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It was a nice day outside, and Vincent decided to take advantage. Gathering up writing utensils, Momo, and Cinnamon, he left the house and made his way to one of the local parks.

This one was set back towards residential areas and was a bit more out of his way, but it made up for the fact by being a bit quieter. Not quiet, since there were plenty of kids in the surrounding neighborhood who came to play, but there were so many kids who lived in the Academy that any of the parks closer to the school tended to have a higher population. Not that Vincent minded, but if Cinnamon was with him it was better if there were less people about. And the park he was going to had nice, if small flower gardens, which the crocobee loved frolicking through.

Once he reached the park Vincent found his favorite bench, let Momo run loose, and made sure there wasn't anything lurking in the immediate vicinity that would bother Cinnamon. He was usually pretty relaxed, but no need to take chances.

Satisfied, Vincent settled himself down on the bench, opened his notebook, and began to write. He didn't have a particular subject in mind at the moment, so he settled for describing the park. It was something he'd done before, but he always made sure to pay particular attention to one aspect or another. Last week it had been an oak tree, which had been backlit by the sun and looked particularly majestic. Today, after a bit of searching, he opted to focus on some of the playground equipment. He didn't have a particular story in mind just yet, but it was good practice to write in general and sometimes stories just came to him as he wrote.

As Vincent wrote several kids came and went, some playing on the equipment he was writing about. As he started getting into the more detailed bits he found his attention drawn to the swings, and one specific freshling using them. They'd been there for quite some time, so it was easier for Vincent to get drawn into describing them. Their purple hair, with shimmering highlight of pink. The style it was twisted up into. The deep pink of their eyes, the color rose-like in its vividness. Leaves growing from their body, of an equal level of pink so that it seemed more like rose petals than leaves. There was more in the same vein, as the freshling was wearing quite a bit of pink, but Vincent switched to gems at some point since he didn't want to overdo the rose thing.

As he kept writing their description more things got added to the mix. The set of their face. The way they moved, like their heart wasn't really in it. How they would glance over at an older child from time to time, and how they'd try to put a bit more effort into their swinging at these times.

It took Vincent a while to disconnect his mind from writing mode to actually look up and pay attention to what he'd been seeing. For whatever reason the freshling seemed mighty unhappy. The older kid, a Fallen hybrid of some kind from the looks of it, seemed to be with the younger child, but they were reading. Perhaps the younger one was lonely? Vincent certainly had a bit of experience in that.

Well Cinnamon looked content to stay put. Vincent left his writing stuff on the bench, since it would be within view and Cinnamon would probably get aggressive if someone messed with the items. Better than a guard dog sometimes, was that little crocobee. He made his way over to the swingset and the freshling he'd been observing.

"Hi there," he greeted cheerfully, hoping into the swing next to theirs and starting to work himself back and forth a bit.

Thankfully Vincent had a bit of experience with easily startled kids from his time in the orphanage, so he didn't laugh at the freshling's reaction. Now that he was closer, and having watching the startled reaction, he noticed the freshling had a strange tail compared to the rest of her. He'd thought she was pure Dryad, but the tail looked kinda like Kirin. He'd missed that when he was writing.

His friendly smile didn't even falter. "It's okay! I've been in that situation before. It's also a wonderful compliment about my sneaking skills," he added, throwing in a cheeky wink and laughing a little at his own silliness.

"Really though, I came over cause you looked like you were kind of down," he said, managing to get a bit more momentum on his swing but being careful to keep it to light levels. "Been having a bad day," he asked, in friendly and interested tones that tended to invite confidence in all but the more reticent of people.

"That sounds like a pretty bad day," Vincent said, sympathy still in his voice. He felt for the kid. He knew a little bit of what let downs were like. Their situations sounded vastly different, but disappointment was still disappointment. Maybe he was pretty lucky, all things considered in the end. He and Giselle were both pretty independent and spent as much time apart doing their own things as they did together bonding, but it was just the two of them and they did still get to see each other every day.

"In most adventure books, the main character almost always had a bad day before the interesting plot twist happens to them," Vincent commented, hoping to cheer the little hybrid back up. "Maybe this is just all the bad parts before your big adventure."

He gave her another cheeky and cheerful grin. "No ninjas appearing out of nowhere to attack though. Just Vincent, the slightly sneak Baphomet," he said with a laugh.

"Charmed, I'm quite sure," Vincent said with a sketchy bow from his position in the moving swing. "You have a pretty name, Mielle. Very fitting for a main character! You also sound quite kind and considerate, guilt tripping and all."

His grin had a somewhat sheepish quality to it. "Sorry if I'm saying anything that sounds weird or like I'm prying. I've always been kind of curious. I also wanna be a writer when I grow up, so I kinda see stories in everything. I usually write down a lot of what I see, and make up into a story of some kind," he said, pointing over towards the bench where he'd left his things. He could see Cinnamon perched by the bench, keeping an eye out on his "territory".

"Giselle says if I'm not careful that one day I'll stick my nose somewhere and find it bitten off," he said with cheerful unrepentance. "I just can't help it. I've always liked stories."

Vincent shrugged. "I just figure I'll have to get better at fixing a situation if I mess something up, cause I don't know if I'll ever stop being curious." He laughed. "Plus Giselle says that, but if I hadn't been such an inquisitive person we might not have met. Giselle's my adoptive mom, by the way," he added to give the situation more context. "You'd never guess it if you saw her, cause she can look a bit intimidating, but she's actually kinda shy sometimes. She works a lot, doesn't get out much. I tease her about it sometimes. But anyway, I don't think she'd have talked to any of the kids at the orphanage if they hadn't talked to her first. And she was a bit scary-looking, kind of frowny faced and serious. But I was curious, so I went up and started asking questions."

Vincent laughed again. "Look at me, coming over here to get a story, and now I'm telling them! I'm probably boring you. Did you want to play a game or something? I don't have to be home for a while, and I can always practice writing more another time." Actually he'd probably end up writing something about this entire encounter, but maybe change things up a little bit. It was funny how when he started writing about things he'd seen he usually changed the order of how things happened, or reworded conversations. It was just that in hindsight, it seemed more interesting to do things that way.

"I think so too, but she's an Elf so she gets a lot of weird looks from people all the time," Vincent said with a sigh. "But," he added, brightening a bit, "she makes some of the prettiest jewelry. She actually has a shop, and we live above it. She does some custom stuff and takes orders sometimes, so if you know anyone looking for something nice she could probably do it! She's taught me a couple things, but I'm not any good at it."

Vincent hummed thoughtfully. "I didn't have any specific games in mind. If you enjoy swings we could always see who can make it the highest. Or if you wanna run around there's tag, the merry-go-round, or the jungle gym to climb. He looked a bit sheepish and had the slightest dusting of pink to his cheeks as a self-conscious blush. For someone who wrote a lot, he had never been very good at thinking up games.

"We could also maybe make up a story and play that. I usually just write things out, but I could give acting a go." The dusting of pink darkened just a little more, but it was all he could think of off-hand.

Vincent shrugged. "I think so too, but I guess not everyone thinks that way. She doesn't talk about it much, but I guess Giselle still gets picked on by some people anyway." That wasn't...entirely true. Giselle had shared a bit of her past with Vincent. The two had more similarities than he'd thought. He knew the bare bones of her life, but even inquiries on his part had not netted him more details. Not that he pressed much, he could tell from the little she revealed that Giselle didn't like to talk about it. He knew her troubled face, and some days he came home and saw her making that particular expression. Sometimes he was there whenever people were mean to Giselle. It was tough because there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it, but...

"Giselle's pretty tough though, and she doesn't give up easy. We manage," he said, injecting brightness into his voice.

"It's cause of the Dryad blood, right," Vincent said, making it more a statement than a question. He nodded. "Giselle told me. She says it's brighter in Above, and they have warmer weather. Doesn't bother her too much, but she says Fey and Dryad are pretty sensitive. Jungle gym sounds fun though! I'll meet you over there." He hopped up off the swing, grinned at Mielle, then headed over to the stack of metal bars.