fandomtownies | Fandom Post Office, May 19 (Tuesday)

Entry tags:

Fandom Post Office, May 19 (Tuesday)

If there was a good explanation for the individual ketchup-packet sized samples of maple syrup, some kind of free promotion, that were getting sorted into everyone's mail today, Éponine had no idea what it was.

She was absolutely going to hoard every single one that was addressed to someone who no longer lived here, though.

The NOW HIRING sign was still up in the window (or maybe it was a new one? Either way there was a sign there), and now she was considering going out and getting pancakes for lunch.

[OOC: Open, OCD-free. Feel free to mod getting a little foil packet of maple syrup with your mail if you want to. Yes, I really want pancakes right now.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Step one to not becoming killer-for-hire in the future: Get another job.

Hanna had noticed the NOW HIRING sign on the way by, and as it was the first one she saw, she wandered in, wondering if she needed paperwork for this.

Minimal paperwork! Any other post office might be a different story, but this was Fandom. (Maybe it had something to do with certain dimensions that required reams of customs paperwork, and balancing out the paper usage. Who knew?)

Éponine had, as it turned out, given in to the temptation to go and get herself pancakes, so she was at the counter smothering them in maple syrup out of the extra sample packets when she saw the door open.

"'s there something I can help you with?"

"Yes please," Hanna said with most of her composure intact. "I saw the sign outside, that you were hiring. I would like to know more about the position?"

"Ah! Yes, that's right, we're still looking to hire people," Éponine said, and put her plastic fork down, carefully balancing the tips of the tines against the edge of her plate. "Yes, it's mostly in here, really, helping people get their things posted and selling 'em supplies if they need any. Sort letters into boxes, keep the lobby tidy enough. That sort of thing. There's mail to carry, too, take it into town and deliver it, but only if it suits you. If not, just seeing to the counter, that's all right too."

Hanna relaxed as the girl talked, and said, "That sounds all right. I wouldn't mind delivering packages.. I'm Hanna. Hanna Heller. I'm a student up at the school." She bit her lip. "Does it pay very much?"

Éponine took a moment to have a bite of her pancakes and gestured with her free hand while she chewed, as if to say she'd answer in just a moment.

"Well enough, if that's what you mean," she finally said. "Good lord! Climbing up and down these stairs all over the island with bags full of letters and parcels! Yes, the pay's worth that, if you ask me. So you're one of the kids living up there in that castle, are you?"

She laughed a bit, which might have sounded a touch creepy with her cracked voice, especially without any context; she was really just amused that the hiring sign had been up for nearly as long as she'd been on the island with no takers, and then finally two kids in a week turned up looking for jobs.

"Éponine," she added, blurting it out like an afterthought. "That's me, I mean. D'you have a day you want to work? I've got another kid starting this week, and he's got Thursdays, but you can have your pick of any other day. Except Sunday. We aren't open then."

Those pancakes looked good. Hanna moved a little closer, and nodded. "It's not very castle-like on the inside, for the most part." She paused and added, would Mondays be all right, then? I don't mind the stairs. I run over the island most days anyway." She studied the other girl, and asked, "How long have you worked here?"

"Right then! Mondays it is. You'll only have to fill out this paper here," Éponine said with evident satisfaction as she put a one-page form on the counter, "so they know who they'll be paying and all."

She prodded at the pancakes with her fork again, humming tunelessly in thought.

"How long have I worked here?" she echoed. "Good lord, it must be over two years now, mustn't it? I think -- yes, yes, it wasn't long after I arrived in the first place."

Hanna gave her a small smile for that, and for the humming. "Two years, and you haven't left," she noted. "In spite of the things the island... does." She took the paper and reached for a pen, starting to fill it out.

Éponine burst out laughing again at that, this time louder and more raucous. "Good lord, no, I haven't left. What've I got to go back to? I wouldn't want to, I tell you that. And I've been followed by ghosts, and trapped in a great dark underground maze, and had a visit from my dead brother but I'll take all of that any day. Here, at least, I've got something. Odd as this place is, I've no intention of leaving if I can help it. What about you? D'you ever think about up and leaving, sometimes, if it all gets to be too much?"

"I don't know. I don't have anything to go to. No family. No...anything." Hanna kept her head down as she filled out the form. "I don't like what happened this last weekend. At all. Does that happen very often?"

"Waking up as someone else, or as yourself only different?" Éponine's voice softened just a touch -- as much as it could, anyway. "We've got weekends like that coming 'round every now and then, we do. Not very fond of who you were the past few days, 's that it?"

"The second one," Hanna said, her voice low. "And no. Not-- not at all." She was quiet a minute, then said, "A different job, it would help. Or it would be -- something, anyway."

A lot of people had been much older this past weekend, hadn't they? Yes, Éponine seemed to remember noticing that on her way around town.

"It isn't really you," she said after a moment, "only what you might've become. There's nothing to say it's bound to happen, and sometimes I think this place likes to let us see what might have been, just to give us something to think about. God knows, after the time it had some impossible kid of mine show up, I was even more glad to've gotten away from home."

"You aren't planning to have children?" Hanna filed out the last of the information, and looked up. "And. Parts of her were me." Possible, at least, for all that she didn't want them to be. "If I make the wrong mistakes. Or. Take the easiest choices." Like hurting other people, because she could.

"Me! Good god, no! I'm no more fit to look after kids than my parents were," Éponine exclaimed. "And there you are -- you've got an idea what might happen if you choose to go a certain way. Bit terrible of Fandom to put us through this, but look at it from another side and we're lucky that way, that's what I think. Most anywhere else, making choices like that, you've got to go in blind. This is like having someone play lookout for you."

The pros and cons of foreknowledge were more subtle than she was inclined to give much thought to.

Hanna nodded slowly, and admitted, "I am trying to think of it like that. And not think too intensely of what I did this weekend. It was..." Right. She shook her head. "I am just glad Mr. Spencer was not too angry with me."

"Tried to pull one over on him, did you?" Éponine hummed to herself for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I think he's been around long enough he's had his share of these things happening. He knows, how these things go. Makes it a bit easier, I'd say. But don't worry too much. Weekends like that one aren't always awful. This place is a bit mad, and likely'll throw something silly our way sooner or later. Tiny animals or something, I shouldn't wonder."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Fandom Post Office, May 19 (Tuesday)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject