Lirssa held her legs close to her body as she sat in the chair at the Teas 'n' Tomes to wait for her tutor. Mr. Jolly was never late. He wasn't late that day either. She was early. Each book was laid out on the table, papers completed using her best hand writing set for his collection to review, and she even had gotten him a cup of tea and a scone. He liked those.

Everything was set. Well, one paper looked a little out of place so she reached to tap it back into order. Satisfied that it was perfect, she looked over her shoulder and down from the second floor to the door. She hoped the tea did not get too cool before he arrived. It was currently still giving off little vapors of heat.

Fingers ran through the length of curls to keep them in some sense of order. She set her feet on the floor again, straightening her tunic, checking the embroidery of the sleeves that no stitches were fraying, and looked up at the clock. Five more minutes. He would be here soon.

The jangle of the bells above the door spun her around, and she gave a wave of greeting to Mr. Jolly. "I have your tea and scone, Mr. Jolly. All ready for the lesson!"

Lirssa's enthusiasm barraging him straight off the bat surprised Jolyon. He was accustomed to being first at their meetings. The young girl was busier than most adults he knew, and he had rarely begrudged her running, flopping arrivals to their lessons. She was never late, but never so early either.

With a smile to the woman behind the counter, Jolly went up the stairs to join his pupil. "Thank you, Lirssa." With a nod to the tea and scone. He sat and set aside the satchel of his books and papers. Surveying the table in its orderliness, he felt suspicion rising.

He had come to know Lirssa pretty well. She was a good hearted kid, but wily. She believed in trade, bargains, and deals with adults. Only kids received her generosity. With adults, everything was a business transaction of some kind. "What is it you need, Lirssa?" he asked taking up the tea cup for a sip.

The question certainly removed any thrill she had felt in having everything ready for him, but she could also not deny he was a shrewd one and could tell she was up to something. "I shouldn't have been so obvious." Arms folded, she sat back in her chair.

"I think you should know you can ask me anything without having to resort to such tactics. But I do know you, Lirssa, so I thank you for the tea and scone, and ask again, what is it you need?"

"I think a boy likes me, and I'm not sure what to do!" Her arms went flop to her sides, green eyes rolled and she slunk even further in the seat.

It was the last thing he ever expected to hear out of Lirssa, and that lack of foresight while sipping his tea caused him to start choking on the sip he had taken.

Alarmed at his reaction, she jumped up and went to pound on his back. "You okay, Mr. Jolly?"

With a hand up to encourage her to cease her pounding, while well intentioned, not doing any good, he gasped out around the lingering tickle in his throat. "Yes, I am fine. I just wonder why you think I could be of any help to you in this."

Lirssa sometimes wondered just how smart Mr. Jolly was. With a frown and twist of her mouth as if the man had grown two heads, she explained. "Because you're a boy, and you study people, and you know lots of things."

In point of fact, he could not exactly argue with her reasoning as much as he wanted to do so. To stall for time, he took another sip of tea followed by a bite from the scone. He eyed Lirssa, who was, he noticed for the first time, growing up rather quickly. They had been in studies together for less than a year, but he could see the changes that brief amount of time had wrought. "Lirssa, I appreciate your confidence in me, but perhaps you have not noticed that I am inept in relationships. I study them, analyze them, but actually participating in one has never gone very well for me."

"Are you going to be a bachelor forever?" Lirssa was curious that maybe that was the best road for her, too. Things like relationships seemed very complicated all around.

Having not really given it much thought, he shrugged. "I don't exactly plan on either situation. If it should happen that I find someone to care for and who cares for me, then it would be a blessing. But if I don't, that would be fine, too."

Lirssa frowned once more, folded her arms across her chest, and slumped back as her mind started to turn the wells of planning. "I gotta find you a girl, Mr. Jolly."

The statement sent a tremble of apprehension down his spine. With a nod to the papers, "Why don't you find me your paper on the Therulian Empire, and we'll start there, hm?"

Dante trotted beside her along the street over the bridge heading towards the West End. Lirssa sniffled a little. The cold made her nose run. Now Lirssa likes the cold with the snow pretty much as well as any other season, but the truth was she was feeling a little bound up and wound up not being able to perform in the Marketplace for so long. In fact, if she thought about it, the last time she did perform was when the whole mess went down with the kidnapping and the skull lined tunnel.

That gave another shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. She hated that the memory of that night could affect her still. She was made of sterner stuff than that, so she thought. Setting her jaw, chin up, she added a bit of bold brass to her walk down the streets and did not let flashes of memory conquer her.

But by the time she was at the edge of West End, where the streets could have their own ideas of which way they wanted to go, her head was ducked once more. A laughing group of kids took up the space of the sidewalk. Lirssa darted out to the street to avoid them, but one turned and called out to her. "Hey, whatcher, Lirssa, avoidin' me is it?"

Lirssa turned, Dante paused just a few steps further from her and then came back. Jeb paused, pulling at suspenders and chomping on a cigar, grinning sideways to his pals. A chuckle, "Didn't see ya there, Jeb. What's the shake?"

"Hey, she one o' yers, Jeb' Seems too cleaned up for the likes o' you." One of his companions, a boy with greased back hair of blond and a grin browned by chewing tobacco that he spit a drooly length off to his left. The others all laughed, even two of the girls in his company. It was hard to tell they were girls with they way they dressed, but it was in their dirty cheeks and the flash of jealous in their eyes at her.

Jeb punched the speaker in the shoulder. He punched hard, causing the other to stumble back and frown rubbing where the knuckles had landed. "Shut yer yap, Rue. Didn't ya hear me say her name" Durn fool. That's Lirssa. She's nobody's girl, and she's all right. Run circles about you lot." Jeb snapped and looked superior. "Say, Lir, we're headin' over to Ole Jim's Shack. Wanna come" Gonna be high times. Ole Jim found a barrel and he's claimin' packers rights on a few crates hauled out from the wastes of the warehouse. Tinny here, she's gonna sing out her supper. High times."

High times indeed. Lirssa truly considered it. Ole Jim's Shack was just on the edge of her questionable sensibilities, but no worse than what went on in the dueling venues. At least to her thinking it wasn't any worse. "Yeah, think I'll come along. Only you keep your hands to yourself, Rue. I know how to throw a punch."

"Hey," his hands up in innocence, "I've got enough people clobberin' on me, princess. You're safe."

Lirssa stepped in with the group and continued on into the streets, passed the West End, and finding the darker passages of the city to a dilapidated shack with a permanent lean. In there was noise, stink, and easy spirits. Kids outnumbered the adults, but none of them cared because they all knew how to use one another to advantages. That there was always a cause for the street gangs to take things personally just part of the tradition at Ole Jim's Shack.