Welcome to Gaia! ::

Marlin found himself glad of the thick winter coat he had chosen to wear, one hand stuck in the pocket as he walked briskly back towards the flat.

Although the Firebird’s café had still been open when the Take a Bow theatre group had finished for the evening, Marlin had declined the offer of grabbing something to drink and maybe a quick bite with the others and had instead opted for picking up some Chinese from a take-out place about eight or so minutes up the road from the community centre.

It was this that was dangling from the hand currently not in the coat pocket, although from time to time the bag switched hand – the coat pocket provided a little extra warmth and even with gloves his hands were cold.

It was the cold dictating the brisk pace of his tread, Marlin looking forward to reheating the food in the microwave, checking on the tomato seeds he was germinating in the kitchen and then maybe channel-surfing for a little bit – that is having a lazy end to the day.

Marlin’s footsteps slowed as a voice greeted him from his direct right, half wishing that he hadn’t when the decrease in movement started to dissipate the little bit of heat that his brisk walking had generated.

His automatic reaction was to look to his right. Nope no one there and a puzzled glance to his left failed to yield anyone either.

It didn’t occur to Marlin at this stage that the voice from his right had come from slightly above him.

Marlin started as the voice spoke again, before he realised that the voice was coming from a point slightly above him instead of to his immediate right. It was a boy, maybe late teens or so, sitting casually (at least to Marlin’s eye it seemed casually) on the outcropping of the building on his direct right. And he was dressed as a… Ninja?

Marlin blinked, actually the jacket on its own could be taken as just a jacket, but the trousers and the shoes definitely made him think of that cartoon a couple of his younger cousins were into – Naruto.

“Hi Bazzite, I’m Marlin” he said at last, eschewing the other’s offer of him using Bazzi (which rhymed with spazzy and sounded like a pretty spazzed out name to boot). “Nice to meet you. And sure you can keep me company if you want; though it’s probably only fair that I let you know that I’ve not really got that far to go.”

Marlin had heard about the terrorists causing trouble about town. Who hadn’t? In fact Marlin was pretty sure that unless you lived under a rock in your choice of abode that you knew about the terrorists causing mayhem across the city. What he was having trouble in believing was that the boy with snow-blue hair had anything to do with chasing terrorists – seriously the guy looked more like an escapee from a fancy dress party than terrorist hunter extraordinaire.

It was a bit surreal listening to his temporary walking companion casually talk about chasing after terrorists given the fancy dress element, especially as Marlin privately pegged the other at around mid-teen or thereabouts.

“That does sound crazy” he hesitated before adding “But shouldn’t chasing after terrorists be a police thing?” Marlin was pretty sure that part of their taxes went on things like funding the police to deal with things like that.