Participants:
| Scene Title | How Not To Be A Parent |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | There is a snowball fight that goes horribly wrong when one kid has the bad luck to hit Huruma. Luke takes a liking to her and starts following her. Poor thing. |
| Date | February 15, 2010 |
Central Park has been, and remains, a key attraction in New York City, both for tourists and local residents. Though slightly smaller, approximately 100 acres at its southern end scarred by and still recovering from the explosion, the vast northern regions of the park remain intact.
An array of paths and tracks wind their way through stands of trees and swathes of grass, frequented by joggers, bikers, dog-walkers, and horsemen alike. Flowerbeds, tended gardens, and sheltered conservatories provide a wide array of colorful plants; the sheer size of the park, along with a designated wildlife sanctuary add a wide variety of fauna to the park's visitor list. Several ponds and lakes, as well as the massive Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, break up the expanses of green and growing things. There are roads, for those who prefer to drive through; numerous playgrounds for children dot the landscape.
Many are the people who come to the Park - painters, birdwatchers, musicians, and rock climbers. Others come for the shows; the New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theater, the annual outdoor concert of the New York Philharmonic on the Great Lawn, the summer performances of the Metropolitan Opera, and many other smaller performing groups besides. They come to ice-skate on the rink, to ride on the Central Park Carousel, to view the many, many statues scattered about the park.
Some of the southern end of the park remains buried beneath rubble. Some of it still looks worn and torn, struggling to come back from the edge of destruction despite everything the crews of landscapers can do. The Wollman Rink has not been rebuilt; the Central Park Wildlife Center remains very much a work in progress, but is not wholly a loss. Someday, this portion of Central Park just might be restored fully to its prior state.
It's a snowy evening, and despite the frigid weather a group of children decided to take over Central Park for a snowball fight, including elaborate forts and lots of errant snowballs hitting bums and innocent bystanders as often as they hit the children. The reactions from these hapless victims range from annoyed acceptance to retaliation, to joining in by some idiot teenagers who take vicious delight in hurling snowballs at high speeds. A figure in a coat is hit by a snowball, and he turns to glare at the kids silently. However, his glare doesn't even phase any as they're too busy throwing snowballs at each other. Annoyed, he moves closer, grabbing a handful of snow until it melts slightly and then refreezes in the air. Iceball, anyone?
Melissa is walking by, bundled up with a black knee-length coat hat and scarf, though the latter has hot pink skulls on it. She gets hit as well, and glances down to the stark white of the snow against her black coat, then she grins and looks around, as if to see where it came from. Sadly, it's the man with the iceball who gets spotted first, and him who becomes the target of her first, hastily made snowball.
She wasn't even going that direction- but somehow- someway- one of those rogue children seems to have thought that the bigger targets are the better ones. But, what a bigger person takes in ease to hit, makes up for in retaliation.
Huruma's passing through the park shouldn't take long; at least, that is what she thought when she started walking. She wears a black coat with some sort of short furred trim, and as that fated ball of snow arcs through the air behind her, she can feel the last licks of someone within her sensory field feeling victorious. The snow slams into the back of her head, splitting and sending most of it down the collar of her coat. Like a cat faced with being put into a puddle, she tenses up animatedly when she is hit, gloved fingers crooking at waist height, shoulder muscles bunching together. The tall woman jerks her head to look behind her, eyes the same color as the snow widening for a second until narrowing when she spots a ducking head.
To chase, or not to chase. The eternal question!
Judging by the fact that the fourteen year old boy is now scampering in the opposite direction- yep- Huruma has started after him, boots crunching at the snow.
Rachel had decided to visit Central Park, because she has never been here before. Her eyes taking in the frozen landscape with a smile. She's never seen somuch snow in her life, and its a happy feeling really, even if she wishes she could just teleport straight to her place and be in the warmth. But for now, she walks along, completely oblivious of hte snow fight that is going on around here. That is, until she gets hit with one, and she turns to watch the kids, before grabbing a snowball and picking a target, finding Huruma as she chases a kid, and attempting to toss one at her.
Luke was just about to throw the iceball at one of the kids when instead he's hit by another one, and he whirls around and hurls the ball at Melissa instead, baseball-style. Then he registers that she's not a bratty kid and he seems almost disappointed. Well at the very least it'll get her attention.
Melissa yelps when she gets hit by ice instead of snow, then she frowns at Luke and crouches down to start scooping up more snow. "Oh, now it's /on/!" she calls to him, not yet noticing the 14-year old boy's plight. He's on his own!
When Huruma is moving, she is moving- even with that trajectory Rachel has, the other snowball falls short and hits the snow at her heels. The boy isn't much of a runner, and the woman chases him literally right into a snowbank- he trips over a hard lump of snow, and while she has zero intention to injure him, it looks like she might. The snowbank gives her enough of an angle so that when she grabs the back of his shoulders, she doesn't have to bend much.
You want snow? She'll give you snow, you little brat. One of his friends, meanwhile, helps very little when he yelps and points when Huruma starts shoving the teenager's face into the mostly dirty white snow, yanking him back, and doing it again. This is one of many reasons why Dajan was better off being raised by someone else.
Rachel merely starts giving chase to Hurmas she bends down to scoop up another snowball and toss it at Huruma again, "Hey! The kid was joking," She yells towards Huruma, trying to get the tall woman to back off.
Luke turns as he notices a lady smashing some kid's face into the snow, and he can't help but laugh a little. Serves the punks right. Needless to say, some of the kids are freaked out and aren't throwing snowballs anymore, and it's a good bet the one whose face is getting mashed isn't too happy right now. "Go away, I'm not interested." he snaps at Melissa. "That's childish, you know?"
Melissa rolls her eyes. "Says the guy who just threw a ball of ice at me? Seriously. What /is/ it with uptight guys in this damn city?" Then she glances over, brows lifting as she watches Huruma curiously.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS JOKING. Not when it comes to War. Snowball fights count. It's not her fault that this kid wasn't prepared to get the snot shoved out of him. The snowball from Rachel smacks into her back, and though she gives the other woman a glare, only stops mashing the kid into the snow when there's a bright smear of red on it. She flips the kid over, who tries to cup a bloody lip only to get a gloveful of snow shoved in his mouth.
Okay, done. Huruma stops and stalks away from him as abruptly as she started, rather confident in her ability to deter future children. Rachel, however, is fitted with a similar glare when Huruma makes to step away.
Rachel gives Huruma a glare right back before she moves towards the kid and kneels down by him. "Its okay, just a split lip. Keep the snow on it, help keep the swelling down," she says, offering the child a smile before looking back at Huruma and raising an eyebrow. "Where the hell do you get off treating a kid like that," she demands of Huruma.
Luke lifts his eyebrows as there's blood on the snow, and shakes his head. "Man, wish I could do something like that without feeling bad. It'd make things a lot simpler." he frowns at Melissa, then walks over towards the others. "I bet now that kid'd think twice before throwing snowballs at people."
Melissa glances back at Luke, and responds in an oh so adult manner. She sticks her tongue out at him. Then her hands get shoved into her coat pockets and starts walking, not quite towards the others.
When Huruma exhales toward Rachel, the air curls white out of her nostrils, and her stark eyes narrow on the younger woman. Though she inwardly smiles at Luke, her expression remains livid, and completely unrepentant.
"Someone needs t'teach these city brats some manners." Huruma snorts loudly, timbre low in the snowy awkward quiet- and somewhere in Rachel she plants a seed of doubt, mixed with a wariness that she will likely to attribute to Huruma's icy look. "One day he will cross th'wrong person, unless he learns a lesson now." The fact that the boy is now quaking like a leaf, he probably learned some sort of lesson for it.
Rachel is wary to begin with, serving in the Middle East for ten years has kept her from ever really relaxing and it is something of a skill that she needs to relearn. Watching Huruma she replies, "There are much better way to teach lessons then bashing a kids face into the snow. That's called child abuse, and you're lucky nobody is calling the police."
"I don't know, snow's not all that hard. It's light and fluffy. Naturally, the kid's bleeding from being hit by one of his stupid friends. Right, kid?" he looms over the shaking kid. Melissa is frowned at. "What, you're still following me around?"
Melissa pauses and glances over at Luke. "Following /you/? Dude, check your ego. I'm walking /that/ way," she says, pointing in a direction that doesn't lead towards him. "And no way would I be following someone who either was born uptight or has a stick up his ass."
Huruma simply scoffs a second time. "Th'world would'ave more order if w'stopped coddling." Hitting bad children is totally okay in her book. Probably because she got the very same treatment. Instead of keeping her feud with Rachel going, Huruma turns away from her and starts off again, stalking back onto the sidewalk.
Rachel smiles at the kid before she says, "Go on and go home, and try not to hit bad people with snow balls, huh?" She then looks back over towards Melissa and Luke, raising an eyebrow.
"Well you seem to have a thing for my ass, at any rate." Luke leers at Melissa as the kid runs off. "If that was my kid I'd beat the crap out of him." Then as Huruma starts walking off, Luke moves to join her with a scathing eyeroll at Rachel. Miss Goody Two Shoes.
Melissa cocks her head and actually does look at Luke's ass. "Eh. I've seen better." Then she starts walking away once again!
It's not hard to notice someone following you, and Huruma has her natural advantage. So when she can feel Luke back there, the woman tilts her head slightly to peer back at the boy out of the corner of her eye, not halting in her walk-off.
Rachel snickers while she stands up, dusting some snow from her clothes before she states to Luke. "Yes, well, you enjoy your child abuse charges as well," she then scoots a little to get a better look at the ass in question before she nods her head and says, "I concur with the other woman's statement. Your ass is on the lacking side."
"I've seen better too!" Luke calls over to Melissa, shaping out curves with his hands. Oh snap. Rachel is ignored aside from another eyeroll. Then he hurries to make up the steps he missed when he stopped to respond to Melissa. "Hey… mind if I walk with you? I don't have anywhere to be and it beats wandering around aimlessly."
Melissa doesn't respond, not a word or rude gesture or anything! Instead she just continues to walk, leaving the park.
It occurs to Huruma that Luke might be saying that because he was looking at Huruma- she isn't sure about that much, but he is given a squint nonetheless. Why are you following me? "You can, bu'tha'doesn't mean I want you to. I've got …things." Things to do, people to see.
"Well I don't have anywhere to stay aside from shelters and stuff." absently he picks up some snow and with a slightly furtive glance he heats it up until it's warm water in his hands. That's one way to keep his hands from freezing.
Huruma is still rather run-up from her child beating ways, so when she cocks her head to Luke, it seems somewhat irritated. Jerky. Her eyes fall onto his hands, mildly interested before they turn away again. "An'what, you expecting me t'lead you somewhere interesting?"
"So you want adventure, do you?" Huruma's voice adjusts from the brisk one and immediately dips into a velvet croon. "An'you seem t'be following me b'cause I am interesting. Am I getting this straight, pup?"
"Well I don't know about 'adventure'. I had enough of that back in April." references! "Sure beats the hell out of what I was doing before." and Luke is still following her. "What do you do for a living?" maybe you should ask her name first?
Annoyed is an understatement. Huruma really has no idea what she is supposed to take this as, but annoying is surely a big one of several emotions she feels in herself. "I work in a bar. As a bouncer." Well, that is only partially true. That is not her only job, but it works as her public one, sure.
"Oh, neat. Got any openings? I'd make a good bouncer myself. I'm kinda between jobs at the moment." Isn't the idea of Luke hanging around you more often just /delightful/? He cracks his knuckles in a deliberate stereotype.
"Th'bar I work at only employs women. Unless you rid yourself o'those danglies, tough luck…" Huruma seems to have settled down slightly, bearing Luke's presence only so long as he does not start to pry or otherwise exacerbate the simmering anger. "Though if you wanted t'test your luck- Old Lucy's, in Greenwich."
"Why, is it a strip club?" Luke takes a step or two away to check out Huruma. Does she look like a stripper? "I'll keep it in mind."
She stops at this progression, turning halfway to peer down at Luke. With her height and her boots, it is a striking distance. What does he think he is looking at? "It is not a strip club. th'owner simply likes t'keep it one-sided." Unless you count Leonard, whenever he goes down to the bar to wash glasses and wipe tables.
"Hmm." Luke merely smiles enigmatically back at Huruma. He's not all that short so it can't be that bad, right? "I'm sure I can find something. Sounds like this owner of yours likes his ladies."
A good nine or ten inches, actually. His eyes probably come to- um- chest height. "It is a woman." Huruma smiles back, not so enigmatic, and in fact the gesture is a bit unnerving. "Southern Baptist. Go in there looking f'trouble, an'I won'need t'tear you a new one- she shall do it for me." Abby with a shotgun deters a great many things. Huruma sighs a little, turning back towards the walk to move on, duckling or not.
Oh really. An all-female bar? Sounds like a great place to visit. Luke will just have to keep that in mind! Finally he stops following her, shoving his hands in his pockets as he moves off in another direction. He's getting hungry, after all. Dinner time!