There were, in general, two basic rules to good thieving. Actually, that was a lie. There were hundreds of rules to good thieving, mostly because those rules changed depending on who you asked and what kind of thief they were. However, there were two rules that Averin liked to follow when picking his mark. Know your target or know your moment. It was the difference between a heist and a crime of opportunity. Being able to recognize when someone was distracted enough to not notice you lifting their purse or studying the mark so well they won't figure out what you did until you were long gone. 

So naturally, with such easy-to-follow rules, he'd fucked it up.  

In this particular instance, he'd decided to commit a crime of opportunity... As revenge. The fat merchant had been an insufferable bore and far too rude for Averin's liking. He'd assumed the man was a bit of a dunce so when the man had turned around and Averin had spotted the fat wallet, he'd gone for it. He'd known doing it in the man's shop while they were talking was going to get him caught but... The man was really annoying. He'd also turned back around before Averin managed to hide the purse and he'd pieced it together really quick. Naturally, the constables were called and Averin had to run with them hot on his heels.

Which is how he'd gotten into his current predicament.

It had become quite apparent that the narrow streets of the town were good for running away and if he'd know them well, he could have vanished. But the constables had lived in Whitby their whole lives and Averin had come ashore yesterday. He was keeping ahead but not shaking them so he turns down a corner to make them lose line of sight and, finding a place to hide, dives into a nearby rubbish bin. Which was gross but as he pulls the lid on over top him it would, hopefully, end with the constables running right by. There was just one tiny problem.

There was a kid looking at him. 

Raising one finger to his lips he makes a shushing noise before closing the lid. Hoping that the kid wasn't going to rate him out to the constables but having no way of knowing. He'd not gotten a good look at them, were they an urchin? Some merchant's brat? Something in between? He didn't know he just prayed they weren't a snitch lord knows he didn't want to have to spend the next few days figuring out how to break out of jail... again.

Nat had been taking out the trash.  She had gotten a bit of a job helping clean out some empty flats in the building behind her that had been left without paying rent before being kicked out by the owner.  The place had been filthy and Mr. Warren had not wanted to deal with it.  Hiring the "kid" to do it had seemed a solution to his situation.  He had told Nat that 'he' would get a shilling to clean up the whole place and could keep anything she wanted inside.  He didn't figure there would be anything worth his effort even looking inside.  He rented the flats to those too poor to afford decent flats elsewhere.

Nat had taken several putrid bags of trash that had been left in the two-room flat.  She didn't think the previous renters had taken out the trash since they moved in.   So far, she hadn't found anything worth keeping, but a shilling would be hard-earned by the time she got done.  She was small even for a girl, but strong after her last several years of living on herself, and she was a hard worker.  So, with the boy's clothing, manner, and short haircut, she was easily made out to be a boy of about age 13. 

Seeing the man coming in and obviously hiding from someone, she picked up the box of trash she had recently brought out and moved over to put it next to the bin as the constables came in view.  Nat had done her share of running and hiding when she had picked up something that wasn't hers, especially when she had first started.  Now, she was better at it, but when an honest job came about she prefers doing that. 

One of the constables went over to Nat.  "Where did the bloke that just ran through go, boy?" 

Nat looked up with a dirty face, from the cleaning she had been doing, and raised a brow.  "Men go through here all the time, do you think I know them all?"  She shrugged. "Though if you had lost a few pence..."

The constable gave a raised hand as if to smack her for her smarting off and trying to get paid for the information.  She ducked getting just bopped on the top of her head lightly.  "Fine, I saw some bloke going faster than most go through here going through that way."  She pointed along an alley to where there were several pubs and frequented by the prostitutes a way past it.

The constables headed quickly that way.  Nat rubbed her head and then moved the box over to the side so that the man inside the bin wouldn't fall into it when he got out.  Once she was sure the constables were out of range, she spoke to the bin.  "Their gone, mister."

Averin felt his boot touch something that felt far hard to the touch, yet it crumbled and felt rather... squishy the moment he put pressure against it. The smell inside of the bin was also, horrendous, he'd only ever been in one place that smelled this bad before. The pit of an outhouse, he'd had to go through an entire bar of soap in a creek before he'd smelled decent enough to get a bath at a proper in. He'd also had to burn the clothes he'd been wearing. Hopefully, this wouldn't be as bad.

The heavy fall of jackbooted thugs enters the alleyway and Averin sucks in a breath. Then regrets that as he struggles to stop himself from choking on said breath as the stench claws at his throat. This distracts him enough that he missed the first part keying in as he hears a young voice ask if the coppers had a few shillings. Averin almost sucks in another breath at that but catches himself in time keeping it to nice shallow through the mouth inhales.

Was he about to be sold out for a few pence?

Then, those magic words reach his ears. "Going that way." As in, not into the bins but rather out of the alleyway and after a few moments he hears the young voice informing him the constables were now gone. Well, thank god for that. Averin bursts out of the box with a gasp for fresh air vaulting over the side as he gets a few decent breathes of the still kind of rank, but far better, smell of the alleyway.

"Christ, I need to stop doing shite like that."

The man says dusting himself off as best he can. Fortunately, it really wasn't as bad as the outhouse. Only his boots would need a good clean but the rest of him wasn't too poorly off. The smell would linger but not nearly so much as the other. Once he is satisfied his gaze moves to the young waif. Who seemed to be a boy of little more than thirteen.

"Well, looks like I owe you one."

Averin says with a chuckle as he reaches into his pocket and tosses the kid the purse he'd lifted from the fat merchant. He'd not even had the chance to check the contents, Nat would find that there was almost three pounds in assorted coins within.

"There you go, lest you think a good deed goes unrewarded. Free advice, never lift a purse from someone you are talking to. They are more likely to notice."

Shaking his head in amusement he sticks his hands into his pockets.

"Which way did you send the constables? I would like to go the other direction."

Nat easily caught the pouch and her eye raised.  Just feeling the weight of it, she could tell it was more than she would make cleaning several flats.  "Thanks, Mister."  She opened it to look inside and was correct in her thoughts but still surprised all that more seeing how many coins were in it. 

As she closed the pouch and hid it back in a pocket inside her jacket, she listened to his advice.  "It is easier when you are not eye to eye with him."  She agreed.   "Being short helps too."  She grinned indicating her own lacking height.  At his question as to where the constables went, she indicated where she had sent them.  "That way.  It is busy with pubs and some of the earlier women working, or just getting up.  The pubs are always busy in that area of town."  She shrugged.

Thinking of the pouch the man gave her, she gave him a look.  "You have any other odd jobs you have needing done?  I am a hard worker."  She paused, and then looked at him closer, "I haven't seen you around here, and if you plan to do any more things like that, you might need a better place to hide."

"Well aren't you an enterprising young..."

Averin gives them the once over again. The more they talked and the more he studied them he wasn't sure if it was actually a boy. When you lived or died on your ability to read a situation and people you tended to pick up on things. Yet he honestly couldn't tell what was throwing him off.

"Person."

He decides though seeing as he was barely into his twenties he was fairly young himself by most people's standards.

"However, to have jobs for you to do I would need to have plans or stability. Both of which are in short supply for me. I am a bit of a free agent just looking for whatever way that I can find to make a bit of coin in this cruel and unforgiving world."

Which was a very poetic way of saying he was a career criminal. His primary strategy to avoid trouble being to move on as quickly as he can.

"Though I can't deny that a better hiding spot than rubbish bins wouldn't go amiss. Though you take what you can get when you are in a bind eh? Now, I really should be going before those constables realize they've lost me and try doubling back."

Nat shrugged, not changing her behavior.  She had studied how young boys moved and acted, even years before arriving in Whitby she had been on her own.  She was carefully tightly bound around her chest, not there was a lot there anyway, but she had gotten more fuller there over the last several years.  So, she was always careful making sure that was done very tightly.  The loose shirt and jacket helped as well.  As grimy as she was currently with the job she was doing for the landlord, she needed a bath, big time, and her clothing was covered in whatever she had carried out of the flat.

"There are a few places in town around here that were left empty when the owner either died or closed down business.  Most are not worth staying too long in, as the rats have taken over, but they are okay for hiding out." 

She offered, without saying where, as she was hoping for some payment for that kind of information.  It had taken her three years of living in Whitby to find her own nice empty house at the edge of town.  She wasn't going to tell him that one though unless he proved to be trustworthy.  That would take some time.

She felt that with the number of coins he had given her, she should at least give him a bit more information.  "Two streets over there is what looks like a wall or fence.  It's loose on the left side along the building it is connected to.  If you can wind your way that way most will think you went up the fire stairs up the back of the building and into a broken window.  I've lost more than a few chasers going that route.   It takes them time to search the building and realize aren't going to find you."

"There are some others tricks like that around here.  I also know a few places worth staying and those would cost more than they are worth, depending on what you want to pay for your bed."  She offered.  "I am usually around this part of town doing odd jobs if you need assistance."  She offered.  If he paid as generously as he just had, she wanted to be sure he knew where to find her.  "Just ask for Nat."

The glut of information the young ne'er do well provided showed they were, if nothing else, enterprising. Averin knew the coin purse had been fairly heavy which he guessed was what had led to such a generous sharing. After all, if he was willing to give away that much for just a small lie who knew what he'd give her for more valuable information? The answer was, he had no idea. His generosity was usually fairly whimsical. He'd not needed the purse, his own was fairly full at present, he'd stolen it on a lark. So why not give it to the kid who had helped him out of a tight jam?

"Well Nat, I'll keep that in mind. Names Averin and it was a pleasure to meet you. I'll keep an enterprising young person such as yourself in mind."

Flashing Nat a smile he exits the alleyway and leaves. Still unable to shake the sensation that he was missing something when it came to them. All he saw was a young boy but there was something off. The man's brain had noticed a detail, sending a signal to his instincts but it was yet a conscious thought.

Nat watched the man leave and hoped she had made the right choice.  She wiped the grime under her eye, not helping at all.  She turned and headed back to the flat she had been hired to clean up.  She was looking forward to a clean-up after this job, but for the price, it was worth it, and hoped the landlord would have another one for her to work on.  The work was gross, but she preferred it to have to prostitute herself to buy food and shelter. 

As she went up the stairs, she thought of the pouch.  She could use that in the winter or go ahead and rent a flat herself for a month.  She was slowly saving up, but was it enough to make for a constant kind of place?  She would like to find a regular job, but who would hire a kid for that kind of job?  She went through the door to the filthy smelly flat, and sighed. Back to work.