I can read your body language.

It had been a few months since Serenity had actually been in the forest. In between teaching classes and just going about her daily life, the older woman had been making a point of training at either the gym or in the battle arena and as she neared the border of the forest - thousands of scents came to her nostrils which brought back a surplus of memories. Despite that though, the woman kept her feet moving - the evening sun was fading beyond the horizon and Serenity had never been much of a sentimental type.

After about ten minutes of walking, Serenity neared what she sensed to be a more private area in the forest - undisturbed by most animals. "Perfect," the woman mumbled to herself then - setting down an average sized bag that had previously been slung over her shoulders. As she straightened herself back up, Serenity took a deep breath and stretched her arms out toward the night sky - seemingly unaffected by the fact that there was next to zero light near her. After all, what did a blind person need light for?

A few seconds passed by as Serenity finished up her stretching, taking one last deep breath the plan of all she would do tonight already carefully formatted in her head. With a sudden jolt of energy, Serenity started a head on run toward a tree. As soon as she got close enough, the woman picked up one her feet and with seemingly impossibly strength and timing managed to catch her foot just in the right spot on the tree to be able to push herself up to the closest branch. Needless to say a parkour enthusiast would be jealous. Once stable on the thick tree branch, Serenity lowered herself down - making it so that she was sitting with her legs dangling off the edge. With just a little bit of adjusting it was within moments that Serenity started doing chin-ups while upside down.

"One... two..."

Out in the forest with a horde of little cloned kids. Just as Cade had predicted, everything went wrong almost instantly. By that, the kids ran off to do their own thing just after they passed the tree line. Given that he had revisited his old friend tobacco, he was no match with their limitless energy, making him wonder why he was stuck being their caretaker out of all teachers. Oh right, they both had powers that revolved around cloning, how cute.

He was originally sent out to go make the children do chores, like collecting litter in the woods and what not since the little buggers had been involved in a few devious acts, which includes attacking a certain arm bladed student. What invoked the children to do so Cade didn’t care, he was just following orders. It was amazing how he still had his job considering how lack luster of a rule enforcer he was. Thankfully he hadn’t been caught letting anything too harmful pass in terms of the students.

At this point, he was just wandering through the forest, only being half mindful of his bounty. His attention was more so focused on his inner thoughts, as they tended to be. He’s been at this school for quite some time now, the experience being… unique to say the least. Before he came to the island he could never truly say that he’s slept with an angel. Or fairy, whatever that girl was. It was quite hilarious to him to think on how emotional he got for a woman he only knew for a couple months. Such was the emotion of love he supposed. It reminded him of the time he had one of his dad’s goons unleash a doped up crack addict to the last person who cheated on him. He had a strange amount of fond memories for a time he’d rather forget, just goes to show one can never escape their past.

As he continued to saunter, his wandering eye caught a familiar figure hanging off one of the trees in the distance. Considering that he hadn’t seen anything move for the past couple of yards, it wasn’t too hard to spot Serenity doing some form of workout. He stopped in his tracks and curiously tilted his head at the sight of her. It had been so long since they last saw each other, mostly due to her constant requests of wanting to be left alone. That and the other teachers advising him to keep away from her considering that she had broken his arm before and his little stunt of playing music over the announcements unauthorized got him yet another good scolding from the boss lady.

Perhaps there was still something left to rekindle, of course who could possibly resist his charm, his previous love interests excluded. He felt like doing something cheeky like sneaking up on her, but there was no way he’d be able to get within ten feet without her noticing, especially with the crunchy leaves and scattered twigs lied about the terrain. He began to approach her location, spouting out “well, doesn’t this bring a whole new meaning to blind as a bat.” He smirked as he waited for a reaction. He briefly wondered why she was out here instead of training in her infinitely better equipped arena, though he instantly remembered that his class had a perfect view of the place, so that could be a reason why.

"Twenty-eight... Twenty-nine..."

Seemingly out of no where, a voice cut into Serenity's counting causing the woman to stop her work-out. She was familiar with the man that belonged to the voice and it had been quite awhile since they had last talked. "Was it dark out? I didn't even notice." Serenity replied with a bit of sarcasm, continuing on with her work-out until she reached the count of fifty. After that, Serenity sat up on the tree branch that she had been hanging off of - taking a moment to breathe before jumping down to the ground.

"Is there a particular reason that you're out here?" Serenity said to Cade then, her question betraying her natural aloofness. Not wanting to wait for him to answer though, the teacher began a series of stretches. Her stretches initially focused on her upper body, before lowering herself to the ground to stretch her legs out taking deep breathes in between every move.

Cade slightly snickered at her sarcastic remark, moving in toward her general location in order to close the long gap between them. Hanging from trees and being most active when the sun was setting, considering that she was a shape shifter there was a possibility that her true self was a bat. It wouldn’t be that far of a departure from the norm.

Once he got within a decent range of the woman, he slowly paced around her as she stretched, for no real reason besides the fact he wanted to pace aimlessly. “At this point I think it just might be fate. I mean, this isn’t our most peculiar encounter, but it’s definitely our most coincidental” he mused for a moment as paused his movements and began to dig through his pockets. He pulled out a single cigarette, though stopped himself from lighting it for a moment.

“You know, it’s been a couple of months. The least you could do is act like you missed me. So many weeks I had gone without an injury, it was so boring. I did stub my toe once though and instantly thought of you. I mean that in the best of ways, of course” he continued with a shining smirk on his face and welcoming arms. “Not to mention that I had to try and socialize with the other teachers. I’ll be the first to tell you, nobody has anything all that interesting to say. Maybe that’s because I didn’t spend an evening tripping balls with any of them, but they lacked a certain flare.”

Cade continued to fiddle with his dart until an exact copy of it grew in his other hand, which led him to put anyway the template. As he stuck the stick into his mouth though, he looked back at Serenity. “Are you bothered by me smoking? I can’t recall the answer you gave me last time I asked.”

Serenity was acutely aware of the fact that Cade was walking around her and went on to do some leg stretches. "Unless of course you just decided to follow me, that seems to be your habit." Serenity said to the man with a bit of bite in her words. As he talked more though, Serenity stopped her stretches and sat in her spot for a moment - listening to what he was saying. It was hard to deny the fact that his humour had rubbed off on her in a tiny way and that showed through the briefest upturn of her lips. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're just picky?" Seren voiced out loud thoughtfully.

She angled her face in his direction then, choosing not to stand up quite yet, but facing him nonetheless. "I don't mind. I tried smoking once, it was hard to tell when I was done which caused me to mostly burn a lot of filters."

"If what you're wondering though is if I'm annoyed by the smoke, just don't get it in my face." Serenity's attitude returned just a bit with that statement and it was then that she decided she would stand up - wanting to start some more intense parts of her training but instead holding back on doing anything since Cade was there. "Plus, why would you care if I was bothered by the smoke anyway?" Serenity asked the other teacher then, popping her fingers while she talked.

With Serenity’s permission, he began to light up his gross cloned cigarette and began to feed off of its fleshy goodness. It more so tasted like sucking on a person’s vein. Regardless, he’d get his fix. Just as he released a cloud of smoke he chuckled at her suggestion of him being picky. “Well, yeah I’ve considered that. I don’t really think that changes much though, either way you should be flattered that I chose you of all people. I mean, I could be harassing plenty of other women, but like a gentleman, I prefer doing so one at a time.”

He couldn’t help but to stare for a moment as she performed her stretches, his eyes wandering off as soon as her face looked as though she was looking at him, which was a reactionary reflex more than anything. He was fully aware that he could continue to watch her regardless since her faded whites wouldn’t be able to catch him. He took another puff and then replied with “You know, I convinced one of my friends, way back when, that that was the proper way to smoke. The funny part was he would still smoke with us regardless of that, he even pretended to enjoy it. His face told a different story though.” As Cade spoke, his walking pattern began to close in on the woman, though once he got close he rerouted himself and leaned against the tree she was using as a pull up bar earlier.

Again though, the teacher snickered at the woman’s response. “Why would I care? Oooh, where to start with this one” he answered with a large smirk whilst cupping his forehead. “I almost gave up sex for your comfort, the only way I could spell it out any more than I already have is if I had the students pour gasoline on the courtyard into the shape of a heart and then set it on fire” Cade went quiet for a moment and then continued with “maybe I’ll save that for Valentine’s day.”

Serenity made a thoughtful noise as she placed her hands on her hips, "That just leaves the question then of when you're gonna move on to the next person." The statement could have easily been taken as a question, but there seemed to be no curiosity at the end of it. Serenity listened to him quietly then, not bothering to hide a snort at his mention of giving up sex. "I never asked you too," she replied quickly - with just a hint of annoyance. "Plus, why bother with something I could only feel anyway?" Serenity asked the man then - with the likelihood of rolling her eyes if she actually could.

"I don't believe I've ever wanted you to do anything just... absolutely crazy. You seem to think though that is the..." Serenity hesitated with her words, seeming to be unsure of what she was saying for the first time in a long time. There was something about Cade that made her feel like she couldn't think on occasions. "Look, I never asked you for anything, but you seem to think you have to give me things anyways." She stepped closer to him then, reaching her hand out to his chin. "Now, what do you want from me?" The way her face was angled made it seem as though she was looking him directly in the eye.

The moment passed quickly though and Serenity moved her hand from his chin, to flick Cade in the nose. "Follow me if you wanna talk more, I need to run." Serenity started a slow jog in place - giving Cade only just a few seconds to consider following her before starting off toward the trees.

Cade began to rapidly tap his chin after Serenity expressed what seemed like a question, though her inflection suggested otherwise. Either way, he felt it needed an answer. “Hrm, unless you have a twin sister that could fall for my charm much easier, I think you might be safe from that. Or when you get around to filing restraining order and acquire an attack dog that is familiar with my scent. One of the two. As both of us have pointed out, I am a rather picky person.”

The sound of Serenity’s snort was definitely quite audible to Cade, it made his smirk grow just a bit wider. “Hey, I’m not complaining about it like you forced me to get fixed or something. I’m just saying that I was giving up one of my favourite pass times to try and appease you and you shrugged it off like I was a kid giving up their favourite blanket. I’m not saying you have to be impressed, but I’m giving you all I got. Besides that, saying that you can only feel sex is like saying you can only hear a music video. The visual part is hardly what most people are interested in.”

Cade continued to gaze into the woman’s pearly whites (eyes, not teeth) as she began to approach him. Past interactions indicated that allowing this was more so bad than it was good, but Cade was willing to risk it, despite being in the middle of the woods where no one could help him if he became a broken pile of bones on the ground. She was passed that stage though, right? She seemed to be at a loss for words, which either meant that she had him or him being dead on her mind. Being the gambling man that Cade was, he was putting all his money on the former.

A flick to his nose caused his flesh tasting cig to gently fall to the ground, Cade hastily stomping it out so he could pursue Serenity before she could take off to the races. His cardio wasn’t the greatest (for obvious reasons) but he assumed he could at least keep up with Serenity in this situation, so long as she didn’t opt for a full out sprint. “Ah, but you see, as years of experience has shown me, crazy is the easiest way to get into a woman’s mind. Give a girl a bouquet of flowers? Pft, any mouth breather could pull that off and wouldn’t be memorable. A burning heart in the middle of a field, whether she enjoyed it or not she’ll remember it.”

The question of what Cade wanted from Serenity kept him quiet for a bit, especially with the way she looked at him. It was a question he tended to forget to ask himself in his pursuit of Serenity since once he had a goal he more so searched for the endgame rather than thinking it over too intently. Not to say he hadn’t put much thought into it. He could spend days analyzing his own psyche to come with multiple answers to the same question of why his interest sparked upon Serenity, though he chose to simply answer “all I want from you is a shoulder, I offer you mine, feel free to lean on it” his tone lower to something a bit more sincere.