Closed New surroundings

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania wasn't particularly excited to be visiting New Zealand with her parents. She had been dragged there more or less against her wishes to in their words 'look for a house'. They were planning on moving closer to the school now that she was likely to attend it next year, if you asked her she thought it was bit of an overkill, she had said as much. Though there was little to nothing the young girl could do to sway their minds.

So she had made a bargain, if she were to join them today they'd leave her to hang out at the Tākarokaro park. If you asked her she thought it was more than reasonable, after all she could use familiarizing her surroundings. That all had led her here, alone in a park, her parents had been hesitant but after some bribing they had given in. Mania was quite proud of her success in bargaining as she walked around. It wasn't Greece, her home, but it would do she supposed. She crossed her arms and walked towards what looked like a playground, figuring that taking the swings for a test drive would be quite a good way to pass her time.

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan was spending a lot of time at the park lately. His parents were fine with it as it let him burn off his restless energy, and Logan enjoyed just being outside and hanging out with random kids at the playground. He had just played a game of football with a few boys, but then they had to go home, leaving him to just kick around the ball on his own. After a few boring minutes, Logan decided to see how far he could kick it. He ran up to the ball from a little distance and kicked it as hard he could, grinning as he watched the ball fly towards the playground. He wondered if he could hit the slide from here, that would be awesome. He had no real concern for any people walking there, as he figured they would see it coming and duck out of the way in time.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania was minding her business, enjoying the breeze and a rare occasion where she was by herself and quiet, if she could she would write it down to the history books or something. The world seemed to have a different plan though, because as she was swinging she saw a ball coming at an alarmingly fast pace towards her, or well that's what she thought. In reality it fell down a good couple feet away from her, narrowing her eyes she looked around trying to see the culprit of kicking the ball around so carelessly, though perhaps they would let her join.

Her eyes landed on a lone boy and Mania picked up the ball and walked towards the culprit with determination. "You know, you could have hit someone. Though you didn't this time and I'm sure anyone would be smart enough to dodge it." She sized the boy up handing the ball back to him, debating on making an introduction. He seemed about the same age though so perhaps it'd be good start? "I'm Mania, but most people call me Nia or Man but I hate the second one so I suggest you avoid it. Unless of course you want to stir up some drama then of course go ahead." She said with her hands outstretched to give him his ball back.

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan thought for a moment he had lost the ball, but then he saw the girl approaching with it. He grinned, approaching her and ready to take it back, when he realized she was scolding him. He took the ball, a little surprised. He smiled at her. "So if anyone was smart enough to dodge it I couldn't have hit someone, right?" He joked easily. "Thanks for getting it back to me." He added, as the girl's attitude first made him think she might not do that. "Nice to meet you.. Nia." He said after a beat, he wasn't eager to get on her bad side and call her Man, especially because she looked nothing like a man. "Do you wanna play?" He asked, kicking up the ball and catching it in one hand. He grinned at her, hoping she looked impressed.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania was sizing the boy up, noticing the easy flow his joke came out in appreciating the fact that he had some humour in him. Everyone in her family had always the intense energy going on. "Just because they are smart enough does unfortunately not mean they are fast enough always." She smiled through her words, but she wasn't seriously trying to scold him, she knew from experience how annoying it could be.

Nia decided she quite liked the boy when he picked the right nickname to use. She always gave the two options to test the waters with new people and the boy had definitely passed the first test. "Yes, sure. What's your name?" She nodded eagerly while watching his attempt of impressing her, no doubt. Though she would admit she wasn't the best at ball games. "I have to warn you, I am not the best with well ball games, my sisters they are all very girly and well less adventurous so had to make do with what I had, but I am a fast learner!" Mania explained enthusiastically.

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan shrugged with an easy smile. "Well, no one got hurt. That's the important part." He said confidently. He hadn't realized he had forgotten to introduce himself until the girl asked his name. "Oh, I'm Logan." He said with a grin. He laughed softly when she said she wasn't the best at ball games. That was alright with him, Logan hated losing anyway. "No worries. I'll teach you." He said with a small shrug. "Or I'll just kick your butt, either way works for me." He teased.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania shook her head but didn't hide the small smile at his comment. It was true nobody got hurt. She nodded at his introduction and was almost excited to learn about the game until his next joke came out. Narrowing her eyes she sized the boy up. "Now that would be quite rude don't you think? Taking advantage of my lack of understanding of the game." She joked right back. "Besides, would that really even count as a win if you just won against someone that had no idea what they were doing? It'd be kind of winning a running race against a newborn that can't even crawl, no?" Mania raised one brow in amusement while tilting her head a little to the side. "Okay go on, explain to me how this goes other than just kicking the ball around and hoping for the best." She finally said gesturing to the ball.

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan grinned at the girl, he liked that she was up for some fun and enjoyed how she responded to him. He shrugged. "Maybe I am rude, and maybe I would race a newborn baby." He joked. "Okay, you've got the gist of it. You do just kind of kick the ball around, but you don't hope for the best. Once you know what you're doing you know exactly where the ball is going, like this." He said, placing the ball back on the ground. He gave it a kick, aiming the ball so it would go in Mania's direction and roll to a stop at her feet. "Now kick it back to me."

Apologies for taking so long

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania didn't fight the grin, nor the eyeroll at the boys words. Oh he could make a joke alright. She focused her attention on what the boy was doing, kicking the ball should be easy enough and it should be easy to aim it in the right direction. Wrong. As Nia kicked, aiming at Logan the ball curved slightly to the left. Effortlessly going past him. "Well, close enough I'd say? At least it went at the level of your feet and not upwards towards your face, that would have been a worse mistake." She gave him a shrug and a smile, hoping her attempt at a joke landed. She never claimed to be a professional either way so it was fine.

(Don't worry about it! Been busy myself so no worries! <3)

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan nodded encouragingly as Nia moved forward to kick the ball, only to laugh as it went right past him. He jogged over to it and stopped it with his foot. "Well, you just need practice." He told her. "And if we were playing against each other we would be trying to get the ball past each other, which you did." He then said with a smile. "Here." He kicked it back to her effortlessly.

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania grinned feeling all too confident. "Sooo, what you are TRULY saying is that I am a natural born talent! I literally did what I was supposed to were it to be a real game?" Completely ignoring the fact that it was not a real game and she got lucky most likely because the boy wasn't prepared to keep the ball from passing him. She looked at the ball that was rolling towards her and then kicked it back, this time it went for his feet, not past. "So in a real game, how does that work? You just stand around or run around kicking the ball back and forth? Seems pointless but fun. Though don't people trip over the ball? I swear that would happen to me at least thrice a game." Surely it happened a lot, surely a ball rolling around the field was bound to cause people to fall over.