"Yeah, yeah, marker." Tony was not enthralled at being the toddler carrier out of the group. A part of him wanted to scream, [i]He's too white to be mine! It looks off![/i] but apparently the logic was lost on the group.

In any case, the thunder was starting as they stepped out of the van and into the park itself, up a winding path to the Schloss that was leeringly overgrown in the nighttime, when the sounds of crickets and nature threatened to overwhelm. It was almost reassuring, as he set out in a rolling gait with a toddler-Parael hanging off his back -- sure, he was probably the fittest of the bunch outside of the hunter and the hunter was walking around with smoothbore artillery and enough ammo to wage war against an entire battalion of action movie goons. So yeah, put the toddler on the back of the drooling manbeast that could flip a switch into Taz mode, why not?

The real answer was that they wanted to give Parael to Autumn, but got cold feet on how to suggest it. So there Tony was.

"Fuck, got a raincoat in that bag?" he asked rhetorically as the drops started and they started slogging through the grass and the path. Jogger trail by day, sodden march through junkie country by night. Grim thought that reminded him of...

Suddenly, the rain was down in torrents, pouring a sheet of water that obscured vision, isolating people from it. More steps, trying to find a shelter and some place to avoid the deluge, though in about a nanosecond out in it, he was already sodden to the bone, the clothes clinging to him-- Parry probably wasn't happy either, but Tony was learning to tune out whiny little kids in a real hurry, which was a good skill to have when the whiny little kid happened to be an adult bitching about how he lost his sword and became the target of a witch's curse.

Sheltering under a tree in the park, trying to keep himself and the kid covered from the worst of the rain, which was bringing branches down all around him, he was surprised when he looked up after it finally let up, about three minutes later.

It was verdant green broken up with the riotous colors of flowering plant life all around them, and the sun shining through a triple canopy. There was nipa palm, banana trees, bamboo and liana all around and the sound of running water, the Mekong slowly winding its meandering way down from Cambodia into the Delta, which was knee-high mud that Tony was standing in, and lianna all around.. There was a persistent buzz of insect life and the occasional song of birds that one wouldn't hear in Camden. Emerald green, mud brown, the sunlight filtered through the trees.

"Parry, we're in a world of shit, man."

Parael could feel Tony as the shakes started, bigtime.