McKinley Park

[Nightfall]

Nightfall took the two buses it took to cross over to the park, adding transportation and money to his list of things to be annoyed about, shuffling it between Playing Courier and Running Out Of Coffee This Morning. If the list got much longer, something drastic would need to be done. Maybe ice skating.

Walking through the park, he looked around, and pondered the conundrum:

Was he looking for where a young woman would hang out...

...or where a squirrel would?

Not seeing any Chippendale's models handing out roasted nuts, he just started walking.

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[Terri Nutkins]

Terri walked through the Rose Garden, finding the display as glorious as ever. Crouching low to look at one particular stem, she knew how easy it would be to render it near-death, withered near to Winter once more. With a final sniff, she stood and looked across the park to spot the familar figure of Nightfall. Giving him a wave, she began to head his way, her barefeet gracefully stepping upon the lawn.

[West]

It was tempting to ask if people really spent their days like this... skipping around the park barefoot. Of course they didn't. They spent them cloistered up in a shop practicing dancing and stabbing things until they were inhumanly perfect, of course.

That aside, it was patently impossible to remain dour with a barefoot redhead with a squirrel tail sliding through the grass, and he grinned and waved back as he changed course.

He paused at the edge of the grass, tempted to take off his own shoes and socks. After a moment of contemplating patches of dead, frozen grass in the shape of feet, he continued onward.

"Hey," he said as they intersected, "Nice digs."

[Terri Nutkins]

"Thanks, I love this place." Terri intently left out the fact that it was in this very rose garden that she initially stumbled into the Thorns, taken to act as nothing but a messenger for the Wyrm. Shaking away the thought, the smile bouncing back after slipping slightly.

"Nice work with the laptop. Was it hard to get?"

[Nightfall]

"Nah," Nightfall replied. There's a pause, and he looks around before gracefully dropping and crossing his legs in the grass. Long fingers brush through the blades of grass, fishing for a runner to chew on.

"Although I met a 'special' lady friend of Derek's, if you know what I mean. She seemed all right, though," he adds, referring to Adrienne, then dismissing her.

[Terri Nutkins]

Terri crouched down opposite, not quite sitting but allowing her dress to drape over bent knees and skimming the grass. At mention of Derek's friend, Terri frowns and tsks through teeth.

"That man. Makes me wonder what he really got up to at that place. I bet he bedded half the student union." Terri cocked her head to Nightfall and wondered how much he was willing to give away. She had to admit, he was pretty impossible to read.

"You left in quite a hurry at the O," she started, picking a blade of grass and twisting it through her fingers. "Anything on your mind?"

[Nightfall]

It was sooooo tempting.

Nightfall wondered if Terri would know what he was laughing at if he deposited the brown satchel in front of her, so that she was crouching in front of it.

The thought made him smile.

A hand came up and rubbed at an eyebrow as he debated whether or not to answer the question. Of course, the other half of someone expressing concern was that you were expected to answer.

In more ways than one, he was the Doc Holliday of the Freehold.

"I was just... surprised... or misunderstood," he finally said. He smiled again, and added, "And here I thought things would be easier if I found a nice Lost girl, instead hiding so much from someone.... normal."

There was a long pause, and he looked down at his hands. The long, beautiful hands that his Keeper had turned into killing instruments. The hands of a Fairest, unused to not being the best. Hands that could be the tools of pride, or rejection.

"And maybe I was wrong before --about the Summers-- and I didn't want to hurt Enzo, the way I did Brianne," he said softly.

[Terri Nutkins]

She wasn't expecting that response and it shocked her. Truth be told, Terri hadn't been a response, full stop. Instead, she had expected Nightfall to go full emo-Winter on her.

Such misconceptions, she mused.

"Well, as far as I know, Alice and Enzo have history. I'm not sure how close they really are." Continuing to look at the Fairest, she had to almost strain to hear his last sentence and then it hit her. Obviously, none of Autumn had been at Capitol Park for the incident but she had heard from Rick the gist of it that was talked about at the meeting.

Actually, Rick had been rather too quiet of late following that.

"Look. Winter and Summer are not meant to get on, likewise with Autumn and Spring. Our mad little worlds collide on a regular basis about the stupidest fucking things. You don't think I haven't heard Summer spouting off?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Of course I have, we all have! You think I would have backed down if I heard shit being spread about Autumn? Oh hell no!" Terri started to laugh lightly, the thought of her trying to run rampant over player-haters.

"This girl's gotta lot of bite, so long as she has a slingshot in hand."

[Nightfall]

Nightfall nodded, smiling. More because he was supposed to, and she was trying, than anything else. Whether it was right or wrong, he still didn't know what the wisp would do -- did it sometimes guide his hand the way it did his eyes towards beauty? Just as it craved the presence of fey, would it try to ruin anything more Fair?

Because something had made him choose the glowing, golden goddess over the Champion of Summer.

"It's cool, though, I'm over it," he shrugged. Which, as far as Alice was concerned, he was. Twice she'd been the girl of iron resolve; twice she'd been the girl who had decided a quickie was her priority... but, once, she'd been the girl that had lied to him, and that was more than enough for a tie-breaker.

"Besides, I have to do the emo thing every once in a while, to prove I'm a Winter," he continued, looking up with a smile. "Otherwise people might wonder about the grinning idiot that just grabs girls' tails."

[Terri Nutkins]

"You don't grin that often," Terri quickly replied with a giggle before looking round at the park. Her eye nearly took in the gardener's shed but she refrained from staring. It had taken a while to get that under her belt, she didn't really want to announce it quite yet.

"It worries me that there have been no sightings of that bastard yet." Its obvious she is talking about the man from the bookstore.