Sweet sights at Bellmuse City Park (Closed)

Rika’s eyes widen at the size of the city.  While Bellmuse wasn’t the most impressive city in Remnant, most of the buildings were a far cry from what the girl was used to. She’d only ever been to the town closest to Siegfried's homestead before, a small village with barely a population of forty. Even then she’d only been there a few times a year, as the village was still a good distance from her home.

So, it was understandable that the pigtailed faunus was rather amazed by the sights and sounds of the city. Everything was just so HUGE!  Any strange looks the wide-eyed cat faunus may have gotten went unnoticed as she practically zipped from one destination to another with a look of wonder on her face, her tail swishing behind her the entire time, in plain sight.

She stopped at a multi-colored stand that appeared to be selling a variety of sweet treats such as crepes, ice cream, and other various desserts. Her eyes lighting up with joy at the sight of it.
Rika had rarely had anything sugary and sweet growing up. Living in the middle of the forest with an old man who cared little for such things, with the nearest town being several days travel had not allowed her the opportunity for such a thing often.

There had been a shop in the town that Siegfried occasionally had brought her too when they’d visited the little village, but those trips had been rare and far between, usually months apart from each-other.

The thought of indulging practically made her mouth water, and Rika noted the prices on the stand’s sign before reaching into her pocket. Ready to acquire some tasty treats until a small problem reached her notice.

Namely the fact she didn’t have any money to indulge with leaving the disheartened redhead wearing a disappointed expression as she stared longingly at the Sweets stand.

Jack was, simply put, down in the dumps. Severely bummed out. The night before now, he had been searching in vain for work to do, and this was the first night in four months that he went to sleep without being totally exhausted. This, however, did mean that he was awake at a normal time, and was able to walk around and see Bellmuse the same way everybody else does. People out and about, the warm sun above him, and nobody causing any real trouble.

Even though he was happy to see Bellmuse like this, it didn't do much to cure his "bummed outedness." The only thing that would probably help him in that regard would most likely be... He turned his attention to a colorful stand that stood out from the rest of the scenery. Ice cream. Yes. Jack immediately jogged towards the stand, ready to enjoy a treat he hardly ever had the time to experience lately. But before he could make it to the stand, he noticed someone. A girl with a tail, looking like he did when he found out Santa wasn't real.

It didn't take long for him to figure out what was wrong. Sad people next to a dessert stand can only be sad if they can't get the mentioned dessert. He ordered himself an ice cream, taking the cone before turning his attention back to the sad person. "Hey, you. Will you stop lookin' sad if I get you something? Won't ask you to pay it back or anything either. Promise." Jack couldn't stand to see someone with this expression on such a nice day, and he hasn't been nice to people in a while, so why not help out somebody in need? Sure, it was just a dessert, but the small acts count too.

The offer took Rika by surprise, as the girl hadn’t been paying much attention to those around her. She looked up to see a man in a chicken mask carrying an ice cream cone. Ordinarily the redhead would have questioned why the man was wearing the mask, as it wasn’t exactly normal for someone to walk around with a mask on. However, now the pigtailed faunus had a much more important concern, that of the sweet and sugary kind.


“Sure!” The redhead exclaimed excitably. Her expression brightening immediately at the prospect of the potential treat. She wasn’t sure who this guy was, but it didn’t matter to the energetic redhead. She was surprised he didn’t even want her to pay it back later. “You’re a nice guy ya know.” She added, grinning at the prospect of satisfying her neglected sweet-tooth for once.

The redhead did note that she would have to get her own money soon, especially if desserts were this easily available in the city…. yep definitely.

Jack nodded, glad that his offer caused such a big shift in the girl's mood. "Yeah, well, I can't be cruel all the time, right?" Jack chuckled for a second after saying this before he went to order a dessert, getting himself a cone of chocolate, only to realize that the girl he was buying a treat for didn't ask for anything specifically. He paused, unsure of what a good choice would be. "So, d'you like strawberry? Hope so, 'cause that's what ice cream you're getting." With that, he pulled out his wallet again, buying the girl a cone of strawberry ice cream. It was one of his friend's favorites, and they had to love it for a reason, right?

He handed her the cone and was about to eat his, but he hesitated. Should he really pull his mask up here? Sure, he didn't think this person was a cop or something, but he wouldn't want people to know what his face looked like, even if it was just everything below his mouth. No. He wanted ice cream, and nothing was going to get in his way. He slowly pulled up his mask with one hand so he could begin enjoying his treat, hoping this newly met person wouldn't ask about his scars or why the right side of his chin had dried blood on it. As soon as he took his first bite, his worries immediately faded and the space left behind was filled with chocolate.

Whenever he had enough room in his mouth to speak without messing up his speech or spitting out his food, Jack's curiosity led him to ask a bit about this stranger. Maybe, like most significant looking people around here, she was another student from the academy? "You know, you can get your own if you kill grimm for that academy. I mean, it's not the easiest for most guys, but it does mean you get all the dessert you want."

The red-haired girl waited eagerly as the masked man ordered the desserts, realizing only after he’d already started ordering. Not that it mattered too much to the faunus, as she had never been particularly picky, especially where sweets were concerned. Still when she was given the strawberry ice cream her eyes lit up considerably as she took the treat.

The fact he’d chosen her favorite flavor anyway only magnified the redhead’s delight at receiving the treat. A look of bliss spread across her face at the first bite, and she decided to eat it slowly to savor the frosty snack. The pigtailed faunus looked over to the man to see part of the face revealed under the mask. The scars surprised her, and she would have asked about them, but figured that was probably why he kept them hidden in the first place. Siegfried had a few stories like that, ones he had refused to tell her no matter how much she asked him about them. While some of his adventures he’d been more than happy to tell her about, going into great detail often times in order to better entertain the hyperactive redhead.

That and she had ice cream to eat, which was much much more important than pestering the man. The dried blood went unnoticed by the distracted redhead. She continued to blissfully eat the sugary treat without giving the man’s face a second thought.

She raised her head when the man mentioned the academy blinking at this information, as she hadn’t been aware that it was that easy. It probably was mentioned to the redhead, but she couldn’t really recall much about it. “You don’t mean Syne do ya, I’m already goin’ there to learn ‘bout dust…” If she were to get money then she could get things with money, and the redhead would be able to indulge herself far more often.

Jack's shoulders fell slightly as he heard the girl mention the academy by it's name and how she's already a student, just like he thought. He wasn't dissapointed that she enrolled in the academy, but he was a bit dissapointed at how accurate his guess was. Not for any real reason, though. There wasn't a downside to him being right. Either way, he had to bring up something else now, something a bit more important to a guess happening to be right. "Hey, I'm a student there too! Small world. Oh, almost forgot. I'm Jack. And you are..?"

If there was a chance of Jack meeting this girl somewhere at Syne, which there probably was, seeing how they're both students, it would probably be best to know each other's names. He can't just walk up to her and say "Hey, good to see you again, moneyless ice cream girl!" Immediately after this thought went through his head, he felt a sharp pain in his head, feeling bad about calling someone poor, even if it was just in his head. After he received a name,
he'd keep the conversation going again. "It's a shame your major isn't combat, though. I could never understand much about dust. Just that you shouldn't like... hit it."

Rika blinked at the fact that the man, Jack was apparently a fellow student, though of the combat major rather than her own. She’d known that there were some weirder guys at the academy, heck she’d seen some around even if she hadn’t interacted with them much.

“Heh, yeah was thinkin’ combat, Old man told me I should but.” The pigtailed girl shrugged. She liked dust, and while she’d always love a good fight, but she’d recently found herself a new passion as well. Dust was not only useful, it was enjoyable to experiment with different types and use different forms of dust. She’d found herself enjoying it a lot, and quickly developed a desire to pursue the subject.

“But dust is more fun to study….an’ I can still fight while learnin’ about it.” She continued after a momentary pause, looking up at Jack with a wide grin. The redhead chuckled at his comment about hitting dust, remembering when she’d had to learn THAT lesson the hard way. “An’ yeah, hitting it aint fun, not a fan’a blowin’ up.” She cringed at the last remark, and the memory it brought up.

Jack grinned while he listened to the girl, who had seemingly not noticed that he asked what her name was. She had a confusing personality about her. She didn't seem like the smartest person in the world, but her reasons for choosing her major made perfect sense at the same time. His amusement was cut short, however, when he spotted somebody familiar far behind the girl. Jack looked to his ice cream, back at the man he spotted, then back to the ice cream, hesitant to let his half eaten food to go to waste. If he waited too long, he wouldn't be able to take this opportunity given to him. At the same time, what of his conversation with this stranger?

It would be pretty rude to leave this person and their conversation behind without telling them why, not that giving that information away was a real option. In the most painful example of willpower, he quickly found a bin, threw away his ice cream, and spoke to the girl he bought ice cream for again. "Listen, uh... I can't really explain this in a decent way and I don't have a lot of time. Please walk away from here, far away enough to not hear me if I yelled real loud, alright? Alright, I'll see you around! Probably at the academy!"

With that, Jack sprinted towards the man he spotted before, pulling him into an alleyway. If Rika didn't do as he told her, she would hear Jack begin to sing something like Opera as loud as he could, but if she was decent at listening in detail, she'd figure out that he's doing this mildly comedic song to muffle something else. After around thirty seconds, Jack would exit the alleyway, making a sprint for the academy.

Rika blinked when Jack’s attention went to somebody behind her, turning her head to see the what Jack seemed to be looking at before giving up, as she couldn’t tell what or who had caught the masked man’s attention.
She was a bit confused at his request, wondering why he had asked her that specifically before shrugging it off, since a guy who walked around in a chicken mask probably couldn’t be considered completely normal by any stretch of the imagination. When he ran off she gave a confused looking look in the direction he went before turning back to the ice cream.

“Guess he saw a friend’a his or something…” She said to herself before walking the opposite way to continue her journey through the city, and the exploration of all the interesting things within it, She continued to enjoy her ice vream. Oblivious to anything regarding what Jack may have been doing.


(End Topic)