Mailroom Chatter
Rose was familiar with the post office, having made many trips there herself to send gifts and trinkets off to her siblings. Each time she stepped in with a box beneath her arm or an envelope tucked into her bag, she would think to herself how silly it must have looked. There she was, using a service oft meant for long distance deliveries or shipments to far-off places to communicate with people who were just half-way across the city from her. She could make the trip down to the Global Communications Setup Foundation barracks or find the address of her siblings’ new base, yet it was always too inconvenient to do so.
On that particular day however, she was standing behind the counter and through the doors into the back room, staring at a veritable mountain of letters and packaged goods. It was little wonder why the Foundation had been contracted to aid in the deliveries, though Rose had not expected this to be among one of the first tasks she was given as a newly-joined bounty hunter.
She put her hands on her sides and frowned at the mess laid out across tables, shelves, and even the floor before her. “Gods above. It makes me feel guilty just looking at it all.”
To her side, Eos held in their own hands a stack of boxes that all but covered their vision. She thought to help them with the load as they wandered up to her side, though they seemed to be carrying it just fine without the aid. “Guilty? Why is that?”
Rose chuckled a little awkwardly. “I’ve spent so much time sending off last-minute presents to my brothers and sisters. If this is the state things are in at the end of the summer, I would hate to see what it’s like during the holidays.” She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. “Heavens forfend I may have been contributing to this sort of mess in the past…”
“True, though you should account for the amount of packages that must be coming in as well.” Eos grunted as they plopped the boxes down on a nearby table. They continued speaking as they pulled up a stool to the side of the table and stepped atop it with some effort. They started to lower each box at the top of the stack until they were all laid out in a neatly arranged rectangle. “Those with family outside of Ethovalon are likely to receive missives and packages as much as they’re sending them from within the city.”
“Right you are! What a terrifying thought…” Rose feigned a shiver. She smiled as she noticed Eos’s amused little grin. “Well, we should get started sorting through these, shouldn’t we? Seems we have our work cut out for us after all.”
The smaller of the two nodded in agreement. Still standing with a decent vantage point, Eos glanced out over the piles, searching for their third accompanying teammate. When after a cursory glance, they failed to spot him, they instead called out. “Asura, have you gathered the letters for the west end?”
The name caused Rose to perk her head back upwards from reading the label on a few packages sitting on the floor. She had nearly forgotten the other person was with them up until that point. As she searched for the telltale signs of them herself, she found her eyes locking on a stone-grey skinned man peering slowly out from between two overstuffed shelves.
He looked exhausted—or perhaps simply bored—as he half-heartedly raised a hand to indicate his presence to the others. “I am here, Eos. I’ve…gathered what I could find.”
Rose watched as Eos nodded in response and merely gestured in return, beckoning Asura to come forth and join them. What Rose saw in the two of them both bewildered her and impressed her, as the sight of Eos tracing a simple sigil in the air drew her eye. Only a beat later, after speaking a phrase foreign to her, she watched as the tables before the smaller mage parted and made way for an empty table sliding into the area left behind—all on its own, no less. Across the room, Asura approached the newly freed-up space with a tightly-packed mass made of envelopes floating nearby, guided by a poised and clearly expert hand.
The sound of the parchment all hitting the table’s surface at once prompted Rose to leave her look of awe behind as she turned to the two mages gleefully. “That was amazing! I’ve heard the team had a few magic-users on board, but to do it so effortlessly is quite the feat.”
Asura’s eyes shyly turned down towards a random object on the floor. Eos, on the other hand, looked to Rose with the barest hints of pride in the way their eyes sparkled and their posture straightened out. “It’s a rather simple enchantment on both accounts actually, and quite useful for the express purposes of organization and restructuring.” They threw their hands out and looked to the pile of letters as if to prove a point. “Which is conveniently exactly what we’re here for.”
“Simple? It must come so naturally to you two then.” Rose placed a finger on her chin inquisitively. She turned her attention over to Eos, who seemed far more receptive to questions than their companion—whom she elected to leave alone, given his nervous response. “Is it something that can be taught?”
“Just so actually,” Eos said with a nod. “Asura and I both learned from a teacher. Not the same one, mind. It helps to have somebody to initiate you into the realm of the arcane.”
A close fondness spread across Rose’s chest as the thought of her brother, Ikaros, came to mind. She smiled warmly. “Ikaros could learn much from you, I’d wager.”
“The newcomer?” Asura chimed in, much to her surprise.
“My brother, yes. One of them. Raiden and Raiju are all ‘martial prowess’ and reckless abandon, but Ikaros has been wanting to attend lessons for his magic since he developed a knack for it.” Rose mused as though she were a mother recounting the talents of her beloved children. In some way, she felt as though she was—not that she would admit that to her new friends nor her own family.
She had not noticed until that moment, but Eos’s shoulders seemed to relax. The topic on all of their minds resonated well with both them and Asura—two members of the team whom Rose had not often seen joining in on conversations, at least during her short time observing their dynamics within the bunch.
Eos nodded towards Asura with a smile. “What do you think, Sura? I’m sure there’s much we could learn from a self-taught mage as well.”
Asura, in contrast, spent a while to think of their own response. He was staring blankly down at a letter he had idly picked up to fiddle with. Though the pause was awkward and overlong, his companions awaited his reply patiently. Eventually, he looked up at the two of them with the same flat expression as always and murmured, “Yes, I think that would be nice…after we finish sorting these packages…for delivery, of course.”
Rose sighed, partially out of an early sense of fatigue and partially out of relief that her inquiries had ended up going over well. She balled one of her hands into fists and pumped it into the air with enthusiasm—albeit somewhat forced. “Well, we ought to get started then!”