Faolan frowns at her phrasing. "I don't know if you'd call it dire," he explains, tightly. "It is what it is, and I've learned to make do with it. Some months are tighter than others." These last few have been tighter than most, but it gets to be like that in the summer, he supposes. When people would rather spend their extra money on going somewhere tropical than on ridding themselves of unwanted problems, as it were.

"It's nothing that I haven't made it through before," he says, and if he sounds a little defensive, it's because he is, slightly. Just the nature of the game. Money is tight, and the subject of it will always be a little bit touchy. He doesn't want to be anyone's charity case, though, so perhaps it's for the best that she isn't hiring him just yet, and coming across as such.