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Current RPers: Adalia and Dean
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Durem, a great industrial city full of people, cars, a vigorous nightlife, and pollution. Even so, the founders of the city saw fit to retain safe havens from the hustle and bustle of the city. Durem City Park is one such haven. The park's circular shape has a stone path around its circumfrence, approximately two miles long. Within this is another one mile long path, also circular and centered within the first. Many small paths connect these two together and one path runs from the inner path to the center of the park; the fountain. Trees and grass fill the gaps between paths in abundance and play equipment for children is scattered about the park as well.

Durem Memorial Fountain, directly in the center of the park, constantly gushes water that is filtered by a high tech system to maintain a high level of purity (despite the nasty coins and other things people like to throw in). A plaque along the north edge of the fountain reads, "Dedicated to the Founders of Durem: May your toils never be forgotten."

Dean walks about in circles around this fountain. Odd for the young man, neither his headphones nor his iPod are anywhere on his person. It would seem that the only items with Dean are his clothes (and most likely his phone, wallet, and keys). With few clouds in the sky to stop it, the sun beats down upon Dean. Strange weather for a late autumn day, but the rarity of the great weather made it that much more important for Dean to get out of the house. Like some omen, it beckoned him from his cave to fulfill his destiny; a destiny of taking a stroll. With a grin on his face, Dean closes his eyes and enjoys the mist that drifts over him from the fountain, cooling his skin with its moist touch.

"Simply fantastic," he says quietly, opening his eyes to gaze up at a few misshapen clouds. Weird... That one looks like a pineapple...

Dean looks down from the sky, glancing about. His eyes narrow, looking for a familiar face. After all, strangers probably wouldn't be calling his name. He smirks to himself, spotting the waving Adalia. "Adalia, huh?" he mutters, beginning to walk toward her. Oddly enough, he was wearing the same thing as the day he met her: A white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans.

As he nears Adalia, he slips his hands into his pockets somewhat awkwardly. Now standing before the girl he was sure was younger than himself, he looks down upon her and offers his usual nervous smile. "Hello," he says timidly. Even as he does so, he looks her up and down. He'd been more interested in her words than her appearance back in the shop. This having occurred to him, Dean now takes the opportunity. His face reddens slightly. She's pretty...

As if he wasn't awkward enough...

Dean shrugs his shoulder in response to her question, merely stating, "It was nice out today. I often come here when the weather permits." He smiles warmly, looking down into her eyes with a caring reflected within his own eye. Either he didn't notice the plushies yet, or he didn't care. With a soft laugh, he says, "If I never got out of the house, I'd look like a vampire. I'd rather not join the Von Helson gang."

He lifts his head slightly, looking at the stuffed toy on Adalia's head. It was, after all, more to his eye level. His left hand slips out of his pocket, reaching to poke at it with his index finger. Dean chuckles softly, asking, "Why do you have a toy on your head?"

Dean scratches at the back of his head nervously, giving a strange laugh as he admits, "Vampires seem to be a cocky and very confident sort, I must say. That's not really... Well, I don't think I'll ever be quite like that again. Confidence takes a long time to build up." His head tilts to the side as he holds the bat out toward him, left eye focusing onto the toy.

"What do I think?" he repeats quietly. Laughing at the irony, he straightens his posture before offering, "You should name him Sunny." He blinks at her... Well, really, he winks at her. Of course, she could never see the eyelid remaining open behind that patch. He hoped nobody would ever see what was behind that patch. His arms cross in front of his body as he asks, "What do you think? Too lame? I had an eye for knowing what somebody should be named. Then I lost it." He laughs, but the sadness sneaks out in his tone.

Dean shrugs his shoulders, laughing a bit as he says, "At least I tried." Of course, he honestly hadn't tried. If he was good at naming toys, maybe she'd think he had some of his own that he'd named. A strange thought from a strange young man. He smiles and inquires, "Your brother? The one who works at the shop?"

Dean watches her contently, actually happy that somebody found him on his walk. He had been strolling around for about two hours prior, after all. Even so, he wasn't showing any signs of fatigue, meaning he'd had plenty of sleep and had fed himself like a normal human being. His expression becomes rapidly blank as he notices her looking at his eye patch. Dean was used to it by now, but felt more embarrassed for some reason.

Turning bright red, he says, "I bet you wonder why I wear this thing." Of course, this was a stupid statement to make. A vertical scar was visible just above and below the patch, letting everybody know that he didn't wear it for fun and games. Something went wrong...

Fiach! The name echoes in Dean's mind for a moment. He knew this person. "Oh yeah!" he says rather loudly and out of nowhere. "The guy from from coffee shop who was hanging out with Brad!" Dean smiles triumphantly. Perhaps his shoddy memory was getting better after all. Realizing how silly he must have sounded, Dean finds himself rather embarrassed yet again.

Dean looks to his hand quickly as she grabs it, staring for a moment at his hand in hers. He looks to her face as she lets him know that he doesn't have to talk about it. With the kindest of smiles, he lowers his head some and simply says, "Thank you." Strangely, he felt compelled to tell her anyway. Not sure why himself, he allowed himself to continue to explain, "It's not a big secret, though. Most people know what happened." With a slight frown, his head lifts up once more and he closes his eye.

"Not many have heard it from my own mouth," he says with a somber tone. "But..." Dean opens his eye and flashes her a mischievous smile, adding, "If you ask nicely enough, I may consider it."

Dean shrugs his shoulders at the question, merely noting, "A please thrown into the question would make it 'nice' enough." He looks to the girl before him, so pleasant with her cute smile beaming up at him, and can't help but keep smiling. How strange that a girl like her is related to a nervous, awkward guy like Fiach... I guess she likes people like that if she's hanging out with me right now. He smirks at the thought, more due to the fact the he knows that he overthinks things sometimes.

He lifts his gaze from her a moment, hearing a dog barking off to the right. His head turns, more than most would require, to get a view of the dog playing catch with its owner. As he turns his head, however, Dean realizes that his eye patch's strap is caught on his ponytail's rubber band. Dean turns his vision back toward Adalia, feeling it again as it pulls at his hair to create a mild discomfort. He frowns and reaches back with his free hand to undo the rubber band, allowing his hair to fall about his face.

Dean nods with a soft smile, saying, "Fair enough. I'll tell you." After tucking the band into his pocket, Dean's free hand brushes his hair toward the sides a bit more so that his face remains mostly visible. He gives another nod, as if preparing himself for something.

"When I graduated from high school," he begins, "me and my parents decided to take a little trip. They saw it as appropriate since I'd passed a 'milestone,' or something like that." He starts to fidget with his hair a bit, his eye now looking up toward the clouds as he continues his story. "We went to the town where my father grew up. Both of my parents' parents were dead already at the time. We went to the cemetery to visit the graves of my grandfather and grandmother on my father's side while there, though."

Dean pauses, looking down to her a moment as he scratches his hairless chin. "I think he wanted me to remember where I came from," he notes with a nostalgic air about him. Shaking his head softly, he gets into the important part of the story, "On the way home, the weather wasn't particularly swell. In fact, it was terrible. It wouldn't have mattered, though. The weather didn't have anything to do with the amount of alcohol the other driver had in his system when he plowed into our car, though." His eye begins to moisten and grow teary as he dryly explains, "I'm alive because I was in the back seat. Even that didn't save me from a large shard of glass that cut out my eye and cut the surrounding area vertically." His eyes close a moment, pushing out the water in the form of a tear that runs down his left cheek. From the side of his eye patch, another tear runs down his right cheek as well.

"My father wanted me to remember where I came from. I have two holes that will never let me forget. One in my skull, and the other in my heart." Dean smiles weakly to her as he finishes the story, adding, "I don't much like riding in cars anymore." Oddly enough, the way he admit his distaste for cars comes out as a joke and undeniably so. He even laughs a little. After the laughter, unfortunately, the life seems to move out of the boy. He didn't bother to tell Adalia that he'd never told anybody at all about the accident. It was plastered all over the news back then. Only people who'd moved into the area after the incident wouldn't have had a chance to see it on TV or read about it in the papers.