Not Great For Business, But...

Who: Amy and Jayo
Where: Lamplighter parking lot
When: early morning

Amy peeked out curiously at the van in the parking lot. It was mysterious. And old school. Maybe she should wait for Pandect to come back. Or even Mr. Andrews. She peeked again, her chin resting on the windowsill. Maybe she should offer them a muffin.

Slipping off her slippers and slipping on her blue rain boots and pulling on the awesomeness of her scarf and waded through the snow to go knock on the window of the van politely.

Jayo was asleep when the knock came - after all, he'd been driving half the night. His bed took up most of the back of the van, at least, it did during the night. During the day he rearranged things - also known as 'covering the bed up so it looked less like a bed'. It worked for him. But, right now, it was being used as a bed and Jayo sleepily raised his head from under the covers, looking towards the windows. Shit, daylight. He rubbed sleepy eyes as he sat up and wound one down, looking out at the girl there. "Hey - can I help you?" he asked, sounding tired.

"Hi," Amy wiggled her fingers at him. "Um, well, you're parked in our parking lot. So I wanted to say hello, also, would you like a muffin?" she smiled at him expectantly.

Jayo's face broke into a grin. "Muffin, really? I'd love one!" he declared with almost boyish joy. "Did you want to come in - it's cold out there," he observed. His van was always warm, a comfortable temperature - not too hot, not too cold. No matter what the weather outside was. One of the rites he'd performed over it saw to that. "here, come round the back - I'll open the doors for you," he told her, pulling back and closing the window as he disappeared from view.

Amy wasn't stupid, she knew that there were bad type people that kidnapped folks, it just didn't occur to her that any guy in an awesome old school van who liked muffins could be a bad type. "Okey dokey!" Amy walked around the back of the van, her boots crunched delightfully in the snow, holding the white cardboard box in her hands. She liked to make new friends.

Jayo pulled on a t-shirt, covering a large amount of his tattoos, though the ones on his neck and lower arms were still clearly visible. He ran a hand through his black hair roughly, before pushing one of the back doors open. "Come on in," he called to her, not actually getting out of bed - bed being a mattress on the floor of the van. The van itself was hung with all sorts of decorations, some just purely that - decorations - some symbols and wards, bits and pieces of his craft. Carved wooden boxes sat in a pile towards the back of the van, each one containing what he needed in his life, whether that was herbs, ingredients, or clothes and toothpaste. He liked pretty things, aesthetically pleasing things, things that said that someone, somewhere had put time and effort in to craft whatever it was.

"Ohh," Amy grinned when she saw the inside of his van. "Neat!" She politely took off her snow boots and set them down beside the back bumper of the van so she would track snow and mud and who knew what else inside his nice van. He seemed to be a very decorative person, he had pretty boxes and things on strings and he was decorated too. He had some pretty tattoos, all colorful and stuff. She held the paper box out to him, "My name's Amy! I have chocolate chip and cinnamon and lemon poppy seed muffins, take your pick."

She settled politely on the floor, tucking her fluffy skirt around her knees, she may have on industrial strength winter stockings, but it was the lady like thing to do. "Your van is super nifty!" she knew sometimes her cheerfulness was a little too cheery, but she couldn't help it.

Jayo took a muffin at random and bit into it, smiling around the crumbs and talking with his mouthful. "Oh - these are great! Did you make them yourself?" he asked her, looking happy.

"No," Amy grinned back at him. "There's this guy in town, Jamie, and he owns a bakery. The other guy who works here, his name is Pandect, he lives off muffins so he always has fifty million boxes lying around."

"Nice of him to share then," Jayo said, by now half way through the muffin. He didn't mind at all that it seemed that this girl had helped herself to someone else's property - Jayo had a pretty lax view of property at the best of times. As far as he was concerned, the guy had more than enough to go round, by the sounds of things, so why shouldn't he share? It was only right, after all.

"Yeah," Amy played with the toe of her stocking. "He is, except for yesterday when the whole motel blew up," she made blowing up hand motions with complementary blowing up sounds. "The electrical system short circuited and the phone wouldn't stop ringing! I thought he was going to punch it! He didn't though. He fixed everything up super fast. But it made him kinda grumpy, it would make me grumpy too though," she said quickly, she didn't want the guy to think she was bad mouthing Pandect, Pandect was awesomeness with wire cutters. Or a screwdriver. Something fix-it-y. "Where are you from?"

"Blew up?" Jayo craned a little to look at the building outside, then looked back at her again. "Congratulations on the rebuild - you got that done pretty quickly," he said, sounding serious about that. "And me? Oh, all over the place, really - born on the road, y'know..."

"I didn't mean like, blew up, blew up, only metaphorically blew up," she rolled her eyes a little. "That sounds cool. Have you been to Mexico?"

"Yeah. I think - it all kinda blurs after a while," Jayo admitted. "I don't really pay much attention to boundaries. They're just man made lines on a map - they don't mean anything," he told her.

"I think it would be cool to go to Mexico," she fiddled with her stocking some more. "How long are you staying with us in Marquette? You can stay in our parking lot if you want. I'm mean no one else is using this parking spot, you might as well."

"I don't really plan on the 'how long' scale of things. Time ties you down, and it's another invention of man. Bird, animals, plants - they don't do 'time' - they just are. But people, they put straitjackets on everything. It's not good, things should be free to do what they want. I'm here until I go," Jayo told her with a laidback air of ease as he finished off the muffin.

Amy scratched the side of her nose, that was a little above her head. She blinked at him and kinda put that aside for later pondering. "Okay," she grabbed a muffin.

Jayo took the lack of response in his stride. There was a place in the world for everything - and that included those people who didn't seem to comprehend things. They would learn, sooner or later - it was all just a question of pace. "So, you live here?" he asked her.

"Yep," Amy smiled, reaching up and touching a pretty dangly thing above her head, this was more familiar ground, "My family's been here forever, since the beginning of the town. But we were farmers, not miners. Mining used to be really big around here. Like super big."

Jayo lay back on the bed and looked up at what she was playing with. "It's a good luck charm - would you like it?" he asked her. "It's not very strong - strong good luck charms are bad news. They need balance, you see, and if something makes you really lucky, then either you'll come to the end of your run of luck with a real bang, or someone, somewhere needs to become unlucky to sustain you. Either way, generally not a good thing to mess around with, but that one - it's more subtle, just enough to maybe make you have a slightly better day, make you smile sometimes - though I don't think you need it much," he told her, since she seemed to be doing just fine with the smiles, all on her own.

"Really?" Amy blinked at him, she wasn't used to getting presents, not for a while. Although post divorce her parents had seemed to want to try and buy... well she wasn't really sure what they were trying to buy from her, but she ended up with a lot of stuff in her closet. "For me?" she blinked at him. But those weren't real presents.

"Well, you can take it for someone else, if you want - but you have to give it to them, if you do. It'll only work for its true owner - only if freely given. If it's taken by force or trickery, then it'll be more of an unlucky charm," he warned her. He liked things that worked like that - that had two sides to them. It made him happy to think that things worked in a variety of different ways.

"Do you do magic stuff?" Amy said, her life had gotten a little more um, magical-ish lately. Maybe it could help if she learned more about it. She pulled it down and looked at it.

Jayo pulled a face. "Something like that, yes," he told her. "Everyone should have room for a little magic in their lives - it smooths out the lumps and bumps, helps things along, to turn out the way they should be," he added. That was the layman's line anyhow. he leaned up and unhooked the charm from the ceiling and, stringing it on a length of hemp, hung it round her neck. "Very pretty," he decided, looking at her.

Amy squeed a little and looked down at it, "Thank you," she gave him a little half hug before sitting back again. "Its super awesome!"

Jayo gave her a smile. "Consider it a welcome gift - but don't expect too much from it. If it's doing its job properly, you shouldn't really notice a difference in your life. If you do start noticing things going really that much better than you expected, let me know - that wouldn't be a good thing," he warned her.

Yeah, Amy couldn't stand the thought of someone having bad luck because of her, it would break her peaceable Amy heart. Or at least distress her. "I don't mind if there's that much of a change, its lovely, and its a present, it doesn't really need much else," she shrugged. She fiddled with the charm, "What sort of magic stuff do you do?" It didn't hurt to ask, it might end up helping Baby Robbie out.

In Jayo's experience, people were stupid, and sheep. And generally didn't react well to the term 'voodoo' on first meeting. He didn't hold it against them - they were what they were - but he avoided terminology upfront. "Charms, mostly - things that help in day to day life. It depends what people need - different types come to me for different things."

Amy had a little think, "Do you just put charms on necklaces and things or other stuff too?" It was pretty obvious she wasn't exactly well educated in the magical arts, but she seemed harmlessly curious enough. If maybe this guy could help it would be cool instead of Maddie, who was kinda scary, and the idea of some sort of baby hell-box, which was scarier. He could at least do the right direction pointing thing.

"I do a whole range of things - like I said, it depends what's needed," he told her, gesturing with a hand, before leaning forward a little and looking at her, assessingly. "So, tell me, pretty lady - what's needed. Because you sound like you're not just making small talk now," he observed, with a small, knowing, smile. Part of his thorough education had been about how to read what people really meant.

Amy fiddled with her necklace again, it felt tingly and nice, "I don't know how much I should say, I know I don't know much about magical stuff, its still too much like something out of a fairy tale, you know? But my baby brother is kinda in trouble and I've tried to find a way to help him, but everything I try to come up with sucks. I just want my brother to be safe and happy."

"Well, most fairy tales have some kind of a basis in reality," Jayo told her. "Either that, or they're a fable, a way of telling you something about everyday life in a way that most people can understand. So, really, fairytales aren't that much different to what you life with every day. They're just larger than life. And wanting the best for your family is a good thing to want. People we love are important in life."

"Yes, they are," she told the amulet. She suddenly perked up at grinned at him, "Wouldn't it be awesome if there were fairy godmothers? I'd like to be a fairy godmother, except, I'm not a fairy which I suppose is a major roadblock."

"What do you think fairy godmothers are?" Jayo asked her, wondering about her opinions on things. She seemed to flit around a lot, but he wondered if she'd have an opinion, a view on something like that.

"Really nice ladies with magic powers that protect babies and stuff, like in stories. Like an aunt or something, only one that can never die," her smile may have been a little forced at the end, but she was okay. She rubbed her fingers around the amulet again. "Ladies with cookies and mittens and old dogs and snails in their gardens and tomato plants. And stuff," she blushed and wiggled her toes. In Amy's opinion it would be decidedly nice to have some fairy godmothers around, someone you could go and talk to, have a cup of tea with. Maybe little cucumber sandwiches, someone you'd never lose.

"Or they could be seen as people who change the paths of the lives of others to the way they think they should be lived," Jayo provided. "Never hanging round to see if the 'happily ever after' really is happy. Plus - well, take Cinderella. I mean, the real Cinderella, and not the Disney version. The girl got her prince, but because of that, the sisters met a fairly miserable end. Cutting off limbs to try and get their guy. See - there's always got to be balance in nature. For someone to get the good thing, someone else has to suffer. It's just that people don't like to admit that. They just want to see the good, without being accepting of the bad, even though it's just the natural order of thing. Can I have another one of those delicious muffins?" he asked her, reaching out for a cinnamon one.

Amy pushed the box toward him, "Go ahead. Its just, there are so many icky things in the world, not even magic stuff, but robbers and people who hit little kids and bullies and drugs and stuff, something has to even all that stuff out, right?"

"Oh, it should even out. But for everything to even out it depends on everyone pulling their weight. And most don't," Jayo told her. People didn't. People didn't believe in order - they believed in getting to the top, no matter what it cost. Even those people who considered themselves to be 'good' - they all wanted good to 'win' - like life was some huge competition. "Life is, unfortunately, right now, just life."

Amy resisted the urge to slump by singing the Addams Family theme song in her head, "I guess. Oh!" Amy clapped suddenly at her brilliance. "Are you going to be in town for Thanksgiving?"

"Probably - I don't know. I have family round here somewhere, so I figure I might call in to them or something - but it's still some weeks away, right?" Jayo said, sounding for all the world like he didn't actually know when Thanksgiving was - which was kind of true. He didn't pay all that much attention to the calendar - another human invention. part of time.

Amy gleed loudly, "You should have Thanksgiving with Reiz and I! Thanksgiving's just in two days, I'll prolly do my shopping later today. You can come if you want." She clapped her hands together.

Jayo grinned. "Is it that near? Well - I should probably check in with the family, but if they're not doing, then that would be great - I'm always up for a party," he told her, accepting spending a special occasion with a complete stranger with total ease.

Amy grinned she loved making new friends, "If you can it would be awesome! I love having people over to dinner. I don't know how crazy our party will be, its just the two of us, Reiz and I, but there'll be all the good stuff, turkey and chicken and meatloaf and ham and sweet potatoes and pie and regular potatoes and all sorts of other good stuff. And if you're coming too I suppose I can take requests."

Jayo held up his hands. "Well first off, no turkey for me, I'm a vegetarian," he told her, backing away from that right away. "But aside from that, cool - if I don't end up at my family's I might check in," he told her, making no promises. Jayo didn't like to be tied down to feeling obligated to be somewhere. He didn't make promises, or appointments. That would fetter him too much.

Trying to hide her disappointment, after all he had given her a present and that was plenty nice enough, Amy nodded and curled her toes in tighter together. "I'll keep a plate open for you, like Passover," her roommate in college had been Jewish, or still was Jewish, whatever the conjugation she made some wicked challah. She giggled, "I'll make sure there's plenty of veggie type stuff."

"Cool - well, we'll see which way the wind blows," Jayo said with a smile. "Thank you for the muffins, Amy, and tell your friend they're pretty good," he added.

"Not at all! It was great talking to you," she made an over her shoulder motion with her thumb toward the Lamplighter. "I should prolly head back and man the desk again. Um, enjoy your rest then." She cheerfully let herself be let out and slipped her rain boots on before crunching pleasantly back to the motel lobby, if it could be called that. She loved making friends.