I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

5 - Different Worlds [ Prince Zuko x Reader] Part I

Part I - The Reminder

The sign read: "New exhibit coming soon!"

The words were painted poorly onto the wonky nylon sign, crinkling weakly in the wind. The once-fluorescent orange of its bold letters had faded to an unpleasant faecal brown and the pictures had been so weatherworn that they resembled cards for the Rorschach inkblot test. Pigeon scat distorted the lettering slightly, but the sign had done well to stand the trial of the decades that it had billowed in that doorway. 

A doorway that had been blocked by a ladder foisted in the entranceway, which remained silent except for the cursing of a foul-tempered janitor as he climbed the rickety steps. Unceremoniously, he snipped one of the weathered cords that upheld the sign. The janitor scrambled down the rickety steps again, repositioned the ladder moodily, and climbed it again with the gusto of someone eating chilled cucumber soup in even chillier weather. The second snip detached the sign from the wall, but the middle-aged man could not snatch the banner quick enough before it warbled lifelessly to the floor. The wind made it twitch slightly as if it was grimacing - the last look of an aged face whose life support had just dwindled.

(Y/n) grimaced.

"Hey!" The janitor griped, "Toss that for me, would ya? You'd save me the walk."

The girl merely nodded weakly, too overcome with emotion to say anything substantial, before she bent down mechanically and grasped the tattered banner. Frayed edges scratched her palms as she folded it neatly into a bundle of fabric, tucking the corners with the solemnity of someone folding her country's flag. Once she was done, it was only slightly thicker than a napkin that she tucked securely into her palm.

The janitor watched her display with bored, shiny eyes. When she had finished folding the banner into a tidy square of fabric, the man shrugged and scratched at his bald head without thinking much of it. Carl, for that was the janitor's name, was not a becoming personality and did not have a mind for memory, yet he should have remembered her face.

The girl was dressed in casual clothes, nothing too noticeable to distinguish her from the normal crowd of teenagers who happened through the doors of the museum. As the girl paced to the dustbin, her stride gingerly as if she was skipping across a minefield, the leather jacket across her shoulders baulked and quivered: her cami top was a red and black tartan material which matched her black jeans, ballerina flats and faded leather shoulder bag. The girl's unease didn't sway Carl as she suspended her clenched hand over the dustbin, hesitation making her pause.

"Just do it already!" Carl snapped, "I ain't got all day!"

She unclenched her fist. The tattered tartan flag disappeared among the commonplace rubble, discarded pamphlets for the new exhibits mingling with the sandwich wrappers from lunch, half-chewed bubblegum and crinkled soda cans. The girl's passive face twitched.

Carl climbed down from the ladder, complaining loudly about a back spasm that had been with him longer than his wife. Just as his unkempt sandals scratched the polished floor tile, the janitor lugged the ladder noisily behind him. The strain on his back proved to be too much as he gasped after the short journey, his hand fixed at his hip. Squinting through the semi-darkness of the Anatoleus Museum, he noticed that the teenager had not moved.

"Hey, you there!" Carl tactfully tried to get her attention, "Hey! You with the face!"

The girl was startled by his shouts and her head bobbed up in crestfallen surprise like a fish on the end of bait-and-tackle. Flinching back from the janitor's demand, the girl's wide eyes shimmered wetly with unfallen tears.

"S-sorry," The girl sniffled.

Before Carl could pretend to look interested at her dismay, the teenager hastened down the darkened hallway. His hazed, cataract-clouded vision caught his last glance of the girl as she tore down the corridor towards the Protohistory wing, her form dissolving into the shadows.