The incinerator bleeds plumes of smoke high into the clouds, a seeping inkblot cast against a grey sky, a heavy humidity lingering in the air along with the smell of something tantalizingly pork-adjacent roasting in the fire. The back gate had been thoughtlessly left cracked just wide enough for the scent to drift lazily into the alleys, calling to a hungry stomach like a beckoning hand. It was too good to be true - the enclosed garden vacant to even the most cautious eye setting off all kinds of alarm bells, all droned out by the tempting pop and hiss of searing meat.
"Questo non è un posto per bambini, ragazzo." This is no place for children, boy.
Leaned up against the brick wall just out of view, posted on the other side of the gate, the man stood, watching her with the signature disapproving look in his eyes that adults reserved for when the next words out of their mouths were something along the lines of now, ludovica, you know better. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and his head was shaven. The knuckles on his hands were split and bandaged with practiced care, and a neatly folded copy of the paper from that morning was held loosely in his left.
The paper was likely what he had been reading in stillness and silence before that peace had been intruded upon. He has one of those faces - brutally familiar - in that precise way that tells you there will be no introductions made with anything other than the hard stock of a rifle to the nose, temple if you were lucky. However, his eyes, though stern, looking at her hard, like two blue shards of sharp flint arrowheads, don't carry any hint of a threatening glare or carefully molded guile - only the insult in mild annoyance.
"Go play cat burglar somewhere else, @ludopossum."
