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Ilmarinen watched Sabak dart ahead to the big sandbox at the playground in the park, grinning slightly as the kid practically dived onto an unoccupied spot. He shifted his backpack, filled with a plastic shovel and several shaped buckets, and hustled over to give them to Sabak before he could start protesting.

Sabak frowned up at his dad for a moment, then started happily digging in the sand, mostly eschewing the shovel for his bluntly clawed fingers. Yes, this pile should go here, and there should be a pattern here. "Sandshrew!" he blurted, grinning at his dad for a moment before returning to his digging.

The dad in question seated himself on a bench nearby and (keeping one eye on Sabak) he pulled out a notebook and pen while muttering a spell under his breath, opening his eyes to the mystic planes. He was glad he had found this park. Sabak liked coming here, and it was apparently filled with mystical phenomina, including most of the people walking across it. He started scribbling notes, his handwriting nearly illegible even if it hadn't been in a strange language.

Glancing up from his latest notes, Ilmarinen spotted the admittedly unusual trio through a stand of trees. Speaking of mystical phenomina...he started scribbling again for a moment, a smile twitching across his face. The other man's aura clearly showed the marks of a mage, and a fairly powerful one at that. His musing was suddenly inturrupted when Sabak tugged on his pants leg.

"Sandshrew?" Sabak wanted his dad to look at his work, a pattern in the sand that, after a moment of contemplation, resembled a three-year-old rendering of an elephant. "Sand!" he proclamed proudly, grinning.

"Whoa...that was fast, Sabak. Looks great, too. An elephant, right?" Ilmarinen asked him, and after getting a nod he continued, "You might want to make him a friend, though. He looks like he is lonely. Do you want some juice first, though?"

Sabak considered this for a moment, then nodded entusiasically. He took the bottle Ilmarinen handed him, a water bottle filled with some juice, and sucked at the straw, an act slightly more difficult for him because of his teeth.

Sabak glanced up at the two newcomers, then set his juice down on the bench next to his father before skooting back to 'his' sandbox. He was in the middle of an important and profound piece of sand-art, and if they walked all over it he would have to start again. Then again, maybe, just maybe he could share the area with them. It was, after all, a large sandbox. Maybe.

Ilmarinen tucked his notebook back into his bag, dismissing his magesight spell with a gesture and a barely audible "pop". Observation in this sort of situation would definatly be rude, and he was almost certain that the other mage had detected the spell anyway. "Ahh, well," he murmured to himself, "this could be more interesting anyway." Standing up, he started to walk to the other man, careful to keep his hands in a nonthreatening posture, a habit born of a combination of his physique and his dealings with other mages.

"Hello. Cute kids. Nice to see a fellow mage around here..." Ilmarinen sat down on the far end of the bench. "Although to tell the truth, I'm not all that suprised. As far as I've seen, this place always has one more unusual thing lurking around the next corner. At least most of them are friendly..." he trailed off, realising he was babbling. Why was he so bad wth other people, anyway. It wasn't as though his physical gifts were something to be ashamed of. He extended his hand, grimicing slightly as his sleave caught on the bandage over the spot where a hot spark had seared clean through his physical and magical barriers and had given him a nasty burn the day before. "I'm Ilmarinen."

Sabak glanced up at the two boys standing over at the edge of the sandbox, then over at his dad. Nope, no help forthcoming. He would have to handle this himself. Standing up, he waved tenativly to them. How could he tell them. His daddy didn't usually have trouble understanding him, but...

"Sand..." he said, and then sat down and started scribbling somthing with one claw in the sand. After a moment, the result (if digitally copied and heavily repaired) resembled a polaroid picture. Then he pointed at the first elephant. "Shrew."

Whoops...that didn't go as planned. Sabak jumps forward and manages to snag Bhel's arms for a moment to slow him down, but then he has to let go before his claws dig in to the baby's tender skin. Still, its enough that Bhel is going to land on his toosh rather than tumbling into his brother or worse, hitting his head on the edge of the sandbox.

Sabak grins and leans over and puts a finger in the sand, carefully writing his name...it takes him a couple tries, but eventually he manages to get the right letters scrawled in the sand. Then he points to himself, "Sandshrew!" Hopefully that will work, but he's very proud that he managed to write his name all by himself. then he points to Bhel and then back at himself while shaking his head. He wished his daddy was here to answer these questions...it was hard getting other people to understand.

"Heh. My little one is apparently part Sandshrew, which is a species of Pokemon...which are apparently critters with some sort of ties to different elemental forces and...well, stuff. Its kinda hard to explain." Ilmarinen tried his level best not to grin as Sabak wrote his name in the sand. It had taken about two weeks of pretty diligent work to get him to learn that, and a handful of the lollipops with crickets embedded in them that he kept carefully hidden on a top shelf to give to Sabak on occasion.

Sabak grinned and nodded before wincing. That little kid was certainly LOUD. He didn't look all that hurt though. Maybe...

He trundled over to the pike of bright plastic toys and picked up the bright blue shovel, then came back and held it out to the crying boy. "Sand?"

Ilmarinen crossed his fingers, hoping Sabak's idea would work. The boys seemed to be getting along OK, especially considering Sabak's pecular speach...something. It wasn't quite an impediment, and he had been assured by Alpha and the other techs that Sabak would gradually gain the ability to speak, but for now it made communication tricky. Suddenly, in a fit of curiosity, he asked, "So what do you study?"