CHAPTER NINE:
𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭
❝ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ ᴅᴏɴᴇ ʙʏ ɪᴍᴘᴜʟꜱᴇ,
ʙᴜᴛ ʙʏ ᴀ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴍᴀʟʟ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ ʙʀᴏᴜɢʜᴛ ᴛᴏɢᴇᴛʜᴇʀ. ❞
✧･ﾟ: - *✧･ﾟ* :･ﾟ- *:･ﾟ✧
"Lassies first." I opened the door, revealing the starry night sky.
She was still in her bartender uniform and Rapunzel was right, I didn't mind her wearing it. Elsa could wear anything at all. A pretty face suits a dish cloth.
"Does Rapunzel even have the power to let you have a night-off?"
"Not really." My face grew hot.
"So... eh, any plans?" I asked her as we made our way to the endlessness of the sidewalks.
"Hmm," she raises her head to the heavens and sighs, "For my part, I know nothing with any certainty but the sight of the stars make me dream."
Oh? I actually meant 'plans for tonight' but I would never pass an opportunity to start a conversation with her.
"Penny for your thoughts on what those dreams might be that the stars make ye have?"
"It's not the most unique motivation but, yes, I am working for my family. Anna, especially. For our future. College. Start anew." Of course, she did. She had a goal. She had a dream. She had a destination.
"College." I looked the other way, Elsa continued to stare at the sky, "Which college?"
"There's this really beautiful and prestigious art college." her eyes start to shimmer again, "Ahtohallan University." she said finally.
"It definitely sounds prestigious."
She shrugs, "It's worlds away but I only want the best for me and for Anna."
No longer was her chin up, instead she now looked straight ahead, like she was done looking into the future and resumed to the present.
I let her continue, "I plan on working part-time in the morning and afternoon soon, that is, if I can get my sleeping patterns under control." Her eyes were now burnt-out matches.
She wants more. I can't even begin to imagine just how much I don't want that to happen.
Imagine working all day and all night. Now, imagine Elsa working all day and all night. It will bust her to her bones. I wouldn't be able to hang-out with her anymore. It will kill her, inside and out. We'll lose her. She'll lose her.
But all those possibilities can't even compare to the worst one: she'd lose her passion in art!
"I know it's not in my place to say... but I think ye shouldn't. Yer health is more important than money. Health is wealth, as they say." I said before thinking better of it.
"You're right," I got a weak smile from her, "I should just let whatever is meant to happen... happen."
Then, I remembered something.
"Whit's fur ye'll no go past ye."
"Hmm?"
"Whatever is meant to happen to you, will happen to you."
With the way she looked, I could feel the star inside her that makes her dream illuminate once again. It was slow and it flickered like a light bulb telling you it needed to be replaced, but it emitted light, nonetheless.
"Let's go over there!" she startles me, pulling me to a nearby swing set. We've been walking so much that I hadn't noticed we were now passing by the park.
When you're a kid, sitting on the swings made you feel like you could fly. But with Elsa next to me, it felt like I was chasing the wind and touching the sky.
"Well, what about you, lassie? What are your plans?"
Okay, that was so hot.
I was on the verge of fabricating an entire story of the version I wanted to be, to impress her, and to not scare her off with how unambitious my life was which was a perfect juxtaposition to hers.
But to lie to Elsa would be a cosmic crime.
"I don't have any." I looked down in shame, "I think the universe wants to keep it that way too. Nothing new has ever happened to me yet since graduation. I plateaued."
Except, of course, the supernova of an explosion that was me meeting her. But why would I tell her that?
"Nothing at all?" her voice wavered. Does she know?
"College never really crossed my mind. I mean, what will I do after that anyway? Get a high-paying job? Why? What will I use the money on? To be able to afford sending my kids to college too? So, they'd grow up to have high-paying jobs and afford sending their kids to college and so on and so forth?" It seems that I overspeak more than I overthink. "D-do I even want kids? Do I need kids? Is a life only well-spent when you're under a roof you paid for while cradling a wee naked babby?"
It just kept going, "And get married? Michty me, I only think about marriage as often as I think about... I don't know— how baby pigeons look like?" Elsa laughs, not at my entire lack of life planning skills but at the joke I cracked.
It was during her laughter than I realized how pathetic I actually sounded. It wasn't the universe's fault I'm still right where I am. It was my own. I see that now.
I confessed, "I'm sorry, I know I sound like one of those insufferable main characters in the movies that like to defy society's normalcies and act all tough and deep, but I really do feel that way." I would know. Jack forced me to watch said films. I took a deep breath, "...basically, this was just me telling you how completely sluggish, uninspired, and hackneyed I actually am but with extra steps."
"I don't think you are any of those adjectives, Merida." the fragility of her palm covered the coldness of my shoulder, "I think you're just a lost soul—a soul that was meant to be reincarnated a bit earlier or later but was now stuck in this generation and had to wait another lifetime to try again."
I never thought of it that way.
"I think the world is strapping you down like a sick person and is trying so hard to find a cure for but never once wondered if she even wanted to be cured in the first place."
Wow, she's... good. Brilliant. Is she sure she doesn't why psychology as a college course?
"You're a missing... sock. Not because someone had made the decision of carelessly losing you, but because the truth is, you hid all on your own."
I nodded. It was all that I can to do. She has quite the habit of leaving me speechless.
I cursed myself for letting myself end up in such a situation— sitting on rusty swing set with the girl I liked, spilling my guts out underneath the starry night sky. I wondered if I'd still even be here on the first Wednesday of June in the dead of the night if I hadn't stormed out of the house last month. I guess, in a way, I have Mum to thank for this.
Pretty soon, the atmosphere began feeling too heavy for my comfort. A joke was the only way to get out of this, "I'm just going to dismiss the fact that ye compared me to a missing sock."
Elsa punches me, her fist was as soft as pillows. Either she purposely made it light, or she just wasn't that great of a puncher. Both possibilities are equally cute. "You know what I mean."
"That ball thing is still on, eh?"
"I'm counting on it."
After that, there was a lingering silence between us surprisingly didn't feel awkward at all.
I lifted my chin up. A crescent moon. If I had only one thing to remember from tonight, it was the phase of Luna. Big and bright. More yellow than it was a gray. To me, it would forever be synonymous with the girl almighty, Elsa, and this moment with her.
Back to setting my head in its usual downcast manner, I caught a glimpse of Elsa's exposed ankle, just beneath the calf and her black pantaloons. It was new to me.
"That's a cool tattoo." A snowflake in black ink.
It looked like I startled her with the way she quickly shifted her position to make her pants fall farther down her ankle, hiding it. I had the feeling I shouldn't have mentioned it.
"Indeed, I did. Much to my dismay." it was almost a whisper, "I got it as a matching tattoo with my... ex."
I didn't know what I expected but it definitely wasn't that. If anything, I thought the snowflake was a metaphor of something she's been through in life or whatever.
"I'm... so sorry...?" What do you tell someone who expresses regret for getting a couple tattoo?
"It's fine. He uh, we..." Shit.
"Y-ye don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, lass."
"No," she shocks me again, "I trust you."
I was a cat on hot bricks.
"It was a winter's night when he took me as his own." she blushed, but I knew I blushed more furiously. "Hence the snowflake."
"But I broke up with him the month after when I caught him cheating on me."
It made my blood boil to think that anyone— sane or not, drunk or sober— could ever have the idea of cheating on Elsa cross their minds, or anyone else for that matter. I thought the only people who could ever do that to her were the sick and the dead, to not be able to see how blessed they were to even be granted the privilege of obtaining so much as a pinch of Elsa's presence, let alone spend the night with her.
"It's the first reason why I wanted more jobs and earn more quickly."
"To get it removed?" she nods.
"So, I wouldn't have to be reminded of that mistake every single time I so much as look down. Take my advice and never ever get matching tattoos with your lover. Just don't."
After a chuckle escaped my lips, the long silence returned. Now, it was awkward.
"I've actually never gotten a tattoo before. My Mum will kill me if she finds so much as a pen stain on my body."
"But you're nineteen now, right?"
"Aye."
"I'm sure Mrs. Van Gogh wouldn't mind anymore." she stood up from her seat, causing the swing to dance around like a thimbleweed in the wind. "Let's get you tattooed!"
"What?!"
"You heard me. Remember? What's for you will not go past you." her electrically charged blue eyes winked. I wanted to her misusing the phrase, but she looked so proud, I just let her have it.
"Okay." I gave up and she started clapping louder than my Mum did during a mediocre play I starred in back in the day.
"That's my girl!" I was off the swings, but I still felt like I was floating, after what she said.
"Like your great great great great grandpapa once said; What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
✧･ﾟ: - *✧･ﾟ* :･ﾟ- *:･ﾟ✧
'Tātau' it said, glowing in bright brown lights. The patterns that adorned the glass panes put the doodles on the back of my school notebook to shame.
"Rapunzel was the one who introduced me to this place when I haven't moved here yet." Elsa gestured to the shop in front of us, "She told us that the artist was magnifique, and because they were friends, she managed to get us cheaper service!"
I assumed she meant her and her ugly ex when she said 'us.'
"Magnifique?"
"She's studying French. It's a phase." That explains why Rapunzel did a fake accent on me the night of my drinking session. "It was also thanks to her that I fell in love with this town and decided to live here."
I love you, Rapunzel.
Porcelain pushed open the doors and my jaw immediately dropped to the ground.
It was like a museum!
There were sample designs in white-colored sheets covering every inch of the walls. From simple and stylized to realistic and complex patterns. There hung shelves of inks in ever single hue for days. But they all paled in comparison to the man that stood there in the room, his back turned.
He was covered in tattoos from neck to toe! His hair alone was an accomplishment. He could definitely crush my Dad's car between his biceps.
"Evening, Maui!"
"Elsa?" Tattoo Man was in disbelief as he flashed his pearly whites. Once again, I had to endure the pain of watching the lass of my dreams hug someone that is not me, in front of me.
"Love the hair and the costume." he compliments, and Porcelain thanks him bashfully. She too was not accustomed to compliments, which was very hard to believe.
"Look at you! You're like some kind of demigod now."
"What can I say?" Maui playfully flexed his muscles that I believed were molded by angels. "I know it's a lot— the hair, the bod." at which point Elsa giggles, upping my jealousy meter by eleven points.
"How are you and uh, whatsisname... Prince, is it?"
So, that's the name of the parasite that broke Elsa's heart.
Elsa scoffs, "Well, he's now the reigning Prince of Cheaterland."
Maui understood and apologized for asking, reminding me of how I reacted too back at the playground. "Did you come here to get another?" Tattoo Man rubbed his hands together, as if her answer was resounding...
"Yes. Except the tattoo won't be on me. It would be on my friend over here." I waved at Tattoo Man.
"I see." Maui reciprocates the gesture. His hands were almost as big as Ralph's. How was he able to make such detailed tattoos with hands like that? "Have you decided what you'd like?"
"More importantly... where you'd like it to be?" Elsa adds and both her and Maui laugh together while I stood there, confused. I pouted.
Inside jokes.
After much thought, I had my answer.
Escorting us to the room where I'd get tattooed in, I saw a poster I hadn't noticed earlier on the wall. It depicts a body in both front and back profiles, each area a different color from warm red to a cool blue, reminding me of heat signatures.
After my eyes landed on the title of the chart on the top left corner, I felt like I was a character in a horror movie walking into the antagonist's trap and had only realized it when it was too late. I would have never let Elsa push open those doors.
"Tattoo pain chart?!"
NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT PAIN.
Maui and Elsa looked at me like I had grown two heads.
"You had no idea tattoos were painful?" I shook my head vigorously. "It's like its very being. The entire tattoo reputation."
I scanned the room to look for any possible exits and makeshift weapons for both offense and defense available.
"Hey, if I can handle it, you can handle it as well. Maybe even more remarkably." Elsa seemed to have noticed my panicking and held me on both of my shoulders to meet her least pain blue eyes. "But if you're not up for it anymore, we can always go back."
My desire to go through any length, all in the name of impressing Porcelain, was stronger than my fear of death.
I carried my ass on to the leather bed belly-first and yelled a muffled "I'M READY, TATTOO MAN!"
"No, you're not. You still need to take your shirt off first, Princess."
I'll save you the gory details of the entire tattoo-ing process. But, please, find satisfaction in the following adjectives:
Torturous.
Excruciating.
Agonizing.
Maui was even polite enough to tell me that the back was one of the most painful areas to get inked on, all the while as he tattoos my naked back as if I wasn't screaming bloody murder, pleading for the demons of the Underworld to take my soul and end my suffering. Elsa would merely giggle.
If I were Elsa, I'd hold my hand so tight. Come on, lass.
"You know, you're my only customer who's ever screamed. The rest would just cry." Tattoo Man being of no help once again, reminding me he was Tattoo Man and not Comfort Man.
Such as the rules of life, all things must come to an end. And though it felt like it never would, it did eventually end, along with the usability of my vocal cords.
"You're welcome!" I tried with every ounce of strength I had left to lift myself up. From there, I was able to take a peek of the tiny drawing on my red back through the mirror Maui was holding.
A crescent moon.
"Wow." I said. Or was it Elsa who said that? Maybe Tattoo Man. Was it Angus..?
I didn't know.
Because as soon as I was able to fully get my half-naked torso up to get a better view of the tattoo, pay Maui, and get the fuck out of there, I had fainted.
✧･ﾟ: - *✧･ﾟ* :･ﾟ- *:･ﾟ✧
"It's your turn to take me somewhere, Merida." she was finally able to say after her two-minute-long barrel of laughter at my royal fall from grace back in the tattoo shop.
"Oh, is that what we're doing now? Taking turns taking each other somewhere?" I put my trembling hands in the pockets, glad to be able to feel my shirt on me again.
"Don't you know it." jeered Elsa.
"There is this one place..." I put a hooked finger on top of my lips, "...but maybe you've already been there."
"Where?"
"My Aunt Maudie's Diner."
"She's your aunt? I've always wanted to eat there!"
Her answer had blown away all the cobwebs. It gave me all the confidence I needed. Finally, I had something to contribute but this victory would be more delicious if it were with Jack and Hiccup, who had been keeping all these Aurora Creek wonderlands from me for so long.
The diner was right near the entrance of town, so that everybody would have a full stomach as soon as they step in, as my Aunt boasts.
My whole family used to go dining there all the time when I was still a wee lass. I don't remember why we suddenly stopped or why those visits became less frequent. Nevertheless, I remembered the diner like it was engraved inside my head.
A trailer standing above thick piles of wooden logs and metal bars. Once a pale white but now a dirty shade of cream from years of exposure to the elements, and red outlines up and down the windows. It could use some elbow grease.
In red manuscript letters, it glowed 'MAUDIE'S'— a staple of any sort of business or settlement in Aurora Creek, as I've come to discover. I began to wonder if Hiccup's Uncle and boss, Gobber, was enemies with my Aunt Maudie because of the common coincidence of their businesses being both in possessive nouns. Heck, Tiana could be part of the rivalry as well.
Decades old, there was traces of the late twentieth century lingering around every corner. A chessboard-like floor with its black and white tiles. Red cushioned chairs exposing battle scares of holes and tears. Rows of stools by the counter. The rectangular chalkboard hovering over the bar with the menu written on it and, of course, a jukebox that doesn't work anymore.
Elsa was a kid at a candy store.
"Look at this place! To say it was beautiful would be doing it a great disservice. It would even be an insult. All five of my senses have come alive. The colors would give the creator a run for their money with how well—no, excellent they are at providing life. The lights don't just... well, light the place up, they're calling your name. Singing it, even! The smell of minced onions and garlic in the air... it's like it's giving me a hug. A hug from an old friend. It's welcoming me back home even though I've never stepped foot into this heaven."
Now, she turned me into a candy store child, but I couldn't help but chortle at the last few sentiments, "Onions and garlic? Ye sound like my cousin Shrek."
"Please tell me the waiters rollerblade here." Her pout after I had burst her bubble had me over the crescent moon.
Nothing could have prepared me for the pins and needles I'd be standing on from having her sit in front of me, face-to-face, just like our very first interaction. It was a lot easier when I was seated down alone as she walks about, tending to customers. This time, she was exclusive only to me and for my eyes alone. The honor was overwhelming.
"Is your aunt around?"
"Nah, she doesn't work on Wednesdays."
"Oh, I would've loved to meet her and tell her how beautiful her diner..." she paused to look at me and finished her sentence with the most earth-shattering remark I've ever heard, "...and her niece is."
She spoke it with a calmness and confidence that not even movie stars uttering their famous catchphrases or iconic one-liners possessed. She seemed to have taken a sip from the fountain of ambrosia being she talked for the compliment had instantly added a hundred years to my lifespan.
"Let's have pancakes and orange juice in the middle of the night because why not."
So, we did. And we enjoyed every bit of the mountain of pancakes we ordered and its deliciously overflowing maple syrup to the very last drop.
Turns out, breakfast actually tasted better at night. But it wasn't the syrup, the orange juice, nor the lack of rollerblading waiters that made it better— it was eating them with Elsa.
✧･ﾟ: - *✧･ﾟ* :･ﾟ- *:･ﾟ✧