Archive of Our Own

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There was a screech, a thud and then another screech before it all ended with a skid of shoes.

“Elsa, oh my god, Elsa.” Anna was huffing, her hair falling in her face. She tried to blow it out of the way, with no luck. But then she rushed the last few steps toward her sister, hand outstretched.

Elsa looked at the paper Anna was holding out and then up into her face.

“Take it!” Anna said.

Elsa reluctantly put down the book she had been trying to read before this interruption and did as she asked. It was an invitation, written on thick white paper.

Elsa stopped reading. “What is this ridiculousness?”

“Look!” Anna squealed as she pointed to more text down below. “It’s on an island!”

Elsa frowned. “This isn’t even signed.”

“Isn’t it amazing?” Anna sighed. “All the other girls are going.”

“What other girls?”

“The girls in princess group chat!” Anna said huffily. “The one I keep inviting you to? That you insist on ignoring?”

“I don’t know, Anna,” Elsa said. “Something feels odd about this.”

“That’s just because you don’t like to have fun,” Anna huffed. “It’s a Royal Gathering for princesses. What could possibly be odd about that?”

--

Elsa was already deeply regretting her decision to let Anna talk her into going. Though more aptly, she had been unable to talk Anna out of going, and she just couldn’t let her sister walk straight into something that might be dangerous.

What she was seeing now really did put immense fear into her whole being, but not for any reason that Anna would see.

The curved driveway in front of the small palace that was hosting the conference was filled with limousines and horse-drawn carriages and even a flying carpet. Everywhere Elsa looked, she could see entourages carrying trunks and tiaras and wands. And she could have sworn she saw a crab scuttle by, shouting at some birds.

She glanced behind her to the dock where she, Anna and Olaf had docked their boat, wondering if anyone would truly care if she just decided to leave. Olaf could keep Anna company. She could come back in a couple days to pick her sister up. It would be fine, right?

A voice sounded beside her ear. “You could always do what I do.”

Elsa turned to find one of the princesses standing beside her — a beautiful brunette in a yellow dress who she could only guess was Belle. She held up a thick book, putting it up to her face and hiding most of herself behind it, before dropping it down and smiling. “It’s amazing how people overlook you when you have a book in your face,” she said. “It’s very handy too. You can learn so much about people when no one thinks you’re listening.”

Elsa sighed. “You don’t happen to have an extra, do you? I may need to borrow two or three.”

Belle laughed. “I brought twenty.” She held out a hand to Elsa. “I’m Belle.”

“Elsa.”

“Anna talks about you all the time.”

Elsa shook her head. “Is there anyone my sister doesn’t know?”

Belle smiled. “I don’t think so. But come on. Let’s go check out this place. I do have to admit I am quite curious what it’s all about.”

Elsa nodded, wondering if she should mention the bad feeling she had about it. But she was probably overreacting, right? Just because this wasn’t her scene didn’t mean it was shady. So she picked up the small bag she had with her — Olaf had insisted he could carry it for her, but she had insisted she was perfectly capable of handling her own luggage — and followed Belle up the curving path and into the castle.

Inside was even worse than outside, if that were possible. Everywhere Elsa looked she saw women in ballgowns and extravagant hairdos, usually being led by someone shouting, “Princess coming through!” over the din of other people shouting, “Princess coming through!”

“How many princesses can there possibly be anyway?” Elsa muttered to herself.

“There are sixteen in princess group chat,” Belle said. “But I assume those are only the ones Anna could get to agree to join. I’m sure there are more.”

Elsa looked around. “And all sixteen are here?”

Belle nodded. “A royal gathering, an island getaway and a talent show night? It’s like the ultimate princess getaway.”

“Wait,” Elsa said. “A talent show night?!?!”

“Didn’t Anna give you the itinerary?” Belle asked.

“Anna is about to be dead to me,” muttered Elsa.

Belle laughed, obviously wrongly assuming Elsa was kidding.

“Come on,” Belle said, before slipping her arm through Elsa’s and pointing to a sign reading “Princess Registration!” “How bad could it possibly be?”

--

By the time, the first course had ended, Elsa was fully wishing she had gone with her instinct to turn around, get back on the boat and sail for home. She had met too many princesses, smiled so much her mouth hurt and was going to pummel the next person who burst into song. The princesses at her table were all lovely — Belle, Jasmine and Moana, who was turning out to be her favorite (“Not a princess,” Moana would say every time someone greeted her with the moniker. “And no, I don’t know why I’m here either. Please don’t ask.”) — but she had no idea how she was going to make it through a weekend of games and talent shows and group sing-alongs.

It was almost a relief when the power went out in the middle of the second course, sending the entire dining room into pitch darkness.

There were a few sounds of protest, the clinking of a few water glasses being knocked over, one loud “Ow!” from somewhere near the front, and then the general noise of people discussing amongst themselves.

“Did someone not pay their power bill?” Jasmine said with a chuckle from Elsa’s right. “But can anyone pass me bread while we wait?”

“Maybe it’s going to storm,” someone from a different table suggested.

“It was clear as glass out there,” Moana mumbled from somewhere to Elsa’s left. “I don’t think this is weather related.”

Elsa tended to agree. “I’m sure it will be fixed soon,” she said. Her eyes were already beginning to adjust to the dark, familiar shapes now appearing from the black. Belle’s bun piled high on her head, Jasmine’s crown, Moana’s oar perched against her chair, Rapunzel’s hair that stretched across five chairs at the table behind Moana, a little bouncing figure that was probably Tiana’s frog.

She also saw a few figures getting up from their chairs and moving to the closed double-wide doors, presumably to check that the rest of the castle was out of power as well. She watched as the first person in the group — Aurora, it looked like — reached out to open the door. And then tugged it again. And again.

“It’s locked,” she said, confusion tinging her voice.

“Let me try,” Anna said, and Elsa watched as her sister tugged on the door, also without success.

Others were noticing now, and the room was starting to fill with a tension that hadn’t been there before.

“Here,” said a voice, and when she stood up, Elsa saw it was Cinderella. She was reaching up and pulling something out of her hair that was piled high on her head. “I have a pin.”

Anna took the pin, bent down so she was eye level with the keyhole and slipped it inside. And then she yelped, and Elsa saw her spring to her feet.

“It shocked me!” she said. “The door shocked me!”

More gasps and murmurs followed, and then Elsa saw Rapunzel climb to her feet.

“I have some heavy duty ones!” Rapunzel called out, and she made her way over to where the princesses were gathered beside the door. Elsa found herself getting to her own feet and following her over as well. She could feel Belle, Jasmine and Moana behind her.

Rapunzel did what Anna had previously done, and bent down so she was eye level with the keyhole and then slipped the pin from her hair inside it. But, just as Anna before her, she let out a cry and dropped the pin.

“The door shocked me too!” she said. “It felt like an electrical current.”

“What is happening?” Moana asked.

“Fine,” Rapunzel huffed, and she blew some hair out of her face. “I’ll just do it a different way.” And then, as the others watched, her hair billowed up, seemingly on its own since there was no wind in the dining room, and a strand of hair went directly into the keyhole. For a few moments, everyone watched her work, and then a zapping noise broke the silence, Rapunzel cried out and the strand of hair that had been in the lock fell to the ground, completely cut off from her head.

Several princesses let out tiny screams. Elsa rushed up to Rapunzel and pulled her away from the door.

“Someone does not want us to get out of here,” Elsa said warily.

“Well, someone is going to have to think twice!” retorted Moana, and Elsa saw her cross her arms across her chest.

“Does anyone have magical powers?” asked someone. Elsa thought it might have been Snow White.

“Elsa does!” Anna shouted.

Elsa frowned as she looked at the door. The pins didn’t work. Rapunzel’s hair didn’t work. But all of those had been inside the keyhole. Maybe if she could freeze the keyhole, or the door itself, they could break it down and open it.

“Stand back everyone,” she said, and she waited for them all to give her space. Then she positioned her hands, took a breath, and aimed her powers directly at the keyhole and the doorknob. Wind billowed around her, flakes of snow and ice appearing. The temperature inside the room dropped at least ten degrees — but nothing happened to the door. It remained completely unchanged. Neither the keyhole or the lock or the door showed any sign of being affected by the cold.

“Are your powers broken?” Anna asked.

Elsa put her hands down. “I don’t think so?” she said, then turned around and shot a bolt of light at the nearest chair. Almost immediately it turned into a sheet of ice and then crashed, broken, to the ground. “No. The door is just enhanced to resist magic. Or at least my magic.”

“Can anyone else do magic?” Jasmine asked.

“I can talk to the ocean,” Moana said with a shrug. “But I don’t really see how that would be helpful right about now.”

As if in answer to her, a loud crack of thunder sounded overhead, followed by a flash of lightning, which lit up the entire dining room for a brief moment. And then it was gone, and the room was black again.

“Was that lightning … inside … the dining room?” Belle asked uncertainly. A moment later, a second crack of thunder sounded and another bolt of lightning arched across the ceiling.

“What is happening?” Moana asked.

Another loud noise. But this one wasn’t thunder. In fact, it sounded more like static over a loudspeaker that didn’t get much use. And then Elsa could make out a voice — male sounding — like it was clearing its throat. And then the words came.

“Princesses! And queens! And imposters!”

“Excuse you,” Moana muttered.

“I hope you are enjoying the accommodations! Because they are the last accommodations you are ever going to have!” A horrible chilling laugh followed this proclamation, and Elsa felt her hands clenching into fists. “There are no windows and no workable doors! And no way out! Your entourages have all been sent home, and you are utterly and truly alone! You will all die — or kill each other. Your choice, princesses! Have fun!”

There was a click, and then there was nothing. Just silence and the occasional breaths of one of the princesses.

Finally, Jasmine spoke. “Okay,” she said. “Nobody panic.”

“Oh, I am not panicking,” Moana said. “I really just want to cut a bitch.”

Elsa couldn’t help it. She snorted silently. But then she said, “Look. Together we have all defeated some of the most powerful villains in the world. If this random voice thinks they are going to end us by locking us in a room, they have another thing coming.”

“You tell him, Elsa!” Belle said.

“Do you think whoever trapped us in here can hear us?” Jasmine said. “Or see us? And what did he mean he sent all our entourages home.”

“No,” Elsa said. “I don’t believe it. There is no way Olaf left Anna and I. No matter who told him to.”

“Sebastian would never leave me,” Ariel said.

“Nor would Rajah,” Jasmine said.

“What if they threatened them though?” Aurora said a little shakily. “My godmothers don’t always have the strongest composition.”

“No,” Elsa said again. “Whoever locked us in here couldn’t risk that. All these people just going home without us, expected to keep silent?” She shook her head. “No, I think it’s more likely that he has them all locked up somewhere else in this castle. Probably told them we all left them.”

“Okay,” Belle said. “So we need to find a way out and then find a way to rescue all our people? Sounds simple enough.”

“Does it?” said Rapunzel.

“We’ve all been through worse,” Belle said.

“Again, no one here except Elsa has powers?” Cinderella asked.

Lots of heads shook.

“We’re all smart ladies,” Jasmine. “Competent and capable. If anyone can find a way out of this room, it’s us. We just need to figure it out.”

“Yeah!” said Moana. “We got this!”

“We do!” Elsa said, and she smiled at the other words of encouragement coming from the princesses all over the room. “We very much got this!”

--

They did not, in fact, have it. As the hours trickled by, leading into night and then into what must be morning — but it was hard to know for sure as the room remained dark the entire time — they remained trapped in the room, each idea after the other failing. They tried freezing furniture with Elsa’s powers and using the frozen wood like battery rams to break down the door. They tried freezing the walls and the ceiling and the floor. They tried to squeeze one of the smaller princesses — Tiana — into an air vent. But the frozen furniture turned to dust and the ceiling and floor and walls remained untouchable by the cold and Tiana got stuck just a few feet into the duct. Finally, they all sat on the floor together, silent and glum, some of them dozing off, others holding their growling stomachs, and still others trying their hardest not to give into despair.

“There has to be something we aren’t thinking of,” Jasmine said. “How did we all defeat the villains of our own stories?”

“A sister’s kiss,” Anna said.

“Kissing a beast,” said Belle.

“Trying on a glass slipper,” said Cinderella.

“Singing,” said Ariel.

“Using a genie to …” Jasmine started, but Elsa had a thought.

“Wait,” she said.

“We don’t have a genie,” Jasmine said. “We used our wishes.”

“Not what you said,” Elsa said. “What she said.” She pointed to Ariel. “Singing.”

“You want us to sing about a way out?” Jasmine said.

“No,” Elsa said, an idea beginning to form in her mind. “But I do want us to sing.”

“Okay,” Jasmine said uncertainty, but then Belle said, “Yes! Singing! All of us singing!”

“Do you know how many of us there are?” Elsa said. “If we sing, people will hear us! If we sing, sea creatures will hear us! And if someone hears us …”

“Then someone can get help!” Belle said.

“Yes!” Elsa said.

The other princesses were listening now, and Elsa could hear the excitement building in the soft voices around her.

“What should we sing?” Rapunzel asked.

“The classic,” Moana said. “We start with the classic.” And then she cleared her throat: “When you wish upon a star!”

Other voices soon joined in.

“Makes no difference who you are.
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you”

It was magical. Voice upon voice chiming in together, singing in harmony, building upon each other, and Elsa could almost see the song filling the room and then escaping under the door, heading out into the world beyond. And they kept singing, old songs, new songs, personal songs. The music and the lyrics surrounding them, their hands gripping each other. And Elsa closed her eyes, pictured the music making its way across the ocean, to the people on the other side, to the dolphins and the fish and the mermaids under the sea, to the people in the kingdoms on the islands they had passed, to their friends and families and …

A door crashed open. Light poured into the room. Princesses shrieked.

When Elsa was able to open her eyes, she blinked, closed them again and then reopened them, but no, what she had thought she had seen was still there. It looked like … well, like the ugliest dog she had ever seen in her life, standing on two legs at the now open door. And then it opened its mouth and shrieked.

“No! No princesses! Only Lilo!”

Before Elsa could sort out what that meant, a bright light appeared in the doorway, and was that a portal? The next thing she knew, a little girl with dark brown hair was bounding through it.

“Oh my god!” the little girl said. “I am so so sorry! My dog is a menace. I am so sorry!” And then to the ugly dog who was now trying to hide behind Rapunzel’s hair. “Stitch! You get in that portal right now or you are going to bed without dinner!”

Stitch the ugly dog slid out from behind Rapunzel. “Oopsie!” he said, and then he was through the portal, followed by the little girl, and then that was gone too.

The princesses in the dining room all just stared at where the portal was.

“I have got to be hallucinating,” Belle finally said.

“Yup,” Jasmine said. “A joint hallucination. That has to be it. Everyone it’s time for bed.” And no one questioned anything as they followed her out of the dining room and up the stairs to their rooms.

--

The apology note from Lilo and Nani and Stitch arrived the day after Elsa and Anna got home, along with an invitation to visit them all in Hawaii.

“We should go,” Anna said. “It would be fun. And I don’t want to be rude.”

Elsa placed the invitation back in the envelope.

“Maybe someday,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m leaving home for a quite a while.”

“Oh, Elsa,” Anna laughed. “Where is your adventurous spirit? And besides how bad can Hawaii be?”

She ran off before Elsa could answer, which was probably good. Because if this trip had taught her anything, it was that bad showed up in the most unlikely places, and she wasn’t in any rush for more.