***
July 8th, 2018.Bee-beep. Bee-beep. Bee-beep.
It was 3:00am and suddenly I was on my toes, awoken by the beeping sound. From her bed, She rolled over and smacked a clock on her bedside table, and the beeping stopped.
"G'mornin', everybody," She groaned. "Today's the day."
"Caliofrotnia?!" Olaf cried, paying no attention to the lack of daylight outside. Unlike Anna, the sky didn't have to be awake for him to be awake.
"Olaf, shush. Yes. I need you all to be ready by the time I get back, okay? And then we will go to Caliofrotnia."
She went off into the hallway, and then it was just us dolls left to deal with the baggage of the upcoming trip. Both physical and emotional baggage.
"Now, I want She to text me every hour on the hour. Okay?" Elphaba warned Nessa as she hugged She's iPod to her side.
Nessa knew better. "Elphie, do you really think She will have time for that?"
"Well, then, I want pictures. Every day. You better make sure She does that."
Nessa laughed, but she, too, was going to miss her sister. "Okay, okay."
Off in their own section of the shelf, Idina and Olaf were saying their goodbyes, and, in my own square, I could hear the PSA sending their best wishes with Vision in voices that were a lot more distant in my head than they were in reality.
I was not exempt from this treatment. For the first time I could remember, Hawkeye came up to address me and me alone.
"Listen... Loki. I'm no good at goodbyes. But I... well, have a nice trip. Consider this a vacation leave."
"Thank you, Hawkeye." We shook hands formally.
I saluted Chris, waved at Tony, hugged Thor and fist-bumped Wanda. Everyone was acting like I'd never be coming back. It was highly unusual- it occurred to me that, aside from sneaking myself into movie theaters with Magneto, Elphaba, and Nessa, I'd never been any further than the neighborhood in my life.
"What's the big fuss?" I muttered to Vision as we were making our way from the shelf to She's bed, where the carry-on lay packed and ready. "It's not like we're never coming back."
"Perhaps they're afraid we'll come back as different dolls than we were before." Vision remarked with an intelligence I hadn't expected to be so immediate.
I remained quiet and sneaked into the bag with Vision and Nessa. It was only a week. What all could change us within seven days?
A minute later and Olaf was packed into the suitcase, and the humans all shoved themselves into the car around four-thirty, yet we all were wide awake, either from excitement or anxiety, yet those who were nervous kept that to themselves. Such an emotion didn't feel welcome yet.
She kept the carry-on bag unzipped and titled towards the window so that the three of us could see out of it. Admittedly, there wasn't much to see, just a dusky sky and an empty highway. Not until we got to the airport and found somewhere to park, where the control tower's lights were a stunning contrast to the rest of the scenery.
"Look, there's the 'Queen's Scepter'!" She's sister pointed.
My fist curled up instinctively, but I hadn't brought my own scepter with me. "Accessories" were best left at home, and I'd trusted the PSA with my helmet and scepter. But this one would outshine mine any day.
"We're here, girls," said the oldest female human, She and Sis's mother. "Grab your things and let's see if we can catch the next bus."
Suddenly everything went into fast motion as the humans scrambled out of the car and brought each suitcase from the back. From somewhere in the lot, a grumbling noise was heard over the asphalt.
"That's the bus! Hurry, run!" The oldest male human, their father, shouted.
Nessa, Vision and I were bounced to and fro as the humans stampeded across the way and to the bus. They made it just in time, breathless but happy, and loaded onto another vehicle. This one wasn't as comfortable as the car they left behind. It was awkwardly quiet, except for the movement of recycled air and a couple coughing noises, and it stopped intermittently at different locations labeled with a bus sign until our stop at the airport. We made fast exit, and thereafter all they had to do was check in their luggage, which meant Olaf would be riding apart from us, and enter their terminal and wait for two hours until the flight. It seemed to be plenty of time, but they never once slowed down the pace.
We entered the main division of the airport through was Nessa dubbed "a magical tunnel" with moving sidewalks that allowed the humans to glide along the floor without walking and pulsating lights of blue and pink overhead to mesmerize whoever watched them. Travel here was certainly strange.
"Just what are we getting ourselves into?" Vision chuckled under his breath.
"I've no idea." I replied.
"It's exciting, isn't it?" Nessa squealed. "I've never seen the human world like this before."
She lingered a little farther back from her family in order to respond to us properly. She lifted the purse to her face and said, "Just wait until you get onto the actual airplane."
"Is this where you come to do those annual trips up north?" Nessa asked.
"No, we drive there. I've only been on an airplane once before, and that was for Disneyworld. They're very expensive. That's why this Caliofrotnia trip is such a big deal."
The "magical tunnel" opened into a stark-white tile-floored area with the longest line I'd ever seen. Fortunately, he queue went quickly and Olaf and the other suitcases were weighed and tagged without issue. I knew we wouldn't see him again until we reached the humans' first hotel. That seemed to be an awfully long time away.
It was back to a rushing pace again as the humans navigated through a maze of escalators and corner turns until they stepped into yet another line, this time with large plastic archways and dark rotating booths unlike anything we dolls had ever seen before.
"These are metal detectors," She whispered. "They scan your body and belongings to make sure you're not carrying anything illegal onto the plane."
"Will we have to do that, too?" Said Nessa.
"Yes. You will be sent down a conveyor in a metal basket and through the machine. But that's all. I have nothing to hide from them. My parents are another story." She laughed lightly and shimmied the purse strap off her shoulder. Since the exterior was black, it was difficult to tell the point when we'd gone through the machine, but by the time we knew it, we were out again and into the light.
The humans brought us in front of a giant window with lots of rows of benches surrounding. From outside the glass we could see a gray lot with thousands of lines of white and yellow paint stretching off into the distance for miles. A lone airplane returned to its base, coming smoothly down the runway. Soon that would be us, but on the other side of the country.
"Now we play the waiting game," the father sighed, flipping his watch up to his face, then looking towards his daughters. "Two hours. You girls can explore the airport if you want. Your mother and I will be sitting here at the terminal."
Sis grabbed She's wrist and motioned towards a little market-like open room with knicknacks on every empty space and people bustling about within. "They have a gift shop!"
"Cool. Hey, want to know a secret?"
Sis leaned in.
"Look who I brought." She bit lip to hold back a wider grin as She bent open the sides of the purse.
"Hi, smaller human!" Said Nessa happily, not one to back down from a chance at making friends.
"You brought your dolls?" Sis recoiled, a small flash of panic coming over her face.
"Yeah... hey, it's not the whole collection. Don't freak out. Geez."
"You had better keep track of them."
"You know 'they' can hear you, right? Why don't you at least say hi?"
Sis glared into the bag, but it was hard to feel truly threatened. Like Nessa said, Sis was a smaller human. "Hi." Sis rolled her eyes and practically pulled She towards the gift shop.
"Sorry, guys. My sister is... well..."
"I can hear you, too!" Sis called over her shoulder.
"Nevermind." She shut the bag again, leaving only a small enough space for us to see out of.
The two sisters toured the gift shop, then rode the "moving sidewalks" back and forth over and over in a vain attempt to entertain themselves. Two hours was a long time, even we were starting to get a little bored.
Finally they were ready to start boarding the plane. I remembered being on one before, but still I was still awestruck by the sensation of it: climbing into a noisy, pressurized metal bird that rode currents in the sky. This would be Nessa and Vision's first time, and I indulged myself with telling them everything I knew, which wasn't much, but I could always ask She some questions later.
She had taken the window seat per the guidelines of their tickets, which was perfect because it meant that She could corner us off in a place between her seat and the wall of the plane. It made for much easier conversation.
We saw out the window, and by now the sun was shining like it was mid-afternoon. California was three hours behind us, though, which I didn't even try to wrap my head around how that worked. Florida had been in the same time zone as She's home state, so the switch would certainly be different for all of us.
The engine roared to life right on schedule, and grumbled beneath the plane like the tremors of an earthquake with the sound of a thunderstorm. She's family exchanged glances, somewhere between excited and terrified, and they all gripped the armrests of their seats as the pilot came over the speakers the safety guidelines were listed in case of an emergency.
"What's happening?" Nessa asked.
"I believe we're about to take off." Vision replied.
"How can you tell?"
"Well... the captain just said we're about to take off."
Nessa laughed. "I didn't know you were funny!"
"Was I?" Vision cocked his head and shrugged at me. I don't know why I was being brought into this.
"Guys, guys. You have to see this. It's the best thing ever to see the plane leave the ground." She whispered, and discreetly held her purse up to the window. The other humans apparently didn't like to see this sort of thing, as it made them sick. She was not one of those humans.
"Me too."
The four of us watched the outside in silence while She's prediction came true. Within twenty minutes or so, her mother had a neck pillow on and was out cold. Sis already knew about the Code of Dolls, but she wasn't paying any attention to us anyways, not with her head buried in her phone like that.
She took the opportunity to reach into her mother's carry-on backpack and pulled out a book, then unfastened a latch on the seat in front of her and rolled down a plastic sheet, which sat over her lap like a table.
"What are you doing?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. The messy, yet legible pencil scratches inside of a lined-paper notebook were characteristic of She, and I was reminded it had been a while since I'd read something of hers. I didn't know what this journal entry was about, but I knew that it had to be great.
"How can you not have a plan? All of your writings are so wonderful."
She raised a suspicious eyebrow at me. "How would you know?"
I stuttered, having been caught in the act. "Uh, you've just got that aura about you. That you're a writer. A good one."
"Must be the glasses, right?" She joked in a dry tone. "Don't try to put up an act with me, Loki. I know the truth of what you do. I'm learning a lot about how the doll world works now with the Code revealed. Do you think I wouldn't link disappearances of my poems and short stories to a collection of living dolls in my room?"
"And how would you know it was me who was taking them?"
She smirked. "Isn't it obvious? You're flustered. That makes you the culprit. Oh, and your cheeks are red."
"No, they're not!" I denied, but the heat was clearly rising in my face.
She chuckled a little under her breath. "Thank you for the compliment. I usually don't let people read my things."
"Why not?"
"Well... dolls might be different from humans in this way, but humans care an awful lot about what other humans think about them. I always thought my stuff was too weird, and then I was afraid that if a person read it, they would think I was weird. It's silly, right?"
I shook my head. "Personally, I don't think being weird is a bad thing."
She paused, smiling down at an incomplete sentence. "You're sweet. How come you're not a villain?"
"I- I don't know." I muttered, sitting down with my legs folded on the table.
"Well, I'm glad you're not," She worked out a couple more things and turned the journal to face me. "Want to read what I have so far?"
"You mean it?"
"Yeah, sure, why not. Just... don't make any gross faces."
"Why would I?" My eyes scanned the page. "It just looks like an account of the trip thus far."
"It is," She started playing with the black ring around her right middle finger. "Remember that I'm not used to people reading my things. Especially not in front of me."
"Don't worry, I'm not too harsh a judge." I reassured her.
"Not too harsh." She repeated, and then leaned her head against her wrist, mainly to block me from any potential viewers, but also to cast her eyes out the window. Currently the world was a white, blurry glow of a horizon, and a sea of gray-blue with a paintbrush's strokes of clouds. Similar imagery was found in She's retelling of it, in the form of a memoir. It inspired me to do the same, in a way. (Otherwise, this "Caliofrotnia Adventure" series on Elsa's blog may never have existed.)
A three-hour flight felt like three minutes in She's company. Sometimes we talked, sometimes She wrote and I watched, and sometimes we stared out the window. Scenes changed slowly, yet peacefully, like b-roll of one of those nature documentaries. The flight attendants brought refreshments like pretzels, cookies, coffee or ginger ale, and She began doodling little tattoos between her finger knuckles with a ballpoint pen. Time seemed not to exist once you were above the entire world.
"Um, She? The movie's over." Nessa called.
"Okay," She shut off the screen and reeled the earbuds back in. "What did you think?"
"It was really good! Wakanda is beautiful, the actors are fantastic, and Idina would have a field day on costume analysis."
"Yeah? I've actually seen Black Panther at a friend's house. She had the DVD of it. And... well, I hate to admit this, but I cried like a baby."
"Why?"
"I just loved it so much." She gushed.
"Does that mean we'll get a T'Challa or Shuri doll in your collection one day?"
"Maybe," She winked. "If you guys are not too much for me to handle."
"We promise to be very well behaved." Said Vision.
"Oh, you say that now, Vis, but you're still new. I didn't know what the doll world even existed until earlier this summer, but I'm already overwhelmed."
"Would you like me to explain some things to you?"
"Actually, I'd rather find stuff out on my own. Thanks, though."
"My pleasure."
"Ooh, look, you guys! The clouds are gone!" Nessa cooed, peering out the window through her position in the purse.
"Yeah, we're descending. Can't you feel it a little?"
"We're done already?"
"Almost. We have an hour left. That's when the altitude typically starts to drop."
"I'm so exited for Caliofrotnia!" Nessa squealed. "I never imagined I'd get to travel one day."
"Well, don't get used to it. I'm risking enough bringing the four of you as it is."
"That's okay, She. I will remember this always," Nessa sighed dreamily. "What's the first thing we're going to do in Caliofrotnia?"
"Check into our hotel and unpack?"
Nessa scoffed. "Okay, besides that."
"Muir Woods. It's a national park."
"Muir Woods... the redwoods there are on average one thousand years old and two-hundred-sixty feet high." Vision murmured.
"That's right, Vis. And then after that we're going to have dinner in the heart of Sausalito."
"Sauce-a-lito? Caliofrotnia sure has some weird names," Nessa wrinkled her nose. "Are you taking us to park?"
"Maybe, but I can't bring Olaf. I have a feeling someone would notice him."
The three of us nodded grimly, both glad to be going along with She and a little upset that Olaf would be staying alone in the hotel. Hopefully he wouldn't be too upset.
"Perhaps they're afraid we'll come back as different dolls than we were before." Vision remarked with an intelligence I hadn't expected to be so immediate.
I remained quiet and sneaked into the bag with Vision and Nessa. It was only a week. What all could change us within seven days?
A minute later and Olaf was packed into the suitcase, and the humans all shoved themselves into the car around four-thirty, yet we all were wide awake, either from excitement or anxiety, yet those who were nervous kept that to themselves. Such an emotion didn't feel welcome yet.
She kept the carry-on bag unzipped and titled towards the window so that the three of us could see out of it. Admittedly, there wasn't much to see, just a dusky sky and an empty highway. Not until we got to the airport and found somewhere to park, where the control tower's lights were a stunning contrast to the rest of the scenery.
My fist curled up instinctively, but I hadn't brought my own scepter with me. "Accessories" were best left at home, and I'd trusted the PSA with my helmet and scepter. But this one would outshine mine any day.
"We're here, girls," said the oldest female human, She and Sis's mother. "Grab your things and let's see if we can catch the next bus."
Suddenly everything went into fast motion as the humans scrambled out of the car and brought each suitcase from the back. From somewhere in the lot, a grumbling noise was heard over the asphalt.
"That's the bus! Hurry, run!" The oldest male human, their father, shouted.
Nessa, Vision and I were bounced to and fro as the humans stampeded across the way and to the bus. They made it just in time, breathless but happy, and loaded onto another vehicle. This one wasn't as comfortable as the car they left behind. It was awkwardly quiet, except for the movement of recycled air and a couple coughing noises, and it stopped intermittently at different locations labeled with a bus sign until our stop at the airport. We made fast exit, and thereafter all they had to do was check in their luggage, which meant Olaf would be riding apart from us, and enter their terminal and wait for two hours until the flight. It seemed to be plenty of time, but they never once slowed down the pace.
We entered the main division of the airport through was Nessa dubbed "a magical tunnel" with moving sidewalks that allowed the humans to glide along the floor without walking and pulsating lights of blue and pink overhead to mesmerize whoever watched them. Travel here was certainly strange.
"I've no idea." I replied.
"It's exciting, isn't it?" Nessa squealed. "I've never seen the human world like this before."
She lingered a little farther back from her family in order to respond to us properly. She lifted the purse to her face and said, "Just wait until you get onto the actual airplane."
"Is this where you come to do those annual trips up north?" Nessa asked.
"No, we drive there. I've only been on an airplane once before, and that was for Disneyworld. They're very expensive. That's why this Caliofrotnia trip is such a big deal."
The "magical tunnel" opened into a stark-white tile-floored area with the longest line I'd ever seen. Fortunately, he queue went quickly and Olaf and the other suitcases were weighed and tagged without issue. I knew we wouldn't see him again until we reached the humans' first hotel. That seemed to be an awfully long time away.
It was back to a rushing pace again as the humans navigated through a maze of escalators and corner turns until they stepped into yet another line, this time with large plastic archways and dark rotating booths unlike anything we dolls had ever seen before.
"These are metal detectors," She whispered. "They scan your body and belongings to make sure you're not carrying anything illegal onto the plane."
"Will we have to do that, too?" Said Nessa.
"Yes. You will be sent down a conveyor in a metal basket and through the machine. But that's all. I have nothing to hide from them. My parents are another story." She laughed lightly and shimmied the purse strap off her shoulder. Since the exterior was black, it was difficult to tell the point when we'd gone through the machine, but by the time we knew it, we were out again and into the light.
The humans brought us in front of a giant window with lots of rows of benches surrounding. From outside the glass we could see a gray lot with thousands of lines of white and yellow paint stretching off into the distance for miles. A lone airplane returned to its base, coming smoothly down the runway. Soon that would be us, but on the other side of the country.
Sis grabbed She's wrist and motioned towards a little market-like open room with knicknacks on every empty space and people bustling about within. "They have a gift shop!"
"Cool. Hey, want to know a secret?"
Sis leaned in.
"Look who I brought." She bit lip to hold back a wider grin as She bent open the sides of the purse.
"Hi, smaller human!" Said Nessa happily, not one to back down from a chance at making friends.
"You brought your dolls?" Sis recoiled, a small flash of panic coming over her face.
"Yeah... hey, it's not the whole collection. Don't freak out. Geez."
"You had better keep track of them."
"You know 'they' can hear you, right? Why don't you at least say hi?"
Sis glared into the bag, but it was hard to feel truly threatened. Like Nessa said, Sis was a smaller human. "Hi." Sis rolled her eyes and practically pulled She towards the gift shop.
"Sorry, guys. My sister is... well..."
"I can hear you, too!" Sis called over her shoulder.
"Nevermind." She shut the bag again, leaving only a small enough space for us to see out of.
The two sisters toured the gift shop, then rode the "moving sidewalks" back and forth over and over in a vain attempt to entertain themselves. Two hours was a long time, even we were starting to get a little bored.
Finally they were ready to start boarding the plane. I remembered being on one before, but still I was still awestruck by the sensation of it: climbing into a noisy, pressurized metal bird that rode currents in the sky. This would be Nessa and Vision's first time, and I indulged myself with telling them everything I knew, which wasn't much, but I could always ask She some questions later.
We saw out the window, and by now the sun was shining like it was mid-afternoon. California was three hours behind us, though, which I didn't even try to wrap my head around how that worked. Florida had been in the same time zone as She's home state, so the switch would certainly be different for all of us.
The engine roared to life right on schedule, and grumbled beneath the plane like the tremors of an earthquake with the sound of a thunderstorm. She's family exchanged glances, somewhere between excited and terrified, and they all gripped the armrests of their seats as the pilot came over the speakers the safety guidelines were listed in case of an emergency.
"What's happening?" Nessa asked.
"I believe we're about to take off." Vision replied.
"How can you tell?"
"Well... the captain just said we're about to take off."
Nessa laughed. "I didn't know you were funny!"
"Was I?" Vision cocked his head and shrugged at me. I don't know why I was being brought into this.
"Guys, guys. You have to see this. It's the best thing ever to see the plane leave the ground." She whispered, and discreetly held her purse up to the window. The other humans apparently didn't like to see this sort of thing, as it made them sick. She was not one of those humans.
There was a high-pitched screeching sound, like lots of air being forced out of a vent at a high speed. My breath got sucked away as I felt my insides do a somersault, the pleasant, exhilarating kind, as the wheels disconnected from the ground and we appeared to hover over the runway. In no time at all we were soaring over an invisible staircase, buildings becoming the size of cars, then cars then size of people, and people the size of dolls.
"Woah," Nessa and Vision murmured simultaneously.
"It's fantastic, isn't it? It feels like forever since I was last in an airplane," She recalled. "Loki? What do you think?"
I shook my head, unable to put what I felt into words. "I could stare out the window for hours.""Me too."
The four of us watched the outside in silence while She's prediction came true. Within twenty minutes or so, her mother had a neck pillow on and was out cold. Sis already knew about the Code of Dolls, but she wasn't paying any attention to us anyways, not with her head buried in her phone like that.
She took the opportunity to reach into her mother's carry-on backpack and pulled out a book, then unfastened a latch on the seat in front of her and rolled down a plastic sheet, which sat over her lap like a table.
"What are you doing?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. The messy, yet legible pencil scratches inside of a lined-paper notebook were characteristic of She, and I was reminded it had been a while since I'd read something of hers. I didn't know what this journal entry was about, but I knew that it had to be great.
"Writing. What else is there to do?"
"You could always watch a movie," Nessa suggested. "I think we're super lucky to get television screens on this flight. Hey, could you check to see if there are any Marvel movies?"
Vision's pupils dilated in the way he typically did when reading into a machine's data. Binary was basically a second, unspoken language for him. "I detect one."
"Really? Which is it?"
"I think I saw Black Panther earlier," She began tapping on the screen. "Want to watch it? I could drop you an earbud if you're interested. But for safety's sake, you'll have to stay inside the purse."
"Yeah! But wait- that wouldn't be fair without the others. " Nessa turned to me, concerned and I knew immediately what she was thinking. We would be viewing a fairly recently released Marvel film without Magneto and Elphaba, breaking our tradition of going to see them in theaters together by sneaking aboard She's backpack. Of course, we didn't have to sneak around anymore with the Code broken, thank heavens for that.
"Maybe this one shouldn't count since you're not going to the theater." Vision commented.
"Yeah, maybe not," Nessa agreed. "Whew! That makes me feel a whole lot better. And I really wanted to see Black Panther. Will you watch it with me, Vision?"
"Yes. I've never seen a movie before."
"And, you, Loki?"
I was a little hurt that I'd been asked second to Vision, although it meant nothing. "No, I'd rather stay with She. Can I watch you write?"
"I mean... if you want. But it's going to be pretty boring."
"I beg to differ." I mumbled in a voice loud enough for only myself to hear.
She started the movie for Nessa and Vision and poured both earbuds into the purse and set it onto her knees so that they could get a decent view without being seen. Once they were distracted, She started speaking to me and me alone.
"Here, come up on the table. Don't tell the others, but I trust you to stay hidden in plain sight more than I do them." She let me use her hand as an elevator, and I got to get up close with her writing in action, and it felt almost as exhilarating as the plane's first ascent.
"What is it you're writing?"
"I don't know yet, but I'll get there."
"How can you not have a plan? All of your writings are so wonderful."
She raised a suspicious eyebrow at me. "How would you know?"
I stuttered, having been caught in the act. "Uh, you've just got that aura about you. That you're a writer. A good one."
"Must be the glasses, right?" She joked in a dry tone. "Don't try to put up an act with me, Loki. I know the truth of what you do. I'm learning a lot about how the doll world works now with the Code revealed. Do you think I wouldn't link disappearances of my poems and short stories to a collection of living dolls in my room?"
"And how would you know it was me who was taking them?"
She smirked. "Isn't it obvious? You're flustered. That makes you the culprit. Oh, and your cheeks are red."
"No, they're not!" I denied, but the heat was clearly rising in my face.
She chuckled a little under her breath. "Thank you for the compliment. I usually don't let people read my things."
"Why not?"
"Well... dolls might be different from humans in this way, but humans care an awful lot about what other humans think about them. I always thought my stuff was too weird, and then I was afraid that if a person read it, they would think I was weird. It's silly, right?"
I shook my head. "Personally, I don't think being weird is a bad thing."
She paused, smiling down at an incomplete sentence. "You're sweet. How come you're not a villain?"
"I- I don't know." I muttered, sitting down with my legs folded on the table.
"Well, I'm glad you're not," She worked out a couple more things and turned the journal to face me. "Want to read what I have so far?"
"You mean it?"
"Yeah, sure, why not. Just... don't make any gross faces."
"Why would I?" My eyes scanned the page. "It just looks like an account of the trip thus far."
"It is," She started playing with the black ring around her right middle finger. "Remember that I'm not used to people reading my things. Especially not in front of me."
"Don't worry, I'm not too harsh a judge." I reassured her.
"Not too harsh." She repeated, and then leaned her head against her wrist, mainly to block me from any potential viewers, but also to cast her eyes out the window. Currently the world was a white, blurry glow of a horizon, and a sea of gray-blue with a paintbrush's strokes of clouds. Similar imagery was found in She's retelling of it, in the form of a memoir. It inspired me to do the same, in a way. (Otherwise, this "Caliofrotnia Adventure" series on Elsa's blog may never have existed.)
A three-hour flight felt like three minutes in She's company. Sometimes we talked, sometimes She wrote and I watched, and sometimes we stared out the window. Scenes changed slowly, yet peacefully, like b-roll of one of those nature documentaries. The flight attendants brought refreshments like pretzels, cookies, coffee or ginger ale, and She began doodling little tattoos between her finger knuckles with a ballpoint pen. Time seemed not to exist once you were above the entire world.
"Um, She? The movie's over." Nessa called.
"Okay," She shut off the screen and reeled the earbuds back in. "What did you think?"
"It was really good! Wakanda is beautiful, the actors are fantastic, and Idina would have a field day on costume analysis."
"Yeah? I've actually seen Black Panther at a friend's house. She had the DVD of it. And... well, I hate to admit this, but I cried like a baby."
"Why?"
"I just loved it so much." She gushed.
"Does that mean we'll get a T'Challa or Shuri doll in your collection one day?"
"Maybe," She winked. "If you guys are not too much for me to handle."
"We promise to be very well behaved." Said Vision.
"Oh, you say that now, Vis, but you're still new. I didn't know what the doll world even existed until earlier this summer, but I'm already overwhelmed."
"Would you like me to explain some things to you?"
"Actually, I'd rather find stuff out on my own. Thanks, though."
"My pleasure."
"Ooh, look, you guys! The clouds are gone!" Nessa cooed, peering out the window through her position in the purse.
"Yeah, we're descending. Can't you feel it a little?"
"We're done already?"
"Almost. We have an hour left. That's when the altitude typically starts to drop."
"I'm so exited for Caliofrotnia!" Nessa squealed. "I never imagined I'd get to travel one day."
"Well, don't get used to it. I'm risking enough bringing the four of you as it is."
"That's okay, She. I will remember this always," Nessa sighed dreamily. "What's the first thing we're going to do in Caliofrotnia?"
"Check into our hotel and unpack?"
Nessa scoffed. "Okay, besides that."
"Muir Woods. It's a national park."
"Muir Woods... the redwoods there are on average one thousand years old and two-hundred-sixty feet high." Vision murmured.
"That's right, Vis. And then after that we're going to have dinner in the heart of Sausalito."
"Sauce-a-lito? Caliofrotnia sure has some weird names," Nessa wrinkled her nose. "Are you taking us to park?"
"Maybe, but I can't bring Olaf. I have a feeling someone would notice him."
The three of us nodded grimly, both glad to be going along with She and a little upset that Olaf would be staying alone in the hotel. Hopefully he wouldn't be too upset.
The airplane passed over deserts, mountains, and caverns until nature broke away into civilization as a gray, dense city appeared beneath us. She's mother woke up, so we all had to go in the purse again, but it wasn't long before the pilot announced we'd be landing soon. There was another shrill shrieking noise as the plane's descent became more obvious, and people returned to chatter and searching for belongings. When the wheels were ejected and slammed into a flat paved surface, I knew we had landed in "Caliofrotnia".
It would be another two hour wait before the humans could board their next plane from Los Angeles to San Franciso (California is a big state), so they dined in the airport cafeteria before She made some excuse as to why she needed to wander off on her own, taking her purse with her.
She walked in circles until we found a somewhat deserted hallway that looked to be a basement in the airport. She quickly snapped a photo of the three of us standing by the escalator. I tried not to feel too bothered when Nessa nestled into Vision's side after the photo, as if doing that would protect her from the ever-moving grind of the elevator.
After that shenanigans, we were shoved back into the purse as the humans were shoved back into another airplane. This trip was shorter, only about half an hour to forty-five minutes. We just stayed inside the purse as She attempted to get some sleep to conserve energy for the trip to Muir Woods.
From the airport, the humans went to get their rental car and drive to their hotel for one night, which was located in San Francisco.
To get there we had to cross over a terracotta-tinted suspension bridge, something that She's father called the Golden Gate Bridge. I'd read about this before, but Vision made sure to tell us all about it from the database he had at hand.
It was a gorgeous summer day, with clear blue skies and brisk air rolling in from the harbor, and I was glad to see that humans everywhere were out to enjoy it. A group of girls rode their bikes on the walking path along the bridge, and tourists paused to gawk a little under the sky-scraping arches of the bridge. We were promised to see the bridge from a different view on a later day.
We navigated the bustling streets of San Franciso for at least an hour, getting lost and gawking at the steep downgrade of the hills along the way. Since She was in the backseat, we dolls got the chance to be taken out of the purse to sightsee with our own eyes.
At last we had reached the hotel, checking in and unloading into our room on the second floor. They were then immediately shoved out the door again, on a short journey (a little more than a half an hour) to Big Sur, where Muir Woods was located. Because of the time change, they had enough time to return to San Francisco to grab dinner before they returned to the hotel, but it was confirmed whether or not She was allowed to bring us.
The humans threw some snacks and suncreen bottles into some backpacks, left the room, and went back down to the first floor parking lot. Only She seemed quiet and conflicted about something. We were left on one of the two beds, still kept in the purse, but at least it was unzipped.
"Let's go up to the window!" Nessa said once they were for certain gone.
Vision and I followed Nessa to the window ledge and we stood there, getting the first view of the new world around us without any human interference. It was lonely and not as beautiful as I'd imagined, but we were unused to cityscapes. I noticed She darted away from the car, much to her family's confusion.
"Hold on, I forgot something in the room," I heard She shout as her feet pounded the concrete staircase. A beeping noise was heard from outside the door as a card was scanned, and She walked in and immediately went to the three of us by the window. "How's Olaf?"
"We haven't checked on him yet. We thought you would want to be the one to do so." Vision said.
She tugged at her hair and went for the suitcase, unzipping it hastily. A second later, a plush snowman's head popped out of the side eagerly.
"How was your trip, Olaf?" She asked.
"I got jostled around a lot. But then I got on the plane. And then my ears popped a couple of times when we were flying. But I'm okay."
"Wait, you have ears?" She was astounded. "Stupid question. Of course you do."
"Somehow." Olaf added.
"It's best not to ask questions." I injected.
"Anyways, I can't stay here long. I gotta go to Muir Woods," She looked back up at the window ledge. "Which one of you is coming with me?"
"I'd like to go," said Nessa. "You too, Vision?"
"I'll go."
"Me too." I said.
"Okay, let's pack up and go. I won't be able to get any photos of you guys. It's purse time- the entire time."
The three of us shrugged. That was fine.
"Olaf, I'm sorry, but I can't take you."
"Aww!"
"I'll make it up to you later, okay?"
"Okay... um... can I say what I want now?"
She held her purse out for us to get back in, and we were slung over her shoulder once again. "Sure."
"Can I use your phone to call Idina? I miss her."
She beamed. "Okay. Maybe not today, but this week. I promise."
Olaf nodded, and She waved goodbye and shut the door. At last, we were off on our first Caliofrotnia Adventure.
(Thanks for remaining patient with me with this blog post. I guarantee that I will have all of the Caliofrotnia Adventure series posts before Christmas. You can trust that Elsa will hold me to it.)
-Loki
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