[center][h1][b][u][color=bc8dbf]Caitlin Cade[/color][/u][/b][/h1][/center]

[indent][i]Ka-Kunk, Ka-kunk, Ka-kunk[/i]

Caitlin brushed a loose strand of hair away from her eyes. She cut quickly to her right side, narrowly avoiding a collision with a startled pedestrian, and landed with a [i]clunk[/i] as her board dropped from the sidewalk and onto the side of the street. A car horn blasted through her eardrums; she straightened her course and hugged the curb for a few seconds. With a clear run of walk just ahead, she popped an ollie and got herself back off of the street, and dragged to a stop. Curiously, she looked over her shoulder, catching a a few middle fingers sticking up in her wake. She merely shrugged in apology. Adjusting her stance she pushed off and continued her roll.[/indent]

[right]"Fuckin' skate punk!"
"Bloody cunt!"[/right]

[indent]A few choice jeers and insults rang out in chorus from behind her, most drowned out by more blaring horns as motorists lashed out at either her or the people driving in front of them. As usual, she ignored them. Unlike usual, this wasn't because she couldn't care less; her head was elsewhere this morning, hence the 'rare' near-miss one hundred feet behind her. 

Cait's ride was uncommonly tame on this morning. Short of her ollie, which was too trivial to be considered, she hadn't done much in the way of tricks or fancy msneuvering; there had been no flips of her board, no grinding along rails or wheeling along ledges, no carves through the foot traffic, no manuals, and no leaping steps. Where she'd normally seek to make a spectacle of herself, she instead kept her head low and her hype to a whisper. Her mind was away from the then and there, weighed down by thoughts of the recent past and the future to come, dulling the relishing for the moment. 

It had been barely two weeks since her outing in the Royal Parks. The exileration of fleeing the Matilda Statue had been blunted by a hard takedown by an upstart constable. [color=bc8dbf][i]Fuckin' Nick Angel.[/i][/color] The hearing had come and gone more quickly than she had thought it would, and the community service sentence came with the stipulation of her remaining in London until her time was served; no venturing out to competitions, or to scope out more exotic spots across the channel like she had planned on. The short leash had struck her more than actually being arrested and how that might impact any future she'd have. Equally frustrating was that the police had confiscated her preferred board... one she had shelled a significant amount of her earnings on, as "collateral"; she had made due with an older one, but it just wasn't the same. 

Setbacks for sure. 

But what her reflection centered on was the reactions among her family. Naturally, the younger generations were gitty about it all. Some of her cousins, aunts, and uncles had found it funny to know that her "degenerate" lifestyle had finally caught up with her in meaningful way. Others, more like her, shared in her initial exhileration; it was as a rite of passage to have one's first true run-in with the law; for the first day or two even she had fancied herself a 'true skater' for having been hauled off in cuffs. But then came the hearing, and the dissappointment in the eyes of her parents... Cait could manage their disapproval of her path in life; the feeling from them that she had taken it too far was harder to work through. Surely, she thought, they'd have her shuffled to University to get a "real career" as soon as her stint with community service was over. 

The reflections and the otherwise uneventful ride came to an end as Cait rolled up to the Community Center. Approaching the entrance, she dismounted and kicked her board up into her hands. Reluctantly, she handed her ride over to an officer awaiting her in the lobby. In exchange she received an orange jumpsuit, and was told to change and meet out on the dock. She carried the suit unceremoniously to the women's locker room, where a locker had been temporarily assigned to her. She checked the names assigned to the other lockers, hoping there would be a familiar face among them, but there was no such luck on the X chromosome. She shrugged, figuring she'd catch a familar face among the others, and proceeded to swap her street clothes for the prison attire.[/indent]

[hr] 

[indent]Cait exited from a side door out to the dock and strode toward the cluster if orange lined up along the rail. On a few steps she tried to push off before remembering she didn't have a skateboard underfoot. Slightly embarrassed, she took a spot in the line up and listened to Officer Tony's speil. It was about as predictable as a commencement speech, and Cait only half-listened to it as she cut glances along the line, marking a pair of familiar faces. Henry, a local bartender, was there; Cait and her friends had gotten kicked out of his place at least a dozen times. Then there was Prince, with whom Cait and her crew had hung out frequently, given the overlap of skate and graffiti culture. The next six months wouldn't be too bad with him around, she figured. 

Once Tony pressed them for any questions, Cait dialed back in. [color=bc8dbf]"Influence, huh?"[/color] She doubted she'd influence anyone to do anything but trick off of other historic monuments. [color=bc8dbf]"I reckon when they see us fishing [b]shit[/b] out of the harbour they'll be turned off of doing anything fun."[/color][/indent]