Partly cloudy did not necessarily mean rain; it just meant gray skies and that gloomy feeling. Rory thought this was perfect for her mood, so she’d had Izzy take her along to Audubon Park. After all, if her cousin was going to be there to take lessons at the stable there was no reason Rory couldn’t use it as an excuse to get out of the house. So, the redhead had gone off armed with her guitar and backpack to find a likely tree to sit under and play.
It had been an hour now. Rory’s fingers ached, warning her that she was going to regret it if she played for much longer. With a sigh of regret, the vintage Gibson acoustic was returned to the protective confines of its case. A few people had stopped to listen while she played, but hadn’t approached which was good. People, Rory’d decided, were generally a nuisance. Very few of them were worth talking to and those that were had to be searched for, something she had no patience for.
A quick look at her watch informed her that she still had an hour before she needed to get back to the stable. One bad thing about coming out with Izzy this morning was that her kitchen would be invaded by people looking for lunch. Not that they would need to look far, but it was guaranteed that someone would decide to move things around.
She straightened her legs in front of her, ignoring the protests from the bad one, and leaned back against the tree trunk. Boredom set in quickly since she had nothing else to do. With a slight shrug, she started picking up acorns and tossing them at people once they’d passed her. Only a few seemed to think she had something to do with it. Most of them just assumed that they were falling out of the trees. This became quite amusing and she started trying to see how many people she could hit in the back of the head. That ought to amuse her for an hour.
"Ow! What the hell?!?!" Acorn to the back of the head was not what he expected as he walked through the park. Hand lifted to the back of his head, pushing down the cloth of his hoodie as he turned, revealing the mussy blond spikes of his hair. His eyes narrowed as he looked around for the squirrel (because it had to have been a squirrel) that was tossing acorns around.
Brown eyes focused on the figure sitting at the base of the tree, narrowing slightly as he watched her oh so casually picking up another acorn. "Really?" He called across the distance between them, free hand adjusting the pack slung on his shoulders. Here he was, trying to find a good place to set up for the day, maybe make some spare cash in the park and some chick is just sitting around chucking acorns at people.
A hissing snicker reminiscent of one of those evil cartoon dogs had escaped her when she managed to hit yet another person in the head. The sound cut off immediately when the blonde guy shouted and started looking around. Innocent wasn’t a look that sat well on Rory’s face, so she didn’t bother to try. Besides, she’d already lifted another acorn so it was a little late to try claiming that she hadn’t been the one to do it.
“I didn’t even throw it that hard,” she grumbled. Wonderful, now her game was interrupted. A quick look down at her watch told her that she’d only been at this for ten minutes. “Great. Now what am I supposed to do for the next fifty minutes?” Steel blue eyes narrowed as if this guy was the sole reason for her returning boredom.
The acorn in her hand was chucked at the guy’s leg without much force before she grabbed for her backpack to fish out her bottle of water and painkillers. Dumping two pills into her hand, she quickly popped them in her mouth and chased them down with the water. Blue eyes settled on Blonde Hair again as if challenging him to say something about her pill taking, while hands automatically shoved pill bottle and water back in the depths of her backpack.
Alright, he couldn't help it, the redhead had the corner of his mouth lifting in a faint smirk. "Bored are we?" Question thrown her direction as he moved closer to where she was sitting. "Couldn't figure out another way to amuse yourself other then beaning people with acorns?"
The pill popping was noted but ignored; hey, a lot of people took pills for lots of reasons and he wasn't about to get into it with this random person from the park. He glanced around at their surroundings though, studying the foot traffic more before giving a little shrug.
"I guess I may as well keep you enterntained so you don't assault anyone else." He moved to one side of the path, finding a decent spot within easy view of the other visitors of the park and yet out of their way and began to unpack his bags.
Nothing crazy for right now, just some a couple of medium staffs, pulling the trio of Q-tip looking staffs from his bag with just a sidelong glance her way. Setting his bag to one side, and holding the three rods in one hand, zippo was pulled from his pocket and *poof* a flare of flame. Then it was just some simple juggling, showering the flaming rods in the air with practiced ease, simply warming up.
"Nothing like a warm fire on a cool morning right?" Bright smile flashed her way as he guided the flaming staffs in the air about him.
“If I hadn’t thrown them, the squirrels would have eventually.” Yeah, like that made it all right. Then again, to her it did sound like a good reason. Besides, she didn’t intend to explain things to someone she’d just encountered.
A rude noise was made at his choice of word. “Assault with acorn. Right.” A slight quirk of her lips was given, amused by a newspaper headline she’d just thought of: Man in Park Assaulted with Acorn. Hey, it could happen. There were always weird, crazy things showing up in the newspapers these days. Or, that’s what she heard from the talk around the breakfast table.
This whole time, she hadn’t once taken her eyes off him. Rude to stare, yes, but that didn’t seem to deter her. Still, at the sight of the weird-looking sticks she was quite perplexed. She was about to break down and ask what he was doing when the ends of the sticks lit up with fire and he started juggling. Now that was something that could definitely hold her attention.
When he turned a big smile in her direction and posed a question, she gave a nod. “Not bad, Blondie.” But, lest he think she was actually complimenting him, she had to add a little something. “Just don’t burn me or Lady Odette.”
