Even if he didn't try to listen to the hordes of people around him, Adder couldn't help but overhear some things. Even if he'd had human-numb ears he would have picked up on things after a while. So he heard rumours, gossip, mostly opinions on and stories about things he neither understood nor cared for.  Sometimes things caught his interest, though.  Like the 'maze' out back.  He'd seen it before, of course, but it just looked like a weirdly groomed wall of bush that didn't get a lot of foot traffic.  He'd even kind of written it off as a place to get away from people: the wilder bush beyond it was even less occupied.

On a casually-but-not-sleepily-full belly, with a warm grey sky and a soft, drier-than-misty-but-wetter-than-dry wind, Adder went for a meander and found the entrance.

So many stories of people getting lost and needing outside, experienced help to find their way out again.  It was such a small space, compared to the city.  That was such a large area and it still didn't always make sense when people got lost in it.



Maybe an hour later, Adder was still exploring.  He hadn't left the maze because he was still trying to figure out what was so special about it.  He hadn't tried to find his way back out, but of course he could.  It wouldn't be hard at all.

"'It'll be fun,' they said," Kirsi grumbled in Norwegian under her breath. "'Just find the center,' they said." She'd been trundling through this maze for about half an hour, by now, and she still couldn't figure out where the middle of the damn maze was. One of her acquaintances had informed her that somebody had put out a challenge of sorts - this mysterious employer had placed something in the center of the X-Mansion's maze, and was offering a reward for whoever could get it out without alerting the X-Men. This wasn't the first time Kirsi had seen underworld games involving the X-Men, considering they weren't really fond of people in her profession, but this was the first time she'd decided to participate out of sheer boredom. A lot of people were too scared to take the risk of getting caught just to play a game, but Kirsi was confident in her ability to talk her way out of any issue.

What she didn't expect was for the maze to be so annoyingly... maze-like. She really was having trouble finding her way around, and she was starting to get frustrated with her inability to find the stupid middle of the maze.

"That's it," she finally snapped at some point to nobody in particular, still in Norwegian because she used her native language whenever possible. "I hate this stupid maze." She turned towards the hedge to her left and raised her arms as she closed her eyes. With a brief bit of focus, the leaves and branches snapped and flew away from her with a blast of concussive force. The burst of foliage just barely missed someone walking down the adjoining path, and Kirsi froze. There went the stealth part of this.

"Unnskyld," she said, in the wrong language without even realizing it. Sorry.

Once in a while, Adder vaguely smelled other people. Most of the time it came from crossing an older trail. Sometimes, though, it was the fresh scent of someone currently present. Never on the same path as him, but drifting through the plants from maybe the next one over. Footsteps, breathing, muttering. He caught fragments on his wanders, increasingly often.

As long as they stayed elsewhere, he really didn't care, even if the odour seemed wrapped in an attempt to block something into straight lines and patterns. He didn't want to deal with pe-

He flung himself backwards, nerves alive and senses vibrating with alarm. Leaves and branch pieces exploded in front of him, and the soul-scent wafted stronger. A girl, young, so very undeniably a mutant, still saying things that were simply sound to his ears. His ears flicked against his skull in annoyance rather than alarm, and he set his teeth around his words.

His what-the-crack-is-wrong-with-you-toned words. "I'm sure someone owns that bush and didn't want it destroyed."

"I'm sure someone owns that bush and didn't want it destroyed." Kirsi frowned a bit. That was rude. She'd just apologized to him -

She fought the urge to facepalm, because nope, she'd done that in Norwegian. "Sorry," she apologized again, this time in English, but with the faintest of accents bleeding through. Her voice was unintentionally small and childish, as any child's became when they were berated by somebody older than they were. "I got frustrated. It's a very confusing maze."

She glanced around, partially to check if anyone else was nearby, partially out of embarrassment from completely ruining her stealth mission. No matter, though - this man looked like he could help her. He didn't need to know about the real reason Kirsi was here, and he didn't seem like the kind of person who would know Kirsi from her main occupation. Unless he was from Scandinavia, she supposed, and had been around during her "reign of terror," but he didn't look like it.

"Could you perhaps help me?" she asked politely, her cute little child facade back on. "Someone dared me to find the middle of the maze, but I've been walking for so long and I can't find it." She scrunched up her nose, in a belated attempt to look cute. "They triple-dog-dared me, so I have to find it."

Rich kid. Probably got most of her exercise on painted playgrounds with water fountains. Never mind that Adder liked those ones - as long as they weren't the ones that shut off their water fountains at night. That was just unfair; he was just trying to get a drink, not do anything stupid.

And spoiled, if she generally blew things up when she got frustrated. Well, he'd dodged one already. Sometimes kids learned through conversation.

"I was just thinking that it makes no sense that people get lost in here," he said flatly, between his general bland tone and idle curiosity if she'd get annoyed by the comment. Better annoyed than convinced that her chatter got her anywhere in the world, especially away from rich people who cooed over rich-acting, poor-looking, pale children.

But he did vaguely remember the whole whatever-dog-dared thing. It was definitely old-Before, as vague memories went, and he wasn't going to bother trying to figure out more of a timeframe than that. It would just waste time. Hm. He could help her...

or he could mess with her. That seemed far more productive.

Adder rolled his shoulder at the girl and kept walking. "The centre, huh? Would you even know if you were in it? Maybe you've already passed it and just didn't notice." Nah, it was pretty obvious. He'd passed it, and noticed. It was basically a dead end that wasn't just the path stopping, wider and fancied up like a rich neighbourhood adult park.

Maybe he'd head back to it and see if the kid would follow him. Or convince her that he was going to go to it, and then go everywhere except to it.

... That was a very interesting idea.

"I was just thinking that it makes no sense that people get lost in here," the man said, and wow, that was passive-aggressive. He clearly didn't seem to like her - why, she didn't know, but he also clearly thought that she was more naive and stupid than she really was. Okay then. She'd play along.

He kept walking, like a total pretentious douchebag, and Kirsi fought back the urge to call him that. Out loud. "The centre, huh? Would you even know if you were in it? Maybe you've already passed it and just didn't notice." Wow. Yes. Mock her for being a child. Wasn't he so cool. Yes she would've noticed, because there would've been a silver briefcase there containing... something. What, she didn't know, but it'd be rather hard for her to miss a silver briefcase. She was used to being treated like a baby, but this wasn't just patronizing. This was outright rude.

But, if he could take her to the center, then she didn't care.

"Maybe," she said sadly, trying to seem as oblivious as possible. Then she brightened up, and bounded after the man. "But you must know where it is, right?" God, she hated sucking up to jerks like him. She was a great actress, though, and she knew it. Now to see if he'd take the bait.

Something smelled a little off, but for the moment Adder just kept on his track. Kid was following him, and the off-smell kept vague pace, and he turned left at the next fork. Staying to the right would have brought them closer to the centre, after all.

He didn't walk like he was trying to lose the girl, but as if his natural pace were simply faster than she was likely to want to move. This was a complex maze; there were loops and paths that connected to each other. Simply following one side wouldn't do any more good than trying that on a city street.

The girl would be less likely to suspect him of trying to lead her astray and ditch her if he talked, he supposed. What should he say, though? Nothing came readily to mind. He wasn't particularly interested in talking to her. Hmmmm.

"Why'd you accept a dare you can't do?" That at least matched the last topic, and it ought to get her talking enough that he wouldn't really have to contribute anything. As long as she didn't talk too much or too loudly.