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[cassieholmes]

WHO Cassie Homles & Briar Moss
WHAT Meeting for the fiiiiiirst time
WHERE Central Park


Being a grown up made life a hell of a lot easier in so many ways. Being in a big city made it easier to hide. It felt like she could breathe here, like she could actually figure out who the hell she was. Still an artist, a somewhat better Watcher, and generally a pain in the ass for the people she loved. Which was really just Emily these days, given she had helped relocate her to NYC, set her up with a shitty apartment and some connects to keep herself out of trouble. Mostly.

Keeping busy kept her out of trouble, even if that busy was teaching herself how to draw better or people watching or both. Central Park was perfect for both of those things and she'd gotten herself into a bit of habit of taking the same route into the park from her place, stopping at the same hole in the wall coffee place for the biggest cup of black coffee they had.

After that, it was just crossing the street to enter the park off one of the side entrances. A little less busy, a little more shaded. There were some beautiful trees that were perfect for sitting under, and they were positioned just a touch above that section of the park so it was perfect for prime people watching. Well, it would have been if someone wasn't also there.

"You mind?" she asked, a hit of tone in her voice but even she couldn't tell if she was asking him if he minded that he joined or if he minded clearing out. Maybe more the former than the later. Personal growth and all that.

Comments

[shakkans]

The only thing easier about being an adult for Briar was that he had the experience behind him to face the things that were difficult. No harder than his early childhood, that was for sure, and he'd made a good life for himself before he'd wound up in New York City. A Great Mage, medallion and all, was a decent career choice outside of Winding Circle, enough to pay his way and keep plenty hidden away just in case. A good habit, Rosethorn had encouraged him when he'd first started selling Shakkans. If he wasn't going to take the robes of a Dedicate, he needed to be prepared and if Briar knew one thing it was that he wasn't going to be the reason he wound up running on the streets again.

He'd spent enough years doing that and he was soft now. The rest of the time he taught local kids, plenty who were like he'd been, helped them to read and write and to know what plants were friendly and what to use if they were hurt. He was a healer, when he needed to be, a gardener when he wanted it, a combat mage only when the coin was right. A traveler when his feet itched.

And always with his room, his workshop, at Daja's house to go back to.

New York was far from his favorite place that he'd wound up, but he found comfort in green spaces like Central Park, where he often found himself spending his spare time. Where he sat with a notebook of his own, a few colored pencils in his shirt pocket, meticulously sketching a nearby plant. It had taken a minute for him to convince it not to reach for him, a little trickling of magic to satisfy its curiosity, but he was adding it to his record of unfamiliar plant life, that he planned to take back to Rosethorn one day. If he could.

Briar barely glanced up at the woman who approached his bench, decided in the span of a beat that she was pretty and there was no harm in inviting her company, and so gestured vaguely to the space beside him. "Go ahead."