Kaz, a large bag of trash sitting next to her, is perched on the back of a bench, reading a comic book.

Bernie wanders over to the trash bag, humming cheerfully to herself, and pushes some litter off the pole-with-a-spike she's carrying, using a gloved hand. No one has any right to look that happy while picking up trash. There's probably some sort of law to that effect.

There're footsteps somewhere, someone whistling a cheery, if quiet tune. It's Anneka, bundled up in her gigantic coat, when she wanders around the plywood circle about where the fountain was. She's got a pole as well, as it's the day for it, a shiny soda can stuck through on the end. It jostles about when she hops to see if she can get a look through the wood at whatever's inside.

Kaz finishes the comic and hops off the bench again, dragging the trashbag over to the main trash can, and dumps about half of it -- as much as will fit -- into it. Then she drags it back to the bench.

Anneka continues hopping along the circle, the can at the tip of her pole waving about like a peculiar flag, until she can peek around at the remnants of the fountain within the wooden barrier. She perks up, then-- "Oh." She slumps for a moment, then tromps off to the trash to deposit the soda can inside.

Bernie waves a hand to the cub, flashing her a huge grin, and goes back to cleaning up the park. More papers and less savory trash bits make their way into the bag, as her humming quietly shades into singing complete with words: "...e-lim-inate th' negative, latch on to the affirmative, don't mess with Mr. In-Between... hey!" She leans down and picks something up from beneath a bench, looking it over curiously.

Kaz picks up on that, singing, "Acc-eeentuate the positive..." before breaking off to give Anneka a wry grin. "Hey, kid. How goes life?"

Anneka glances over her shoulder at Bernie and grins, then slings the poker over her shoulder like a spear. "Cool! Th'park looks better, now."

Bernie glances up from her find, and redirects her grin toward Anneka. "Thanks, I try," she remarks, and gestures with the thing in her hand, "Check it out! 's not even broken." 'It' appears to be a small round mirror, with some sort of cartoony drawing on the unmirrored side. The ragabash tilts the thing a little, looking at herself in it.

Kaz's grin loses some of the wryness. "Well. It's a hobby." She then peers at the thing, says, "Huh," and goes to fetch some more trash.

Anneka brushes her hair back from her eyes and twirls about on a heel, aiming herself for Bernie and the mirror. "Hey, neat." The edges of her giant coat flutter in the breeze.

It's apparently a George of the Jungle mirror, with the cartoon guy, ape, and elephant on the back, along with the logo. Bernie slips the thing gingerly into a pocket, keeping the gloves from touching her pants too much, and surveys the park thoughtfully, checking the progress.

Anneka grins. The wind catches her curly, sandy hair and tosses it about her sunny face in a mane. Then she's off, chasing after a piece of newspaper as it skitters along the ground. "Hey, hey-- Come back!"

Kaz glances around. "/This/ side's doin' ok, lately..." Her gaze falls on the fountain. "Well, mostly, anyway." She grins a little as Anneka speeds off. "I don't think," she tells Bernie thoughtfully, "I ever had that much energy."

Bernie giggles, planting her pole in the ground beside the trash bag and stripping off her gloves. She joins Kaz on the bench, putting the gloves in their ziploc baggie and back in her backpack. "Me neither," she replies, "an' I'm like barely older'n her, too." She pauses, then, and a cloud (if a small one) passes over her exceedingly cheerful manner. "....somethin' go wrong with th' other side, that I dunno 'bout?"

Kaz shrugs. "I just hadda beat some dipshit little Wyrm dude up, last night, 's all. No big thing. We gotta make sure th' rat spirits ain't too pissed."

"Gotcha!" Anneka calls from somewhere off around the barrier. She's singing when she tromps back, the paper wadded up in a ball on the spike. Something or other about folks in a place called Halloweentown. "La, la, lalala, lala-- Whups. There's another one!" She tromps back to the trashcan with the first though, grins at Bernie and Kaz.

Bernie scowls a moment, nodding to Kaz. "Hope y'beat it up permanently," she says, "teach 'em not t' come 'round =here=..." Even that can't kill her mood completely, though, and she brightens up again soon enough, smiling back at Anneka and relaxing on the bench with a fairly contented sigh.

Kaz's teeth glint. A little fierce, she mutters, "Oh, don't worry. It was real thoroughly pureed." Anneka's enthusiasm, though, is infectious, and she's back to grinning soon enough. "There's always more t'get around here, thass f'sure."

Anneka wanders over and flops down on the ground near the bench, stretches out into a huge yawn. "Yeap." She tilts her head, glances at Kaz. "You were talkin' about rats?"

"Rat =spirits=," Bernie corrects, and glances over to the Galliard, "...she know 'bout Rat an' all yet?"

Kaz clarifies, "Rat spirits, yeah. Din' know if they're gonna be pissed over th' Wyrm critter that was messin' the place up." She tilts her head slightly. "Dunno..." Trailing off, she adds, "Wasn't I gonna babble 'bout that? Did someone already tell y', though? I wouldn't wanna, y'know, get repetative..."

Anneka squints. "About Rat, yeah. Rat's /our/ totem." She cants her head a bit more, starts to lean after it, then rights herself. "Like Glass Walkers have 'Roach."

Kaz deflates slightly. "Oh. Yeah. So someone already 'splained /why/ Rat's our Totem, and stuff?"

Anneka slouches forward a bit, props her chin up on the palm of her right hand. "Well, kinda. Rat's adaptable, can live in the city /and/ the forest and do good 'n either. Tough and smart, too, so--" She glances over at Kaz. "That's about it."

Kaz manages not to look too disappointed. "Well, that's a lot of it, yeah. Adaptable, tough... But there's more to it than that. The thing is, your Totems gotta reflect /who/ and /what/ you are. They gotta make some sense. I mean, in a city, you got a lot of different beasties that'll work as totems. You got pigeons. They're /stupid/, though. Don't know enough to get outta the rain. You got cats, but they don't give you the fuckin' time of day, let alone any help. You got mice, but they're breakable. You got dogs and stuff, but they got domesticated a long time ago. You got cockroach, but they're already claimed, and they're ugly ass, to boot." She pauses. "Rat, though. Rat's smart, like you said. Tough, too. Rat'll fight, when she has to, but when she's outnumbered or she's too weak, she'll retreat, /because/ she's smart, and she knows that there's /always/ another day, someday. And rats, well, strength in numbers, just like us, y'know? If you ain't got enough, /leave/, come back later. There's always another day, because when it comes down to it, if there ain't no one left to fight, what good've you done? And She'll survive anything, but She'll also give anything she has to her kids, if they need anything. An' the thing is, Rat" -- Kaz has long ago strayed into capital letter territory -- "Rat knows /everything/. There's so many've Her children, just like there's so many of us, She'll learn everything, if you give her enough time."

Anneka's been slowly rocking back, until she flops over on her back with a muffled thump. She's quiet for a while, her green eyes focusing on the clouds as they roll overhead, at the patterns in the sky like clumps of cotton. "When we were talkin' about Rotem you said that it was okay to run, 'cause that was somethin' that Rat would do. Wait, come back when she's stronger. An' it's right, 'cause I'd never be able to beat 'em head on, if he wanted to fight." She glances over to Kaz. "That's part of bein' who we are-- Knowing how t'fight and /when/, so we don't lose th'big fight?"

Kaz nods, watching her. "Yep. It's like, we're in a fuckin' war here, right? So we gotta... Well, we're not the strongest, or the most heroic, or whatever. But we get the /job/ done. And yeah. Part of that's because we pick our spots better'n most tribes. Guerrilla shit, pretty much. They know the area, but this's our /home/, an' we use that t'our advantage, f'damn sure."

Bernie nods at that. "Effectiveness beats style any day, 'least if y'gotta pick one or th' other.... an' speakin' of home," she adds, glancing toward the sun, "I oughta go there for a bit. Got a couple things t' do..." She trails off, grinning again, and pushes up from the bench, stretching a bit.

Anneka is quiet again for a while, wrinkling her nose when the wind catches a strand of hair to tickle it. "I like her," the girl says, finally. "It matters that she can be that--" She reaches up to brush at her nose. "All of it. It feels--" She sits up, there's a leaf stuck in her hair. "If you're skatin', y'don't want to lose your balance, lean over too much or somethin'. You'll fall."

There's the echo of a grin in Kaz's eyes. "Yeah. She helps us keep balance, all right." Kaz glances upwards, and then at Bernie. "Actually, I gotta go do shit m'self. Anneka, I'll see you when I see you, yeah?"

Anneka rolls herself up to her feet and starts brushing at the back of her coat. She hops around at this, flashes a smile at Kaz and Bernie. "I'll be around!"

Bernie nods again, looking the cub over thoughtfully a moment. "Ditto," she remarks eloquently, and hefts the backpack onto her shoulder, starting cheerfully out of the park.

Kaz mutters, "Rockin'," leaves her comic book on the bench, and wanders off in an entirely different direction.