just a little snack, guys -pen-

Things had been shockingly looking up for Grey lately. Despite Wil's stupid (Grey! Loren scolded) choice of eilemaiden, she had managed to find steady work. Steady enough for them to get an apartment together. He still helped out with rent, but his...work...was a lot less reliable. He wished he would just settle already. Seriously, how had Wil settled before him? As immature as she was?

Stop harping on that and just enjoy what you have! Loren said. For the first time ever, they had a roof over their heads and shelter from the cold. They had even found an old twin mattress on the curb and carried it up into their new dwelling. Who would throw out a perfectly good bed? Their loss.

Now it was time for grocery shopping. Grey and Wil were trying to stock up while it was still fall and the outdoor markets were up and running. Grey was looking for an opportunity when he happened to notice a seller distracted by a pretty girl at his booth. Even better, the booth was selling food in jars that would keep longer than fresh.

Grey walked by the booth casually, and as he passed the girl he quickly swiped two jars and slipped them into his bag.

Pen was in Stonecraft. She didn't often venture this far alone (her parents didn't like her leaving Dian), but B had cancelled on her last minute and she'd already traveled the whole way. She went to one of their favorite places to go--the railroad trellis that crossed into the city-state, and walked around by herself for a little while but eventually found it boring doing this alone.

Instead, she was now in a part of town that her mother probably would have scathed at, walking through a little market. Pen pulled her scarf closer around her face, hoping to block a bit of the late-autumn wind that blew through the street. She was reaching for an orange that was in a basket next to a bunch of preserved fruit jars, when a hand darted from behind her and grabbed a few of the jars.

Pen glanced over her shoulder to catch sight of the rude clio when suddenly the squat man that sat behind the booth started yelling at her. She looked at him, completely taken aback, before she registered that he thought she had been the one to take the jars. She opened her mouth to protest as she watched the real culprit, a boy with bouncing curls, sprint away from the group of tables and dash around a corner.

It took a minute to prove her innocence and calm the man down, and another to weasel her way through the crowded market, but eventually she rounded the same bend that the curly haired thief had disappeared behind. She rolled her eyes when she caught sight of him on the next street. He hadn't bothered going very far--perhaps he was arrogant enough to think he'd escaped without being noticed.

"Hey you!" Pen called to him. "Who do you think you are?"

Grey was still walking away when he suddenly heard the seller yell out in anger. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw to his surprise that the seller was yelling at the girl, not at him. Aha. The idiot. Grey took the opportunity to run off, turning a few corners before he figured he was safe.

Grey, that wasn't cool, Loren whined. She was in the form of a rat, and had held onto Grey's shoulder for dear life as he'd run. He blamed that innocent girl!

Pff. Did you see that girl? Grey asked. Nice clothes, clean hair. Clearly a girl from the better parts of Amelia. She could afford to get herself out of trouble if she ended up needing to.

Girl wrote:"Hey you! Who do you think you are?"

Grey looked back to see the girl from the stand yelling at him several feet back. He rolled his eyes, looked back ahead and kept walking. At least she hadn't brought the angry seller with her.

Pen glared down at the boy who chose to ignore her and keep walking. What an asshole! She jogged to catch up with him, cursing him in her mind the entire length of the street.

"Hello?" she asked as she approached. "You could at least have the decency to apologize?" When the boy didn't respond right away she filled in the blanks for him, "I'm sorry for causing a loud and bitter old man to scream at you over something I stole, Pen."

Cree, who had loped up to Pen's side, rolled his eyes.

"Oh, it's no problem, Thief-Boy, I love when angry men scream in my face," she answered herself conversationally, still walking beside said Thief-Boy.

Grey almost laughed when the girl revealed that the seller had only yelled at her. She didn't even get in trouble! She didn't even have to pay him back. Told you, he thought smugly to Loren. He had made the right call in leaving after all. Nothing had happened to the girl, and he still got away with his food. Win-win.

"Who cares if some old man yelled at you?" he asked the girl, since she was still following him for some reason.

Pen raised her eyebrows. "Um, I care? Obviously?" She thought back to the man yelling and felt a thrill of embarrassment. "And he spit on me," she said, her voice disgusted. He'd screamed so loud little particles of spit had landed all over her face.

"I don't care that you stole something," she said truthfully, "but you could at least apologize for letting him think it was me."

"He spit on you?" Grey asked, actually taken aback. Not that he'd never been spit on, but. He never would have thought an attractive girl with nice clothes would be spit on by some grungy old fruit seller. There was a certain social order in Stonecraft that was usually followed pretty strictly.

I think she means by accident, while he was yelling, Loren said.

Oh. That would make a lot more sense. The guy probably didn't even have all his teeth, couldn't help but spit when he yelled.

"Well what was I supposed to do?" Grey demanded. The easy thing to do in this situation would just be to apologize, even if he didn't mean it, to get the girl to leave him alone. But he was too stubborn and prickly for that.

"Literally just saying sorry would be fine," Pen said. It was true that no one would want to confess to stealing, especially if you didn't have the money for the items in the first place, but saying sorry didn't cost a penny (or the Amelian equivalent). And she was here in front of him--he didn't even have to seek her out. She'd done the hard work for him.

He didn't have to be sorry for stealing, but being sorry for leading to her getting caught seemed like a fairly normal response.

Grey looked her right in the eye. "But I'm not sorry," he said. "You want me to lie to you?"

It wasn't as though he had purposefully set her up to get framed. If anything, it was the old seller's fault for jumping to conclusions. Plus, what did an apology mean at this point? Nothing had happened, no one had gotten in trouble. He didn't get why she cared so much.

Probably the same reason you care so much about NOT apologizing, Loren muttered. This girl was clearly arguing for the same reasons Grey was; stubbornness and pride.

Pen blinked. "I guess not," she said. The boy was both irritating and fascinating to her. She wasn't used to someone being so blatantly rude to her face, but something about him made her not want to walk away. Maybe it was because she got the sense they were a lot alike, she and this thief.

She sighed and paused for a moment, not sure what to say to keep him around. Oh! She reached into her messenger style bag and pulled out two oranges. "You want one?" she asked, holding one out to him.

Girl wrote:"I guess not."

"Uh--good, then," Grey said after a slight pause. He was surprised and oddly...disappointed? that she didn't continue to argue with him. He was still all defensive and ready with another retort when she, instead, sighed and offered him an orange.

His arm immediately jerked forward, because food, but then he stopped himself and let his arm hang back at his side. Why? Why would she offer him her food? He looked at her suspiciously. "Is there something wrong with them?" he asked. One time, a supposed good Samaritan (whatever that was) had offered Wil and Grey some sandwiches. They'd both ended up violently sick. Wil had said that perhaps the food had gone bad without the clio realizing it, while Grey was convinced that the clio had put something in the sandwiches intentionally to play a cruel joke on the poor stupid homeless kids. It was an argument that still came up from time to time.

"I sure hope not," Pen said, looking down at the oranges in her hands. "I just paid for them." After the screaming and spittle situation Pen had thrown a few coins at the man and grabbed the oranges before taking off after this boy.

She handed the orange to him and then sliced into her own with a fingernail. Spray from the peel got her in the face and she blinked, wrinkling her nose. She snorted out a laugh. "Well, I guess citrus spray is better than nasty old man spit."

Grey tentatively took the orange from the girl, still watching her face mistrustfully. Well...he supposed there really wasn't any way to tamper with a fresh orange, so it must be okay. But then why would she give one to him?

"Well. Thanks. I mean..." He trailed off, not really having anything else to add. He more just wanted to downplay his thanks. It would be moronic to be too proud to accept charity, but that didn't mean he had to like doing it. He bit a hole into the orange skin to make it easier to peel, and then pulled the rest off with his fingers.

"Where are you from?" he asked with his mouth full of orange. "Obviously not around here."

"You're welcome," Pen said, taking her time to peel her orange. She didn't notice how quickly Thief-Boy was eating his own until he spoke. She looked up at him and saw that he'd almost finished his.

"I live in Dian," she said. "I was supposed to be hanging out with my friend today, he lives pretty close to here, but he ditched me." She shrugged and bit a wedge of orange. She had been miffed earlier, but honestly she'd always loved exploring the city, alone or not.

"I'm Pen, by the way," she told him, realizing she still didn't have his name.

Grey licked the juice off his fingers before wiping his hands on his over-sized sweatshirt. Orange peels littered the ground at his feet. Belatedly he realized he should have saved half for Wil. Maybe he'd have a chance to swipe one for her real quick on his way back home.

"Oh. I've never been there." He'd never been anywhere but here. Sometimes he and Wil would talk about hopping on a train and seeing where they ended up, but it had never gone further than talk. Stonecraft was all they knew. "I'm Grey."

"Do you...like it there?" he asked after a short pause. He was weirdly curious about Pen for some reason. He found himself actually wanting to stand here and talk to her, which he never wanted to do with anybody.

"Oh, I love the city," Pen said. It was all she knew, really. She did a bit of travelling with her family now and then, but it was always to different parts of Dian. And the train lines Pen so frequently explored took her to a bunch of different cities along the eastern side of Dian.

"Are you from Stonecraft, then?" she asked, finishing her own orange. She'd watched as Grey discarded his peels on the street and decided to do the same thing. It wasn't like it was littering, right?

As she talked with him, Pen took the time to really look at Grey. He was very thin, and his sweater was stained and too large for his frame. Though they looked nothing alike, he reminded her of Bailey, who had very little money and was often hungry.

Grey nodded. "I've never been anywhere else," he said. "But I've heard stories about all the other cities. Apparently they're all way better than here. My sister really wants to see Nadar someday." Wil had made Grey promise once that if he ever somehow got to visit Nadar he would bring her with him. Grey found the whole thing ridiculous because a.) he'd never go anywhere without Wil anyways and b.) neither of them were ever going to get the chance to go to Nadar. But he'd promised anyway, and it made her happy.

Pen laughed about him thinking the cities elsewhere were better than Stonecraft. She thought it probably depended on your interests, but Nadar had never been on her radar in terms of places to visit. "I bet the city in Nadar is interesting," she said. "I've seen pictures, it's definitely WAY different than any city I've ever been to." She knew there was only one city in Nadar, and even that looked like some sort of jungle village according to her textbooks at school.

"I think I would most like to visit Earalas City," she said, thinking. "I hear it's built around the volcano which sounds both awesome and a little scary."

"Sounds warm," Grey said. He'd take living around a volcano over a Stonecraft winter any day. As if the universe could read his thoughts and was determined to make him miserable, a cold wind blew by just then, making Grey shiver. There was just no getting used to some things, and the cold was one of them. "I should go home," he said to Pen. His and Wil's apartment wasn't the warmest, but four walls and a ceiling were better than nothing. He looked at the ground. "Um. Thanks. Again, for the orange."

Pen found herself disappointed when Grey said it was time for him to leave. She'd enjoyed their conversation, even if it had stemmed from his thievery. She realized now that maybe stealing was his only way to get food. "Okay," she said, not sure how to say goodbye to someone she did not really know but also did not really want to say goodbye to. She smiled at his thanks, and made a gesture that said "don't worry about it."

"I should probably head home too, honestly. It's a long ride via train." She pulled hair out from in front of her eyes when the wind blew, and shoved it behind her ear. "I'll see you around."

She turned to leave and Cree sauntered along next to her. Why didn't you ask him to hang out later? he asked her, bemusedly. Pen had never been shy, and she definitely didn't beat around the bush. She'd so obviously wanted more time with him, Cree thought, so it didn't make sense that she'd left without saying so.

And Pen did feel regret, she thought, though she had no answer for Cree. The feeling was something she didn't often encounter, and it sat uncomfortably in her stomach. But when she turned to say something more Grey had disappeared into the streets of Stonecraft.