The Park, Friday Morning

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden had been woken up early by a cute, fluffy cat. It was annoying that there had been no one around to make her breakfast, but she had found some cookies, and the cat had known where the cat food was and...

Here they were. The cat had insisted on going to the park, and since it was cute and fluffy Seivarden had allowed it, and now she was looking up at the cat sitting on a high branch in one of the trees.

"Come down!" She called, waving her arms. She really needed a proper breakfast, and a little tea, and...

The cat wailed.

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[sake_shinigami]

Shunsui Sōzōsuke Jirō Kyōraku needed to get out of that apartment, and he couldn't seem to do it fast enough. What a dump! Whoever's place it was must be a real degenerate, or something. He was clearly not at home at his family's substantial estate, and he had no idea why not, but there was that haori, which seemed familar, and that made him sort of wonder...

Thankfully, he didn't find his brother there at all, just a bunch of sake bottles, most of them empty (and it was definitely sake, he'd tried it, even after an appalling sniff, and then instantly regretted it; that stuff was just vile), and that was some small relief. The last thing Shunsui wanted was to wind up being blame and yelled at and punished for something he didn't even know anything about!

But there were pork buns in the fridge (although very little else), and those were pretty good, so he grabbed one of those and headed out, to much on as he scoped out this place that wasn't his family's estate, or even the Soul Society, that much was pretty clear. And he made his way to the park, glad to see that there were ducks and a pond, but then there was some other commotion going on to distract him.

So he strolled over, taking a bite of his pork bun and giving it a few thoughtful chews as he looked up into the tree.

"Oi," he said, helpfully, around the bite of food, "I think your cat is stuck."

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden turned around to look who it was, and her eyes widened as she stared at the kid's hands and the food he was holding.

"Eww!"

[sake_shinigami]

Yeah, okay, rude! Shunsui scoffed, taking another bite, and looking the other kid over, wondering just who she thought she was.

Maybe he wouldn't help with her cat after all!

"Whattya mean, ew?" he asked. "It's actually pretty good, considering it's from a drunk hobo's fridge!"

He...probably shouldn't speak so poorly of anyone in the Ise clan, which he assumed owned that apartment, especially if his brother seemed interested in courting the Ise daughter, but come on!

"You want one?" he offered, digging the second one he'd brought with him out of the pockets of his robes. "I've got another."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke definitely wasn't staring at this kid's food (Duke was 100% staring at this kid's food).

"Hey," he greeted, jerking his chin at said food, hands still shoved into his pockets. "Where'd you get that?"

[sake_shinigami]

"I dunno," Shunsui shrugged a little, taking another bite. "I found it over there," he hitched his thumb over his shoulder back toward MCA, "in the dump of an apartment I woke up in."

It was bad, Other Kid. So, so bad.

"You want one?" he asked, after that nice, rave review. "They're not actually that bad, and I brought a few."

He proudly patted the slightly bulging pocket of his robes.

[okteiviakom]

Unlike some people, Octavia was not at all subtle about looking at what this kid was eating.

"What's that?"

Being raised in isolation left a girl with a lot of curiosity about everything.

[sake_shinigami]

"S'a pork bun," Shunsui informed her, charmingly with his mouth full of his most recent bite, before his hand dug into his robe to pull out another and offer it out. "Want one?"

He was going through them pretty fast at this rate, but he didnt seem bothered by it. He did notice that he wasn't the only one with food stuffed into their pockets, though.

"What've you got?" he asked, nodding toward her own bulges in clothing.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke had woken up this morning on a boat. Which wasn't in itself that unusual, but it was a nice boat, at least on the inside, which was kind of deeply suspicious, so he'd hauled ass the hell out of there before whoever owned the boat could get back and either kick him out or, like, expect shit from him.

Now he was wandering through this quaint little burg, hands shoved in his pockets in what would read either as nonchalance or delinquency, depending on the audience, looking for somewhere he might be able to snag some food. (He should have ransacked that damn boat.)

He watched the kid with the cat for several moments, then snorted. "Ha! Sucks to be you."

Such a charming young man.

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden gave the kid a condescending look. She was good at those.

"Sucks to be you too."

There had to be some reason.

[betterthanaplan]

There were several, in fact.

Duke shrugged. “Yeah, usually.” He looked up at the cat again. “Have you tried bribing it?”

[okteiviakom]

Octavia's pockets were stuffed with Oreos. All of her pockets, both the ones on her dress as well as the ones in the jacket she was wearing on top - or swimming in, really, because she was a nine-year-old in a garment meant for someone a decade older.

There was also a small crochet bunny peeking its head out of one of the jacket pockets. See, Bell? She had snacks and she had company (because Bunny definitely counted!), so you couldn't be mad at her for slipping out unsupervised! Again.

The park was an obvious choice for exploration, because she'd been here before, which meant she knew there were flamingoes here, and she was excited to see them again. But, before she got there, she saw... someone else, and a fluffy little animal, which probably was what bypassed her instinct to be wary of strangers. "Ooooh, what's that?"

[1000yearstoolate]

"A cat. Have you never seen a cat before?"

Seivarden paused.

"Cats like climbing."

[okteiviakom]

There was kind of a brief pout because no, actually, Octavia had never seen a cat before. But, she wasn't going to say that. "Is that bad?"

She meant the climbing.

[betterthanaplan]

Duke took in the stuffed pockets and oversized jacket and immediately concluded that this girl was his sort of people.

"Running away from home?"

[okteiviakom]

Thanks to the Ark not really having anywhere to run from home to that she was aware of, Octavia might not have been parsing that question entirely correctly.

She fidgeted a little with one of her overly long sleeves. "Umm. Well, I.. didn't tell my br-- Bellamy I was leaving?"

Which she thought was a both a completely reasonable thing to do, because she'd be fine, yet still also something she felt a little bad about, because Bellamy would worry.

[firstofitskind]

Oh! A familiar face! From the other day, because time was weird when you'd never actually been a kid to start with the last time he'd come to the park.

So he was maybe edging a little closer to her because there were a lot of unfamiliar faces in the park right now and it was all a little Much.

[okteiviakom]

A familiar face, indeed! "Liam!" Yes, he was deemed safe enough for Octavia to be enthusiastic right off the bat. "I have cookies!"

Also, there was that.

[died8yearsago]

Rosa had a puppy! A PUUUUPPPPYYYYY! And she was pretty much the greatest puppy ever, and she named it Anna Pavlova, and now she and Anna Pavlova were running around the park because that's just what you did when you had a dog!

And now Anna Pavlova must have caught a scent of something, because she went rushing toward that tree and barking up it and Rosa rushed after her to see what she'd found, looked up, and saw a cat there up in the tree. She laughed, looking at the poor kid who clearly just lost her cat to a tree.

"I think my dog want to eat your cat!" she declared, sounding way to excited about this prospect.

The dog, of the record, did not. She just wanted to say hi to her VERY GOOD FRIEND that she missed dearly! Hello, old cat friend!

[1000yearstoolate]

Issa hissed.

"Your dog can't climb trees. She won't catch my cat." Seivarden snorted, giving the kid an unimpressed look.

[died8yearsago]

Arlo 2 Anna Pavlova barked happily up the tree, her paws dancing on the trunk eagerly. Hisses meant I love you, right?

Rosa, meanwhile, snorted. "My dog may not be able to climb trees," she agreed. "But I can. What's going to stop me from climbing up there and getting your cat and turning it into puppy chow, huh?"

[betterthanaplan]

"I bet that cat could take it," Duke decided. "The fluffy ones are always the most vicious."

He knew basically nothing about cats.

[died8yearsago]

"Yeah, right," Rosa scoffed, rolling her eyes a moment before settling a sardonic smirk on the boy who clearly had no idea what he was talking about. "If that was true, then how come it hasn't come down and done it yet? That cat's a coward."

[firstofitskind]

Thanks to Verity, Liam had a vague understanding that parks were for playing. And children were supposed to play, right? So here he was.

Only... the way the other child was waving her arms at the cat up in the tree didn't seem much like playing. It seemed far more serious.

"What are you doing?"

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden turned her head to look at him. "My cat won't come down," she said, voice trembling a little.

[firstofitskind]

Oh, that was serious.

Liam looked up at the cat. Then back at Seivarden. "Did you try climbing after it?" he suggested.