a mutant, but the magical powers he had been affected by made him fit in better here than elsewhere – tried to assist her while doing his own, rather more impressive, cooking.
In contrast, Rapunzel, with her hair in a dense braid that actually kept it off the floor this time, had control over her trays and trays of cookies, chattering away with Pocahontas who was mostly watching for her own amusement, and occasionally using her speed to mix dough for Rapunzel while Ron was monopolising the actual mixers.
Elsa worked quietly at her julekake, with laminated printed sheets on the music stand which she had repurposed as a book stand for the day. She might have been about the only person cooking from actual instructions. Mulan made sure to take the stretch of counter closest to her, perhaps to act as a sort of buffer to both Merida’s exuberance and her swearing.
“Who’s got the food colouring?” Mulan stood on her tiptoes to peer around the room, then cupped a hand close to her mouth. “Ron! You using the food colouring?”
“Just about done,” he shouted back, moving between the two ovens he had taken over.
Mulan rolled her eyes, and was just about to fetch the colouring herself when, with a blur of movement, Pocahontas retrieved them all and deposited them on Mulan’s counter with a grin.
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” said Pocahontas, smiling, and in a blink she was back talking with Rapunzel again as if they had not missed a word.
Shaking her head, Mulan started splitting up the dough, glancing over to make sure that her black sesame was not getting too black. She looked over to see Elsa peering at the settings for the hand mixer she had managed to claim, everything careful.
“You need any colours?” said Mulan, with a nod to the dough.
Elsa looked round in confusion, then down to the dough and back again. She had actually taken her gloves off to cook, Mulan realised, something that didn’t even happen when she slept. Somewhere on the far side of the kitchen, Merida and Tiana were descending into a spirited argument about cups versus grams. “No, thank you.”
“You ever make this yourself before?” Mulan continued, with a nod to the mixing bowl.
There was a moment’s hesitation before Elsa replied, and Mulan had heard enough stories since she’d been here to have an idea what that meant, as well. “No,” she answered finally. “When I was little, my mother made it, and my sister and I… tried to help.”
That was something that stayed the same the world over. Mulan laughed. “Yeah, apparently I did as well. And you should hear the stories Merida tells about her brothers.”
Fond, if vehement, stories.
“I think my sister and mother still make it.”
After drips and drops over the months, Mulan had a faint shape of Elsa’s life, and a suspicion that something had happened and things had changed, inexorably. Something had cut Elsa out of her sister’s life. She had seemed so relieved to write emails, as if it was the best communication with her sister she had experienced in years.
“You should tell your sister,” said Mulan. “Send pictures.”
Elsa looked down at herself, sleeves rolled up and hands covered with flour, dough under her fingernails. A huff of laughter escaped her. “I am not sure she would recognise me,” she said quietly, voice sounding almost defeated. She used the back of her wrist to push hair out of her eyes, then sighed and set about flouring the counter in front of her.
“Well, not if you take a picture of that and tag it as yourself,” teased Mulan.
There was a moment where astonishment crossed Elsa’s face, then she burst out laughing, bright and clear enough for the others in the kitchen to look around as well. She quickly caught herself, cheeks reddening, but continue to muffle giggles behind her hand. Mulan could not help feeling a little pleased with herself for it.
“Seriously,” she continued, finishing getting the blue food colouring even in the last batch of rice dough and starting to split it off into palm-sized chunks, “I meant the yulekake. Maybe it’ll… make her feel close to you, you know? Doing the same thing, even in different places.”
Elsa’s smile shook, but held. “Maybe,” she said.
Tiana ended up throwing all of them except Ron and Rapunzel out of the kitchen, making her feelings about the mess they had all made quite well known. Merida was grinning anyway, hair long since starting to escape from her attempt at a bun and powdered with flour, and Mulan at least felt confident that she had not left too much of a wasteland from her own work.
It was late, dark, and mostly quiet, although Merida said that she was planning a movie night with some of the others. Both Elsa and Mulan declined, and walked side-by-side back to their room.
As they reached the door, Elsa cursed in Norwegian – at least, Mulan was pretty sure it was a curse from the tone of voice, although Elsa had never deigned to translate it – and grabbed at the gloves tucked into the pocket of her jeans. Mulan reached out on impulse to grab her hand, very careful to keep her touch light.
Elsa looked up at her, eyes wide, as if she were on the verge of panic.
“It’s fine,” said Mulan. “Leave them off for an evening.”
“No, I should keep them on. It is… not safe.”
“School full of mutants, remember? You’re fine. Nobody’s going to freak out if you freeze your water bottle or something.”
Elsa’s hands weren’t even all that cold. They had the softness of being washed repeatedly, and maybe some of the warmth was from the cooking but all that Mulan could think of was that it was strange that someone with ice powers could still be perfectly warm to the touch. Elsa looked down at their joined hands, not even pulling away and with bemusement rather than offence, and Mulan cleared her throat but did not actually pull away.
“Leave them off,” she said again, more gently. “It’s only going to be you and me. Want to watch a film or something?”
“I usually watch old musicals,” Elsa said, like it was admitting something. She looked up and caught Mulan’s eyes cautiously. “At Christmas.”
“I’ve seen a few. Let’s go for it.” Mulan did not add that it was her grandmother who had a love for them, and sang along. All that mattered, she supposed, was that she had a nostalgic fondness for them as well. “Your choice.”
Elsa smiled, and kept hold of her hand. And that was start enough.