Welcome to Gaia! ::

zek walks into the main square with his cloak hiding all his features. he finds one of the darkest corners and leans agains the wall watching the others go about there bussiness. he notices eyes of the others watching him there, but gives no notion that he cares.talking to himself"looks like there might be a few that will turn out decent and actually give me a run for it."

"Takanashi Tsubame..." Unlike when Tsubame had said the name, Ryan's pronunciation was well off, and a bit of his familial Celtic inflection had crept into it. "I know of the circles that you probably dealt with. The rich and pretentious...everything nice and in order, all prim and proper and all that bullshit." The last word came out in English, but Ryan didn't really care about that. "I lived with what I had and what I worked for. It wasn't much, but it was something...and at least I worked for it rather than sitting on my riches."

Tilting his head a bit, Ryan returned Tsubame's gaze with his own thoughtful stare. "I only hate the pretentious ones, though...not the ones who are still willing to put in an honest day's work. You seem like that type of person, Tsubame...someone who would rather put in an honest day's work no matter how much they make for it." He clenched his fist and flexed his left wrist slightly, letting some of the muscles that had developed from years of work show a little. "To each their own likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. I do wonder if you could guess what I did every day, Tsubame...and I will say that I doubt you'd like it."

All Ryan had to do was nod. "Aye, farming. I had no schedule. I was up with the sun, and to bed a while after sundown. And what you say about dedication and love is the same for farming...perhaps even moreso for me. I was out there every day I could be, working the land, fixing the Ford, keeping the house up, and otherwise just training with distance running and marksmanship. That was really it..."

Now he closed his eyes, looking at the ground. "I highly doubt, though, that you would work for days, weeks, sometimes even a month...only to one day see a black cloud approach the farm and know that your hard work was about to be swept away. That happened more times than I can remember - and they say that some of those dust clouds could be seen from the Atlantic provinces. I would see that cloud and want to slam my head into a wall some days because I knew that all of the work we had done, no matter how many hot days or weeks we had spent doing it, would all be undone before the day was out...and I'd be out there after the storm passed trying to redo it and hoping there would be no more of those storms." He sighed. "Hard doesn't even begin to describe it..."

After hearing Tsubame's story, Ryan sat for a moment and let her finish before wrapping his arms around her in a comforting embrace. What he had gone through is one thing, but this was another. "I had no way to stop the weather and no way to control it. The storms became almost routine, and it came to be that I would almost expect all my work to be erased in short order. It became less hurtful and more of a daily thing. You, on the other hand, feel that you could have in some way stopped the robberies, and they also were not a fact of life unlike the dust storms. There is no reason for you to apologize to me, Tsubame...your troubles seem to have been of a far greater magnitude than mine."

Gently, Ryan let Tsubame go and continued, responding to her latter query. "I literally arrived yesterday and was sent here...otherwise, I've spent the past sixty years as some sort of phantom or specter...an 'earthbound spirit' as the shinigami called me. I guess it should be easy to do the math and tell about when I died."

There it goes again... Ryan thought to himself as his shirt ripped. Amazing that it lasted this long, at any rate. "You should not force yourself to keep your problems to yourself, Tsubame. I chose to give you comfort, you are not forcing anything on me and you have no reason to apologize to me. Your problems are no burden to me; I simply wish to help you with your troubles."

The sewing kit wasn't nearly as much of a surprise - she was, after all, a seamstress. With a light nod towards the kit, he felt the ripped part - it wasn't a new rip, just some stitching that needed replacing. "Seventy-three...that would make you about five years younger than me, then - at least, as you are now. I had about sixty years to reflect on my memories, which is probably why I still have them...and if you had yours, from my estimate you'd be somewhat familiar with some of mine if you had retained yours as well. If I am a rarity, then so be it - I would much rather be looked at strangely for having kept my memories than fit in because I lost them."

Once again, Ryan just shrugged. "It's no problem. You grew up raised with proper customs and manners whereas I grew up in a close family and a small town. Everyone knew everyone, so it wasn't uncommon to talk about your troubles with someone you ran into because you'd know the person. At least...that's how most things worked, but I was too busy working to go into town most of the time. I stayed with my family and the hired help who really were pretty much family, and I often had to comfort the...hired man's daughter when things got tough." That thought...brought back memories Ryan would rather let die. He had almost referred to her by name, but that was a name he'd rather not mention again - ever.

When Tsubame offered to repair his shirt, Ryan gave a grateful nod. "Thank you, Tsubame. I have no other clothes but these...at least, not here. Now...do you need me to take my shirt off? I have no idea if leaving it on makes it hard to repair...mine always got patched up when I wasn't wearing them."