a prince and his domain

"Ducks." Zhen said with a firm nod. "Would you like one?" she asked. "And yes, of course you can pick one up from my basket without asking!" she added, a bit of a teasing sort of tone to her voice. She looked at the basket again, looking for a specific one, and then she pulled it out, eyeing it critically, then him with the same expression, then she looked back to the duck.

Dodge's smile didn't fade, even with the teasing accusation. He was notorious for taking things without asking, that was how he got by in life. It was just second nature. Examining the duck in his hand, admiring the detail with which it had been painted he thought about his answer before responding. "I believe I would like one," he told her. "But what made you decide on ducks instead of boats?"

"Boats are just objects, given names but not life." Zhen said. "Ducks are animals with feelings and personalities, and there are quite enough things in this city. And sure, my duckies don't actually have life or heartbeats or feathers, but they remind people that there's life. Plus they're bright. And I like painting them, and the kids love them." she rattled off. "Why would you choose boats?" she asked curiously. She tossed the first duck she'd dug out back into the basket and chose a different one, holding it up and again comparing him and the duck.

"The city has plenty of things yes, but so few of us actually own them. Especially the boats, very few of us own the boats." Dodge put the duck in his hand back in the basket as well. "If I want ducks I just wander down towards the park where the group of them that always find their way to the fountain live. But a boat, that's a little harder to get one's hands on." Dodge smiled, shifting so he was leaning a shoulder against the wall. "Plus, I've always wanted a toy boat."

"Toy boats are easy, find a newspaper." Zhen told him. "Sure, it's temporary, but there's lots of discarded newspapers." she pointed out, digging for more ducks and continuing the comparisons. "And while it's true that very few of us own boats--you can make a boat. You can hardly make a duck." she said. "All those feathers, egg laying, flight, species compatibility problems..." she tsked and shook her head with a dramatically sad expression. "All you can do is a pale representation of a duck! But you could probably make a real boat, if you set your mind to it!"

Dodge couldn't help but grin again as he pulled the newspaper from his back pocket. Did it count as stealing when the newsboy just gave it to him? Dodge didn't think so, but he didn't mind reading through it every other day or so. "We'll have to leave the duck making to a higher power then," he told her with a similar sad face. Pulling the pages of the paper apart, he started attempting to fold them in the shape of a boat, but after a moment it was clear he had no idea what he was doing.

Zhen kept choosing then discounting duckies, watching him. "Have you never made one before?" she asked. "Want me to help you?" She'd made a few in her day. but then there was kind of little that Zhen hadn't at some point or another tried her hand at. So, she was good there. She reached out for a page of the newspaper, so she could start showing him how, if he was going to allow her.

Dodge smirked a little and then handed the paper over. "I've had them made for me before, but I've never made one." Patrick, Patrick had made them. A shiver went down his spine and he quickly jerked a look over his shoulder. Nothing, of course there was nothing. Why was he so twitchy?

Zhen noticed the look, and glanced around. Then she leaned closer to him and spoke in a stage whisper. "Are we worried about snipers?" she asked, as if this could be a valid concern, even in the middle of the city. "I hear they're very good. Overseas and everything. Just bang!" she said, clapping her hands. "And the next thing you know, you're all dead. Scary, isn't it?" she asked. Then she moved the crate she'd been sitting on back, so she could sit on the sidewalk. Leaning over, she started to fold the newspaper, though she did it slowly. "Fold it like this first." she instructed, wanting to teach him how instead of just making him one. Yes, she just went from talking about snipers to making a toy boat out of discarded newsprint. Zhen was a creature of whims, that was for certain.

He made a desperate attempt to veil his concerns. "Always best to keep your guard up," he whispered back conspiratorially. "You can never be too cautious." When she shifted to sit he took up a place next to her, watching her hands carefully. "Then what?" Her bouncing attention should have surprised him, but for some reason he found it refreshing.

"What do you keep your guard up for?" Zhen asked, showing him the next few steps to making a boat. "Do you have reason to? or are you paranoid?" she asked, thinking both were equally as likely. Or that he was paranoid but people still were out to get him. That was possible as well.

"Just trying to stay out of trouble. You can't be too cautious," he explained. In actuality he was paranoid, though he wouldn't admit that out loud. It was hard not to be when he was a known criminal. "Jail is not a fun place." Jail wasn't really on his list of things to do.

"So you're afraid of the police." Zhen observed. "And of course you can be too cautious, silly thing." she said, reaching out to muss his hair a little, before she went back to folding the paper into a boat. "If you're too careful, then you're always tense. If you're always tense, people know that, and they're less likely to open up to you. Plus, you give off that 'paranoid' vibe, which might make people wonder what's going on. And if they're doing that, they might not be wondering 'hey, this guy's someone I like, maybe I should spend more time with him!' or anything else." she said. "Plus, it's suspicious behavior, so people may take that to mean that you're shady, that you have something to hide or be worried about." She sat back and handed him the boat. "Here you go! What's her name? All boats are female so it's a her."

"I have a healthy concern for the police," he corrected. It wasn't worth pointing out that he was afraid of a dead guy. Propping a elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand, he watched her closely, following the way her fingers folded the paper. "I think most people find me plenty approachable. Or have a missed something?" When she handed the boat over he held it in his hand briefly, looking it over and weighing it in his palm before finally deciding. "How about Amelia, does that work as a name?"

"It's your boat, you could call her 'Jolly Hobgoblin Dumpy Sillydress' if you wanted to." Zhen told him. "As for approachable, I'm not sure yet. You did approach me and immediately started taking my things, even if there's tons out there where you could have taken one that wouldn't be considered 'mine'." she put out there, though it wasn't said like it was an accusation at all, more just a point of view. "Perhaps you don't view running up to people, taking their things and demanding answers as offputting." Not that she'd been especially put off. But then, she was a difficult one to alienate.

"Amelia it is then," Dodge said pleased, thinking of the boat's namesake. Something like worry ticked in the back of his mind given her injuries, but he pushed it aside. "And no, I don't really see the wrong in that," he teased, but really he was just being truthful. He paired the tease with a friendly smile which would alleviate most of the truth in statement.

"Careful with that." Zhen said, smiling, though there was a slight bit of warning in her tone. Though the warning didn't at all seem to apply to her. "One day you do that to the wrong person, and it'll most certainly haunt you." she said. Mostly, she knew about the mafia in the city. Hell, her daddy was one. They didn't like it when people did that. She figured he would have more to fear from them than from the police, who probably had better things to do than haul in a street kid, which was what she was assessing him to be. Mobsters and harder criminals, however, really tended to take that thing seriously. "I'm sure you don't want to be haunted." she said.

"No, definitely don't want to be haunted." Dodge reached up, shifting the fedora on his head some pushing it back so more of his face showed. He weighed the boat again and then looked at Zhen expectantly. "Do you think Amelia is ready for her first sail?"

Zhen squinted one eye shut as she regarded the boat. "Almost." she said, then she looked back to her paints, and she picked up a brush, and handed it over. "Give her a distinct marking!" she said. "She can't just go sailing around, all naked." she tsked, smiling as she winked at him. "Make her all yours, then she'll be ready. I'd say we could crack a bottle of wine or somesuch on her hull, but I don't have one on me." Nevermind the physical impossibility of it all.

Dodge grinned, taking the paintbrush he regarded the boat and then ended up painting a simple A on either side of it, same place that the boat would bear her name if she was bigger than just the folded piece of paper. "I think that will have to do," Dodge said, and offered it to her. "If we had wine, I think it would be better used toasting her first sail, rather than spilling it all over the side."

"You'd think that! But it's tradition." Zhen told him with a sage nod. "I'm not sure why it's tradition, but it is. I've been to a few boat christanings, and that's what they do. I'm pretty sure it's bad luck if you don't. Which does mean you might need to be careful with Amelia there, she might get attacked by pirates." she said with a sad tone. "And we didn't put any canons in her, so she might just get taken over, and renamed and painted, and soon, she'll just be a shadow of her former self, and running around as 'Bloodthirsty Jenny McGee' as she perpetuates the cycle, and pirates other ships."

"You've been to boat christenings?" Dodge found that very interesting. It meant she was more than just a random girl on the street. Playing along Dodge made to search up and down the gutter. "There are pirates in these waters?"

"There are pirates everywhere." Zhen warned, leaning close to whisper that to him. Then she sat straight again. "Plus, with a boat as pretty as yours, they'd go out of their way to get her." she said. "And yes, I've been to boat christenings." she told him, nodding. "They were kind of dull, all things considered. Except for the one time, when I was there, and later when I was looking over the side, I saw a floater." she said, digging through her duckies again, and after choosing one, she set it in the gutter flow. "Sir Walter there will go ahead, to try and protect Amelia."

He set the boat into the water in the wake of Sir Walter, watching the little boat float away. It took a few moments before what she'd said registered with him. "A floater? Like a body?" That was just weird, especially with how casually she said it.

Zhen was busy watching the progression of the duck and boat, but when he asked, she looked back at him. "Yes, a body. Dead man. Corpse. I don't know how long he'd been there. He looked all dressed up though, I believe he'd been a guest of the party. Never did find out what happened to him. Not why he died, or who he was, why he'd attended in the first place, what he'd done or seen that got him killed...." she shrugged one shoulder. "Sometimes, things like that happen. Some stories are only footnotes in other people's lives. Strange, isn't it?" she asked.

"That is rather curious," he pondered. Just another dead body was what he imagined the reaction was to the floater. So many people in this city wound up dead or worse. Dodge knew that first hand. "I imagine it would even more interesting if you met someone who played a bigger role in your floater's life. Like a daughter or cousin or something. It's completely reasonable that you could."

"Well, I'm a footnote in someone else's life. I might have been the final footnote in the floater's life." Zhen said. "It's all a matter of perspective. And actually, I probably wouldn't be likely to meet anyone connected to said floater. It was in China that that happened." she said, nodding a little. "So while possible, and I believe in possibilities! It's kind of unlikely." Or astronomically unlikely, one of the two.

"I imagine we're all footnotes in other's lives right?" Dodge thought briefly about the kids that passed through his care, or those that hadn't made the original cut. "China? Did you live there before here?" As well rounded as he claimed to be the prince of thieves had never really left his kingdom.

"Oh, we are." Zhen said, nodding to the bit about everyone being a footnote in some sense. "But then we're all main characters in some sense too. But anyways, yes, I'm from there, actually." she said, then winked. "Did you not notice the Oriental of it all?" she asked, making a gesture at her features. "I know, I don't speak with the requisite choppy, broken english accent. Silly of me, I'm sure." she told him.

"I've been to Chinatown and met my fair share of people who were born here, never been to China, despite appearances." Dodge gave her a small wink paired with a friendly smile. "Did you like it there?"

"I did. It was pretty. But very strict with it's rules and traditions. So I like America a little better, if only because the status quo is whatever people say it is. I like that. I like the idea that people can do what they want to be doing, and don't have to follow any set traditions, any strict rules that they may not even believe in." Her home country was rather oppressive, really.

"I like that too, although I still think the expectations here are too high." Dodge lived for constantly messing with that status quo she talked about. "So many people think you have to go to school, you have to work yourself into the grave and most of the time you never claw your way out of that hole. It's no way to live."

Zhen gazed at Dodge for a long moment. "You have no concept of the world, do you, son?" she asked. It was rhetorical, really, and also wasn't meant as a dig, it was just an observation. "Also, if expectations didn't exist, the human race would have bottomed itself out long ago. there has to be something to strive for, or there's nothing. People are generally lazy creatures, not wanting to do things like even you mentioned. Schooling. All not going to school means is you're less informed than everyone else around you, which puts you at a disadvantage. You call it freedom, I call it ignorance." she said, putting the alternative point of view out there.

"There's more to life than those expectations though," Dodge pointed out. "So many people neglect the more natural aspects of their nature, their connections to other people for greed, lust or just to prove to someone who doesn't care that they might be worth the effort. It's not a policy that ignorance is bliss, but rather an understanding that you can learn to read and write and do math, but you might never actually learn anything."

"That's taking the extreme view though. When you were speaking, you said nothing about all of that, just that you didn't like society's rules. You equated it to going to school, and working. That the expectations were too high. So, where would you put them?" she asked.

"Maybe too high is the right term," Dodge started thinking about how best to describe it. "It's just not right. There shouldn't be so many rules to define a full life, or a life well lived. Most people who I've met who are considered 'successful' at life are miserable. I don't understand the need for the trade off or why people who have so much are so unwilling to appreciate what they have."

Zhen listened, watching him as he spoke. "That didn't answer my question." she said. "You say expectations are too high, where would you put them at? What would you say society's expations should be if it were up to you?" she clarified.

"They shouldn't exist," Dodge started. "But if they must, it should revolve around enjoying life rather than just surviving it."

"Anarchistic societies don't work." Zhen said. "And neither do pleasure based ones. If all anyone ever did was doing only what they enjoyed, then life as we know it would grind to a halt, and people would starve to death, freeze to death, disease would run rampant and eventually it'd kill everyone off." Zhen said, picking up an unpainted duck, and she started to paint it as she spoke. "The world operates because people work for a living. There are farmers, people inventing new things, making advances, people work and build industry, that industry makes everyone else's lives better. It would be a very short lived enjoyment, if everyone suddenly followed those rules. Then reality would set in and you'd have a whole mess of death."

Dodge frowned at her observation, not enjoying hearing that his way of life could cause a complete breakdown of society. "But you can't let the pleasures completely fall away right? What's the point of living if you can't live well?" She wasn't inspiring Dodge to go out and get a job, but it might influence more structure in his band of boys.

"Oh, no. Of course not. But no one said they did." Zhen said, smiling at him. "I think you just think that's what it means, if you follow society's rules--that's just not the case. But you're young. You'll probably figure it out eventually." she told him sagely. "I certainly enjoy my life, and I've got several jobs. And occasionally, I do things like this. Talk to strangers, give kids toys, have interesting conversations. Just because I have a job and such doesn't in any way mean I don't have fun. Or even that other people don't. You never get the full picture if all you ever do is look at things from a single angle, dear. Remember that. It'll help you later."

He smiled at her, a bright genuine smile. "I don't believe I've ever met anyone like you before." It was stated as just an observation, not quite a compliment, but certainly not a judgment.

She smiled at him in return. "I get that a lot." she told him. "I like being a different kettle of fish. Or color of horse. Or...some other saying that probably doesn't quite make sense anymore." she told him. She put some finishing touches on the duck she was painting, and then she held it out to him. "For you."

He took the duck from her, careful not to smudge the drying paint and looked it over. Strange as it seemed, the duck did seem to match him, and he finally understood why she'd been inspecting so many of them prior to giving him one. "Thank you," he told her, meaning it. Rarely were any of his trinkets given to him, though he still treasured them all the same.

"You're welcome." she said, standing straight and she stretched. Then she picked up her paint brush again, and glanced around for a discarded bit of cardboard, which she found readily. Painting on the cardboard, she wrote up a sign that said 'free to a good home' and she set it propped against the baskets of ducks, both the unpainted ones and the painted ones. She also set her paints neatly by the unpainted ones. Turning to Dodge, she waved. "And I should get going now, young man, but it's been great talking to you." she told him genuinely.

To say he'd been surprised before was nothing compared to the surprise he felt watching her put up the sign for the ducks. She was certainly an argument against his lifestyle, but only because she somehow managed to incorporate it into a lifestyle he didn't believe in. Standing he offered her his hand to shake. "It's Dodge, Prince of Thieves," he told her giving her his full title, silly as it may be. "If you ever need anything, let me know."

She shook his hand, smiling. "Zhen. Force of change." she told him. "If you need anything, let me know." she said, accepting what he said and offering her own in exchange. "Keep looking for the angles. It'll open up whole worlds." she told him, before she headed off, skipping up the street, humming a little tune to herself.

Dodge watched her go, smiling to himself. Before walking away he plucked another duck, this one brightly colored from, the basket and tucked it under his hat to give to Maddy. It was something she'd enjoy, especially with the story of the interesting young woman in the street with the ducks. Turning back the way he came he started off again, whistling to himself.