frost.

frozen down to the core

Frost's hands tucked deeper into the pockets of his jacket. The man quickened his pace ever so slightly in an effort to step around a Mother and young child who were walking so impossibly slowly he was near assured the pair were at risk of freezing upon the sidewalk. He found himself....irritable today. People were too slow. Everything was too slow. Several of the equines within that Hunter unit had failed to submit their reports to him, Frost having spent the better part of that afternoon quite literally chasing one young woman who was determined to avoid paperwork at any cost. It was as if they didn't take their own fucking jobs seriously. Frost snorted softly, several strands of snowy hair fell loosey forward and into the unusual violet of his gaze as he moved to push it aside. There was a chance, he supposed, that Nadya was right. That he was too serious all the time and yet he hardly knew any other way to be. The world was not made of rainbows and butterflies the way half those new recruits to the Mounted Unit seemed to believe it was. As if they were training merely for fun. As if some vampire didn't linger around the corner waiting to tear horse and rider apart at any given moment for no other reason than because he could. Hmm. Maybe he was a little...jaded agianst the world. Frost's tongue brushed across his lip in contemplation of that very thing. He had heard those other equines talk. Gossip about himself was common. Wasn't that the burden of any Alpha? Any leader? He knew they thought him....cold. Distant. Hard. Emotionless. Even Nadya, he knew, had allowed those very thoughts to cross her mind and yet he hardly knew how to be anything....less. There simply wasn't.....time for....softness. It only got you killed in the end.

Frost allowed his head to shake ever so slightly, the WereHorse stepping up onto the first step of Alexander's cafe only to nearly collide with a man who all but stormed out before him. Hmm. Alexander had been having an interesting afternoon. The vaguest hint of a simper tugged loosely at the stallions lip. Some part of him seemed to find amusement at the idea of Alexander and his own equally stoic facade having gotten under the skin of the irritated fellow, before Frost stepped into the warmth of that cafe. The inner Sanctum had become the stallions veritable....escape from the world in one way or another. That pack house was equally full today, Frost simply unwilling to face that noise just yet. Maybe he would bring them all back something. Maybe. Then again, if he sat in his usual chair long enough, and stared at Alexander long enough, there was every chance his rider might afford him that leftover carrot cake he knew Alexander often kept for him. Even if the man refused to admit it. The irritated fellow from earlier, however, had left quite the mess in his wake. One barista looked upon the verge of tears as she struggled to clean up the mess around her, several other customers seemed content to merely eye her in apparent shock. Frost, for now, moved to edge his way around that chaotic center and towards his armchair beside the window. One that was currently occupied by a woman with yet another smashed tea cup at her feet. Today, it seemed, was an unfortunate day for tea cups.

Frost paused beside that table. There was another, vacant armchair less than three feet away and yet that was not his armchair. This one was. How...unfortunate that such a woman had so illegally taken up residence within it. Perhaps she was new to this part of the city. Everyone, after all, knew to leave that space for Frost himself. The stallion's violet eyes shifted from the spilled tea cup at his feet and up toward the woman herself. The pair seemed content to eye one another in a momentary silence. How ready he was to simply command her to move and yet, for perhaps the first time, the words of those other equines lingered within his mind. He could be nice.....he supposed. If he tried. Frost's head nodded toward that broken, spilled tea cup then.

"Did you anger the Mad Hatter too?"

The complete failure on Frost's part to so much as smile, perhaps, was what resulted in that joke hardly appearing as such. The woman within his chair seemed to eye him in complete confusion. As if she had failed to understand that joke at all. Did she not know about the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland? Had she never witnessed his ability to destroy tea parties? Frost's attempts to compare that irritated stranger to the comical cartoon character apparently having fallen short. This. This was exactly why he didn't try. Tetradore would have understood that joke he was certain. Frost's gaze seemed to narrow near abruptly before a near exasperated sigh managed to leave his lips. The stallion, his attempts at 'nice' having failed (he deemed his hopeless joke a serious effort), abruptly reverting to his usual gruff demeanor.

"You're in my seat."

His words held no emotion. That statement offered as bluntly and as coldly as ever. Frost so clearly anticipating the woman to move, or at the very least, vacate that chair in favour of the one opposite it. His gaze continued to meet her own in a manner near unflinching. The fashion in which Frost's hand moved across that table was surely unseen unless she chose to look away from him and down toward his fingers as they reached to silently slide that sugar jar closer to him. An unattended sugar jar was a rarity. Alexander so often ordered those waitresses to take them away whenever Frost lingered and yet, for now, the Hunter was otherwise occupied. Frost was hardly willing to waste that opportunity. His fingers flicked that lid with ease, a singular sugar cube plucked from within before he lifted it abruptly to his lips. His gaze remained near unwavering on the poor woman before him as he did. The irony of his own frosted demeanor and the sweet sugar upon his tongue was hardly lose upon him and yet Frost was certain any further jokes were wasted upon this girl all the same. Hmmm. It was unfortunate. She was pretty too.