"Are you dead?" The girl asks brightly. She's young and radiant, her hair like cut sunlight. College age, if Elsa were to guess, though she's getting too old to gauge such things accurately, despite her own youthful appearance. Elsa doesn't look up, spindly fingers clasped around her mug, as if trying to leech whatever warmth they can from the thin cardboard. "I bet she's dead," the girl is continuing. Elsa can feel her turning to her friends. The TV is playing in the corner. Why can't they just watch the TV like everyone else?

"Anna, don't be rude," another voice. The same sort of sunny, but sterner, and less carefree.

"I'm not being rude, 'punzie," that first voice says. "I've just never…"

Elsa still doesn't look up. She combs her platinum hair down over her face, and hopes they go away.

"Anna, she doesn't want to talk," says the second voice.

Elsa focuses on the TV, and does her best to ignore them. "...are calling it the humans first movement," the news anchor is saying. "Others are calling it terrorism, and violence against the dead. In this age of equality…" Elsa stops paying attention. She wishes people would just stop. Stop talking about it. Stop burning graveyards. Stop bombing old mansions. Stop bothering her.

"Did you hear me?" Anna doesn't sound annoyed. She doesn't sound angry or impatient, like someone else might. It sounds like she's only curious.

"Anna," says a third voice. Masculine, and lower. It's a smooth voice, like honey maybe, but something about it bothers Elsa. "It doesn't want to talk to you."

Elsa sucks in an unnecessary breath, toys with the feel of magic lurking just beneath the thin skin of reality. It's a comforting presence.

"Hans," says that second voice. 'Punzie, the first voice had called her. "Don't be an ass."

Elsa stands, disposes of her untouched drink, and moves back around the counter. Anna follows. She doesn't hear Elsa's deep, annoyed, sigh.

"Yes ma'am?" Elsa asks shortly. "What can I get for you?"

"I already bought a hot chocolate," Anna frowns. "I'm just trying to talk to you."

"If you aren't going to buy anything, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the counter, and make room for other customers," Elsa replies. She looks around the small room, mostly deserted at this hour.

"Elsa honey?" Her supervisor's voice sounds in the other room. "Be nice to the customers." His name is Kristoff, tall and blonde, like the man her parents had wanted her to marry. She supposes she ought to be grateful to him; not many supervisors are willing to take a chance on a litch. She sighs, straightens her shirt, looks around the little coffee shop for literally anything else.

"What do you want ma'am?" Elsa tries to inject as much cheer into her voice as she can.

"Be nice," Kristoff says from the other room. Elsa sighs again, and straightens her shirt again unnecessarily.

"Um?" Anna blushes. Elsa wishes she could blush. "Are you dead? It's just, I've never met a litch before, and it's halloween, and I thought 'what a coincidence,' and I've never talked to a litch before, and I just wanted to say hi?" Anna frowns, and scratches her head as she thinks back over her words. "And I didn't mean to bother you, and sorry." Anna smiles brightly.

Elsa sighs, and glances at the big auburn haired man at her shoulder. "Yes," Elsa says.

"You're a litch?" Anna squeals, and leans forward on the counter. She stares intently at Elsa's pale face. "What's it like? Is there as much discrimination as we see on tv?"

"It's not discrimination," Hans says smoothly. Kristoff appears at Elsa's slender shoulder. "People are scared of corpses. They shouldn't be moving around. It's not natural."

"Neither are vaccines," Kristoff looms reassuringly. Anna squeaks, straightens, and steps back. "But both make you live longer. Neither is washing your hands, or cooking your food. Neither is shooting a lion that's trying to eat you. Doesn't seem like such a bad thing."

"The difference is, people don't have a reason to be afraid of soap," Hans retorts quickly. Elsa shrinks back into Kristoff's broad-shouldered frame.

"Whenever people find something different, they'll make up a reason to be afraid of it," Kristoff snaps back. "You're not welcome here any longer. Get out of my store, and stop bothering my employees."

Anna frowns sympathetically. "I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't mean…" she starts to leave. Hans glowers, but a light shove from 'Punzie, and a few whispered words, and he hurries out.

"Anna, right?" Elsa asks before the little redhead's hand closes around the door handle. Anna nods. "How'd you know? That I'm a litch, I mean?"

"You dress like my grandma," Anna says cheerfully, and then the door chimes, and she's gone.

AN: Posted in honor of Halloween. As always, review/follow/favorite if you want to show your support. And if you don't want to show support, a review saying what made you leave would help me improve next time...

I've always wanted to do a coffee shop fic, but I can't seem to bring myself to write anything normal. I've also always wanted to try an "Elsa is a vampire" fic, but those seem to be pretty overdone as well, so why not use a less popular type of undead? Boom. The Litch. Bane of every D&D party ever. Ahem. I'm just gonna go back to my corner now...