A Series of Slippery Trades
!foOlREAVlE 2019/10/27 (Sun) 19:30
No. 39853
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It is, sometimes, to the point to celebrate humanity’s less industrious underside. And here, he thought, on the doorstep of the Hieda household – at the heart of the so-called Human Village – was this notion at its most pointed.
A man in his ripe twenties, clad in no-nonsense Winter
hanten and trousers, the messenger had little issue gliding past the attention of servants milling about the estate yard. No one liked a messenger; least liked all were those liable to cut their own work short and dragoon the first retainer to make eye contact into running the final stretch. On nothing but a caprice, he tore off a salute at a nearby worker, to see the man all but duck out of the way. It was a superpower in everything except the name, and no Spellcard duel between
Gensokyo’s fireball ladies may diminish the messenger’s pride in his own, secret little spell.
And, as is with most underhanded superpowers, his, too, was a double-edged sword. As a wise man had once been quoted, mis-quoted, and then paraphrased, couriers and runners would
always have a use, regardless of when and where, because, “there will always be folks who will pay someone else to do the trivial things they could do themselves, but cannot be arsed to do.” It was this bit of tacit hypocrisy, after all, which allowed messengers like him their little niche in the town in the first place… and then, in an ironic turn, to bully menials from other social strata to step aside.
As long as he looked pregnant enough with responsibility, he could strut inside the noble Hieda household unchallenged by anyone with better things (not) to do.
Which, rather promptly, he did.
Gensokyo’s cold season was no laughing matter; the mountainous, inland climate could hang icicles from a man’s brow if it caught him running too hard. Nor was this stranger to the Hieda, who kept the straw, clay and lath walls of their manor heated to cosy coat-off degrees. More inarguably occupied servants passed the messenger by while he plied the pristine halls, as soon to interfere with his work as to pull a
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