A Hand Up

[Trickster]

Whistling under her breath, Lynn made her way down yet another street in what was turning into an extensive walking tour of Sacramento. She’d volunteered to help Gregory with his job hunting; the only problem at the moment was that he didn’t have either a fixed address or a cell phone, so she had no way to contact him. Well, she’d be able to find him eventually if she sent enough time looking. And she was getting an excellent amount of exercise.

But for now, a break.

Swinging a tote bag full of supplies down beside her, Lynn perched for a moment on a stoop and watched the people going by. Propping her chin on her hand, she tried to figure out where she should look next.

[Gregory]

Prowling the rooftops of neighboring buildings, Gregory catches sight of the familiar Nightsinger as she walks by his perch. He considers hailing her, though it be a strange thing for a homeless man to yell from the rooftops. Gregory takes a moment to climb down the building's side via its fire escape before plopping into an alley.

Once his feet touch ground he skitters after Lynn, catching up to her and hailing her down once she's come within earshot. "Lynn Mills, good day to you. Be you on your way to visit more music shops?" he asks conversationally in his rasp of a voice.

[Trickster]

Lynn looked up from rubbing her aching ankles to see Gregory standing nearby. "Gregory! Actually I was looking for you." Lynn stood up and walked closer him.

"It's about your request, from a few days ago?" She swung her bag a bit from side to side absently. "Is there somewhere we can talk about it?"

[Gregory]

"Uhh...oh, looking for me?" says Gregory with some recognition on what Lynn could mean regarding a request. "I did not realize...or expect you to be their emissary." Embarrassment starts to nag at him as he fiddles his fingers together in front of him, his large eyes glancing about their surroundings as if considering her question. "Umm, there be the alleys...and, umm, the parks. I believe that may be sufficient to speak more on this," he suggests tentatively.

What help might she offer to realize his Desire, he wonders. He considers offering to take her to his Hollow, but is nothing more than a barren cave in the Hedge and not fit for company.

[Trickster]

Lynn smiled happily. "A park sounds lovely. Especially now that the weather is so nice. Shall we?" She gestured in the direction of the nearest and started off, bag swinging from one hand as she walked.

"Do you know, Gregory, how I was taken?" Lynn spoke softly, her tone as casual as if she was speaking about the weather. But she had noticed his embarrassment and though he needed to know why she had chosen to help him with his request. "We were new to Sacramento and we were broke. We'd used up all of our saving and were desperately searching for a way to survive. No matter what we did, neither of us could manage to find anything that lasted more than a few days." They reached the park and she found a bench in the sun, sitting down and leaning back to stretch her legs. "One day, I was out busking, trying to get enough to last us through the night. And a woman came up to me and offered me the perfect job." She glanced over at Gregory and then back to the greenery that surrounded them. "I turned her down, because it sounded too good to be true. But then . . . I went home and Jason had lost another job. And we . . . I didn't seem to have any other choice. You can guess the rest of the story." She sighed softly. "I asked to help you with this, Gregory. I don't want to see anybody else, ever; in a similar position. So. Please allow me to help you with this."

Leaning over, Lynn dug through the bag at her side and pulled out a pen and pad of paper. "So, do you have some idea of what sort of job you'd like?" She had a couple of ideas for what he could try, but if he already had plans she didn't want to intrude.

[Gregory]

"Yes, indeed, let's," says Gregory hastily as Lynn agrees to a backdrop for their conversation.

He listens to start though finds himself answering her question straightaway, if nervously, "N..no, I don't." How could he? But then perhaps she is asking rhetorically. He tries to remain silent, something he is well practiced in. He wonders who this 'we' is that she refers to. As they reach the bench along the way, Gregory watches her from his standing position for a moment, glancing curiously over her as she sits and stretches.

After a moment he too sits, or rather, perches on the edge of the bench, hunched over like a vulture in the sun.

She mentions a Jason and he looks to her, his head tilted to the side inquisitively. He pieces together her meaning, the words left unspoken. A Keeper with a proposition. Desperate targets made victims. Falling through cracks in the system. The lives they had they took not with them.

"I...understand, Lynn Mills. You have my sympathies, and I thank you for your kindness." His words are sincere and melancholy though wishing he could remember more of the life left behind. "I very nearly could not recall my life before being taken. Only fragments, dreamstuffs. Sunrises and sunsets. None matched what my memory kept, not There."

"Hrmhrrr," Gregory makes a sound of clearing his raspy voice which sounded strange and monstrous.

"But to answer that which you ask, I only know what I be suited for. A watchman who watches. Likely a guardian, err, a security guard. It does not matter what I like as what I like does not grant me greater status. I need a home of my own, a means to make my way. No longer am I content in squalor and filth. I've been promised a chance to acquire the means of recognition by society. But I've no skills of use to modern man other than patience and attention."

[Trickster]

Lynn nodded. "Well, we can write you up an appropriate resume as soon as you've got your identity set up. That will be no problem. And I can help you with all of the interview process and searching through the classifieds. We'll be able to find you something before too long, once you've got all your papers." She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Do you need any help with that?"

Lynn considered Gregory for a moment. "Would you consider a suggestion for an alternative job?"

[Gregory]

Gregory smiles, a strange expression on his malicious looking face. "Oh, that would be ever so wonderful if you could. I would be ever so grateful. Such details often go amiss to my attention, the ways that one gains employment in this modern world."

At her question, Gregory pauses, his smile being replaced with a look of curiosity. "You think me suited for something else?" he asks in return.

[Trickster]

Lynn nodded slightly. "I think that you have skills and abilities that you don't even realize, that might help you earn a living just as well as serving as a night watchman." She leaned slightly to the side and started to rummage through the bag that she had been carrying. "You see, I know several students from one of the local colleges. They mentioned a photographer friend of theirs, who is working on a series of pictures of old abandoned buildings and focusing on the unexpected moments of beauty that you can find in such places." She sat back and pulled out a flyer. "He's looking for a partner, somebody who can write poems or essays or stories that would go along with each picture. And he's willing to pay for the work." She leaned over to hand a flyer to Gregory. It had a hauntingly beautiful shot of the interior of a crumbling building, focusing on a small flower that had somehow pushed it's way through the floorboards to blossom in the midst of the wreckage.

"You see things that others miss. You think about them and I believe that you have a way with words that others don't even think about. I think it's because you're so quiet and still, you can see things that other people miss." She glanced at Gregory and then away, keeping her gaze on the surrounding park. "He'll be working on his show for a while, so there's no rush if you want to think about it. And I'd be happy to help you with that as well."

[Gregory]

OOC

Sorry this thread keeps getting away from me. I will put a sticky note on my head so I don't forget :P

Gregory's head turns this way and that in curious tilts like an attentive puppy, though far less cute. "Photographer?" he repeats uncertainly. "Poems and essays?" He looks down as he is handed the flyer and takes it tentatively in hand.

His eyes trace over the image, the wreckage and the struggle of life. Decadence without conscience, how neglect nurtures decay, the words form naturally in his mind without a thought.

When Lynn describes his being quiet and still, he suddenly grows self-conscious. "I, umm...yes, that be true..." he admits, perhaps with some resistance. "And it be lovely, this photo. But what good would I do with poems and essays? I've no experience with such things... What makes you think I could write for this friend of a friend of yours?"