paperwork, pride and coffee (thoth)

Emil kept to himself, for the most part. He ate his lunch (brown paper bag, usually a sandwich, occasionally something more creative) at a little table in the staff area of the main branch of the post office. Other carriers went out for lunch, or occasionally went home for lunch (if they happened to live downtown). Sometimes they ate together.

Emil did not eat with them. He kept to himself, crippled by intense anxiety any time someone so much as opened their mouth at him.

And, lo and behold, someone had decided that today was the day they would try and talk to him. It had happened before, and it always ended up going poorly. It was a general, vague question. He knew exactly what he had to say. He knew all he had to do was open his mouth and say 'fine', and that would be that, and they'd walk off because he wasn't saying anything further.

Really, it was a miracle he'd managed to get a job at all.

It was the wings that calmed him enough to managed to get out three whole words, which had probably been recorded somewhere by a prophet as a true sign of an actual miracle.

"I'm doing okay."

At least it was something.

Emil felt like he'd just finished a genuinely gargantuan task. Just saying that he was doing okay felt like he'd run a whole marathon by himself, and like he deserved to just get to lie down and relax afterwards.

Turns out the woman was only getting started. At least he could answer her next question without a single word, and shook his head, hesitating for a moment afterwards. That meant he didn't mind, right? No, he didn't mind, so she could sit, because it was better to eat lunch with someone rather than to eat it alone. It had been something his therapist had brought up before, but that seemed like years ago.

He hadn't even had a therapist since he'd come to Manta Carlos.

She sat down, and Emil immediately had to lean back. He could smell her meal. No, it was more than that. Her meal was so spicy that he felt like it was singing his nostrils just sitting near it. He didn't even recognize that she'd asked him a question for several moments, his eyes practically watering from the hot smell.

"No." He couldn't believe he'd managed to say it, but there was a certain amount of fear for his life involved. He could handle a bit of heat, but nothing like that. He was pretty sure if he ate any, he was probably going to die. Or at least not be able to taste anything for a few weeks.

Poor, poor Emil was woefully unprepared for what was about to happen. He had a general sense of what eating hot foods was supposed to be like, but what he was witnessing was not something anyone had prepared him for. She was going red. Very red. She looked like she was about to pop or melt or something equally catastrophic. His eyes continued to widen as her situation worsened, and when she finally decided to just finish off the rest of her lunch his mouth actually hung open slightly, staring in shock. What was she doing? She was starting to look like she was in actual pain, her eyes were watering, and there probably wasn't going to be enough water in the world to stop the heat. It hadn't even occurred to him that milk would be the solution.

"I - Okay." He blurted out, so distressed by the possibility that the woman might potentially burst into flames before him that he couldn't even process what was going on. He was frozen in place, staring at her with wide eyes as she wobbled down the room towards the coffee. Even worse, she didn't even drink it - she simply came right back, holding a piping hot cup of coffee, looking like she'd just swallowed fire.

He was still gawking, and his mouth was still hanging open slightly. She was... she was essentially still on fire. She seemed to be doing a bit better, but not very much, and he could only stare at her open mouthed as she sat back down.

To say the whole thing was unexpected was to vastly understate the effect the whole adventure was having on Emil.

It was certainly provoking a reaction, although it wasn't words. Emil had his doubts about whether or not the whole thing would have managed to elicit words from anyone, since 'shock' didn't really leave much room for talking.

She looked like she was almost crying from the heat, which was... well, distressing. Very distressing. He nodded at the mention that he was quiet - because he was self aware enough to know that he was very quiet - and then he bent over, digging around in his messenger bag before finding what he was searching for.

Without a word he fished out an unopened bottle of water, one of several he usually carried around with him when delivering mail. Hydration was important, especially for him, and he slid it across the table to her, hoping it would help at least a bit. He still looked distressed, no doubt because of the pained look on her face.

He didn't mind the spit. Or, he supposed it would have been more accurate to say that he did mind the spit, but he was entirely confident that he could just clean it out without issue. It really wasn't a big deal to him.

He winced when she mentioned that he stuck out. He always stuck out. He was a Finn with dark skin, red eyes, and white hair. He looked weird, he acted weird - he was always going to stick out. In a way, he really did long for when he was a kid and looked normal.

At least on the Manta Carlos islands, someone with weird hair and eyes didn't even rate on the scale. That was something. It was a small something, but a something just the same.

He actually smiled a little bit at the comment that she was 'nice, not humble', which helped break the ice a little bit more. Unfortunately, breaking the ice would only go so far with him. He still had to pretty much force himself to talk, struggling to summarize what amounted to several months worth of therapy sessions.

"Awkward about talking." He finally decided summarized it well enough. He could write. He could type. He could gesture. It was just talking which had a huge mental hurdle.