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Prompt 7: You've seen the commercials, take a bite of a chocolate mint patty and feel a rush of so cold you feel like you're atop a frigid mountain? Now, imagine you found a cute little shop with a sweet grandmother selling cookies from a recipe passed down for generations. She was warm and friendly, and very good at selling her cookies. They look normal, taste normal--except when you take a bite, for a few seconds, your vision fades and is replaced by a glorious view. You're at the top of a mountain, watching the sun rise above the clouds. The sunset is beautiful and soft, and you can't even feel the absolutely frigid air despite the snowcapped mountains all around you. There is something otherworldly and timeless about the location, and even in the dark of winter it has the ability to fill you with some unshakeable hope. When you swallow, the illusion rapidly fades, and no subsequent bites guarantee any further illusion--but, maybe if you eat enough, you'll eventually find that magical bite again...
Elissa periodically had a habit of sampling other shops’ goods and seeing if she could reverse-engineer their recipes. There was a lovely old woman, the kind of old woman Elissa aspired to grow up into, running a pop-up shop on the corner, and she had the same kind of gentle hustle to her that Elissa wanted to have. If she didn’t know better, she’d say that this woman was a version of herself from an ideal alternate future. In any case, she ended up buying a whole case of mint patty cookies and bringing them to work at the Sugar Star.
Melvin greeted Elissa with his usual warm smile. “Hello, Liss. What’s in the box?”
“Oh, well, you know…” Elissa smiled nervously as she opened the box, feeling a bit caught in the act. “There was someone selling cookies on my way to work, so I thought I’d bring them in for a special treat.”
“We have plenty of cookies here,” Melvin said, but his tone wasn’t entirely rebuffing. “Still, you can’t eat the profits too often, so let’s try them.”
“I did think of that, but I also thought of just having them be something special for us. I’m not going to re-sell them, but I might reverse engineer them, just a little,” Elissa said with a giggle as she set the box down on the counter. “Go on, take one. We can have them together, and of course we can save them for Vera, and…” Somehow she’d forgotten the name of the girl who ran the bar at night. Lulu? Lily? “The bartender.”
“Her name is Luca,” Melvin cut in. “I know she hasn’t been around for a while and you don’t bump into her often, but maybe you ought to meet her, hm?”
“Yes, maybe.” Elissa’s reaction was maybe a bit cooler than it should have been. Why did Melvin let that girl keep her job when she’d been unexpectedly absent for weeks? It was suspicious but also none of her business. She just hoped that Melvin being soft on Luca wouldn’t bode poorly for the business in general, as she didn’t want to have to relocate again. “So, let’s eat!”
Grinning, Melvin gave a hearty “cheers!” and pretended to clink his cookie against Elissa’s.
When Elissa took a bite of her cookie, she relished the minty coolness and crispness against her touch, but more than that, the world around her seemed to blink out of existence for one moment. She was greeted by a vision of an incredible view, one where she watched the sun rise from atop a cliff. More than a cliff, it was a tall mountain, surrounded by smaller mountains. The look of the sun dyeing the sky a pleasant strawberry lemonade color framed by the mountains below set Elissa’s heart aflutter. If it was cold atop the mountain, it wasn’t noticeably so, which added to the stirring experience.
Soon, as quickly as it arrived, the vision passed, and Elissa was back in the Sugar Star with Melvin, who must have experienced the same sort of vision, judging from the dreamy yet wide-eyed look on his face. “Well? What do you, uh, think?” Elissa asked, trying not to seem too spaced out.
“It’s certainly something,” Melvin said after a beat. “Definitely has that local Destiny City flavor to it, somehow.”
“So, did you also…?” Elissa was concerned about broaching the topic of a possible magical experience while powered down, but since they were probably both having it, there was most likely no harm.
“I saw something, yes,” Melvin said. “That’s what I mean when I say Destiny City flavor. It wouldn’t be a Destiny City specialty if it didn’t have a little quirk to it, don’t you think?” He paused, then added, “in any case, I don’t think we should talk these cookies up too much. Just save them for Vera and Luca and start getting set up, right?”
“Yes, of course,” Elissa said with a nod. “I’ll go wash up and face the shelves! You go get Vera and get some rest before tonight.”
As Melvin left for the time being, Elissa couldn’t help but wonder what was imbued into those cookies to cause such a lovely vision. Melvin was right about Destiny City having distinctly magical quirks, even for those who weren’t in the thick of it. Even if it wasn’t true, she’d pretend that the old woman had some kind of connection to her, for if she could bake magical vision cookies, she certainly would.
