Jewel watched as Brash paced about on the ground floor, waiting for her new boss to come up with some sort of plan for them to follow. Unlike Brash, she didn't really have a terrible opinion of unicorns, nor a really good one at that. Her interactions with most ponies have been much of the same, and each interaction with every foal up until this point has also been relatively uneventful if not awful. Feeling a little bit dismayed about the comment on her appearance, she shakes her head in response to Brash's question, "You need a unicorn for an ultraviolet light spell. Okay, I'll... get right on it then." She gave Brash a false cheery smile as she felt the pit in her stomach grow again. Yay, more interacting with ponies.

Jewel flinches a little more and sulks a bit as Brash starts to chastise her, just like she thought that she would. It probably would have been better if she didn't say anything, as usual, and now she had no doubt tarnished what little trust Brash had in Jewel to begin with. She was about to make ready to wordlessly go out into the streets to conduct the shady business that Brash wanted her to do, but was stopped when Brash upended a bag of blue gems, each one of different shape and cut, and asking her to sort the benitoite from the rest, or find someone else who could do it.

Here was something she could do, but again, the fear of failure came to her mind. What if she got one wrong? She would prove herself to be utterly worthless to Brash and no doubt be kicked back ono the street. Still though, it was better than knocking on each and every house in Ponyville and figuring out which ones had ponies that weren't home at this time of day, so hesitantly, she sat down in front of the gems, looking over each one individually as she tried to remember what benitoite was. It was blue, that was for certain, but then again, so were many of these gems, and benitoite was even sometimes, on rare occasions, white, so colour was out the window. Benitoite was supposed to leave a white streak when scratched, was vitreous and glassy like... well, glass, but there was one crucial detail that really set it apart...

"Umm, I'm sorry Brash, but..." she gulped as she asked, "do you have an ultraviolet light? One very unique thing that benitoite does is glow bright blue and bluish white under that kind of light, and it would make seperating and ordering these crystals much easier and faster without having to scratch all of them to compare hardness and streaks."

"Wait, Dais can just take Brash away?" Jewel asked as Carri swooped away, a look of bewilderment on her face as Carri suggested that. Dais didn't seem like the kind of pony who would go about taking other ponies away from anyone, but then again, Jewel didn't exactly get to know Dais while he was talking to her, and he never really seemed to get to know her either. Perhaps he was more concerned with whatever it was that Brash was doing in this house. They both did kind of sound like they were in some sort of discussion as Jewel stood around as she was told to do.

Following Carri down to the trapdoor, pretty believing in what Carri told her at this point, Jewel decided to try pushing open the trapdoor slowly, asking in a barely audible tone, "H-hello? Who's there?"

Jewel, seeming to not mind the avoiding of the question, proceeded to admire Carri's cutie mark. The answer Carri gave was probably good enough for her; they were just out of school, so they couldn't have been as young as Jewel previously thought. Looking at Carri's mark, Jewel nodded as Carri explained that it was for lifting heavy things while flying. She definitely gave a very good demonstration on the lifting part before, but holding onto it and landing with it were things that Jewel could probably suggest the need to be worked on. After Carri's demonstration, Jewel looked back at her own, which was a cut gem. It wasn't for anything near as impressive as Carri's but it was there. "I guess that would explain why you were carrying so much for Brash when you almost... umm... dropped in on me. How did you ever find out that you were good at heavy lifting?"

Jewel follows Carri into the house, watching her step as she walked around the various bits of clutter and debris. For a house that was being lived in, this place was very dusty and out of sorts. Hopefully she didn't step on any upturned nails or scratch herself on the debris. Nothing like getting a bit of tetanus on the first day out in the real world, though with Jewel's luck, it wouldn't surprise her. The stairs were nothing to scoff at either; the creak that came forth as Jewel set a single hoof on them was practically enough to make her jump a bit, proceeding with the utmost caution as the creaking followed her up. The further she went in, the more Jewel wondered if this was supposed to be some sort of haunted house that was to be used during Nightmare Night. Creaky stairs, gloomy and dim lighting, dusty floors... all that was missing was the atmospheric music and an actor wearing tattered rags and face paint jumping out and startling her.

The difference between the first floor and the second floor was enough to make her forget all of that though. It looked so much cleaner, brighter, friendlier, and... more pink. The only real thing that Jewel could see wrong with this room was the broken window, which must be terribly drafty at night, but that was nothing a heavy set of curtains couldn't fix, hopefully. Walking over to Carri as she set up one of the folding cots, Jewel looked over to the larger bed and said, "Well, I suppose I could help with the renovations, though I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to that, nor do I know how to properly use any tools. Is that your bed over there?"

Jewel flinched and recoiled once more as the chest was dropped out of the air right in front of her. As much as it had been happening to her of late, she would probably never get used to the idea of heavy objects nearly landing on her. What could this chest have been full of, and what did it have in relation to free time? She found out soon enough as Carri opened the chest to reveal any young fillies' delight: an entire collection of stuffed animals. Peering into the chest, Jewel was immediately awestruck; these were the kind of stuffed animals that some of the children in the orphanage would have to fight over because of how popular they were, and because of that Jewel never really had a chance to use them.

Being eighteen years old however, Jewel wondered if she could even play with those without drawing looks of ridicule. They were children's toys for a reason, and Jewel's childhood had passed her by. She wasn't supposed to be playing with toys anymore, right? She was too old for that. Besides, she had responsibilities now. She had to find someplace to live so she didn't have to spend the night outside in the cold, even if it was still early. Jewel looked about as she and Carri sat outside, sighing before she said, "Maybe later, Carri. I don't really have anyplace to stay the night, and I don't want to have to sleep outside. If I could find a place to live for the time being, then I might be able to play, but until then..." she let the sentence drop, figuring that Carri knew the rest.

Jewel stands up as straight as she could as Brash set about promptly measuring different parts of her, though as soon as the bag of five bits was placed in front of her, Jewel looked down at it and thought to herself quietly so as not to disturb Brash. So this was what it felt like to be paid for something, why was it so unfulfilling? Maybe it was just because she wasn't used to the idea of working for money, or the fact that she expected to have to do a little more to earn it, but bits were bits, and for a pony that would have to be struggling to break even over the next months or even years, she would take what she could get where she could get it.

When Brash asked asked Jewel what else she could do, Jewel opened her mouth to answer only getting out a "Well, uhh--" before she was cut off, told to stick around for a while while Brash figured it out. Suddenly, Jewel found herself alone in this strange place, looking around at the different things. This was all so foreign to her, perhaps it would be best to stay where she was for now. Scooping up the five bits, she placed them in her saddlebag before finding an empty wall to sit against, waiting for either of them to come back.

When Carri came back Jewel looked up and said quietly, "Well, I was paid for something, so I -guess- I got the job. Brash wanted me to tell her what else I'm good at doing other than..." she swallowed a little indignantly, "... other than standing around. I didn't really get the chance to say, though. Where did she go?"

Jewel watched the bright and cheerful buildings around her suddenly take a turn for the worse with the sight of the house in front of her. Sure, the orphanage wasn't that well maintained most of the time; she could remember a crack in the lunch room wall where she sat that would let in a cold draft constantly. This place was missing windows, a door, it had cracks in the walls... she couldn't help but wonder why this place was so neglected when there were ponies out there that would give anything to have a roof over their head, including herself. She didn't have much time to contemplate however, as a map was suddenly thrust into her hooves. Where did this map even come from? Why did she need to look at it? Why was it so in tune to where she was at this very moment? Surely he can't have drawn a map just in the nick of time... could he?

Nevertheless, the map would certainly be useful in helping her find her way around town, regardless of the fact that it was also directing her to Dais' office, and who knows? Maybe she would eventually end up paying him a visit should her luck take a turn for the worst, "Th-thank you, sir. I... I'll use this map as best as I can." She wasn't so sure about her being a winning pony, in fact, she was very certain that that was not at all the case. If she was winning, then why was she such a loser, like the other children called her? Putting that thought out of her mind, she looked back to Carri at the mention of what Jewel could only guess sounded like a job. Maybe things were looking up after all and a job wouldn't be so hard to get, "That sounds good, but umm... I guess what I'm asking is if Brash would be okay with hiring somepony like me. She sounds like she has a lot of high expectations."