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The air was thin, wispy, listless in the park, providing flecks of dust in the unwilling individual's eyes as readily as it provided cooling winds across a person's skin. The local park was, thankfully, more accessible than the tangled wilderness that Jade Harley lived in almost every day of her life, particularly during the autumnal months when the trails of footfalls turned dirt into firm, clay roads that provided inimitable purchase to Tavros's wheelchair wheels. Bushes shriveled up quietly, revealing bare limbs of scraggly sticks and twigs that once bore pleasant leaves. Occasionally, a berry could be found, here and there, but most of them had since dried up and fallen off the vine, perhaps to be trodden underfoot and planted into new growth. Thus, was autumn.
There wasn't much speech to be had when one was soaking up nature in the same way that a sponge would soak up water and scrub off dirt, akin to the lather a fresh brain got when given the ability to relax and unwind. Jade was laying back on a towel, her feet laying in a creek full of slowly rushing water, shoes and socks sitting off to the side. Occasionally, a fish would come by and poke at her and she would kick it away, as one did. The sound of moving water filled the air as it crashed against rocks, provided current for waterstriders and little guppies, concealed crayfish underneath stones, hosted slugs and snails. Even in the fall, nature was alive, and moving, and breathing.
The forest of the park rocked back and forth with the blowing of the wind, like lungs, inhaling and exhaling.
Tavros was not in much of a position to dip his toes in the water, unfortunately, or at least not without the need to climb out of his chair and then later, climb back into it. Instead, he was just parked next to Jade, his brakes engaged, reading some truly lengthy Pokemon fanfiction on his phone turned sideways. The wind rustled his little mohawk, tickled the freshly-shaven sides of his head. Little wisps of chin growth indicated that at some point in the future, this boy may just have a beard, but for now, he was just a high schooler reading Pokemon fanfiction at the creek... as one did.
Jade looked up at the sky, alternating between that and letting her eyes drift shut. It was about 4 o'clock, the sun slowly pulling herself down across the horizon like a sinking egg in a pot of boiling water. Soon, it would be dark, and cold (colder), and the wind would not blow quite as hard. Some animals would go to sleep in their diurnal nature, some would emerge from daily hibernation, nocturnal indeed, and some would do neither - perhaps the ones without the ability to discern light, if any of those were around. Either way, the sun's slow descent painted the sky a brilliant pink-orange, like some kind of sherbet, or a sorbet, or perhaps a mixed drink.
Jade had a book with her - a nuclear physics textbook for college students, mind, sitting next to her, but she just couldn't quite bring herself to pick it up and begin consuming the lengthy tome with any sort of real urgency or voracity. School was off for a bit. There was no need for her to read and study and get ahead at the moment when she could instead enjoy the new, dry, unfamiliar climate, nothing like the island she lived on. Tavros, for what it was worth, silently appreciated the company - it was nice to have a friend to go out with, especially when your parent was reticent about letting you go out by your own.
Friendship, after all, did not necessitate play with each other. Sometimes, it was just enjoying someone's company in the silence of nature.