I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

Fate & Fatality; Plague and Paradise [Jack FrostXReaderXPitch Black] Part III

Part III - A Gambit & A Gamble

It wasn't Japanese. There weren't three cryptic alphabets needing to be traced, deciphered and translated. The sentence was written in plain old Engish, twenty-six simple letters. It really wasn't that difficult. They were right there, those crucial words, at the bottom of the page. Written in glittery gel pen. Signed with hearts over the i's. The directions. 

"Blech," (Y/n) complained. 

For the umpteenth time, the Spirit of Luck tried to smoothen out the paper on her knee but the creases were stubborn. The problem was that the invitation was handmade and the short trip it had travelled, all the while within her pocket, had made it crinklier than the wrinkles on a brain. It was the writing itself that caused all of this hassle. The tiny, spiderlike handwriting evident of a person who was never praised for their neatness. The kind of loopingly artistic handwriting, which just fell short of being cursive, that confused e's with t's and g's with y's. Perhaps the picture drawn in the corner was supposed to help but the fact that it was clearly there for people who knew the area - heck, people who knew the people - made it damnably impossible for the deity to figure out where it was. And now she had a headache to show for it. Great. 

"What to do," (Y/n) hummed to herself. 

Pressing her forehead to the laminated surface of the table, she groaned as she tried to think up a good plan. She was glad that she had chosen somewhere to sit down and think things through or else she probably would have gone stark raving mad by now. At least, she wasn't getting snowed on or cawed at by hungry seagulls that wanted to eat Modo. 

It was a convenient little place tucked around the corner of the main street. As an added bonus, it was an ice cream parlour. No one else had much felt like eating ice cream while the snow was periodically tottering through the air, so the parlour was nice and deserted. She was glad that she didn't pick the coffee shop next door, which was so packed with people that the store windows had misted from the accumulation of that hot breath. 

Fine. She was a little cold. She could admit that. 

The ice cream parlour was called Anything Is Popsicle, which was probably what caught her attention in the first place. The middle-aged woman behind the counter had certainly been surprised, her face vaguely alarmed when (Y/n) had walked in with her fatally charming smile, waist-length cloak billowing at her sides, with an umbrella clenched in one hand and a lazy Maine Coon napping in the other, to announce that they wanted ice cream in the middle of a potential blizzard. 

"What," (Y/n) had teased her, "Never seen a girl walking her cat before?" 

It was a fifties-themed ice cream parlour: fit with black-and-white checkered floors; cushy leather seats covered in a thick layer of protective plastic; tiny rectangular tables and oversized booth chairs, and a jukebox which pulsated prismatically with bright colours and only seemed to play Patsy Cline songs. The music crackling from the overhead speakers was a slow fifties classic, its sombre tune surprisingly fitting for the snow as it fell outside. 

Looking down her nose at Modo, whose splotchy pink nose was smeared with ice cream and fudge from the sundae he was eating, (Y/n) probed, "Any ideas, you pernicious feline? Or are you going to sit around being unhelpful?" 

The cat growled. Tilting his head in a defensive gesture, his amber stare was unbreakable and intense. Whiskers bristling as he opened his mouth further, revealing a purplish tongue that rolled ferociously between splintery canines. The snarl built in his throat, becoming louder and more fearsome. The colour had drained from (Y/n)'s face. 

"I was only joking, Modo," (Y/n) was startled, "I didn't mean to - " 

Then he burped. The unpleasant mixture of expired tuna and cat barf clogged her nostrils and she gagged, holding her nose. Her Cookies & Cream ice cream suddenly didn't seem very appetising anymore, especially with the cat breathing his befouled breath directly into her face.