The park, Monday afternoon

[betterthanaplan]

"Arrrr, ya scurvy dog! Ye may have the high ground now, but the Great Pirate Crocker will take ye down forthwith!"

"That's the worst pirate accent I ever heard!" Jean cried from the top of the jungle gym, giggling. "I'm the queen of the jungle gym! You'll never bring me down!"

"Ye think that, Jungle Queen! But I have a secret weapon!" He pulled a bag of jelly beans from his pocket. "Bribing you with candy!"

Jean sat down on the jungle gym, swinging her legs. "Wow. You're a terrible father."

"I mean, I'm not dead yet, so I'd say I'm doing pretty well."

[open!]

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

"I'm not gonna fight your dad," Dante told her firmly. "Kinda have a rule about not picking random fights with humans."

"Because you would kick their asses," Evie muttered, stll indignant.

"Evelyn," Dante said, and had to pause a second to roll his eyes at himself for like, doing the full-name dad thing, "You stop picking fights with the girl, all right? Let her be queen of the jungle gym if she wants to."

[outof_trouble]

"She's not letting me, I am," Jean insisted. "I got here first so's I got squatters' rights."

Who even knew where she picked that up from? Her version of Duke had been dead for ten years.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante sighed - and leaped up to the top of the jungle gym with one graceful push. "You settle down, and don't take her up on that," he told Evie.

She pouted. Angrily.

[outof_trouble]

Jean's eyes went wide, and she shrank down into herself at the man suddenly popping up to the top of the jungle gym like that.

Look, for all her bravado, she still knew magic powers as incredibly dangerous things.

"She can have it if she wants," she muttered, looking at the ground and wondering if she could jump that far without twisting her ankle or something.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Nah, you stay here," Dante told her, smile wry. "Sorry about that. Sometimes she kinda wants to throw punches before she starts talking."

Not that he recognized that.

He wrapped an arm around Evie's waist and ignored her 'Hey!' as he leaped off again, landing neatly on the grass below.

[outof_trouble]

Jean watched them go warily. They could both just zoom right back up if they wanted to, after all.

". . . I think I wanna play a different game now."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante winced, seeking out the kid's dad to shoot him an apologetic look. "Sorry, man," he said. "Didn't mean to scare her."

[betterthanaplan]

Duke shrugged back. "Powers where she's from are kind of . . . awful. Probably nothing personal."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Yeah, well, we're cool. I promise," he called, glancing back up at the girl. "And we'll get out of your hair."

With that, Dante tugged Evie gently away from them.