Date Night: Irony(Indigo/Lani)

Lani stepped out of the cinema with her arm linked in Indigo's again, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Although she couldn't explain it, she felt a connection with him. Perhaps it was that they had both been hurt in the past and told one another about it, or maybe it was just that they had shared intimacy, even if it was clothed. Whatever it was, Lani felt comfortable walking with Indigo as the sun dipped lower and cast long shadows on the street. Ahead, she caught sight of a mass of metal she had never noticed during her few excursions into Owlton, and for a moment she forgot the conversation about the movie as her head tilted in curiosity at the space. 

Indigo had been enjoying the comfortable silence and the strange intimacy of Lani's arm curled around his. He'd glanced aside at her now and then, and it would have been impossible not to notice the direction of her gaze. His followed. Still, it took a moment. The sight was so familiar that it didn't immediately register as something a witch might be interested in. But it was part of his childhood, and the thoughts connected.

"It's a Muggle playground," he said, stopping.

"Playground?" Lani asked, glancing over at Indigo. The term was foreign to hear, something she had managed to never hear, much less understand. Playgrounds simply didn't exist for the elite. "It's just a lot of metal." There were so many things that were apparently commonplace and she didn't know about them. How could she be part of a family in Society's elite and not know so many things?

"Come on," Indigo said, and his arm slipped free a moment before he caught Lani's hand to jog into the center of the playground equipment. "It's for kids, like 5 year olds to just when you start wizarding school." Yes, he was a little excited, but playgrounds were good memories. "Sitting in a classroom too long, you need a break, so they let kids run around here. That's monkey bars."

Indigo let go and walked up to them. He thought about climbing the ladder, but there wasn't much point, so he stepped up and grabbed a bar, then pulled up his feet to show her. Yes! He could still do it!

Lani crossed her arms low over her stomach as she watched, still uncertain about the point of it all. Playing when she was that age involved dolls and maybe something that was a badly-hidden lesson. "I never had anything like this," she said. "I would sometimes dip into the old servants' corridors, but that isn't this." Climbing. It just seemed so improper.

Indigo made an effort to pull himself up, then sat on top of the entire thing. "Girls got to play on these too," he said. "As long as they weren't wearing a skirt." Although shorts underneath counted sometimes. It depended on the proctor. "Watch this." Indigo turned around, hooked his feet through the bars, then leaned backwards until he hung by his knees. He made a halfhearted attempt to tuck a corner of his shirt into his jeans. "Oh my god, this brings things back."

As long as they weren't wearing a skirt. Although Lani knew well that women could wear things other than skirts and dresses, thinking of herself doing it in public gave her all kinds of shivery, anxious feelings. Then her thoughts were interrupted by a flash of skin she normally wouldn't see, and she found herself smiling before she could stop the curve of her lips. "I had dolls," she said. "A hedge maze, sometimes." She stepped forward to touch the metal, as if just the feeling would give her the experience.

"I've never seen a hedge maze, it sounds wicked. And did you say something about servants' corridors? That isn't like, rooms hidden behind walls is it? Because that sounds even more wicked." And it turned out his head was getting heavy a lot faster than it used to. Indigo braced himself to get off the monkey bars. Well, to do a kind of flip off them that he'd perfected as a kid.

Lani laughed a little when Indigo flipped off of the bars, just from the novelty and carefree attitude of it all. "No, well, I mean...there are rooms..." Most of the rooms were ignored, though there were one or two that had become little hideouts for her and whoever else had been with her. It had been so long ago she had almost forgotten. "I actually used those little hallways when I ran away." She had just a little thought, but it would be far too risky, wouldn't it?

"That is..." He'd already said it twice, but that was something that had only existed in books and the occasional movie until a minute ago. "Wicked." It really was. Indigo looked around for the next likely piece of playground equipment and settled on the merry-go-round. See-saws worked for two people, but only if no one was wearing an ankle-length skirt. You couldn't ride a see-saw sidesaddle.

"Tell me about it," he said, and gestured for her to follow him. He paused at the dirty thing and drew out his wand to clean it off a little.

"I used to move through the house using the servant's corridors," Lani said as she followed Indigo. "A couple of cousins and friends and I, we found them. They're thin and unfinished, but you can get just about anywhere in the house." The thought of her childhood home brought a sudden, unexpected sense of longing and nostalgia that took her by surprise. "I could show you." The offer was at least half selfishness born from that feeling.

"Yeah?" Indigo paused in the act of gesturing for Lani to sit on the edge of the merry-go-round. "Yes," he said at last. "Yes, any time you want. I am there." He couldn't begin to imagine going into a house like the one she'd grown up in, one with hidden corridors. He sat on the merry-go-round and patted the spot next to him, then braced his feet. "That sounds like a hell of a lot of fun," he said.

After a moment's hesitation, Lani went to sit next to Indigo. "The elf my brother set on me will still come if I call," she said. Was she really considering this? But then, why not? It could be fun to visit home without her parents ever knowing. "Were you sent to make me abandon my parents' teachings?" she teased. Nothing she had done with Indigo would have ever been approved by her parents.

Indigo chuckled. "You make it sound like a bad thing," he teased, glancing down at the toes of his shoes. He looked aside at her and shifted his feet a little, moving the merry-go-round a foot or so, then right back. "I just like seeing you smile," he said. "And maybe getting a rise out of you." He gave another light push, but picked up his feet this time.

Lani granted Indigo his smile, and pulled up her feet in an imitation of him as the thing spun. "You have a wonderful smile," she said, meeting Indigo's eyes for just a moment before her gaze darted away. "It's been so long since I called my elf." The thing would come as soon as she said its name, she knew, but did she really want to? It could be so much fun to visit home, and suddenly she longed for home. She hadn't been back in years.