Job Hunting (open)

[Ϛ Jamie Matthews]

The on again, off again Wingrose student known as Jamie sat in the frame of a particularly large window, happily basking in the sunlight that entered through the glass panes and warmed him. There were intimidatingly huge headphones covering his ears, looking quite out of place on the friendly boy, and he was slowly swaying to some unheard rhythm. Well, unheard to anyone but him, anyway.

"...fated to pretend..." he quietly half-sang, half-hummed, smiling at nothing in particular.

Jamie had a lot on his mind in the past year or so, and was finally beginning to sort things out for himself. He'd loved, he'd lost, he'd smiled, he'd cried, he'd fought, and he'd made peace. He learned the truth about his past; his real name, who his family was, why they were gone now. It was a lot to take in and he'd left the life he knew to deal with it all, and on more than one occasion, too.

But he was back again, and this time it looked to be for good.

Good, good, definitely good, he thought, and his smile intensified.

[Locke F. Herald]

Locke walked down the all, in an unusually good mood. It was a bright and sunny day, the kind of thing was usually of no consequence to the Edengrowth youth, but he felt brighter with the sun out for some reason.

So he strolled the halls, reading yet again, enjoying the predictable sensation of the light on his skin as he passed the evenly spaced windows. He had developed a certain rhythm to his step, and knew when to expect the warmth on his skin.

Needless to say, when he didn't feel the sun when he knew he should have he looked up in surprise, to see that he was in the shadow of a young boy.

The idea that people could lie in windowsills seemed foreign to him now, as this simple thing had just totally derailed his train of thought.

[Ϛ Jamie Matthews]

Jamie was far too wrapped up in his daydreamy world, and far too deaf due to his headphones, to notice that someone had stopped beside him. Which was a shame, because the boy always enjoyed meeting new people. Well, so long as they weren't mean.

Thus uninterrupted, he quietly hummed/sang a verse of the song in a barely audible tone.

"I'll miss the playgrounds ... animals and digging up worms...
... the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world...
...miss my sister, miss my father... my dog and my home...
I'll miss ... boredom ... freedom ... time spent alone."

One of his legs was hanging over the windowsill, down the wall. This leg swung back and forth slightly, making a slight noise as it brushed the wall. His other leg was up on the sill, half of it warm and half of it cool, depending on whether you were speaking of the window-facing side or the other one. This leg tapped lightly in time with the song.

And through all of it, his head stayed turned toward the light, like a sunflower, and a smile decorated his features like it was a permanent fixture there.

However, the tapping of his leg, and the angle it was on, soon caused his musical device to slide out of his pocket, moving a little more with each small shockwave the tapping caused, until finally, excruciatingly slowly, it fell from his pocket toward the ground, disconnecting from his headphones as it went.

[Locke F. Herald]

The machine dropped to the ground with a clatter, the batteries spilling out onto the floor and one of them rolling over towards Locke. He stopped it with his foot and picked it up, it was only polite, right?

He thanked some celestial being that the music player in question did not have built in speakers, he really did not want to hear whatever the boy was listening to.

"You might want to be more careful where you put your music player. They aren't the most sturdy piece of machinery." He remarked simply.

In any event, this was a meeting he didn't need, he had nothing to gain from chatting with this boy who looked like they just dropped him out a plane and right into the Accademy without a clue.

Oh no...

Singing along to music...
Sitting in the sunshine...
And that clueless happy smile...

Locke almost sighed as the realization hit him, and he didn't know why he vocalized it. "You're a Wingrose aren't you?"

[Ϛ Jamie Matthews]

Jamie didn't even notice the device falling until it disconnected from the headphones that were still on his head, thus cutting off his music. Thus he was in no position to save it from hitting the ground. In fact, he didn't even know it had hit the ground until he slapped his pocket, noticed it missing, and looked away from the window to see Locke stopping one of his batteries from escaping.

"Oh, hi!" Jamie said brightly, turning to a better position for conversing with the other boy. "I'm not very worried; it's survived worse than that. Thanks for saving my batteries, though!"

He hopped down from the windowsill and stood at his full height, which was a good deal taller than anyone who knew him would have been used to. He still looked more or less the same, but he had grown an incredible amount in the last few months, and was actually beginning to fill out his skinny frame somewhat. It was easy to tell that Jamie Matthews was growing up fast.

Of course, Locke didn't even know him, so this was all more or less irrelevant.

"Wingrose? I guess you could say that. I think it's more like I used to be a Wingrose, though. How did you guess? Was it the cute? Everyone says Wingrosians are all cute. I think if I guessed, I'd say you're an Edengrowth, since you are reading. Or were. Either way, it's not like only Edengrowth's read, I'm just saying."

Old habits die hard, and it didn't look like Jamie would grow out of babbling on any time soon. He massaged his neck lightly; it had been stiff after sitting in the windowsill for so long, and bent to pick up his music player and snag all the batteries before straightening and holding a hand out to Locke for the battery he had picked up.

"My name is Jamie, by the way.'

[Locke F. Herald]

He talked. He talked a lot. And Locke thought Kiri babbled, dear lord. He let the boy finish before responding, if he was a Wingrose he'd best be polite to him, words traveled fast after all.

"I'm Locke." He said, taking the young boys hand in a firm handshake.

"And I could tell you were a Wingrose just based on how you were acting. You hit the nail on the head with the Edengrowth though. But you said, you 'used to be', do you not go to school here anymore or something? You seem too young to have graduated."

And while Jamie did look older then himself, it was still true. The boy didn't look like he had finished high school yet, so why did he say he 'used to be' a Wingrose?

[Ϛ Jamie Matthews]

Jamie hadn't quite been expecting the handshake; he just wanted his battery back, but it's likely he would have offered to shake the other boy's hand in a matter of seconds anyway so he had no problem with it. He shook Locke's hand equally as firmly, having been brought up with etiquette that called for a solid handshake to be successful, as well as polite, in life.

"Pleasure to meet you, Locke."

He reassembled his music player and slipped it back into his pocket, sliding his now-mute headphones down onto his neck so he could hear the Edengrowth boy better. His ears were getting a little warm from them, anyway, seeing as they were meant to double as earmuffs if the weather called for it.

He wasn't sure of 'the way he was acting', perfectly oblivious to the fact that not all people who weren't mean weren't like him, but he decided he didn't really want to bother questioning the boy's logic. For some reason, Edengrowth's often seemed to be touchy about that sort of thing, and the last thing he wanted to do was offend the boy.

"Well, they're not very particular about actually studying around here," Jamie hazarded, unsure of how to explain his situation, "so I'm not sure exactly how I would go about graduating anyway. But what I meant was that I don't really attend school here anymore. I've been an off-and-on student for awhile and I kind of just gave up on it. I still like to hang around here though, it's very pleasant. And for some reason the people here like to know where I am, so they don't seem to mind."

He had no idea if he was breaking any sorts of rules, but he hadn't gotten in trouble for anything yet, so as far as he was concerned he wasn't doing anything wrong.

[Locke F. Herald]

Locke scowled. "Give up on school? Please! What else did you plan to do with your time? School is important, you don't just learn things you need randomly." Maybe he was being hard on the boy he had just met, but Locke hated the idea of someone not learning 'just because'. "You aren't going to get anywhere in life without an education after all, so you should learn the basics you need. After all, it's not like there are many better places to spend your youth."

Yeah, he was being harsh on the boy, who was older then HIM it would appear. Leave it to Locke to talk down to someone older then him. He'd done it before, he'd do it again.

"Sorry for being so harsh about it, but it's fallacy to think you can get anywhere without knowledge, even if you aren't an Edegrowth. If you spend your time here anyway, you should come back to classes, it's not like it's going to hurt you."

[Ϛ Jamie Matthews]

Jamie didn't frown, but the change in expression from smile to blank face was drastic enough that it had just about the same effect. He hadn't quite been expecting this boy to suddenly start talking down to him, and he couldn't say he enjoyed it. For a moment he was actually shocked out of words, but he did eventually pull himself together.

"I did learn the basics I need..." he said quietly, his eyes slightly downcast. He felt ashamed; not that he had stopped attending class, but that he had given this boy a reason to be upset with him. That was one thing he never intended to do, but he hadn't expected anyone to ever be upset with him just for not going to classes.

He had no wish to learn things like combat, or any more history, or things like arts and crafts. All he wanted to do was help people get better when they were hurt, or stop them being hurt in the first place if he could. But he'd put his days of violence and fighting behind him, so it was unlikely he'd be doing much of that sort of thing. Which left healing, an ability that just so happened to be his Gift.

But he hadn't learned anything about his Gift from the Academy in a long time anyway, so as far as he was concerned he'd learned everything he needed to know from the place. But of course, Locke couldn't know all of this, and Jamie was in no mood to tell him.

"I'm sorry for taking up your time. I'm sure you have a class to get to or something..." he said, still avoiding eye-contact, and moving until he was flat against the wall so Locke would have no trouble getting by. "Nice meeting you..."