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The Park, Friday Morning

It was a good thing that Caleb had taught her to make her own tea, since the only place here resembling a tea house was in fact a coffee house and didn't serve tea. The staff had claimed that something called 'hot leaf water' was the same thing, but that obviously wasn't true.

Issa the cat had wanted to go to the park, so that was why she and Seivarden were here. Mostly, although Seivarden didn't mind, it was a pleasant enough place, and it was fun to see the cat stalk the birds in the pond. The small ones, not the big pink ones, which seemed aggressive.

Her hair glittered in pink and purple. It had taken a while to get it right, but it did look nice, and even better in daylight. The communication device she had found also took pictures and she was taking a few of herself, thinking her sister might want to see.

This whole place was terribly uncivilized, with terribly uncivilized people and it was quite exciting!

[Open!]

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Zack had a dog! A dog!

... Okay, he was kind of surprised by that development on Wednesday morning when he'd woken up to a gorgeous pup politely begging for her morning kibble. After all, for as much as people called him a puppy, he really had no experience with real dogs. But this one was real, and she was good, and she had a collar with a tag that said 'Girl' and he was kind of in love.

And since the company seemed to have him on some kind of extended leave again, he figured he totally had enough downtime to take Girl with him to the park.

Zack noticed the glitter in the other kid's hair before Girl even noticed the cat. And, while Girl was well-trained enough to sit her butt down and just watch the cat intently from a distance, Zack was staring at the sparkly kid in rapt fascination.

"Wow," he said, tilting his head and offering her a bright smile. "That's some really colorful hair!"

Yeah, he was clearly here too early to see Caleb's hair.

Seivarden looked up from trying to get Issa's attention with a blade of grass. She smiled back, pleased at the compliment. Since the other kid was smiling she was going to assume it was. She smiled back, pushing her hair behind her ear.

"I love the colours," she said.

"They're really eye-catching," Zack replied easily, making his way over for a better look. Girl stood and walked with him, obediently standing by his side at all times. "Where did you get them? I think I know somebody who might like those, actually..."

From your girlfriend's store, Zack.

"In a shop called 'Pick your Poison'," she said. "I went there to buy tea."

That reminded her.

"Do you want tea?" She gestured at the thermos. It was perhaps a little forward, but this person was quite pretty, despite being non-Radchaai.

Meanwhile, Issa cautiously approached Girl.

"Tea? There's something I don't get to drink often," Zack replied, turning bright blue eyes toward the thermos. "I would love some, please. Thank you!"

Girl sat down and just kind of tilted her head at the cat. She was that one from the shelter, wasn't she? Her nose remembered Issa, at the very least.

Those eyes were a bit distracting. Seivarden wondered if they were artificial or not, but either way, they were gorgeous. She was still smiling.

"Oh, I should introduce myself. I'm Seivarden Vendaai." She bowed slightly, then turned to get the thermos.

"And I'm Zack Fair, SOLDIER 2nd Class!"

Look, it was a point of pride. Someday he'd graduate out of the violet uniform and into the black, but for the time being, he'd take what he could boast.

"Do you come here often? You'd think I would have remembered seeing you around..."

Not Radchaai military, of course, but still.

"You're a soldier?" Seivarden asked, sounding a little more impressed than she actually felt. Zack with the pretty blue eyes seemed to be flirting with her, and there was nothing wrong in flirting back, was there?

"No, I'm just here visiting," she said, pouring a cup of tea for Zack. "Do you? Come here often I mean?"

Zack with the pretty blue eyes kind of flirted with everyone.

... There was a decent chance he wasn't even aware he did so.

"To the park? Sometimes," he replied, smiling warmly. "I've been living here for a little while already, when I'm not on assignment back home. I think I have a bit of downtime at the moment, though. So I thought, why not take a walk? The sky is gorgeous out here."

It reminded him of home. Gongaga, not Midgar.

"It is," Seivarden agreed, offering Zack the cup. Even thinking of the terrible phrase 'and so are your eyes' made her blush, but her skin was too dark for it to show.

"And what do you prefer doing with your downtime?" Seivarden asked, smiling over the rim of her cup.

Zack accepted the cup, holding it close with gloved hands and smiling back.

"Stuff most people think is boring, I guess," he admitted. "I like to train a lot. I'll go running or find someone to spar with if I can. You have to keep in shape if you're going to go fight, you know?"

He was SOLDIER. He was literally never going to be out of shape.

"Oh, of course," Seivarden agreed. "I'm planning to go to military school myself, but I'm not old enough. I try to keepin shape though."

That was an exaggeration.

"What kind of sparring?"

"Hand-to-hand or with swords," Zack replied easily. "Sometimes I get to play in the training rooms against simulated enemies, and when that happens I can pull out my full arsenal."

Materia was great! He could throw fireballs! Who didn't like throwing fireballs?

"But around here it's probably better to stick with things that friendly sparring partners would know their way around, too."

"Swords?" Seivarden asked. "Not guns?" Swords sounded terribly primitive.

"I've got some experience with had-to-hand sparring."

More like getting into a fight with people than actual sparring.

Zack gave an easy laugh at that and shook his head.

"Some people use guns," he replied, "but those would make for a pretty quick spar. Besides, SOLDIER can do more damage with a good sword than anyone can with a gun. It's what we're made for."

"That's... impressive. I don't think I've actually seen a sword."

Only in entertainments involving really primitive tribes on some remote uncivilized planet.

Those primitive people hadn't had gorgeous blue eyes though, or laughed like that. Seivarden laughed too.

Zack smiled faintly at that, and then reached to his back, pulling the sword from it and giving it a twirl. It was far smaller than the one his adult counterpart carried around, but it was still fairly impressively large, and he held it with a confidence that made doing so look far easier than it should have.

"Well, here's one," he shared. "ShinRa issue, all of SOLDIER uses these."

It might be a primitive weapon, but the way Zack handled it was rather... attractive. Seivarden fidgeted a little.

"Can I hold it?"

"Sure!" Zack turned it over in his hand easily, holding it out for Seivarden, hilt-first. One-handed. "Careful, though. It's heavy."

It really was.

It really was. Seivarden grabbed the hilt with both hands, and the point still fell to the ground when Zack let go. Seivarden barely managed to lift it off the ground.

"Heavy," she repeated, feeling awkward.

"Heavy," Zack confirmed, no judgement in his smile at all. "It's part of what makes SOLDIER so effective. You can do a lot of damage if you can wield a weapon like that."

"Where I'm from we have guns," she said. "And our armour can withstand anything."

Not quite anything, but almost.

She held the sword out to Zack with some effort. "I can see that it takes some training."

Which gave you very nice arms, apparently.

Zack smiled and took the sword back one-handed, giving it another spin before settling it on his back again.

"A SOLDIER 1st class can take care of an entire army of troops with guns alone," he replied. "I'm going to be one of them, someday. It's just a matter of time."

Seivarden was distracted by those arms for a moment, then said with a friendly laugh: "You clearly haven't faced a Radchaai army. Oh, and I'm glad you haven't, I wouldn't want us to be enemies."

"Your Radchaai haven't faced SOLDIER," Zack countered, still smiling pleasantly as he took a sip of tea. Because he had done everything with his sword with that cup in his other hand.

Showoff.

"But I agree with you, I wouldn't want us to be enemies, either."

Such a showoff, not that Seivarden was complaining.

She reached down to pick up her own cup, then smiled, looking into those blue eyes. "Even our pets get along."

Maybe looking into someone's eyes was a bit obvious, but Seivarden was a teenager.

Sorry, Seivarden. Zack was beautiful and oblivious. He turned a fond look toward the pets, since she had mentioned them, and nodded.

"They do," he agreed. "Who would have seen that coming, right?"

Girl had flopped over and was basically letting Issa climb all over her however she pleased. She was definitely a good Girl.

"I thought dogs and cats generally didn't like each other," Seiavrden said. So far Issa has liked two out of three dogs she's met."

Obliviousness was easily interpreted as rejection, and Seivarden tried to ignore that.

Issa found a good place and posed herself on Girl's chest.

"Well, Girl's pretty calm," Zack offered, smiling a little as the cat parked herself on his dog, who was being careful to stay really quite still. "That probably doesn't hurt? Maybe she just likes calm dogs?"

Stance? Calm? Ha.

"The other dog was quite playful," Seivarden said. "Maybe she has a diverse taste."

Issa still sat on top of Girl, now licking her paw.

She fell silent for a moment, fidgeting. "More tea?"

"Please," Zack replied, smiling back at Seivarden as Girl tilted her head this way and that, trying to figure out what to do from there. "And thanks. You really don't have to share like this."

"Oh, tea should be shared."

At least not sharing it was a bit impolite, and Seivarden didn't want to be rude to Zack.

"Well, in that case, I won't turn more down," Zack replied easily. "It really is good tea."

Zack wouldn't know good tea if it bit him in the butt. He was being polite, too, mostly.

"I couldn't find the proper utensils to make it here," Seivarden said. "But someone showed me a simpler method, and it works quite well."

When in doubt, talk about tea.

"What kind of tea is popular where you are from?"

"What kind?"

Ooooh no.

"That's a really good question," Zack hedged, though at least he was making an effort to try to think of something he'd at least seen somebody drinking. "We have a lot of different produce where I'm from than they do here. But I know a lot of people like green teas?"

Perhaps they should find another topic.

"There are many good green teas," she said. "I usually get black ones, but variation is nice."

She poured them both some more tea, then smiled, pushing her hair back behind her ear.

"There's a black tea I remember my mother drank a lot of, back home in Gongaga," Zack offered, smiling a little and lifting his cup again to sip from. "I tried it once and thought it was too bitter, but I was a little kid. She told me I'd appreciate it more when I was older."

He looked into the cup.

"I do like this more than I remember liking that, that's for sure."

"Small children don't always like tea," Seivarden said. "I forced myself to drink it for several months before I learnt to appreciate it. I didn't want to be a child, though. Gonaga? Is that where you're from? Does your family still live there?"

"It is, and they do," Zack replied, smiling warmly. "It's a small town in the middle of nowhere, and that middle of nowhere is right in the middle of a rainforest. It's not easy to get to, but it's beautiful there."

Or, well, it would be, until the explosion at the reactor that killed well over half the town.

"Do you get to visit? I imagine being a soldier doesn't make that easy."

The capital letters were hard to pick up in conversation ~~unless they're spelled out in which case I'll re-ping~~.

~~You got it right!~~

"I, uh," Zack shrugged his shoulders and winced a little. "I haven't actually seen my parents since I left home, no. I'm usually too busy to get the leave to, and travel to Gongaga is expensive."

It was way out in the middle of nowhere.

It was so weird not having to get up early in the morning to go to ballet class, but ~~Rosa~~ Emily was not going to complain about it. Her body, however, was going to still get up early like she had class and feel all restless about not going through the usual physical strain that it entailed. But it would work out. She did, after all, have a very energetic puppy, so she rifled through the clothes in the apartment until she found some workout gear that would fit her, tied back her hair, strapped on Tchaikovsky's leash, and set out for a morning jog around the island.

And then slowed slightly when she realized that the glinting in the corner of her eye was coming from that Seivarden person's head. "Whoa," she said after she'd passed by, slowed down, then retracted, "your hair!"

And of course she was going to think that her own hair had something to do with it. Everyone was going pink now, she was totally a trendsetter, they all wanted to emulate her, what a bunch of total losers, ha!

Seivarden smiled at her, pleased at her reaction. "I found coloured glitter in the shop where I buy tea."

Where she had bought tea once.

She flung her hair over her shoulder, so that Emily could really see how it glittered.

"You buy tea in the same place as hair glitter?" Rosa asked, as if she hadn't just bought hair dye in the same place she bought tomatoes.

Still, though, she more she looked at it, the more she had to admit (to herself, at least), that she liked it, and not just because she was going to take credit for probably inspiring it. Plus, it probably helped that she just may have been thinking about Seivarden's glorious hair a few times when she was brushing through Caleb's less-than-glorious rattail last night.

"It looks good."

She may have looked slightly pained when she said it.

"This island is strange," Seivarden said. "Tea is sold in cosmetics shops and there isn't even a tea house." She spoke quickly, trying not to make it show how much she appreciated the compliment.

"Thank you. I was inspired by yours," she said, smiling at Emily. It was at least true to some extent, and she guessed it would work as a compliment.

Damn right she was! Rosa couldn't help a full-fledged, honest-to-goodness smile at that one, running her hands through her own hair, giving it a vigorous though glitterless shake.

"Good hair and good taste," she said approvingly. "I did Caleb's last night, too. If clubs weren't lame, I'd suggest we form one."

That, and she'd be more interested that club sans Caleb.

Sorry, Caleb.

Seivarden laughed. "Caleb's? You dyed her hair?"

No one had told her about the pronouns yet.

"You're such a good influence."

Rosa snorted, figuring she'd just meant to make a jab at Caleb. She could see how someone might think he was kind of girly, especially with those dumb robes of his.

"Oh, it looks great," she said, trying not to boast, but how could she help it? "We did the rattail in pink, and a sweet ass blue streak on top. I was actually thinking of doing some blue streaks in mine..."

Idly wrapping a strand of her hair around her finger, of course, as Tchaikovsky started to tug a little on the leash, because, hey, there, little owner lady, they were kind of in the middle of a jog here...

Wrapping hair around a bare finger? That was so distracting, and if Seivarden hadn't had such dark skin, Emily would have noticed the blush.

Not wearing gloves was so uncivilized, and Seivarden was discovering it could be very... enticing, depending on the person. She had always been told that non-Radchaai were generally unattractive, but that wasn't always the case, she was starting to notice. It seemed a little more potentially mutual with Emily with the beautiful pink hair than with Zack with the gorgeous blue eyes.

Seivarden as a teenager wasn't that good at flirting, though.

"Do you ever braid your hair?, I mean..." To be fair, that was a very reasonable thing to suggest to someone where she was from, although she was really bad at braiding hair.

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The Park, Friday Morning

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