February 10 - 16: Character Swap Challenge!

Sunlight greeted James as he stepped over the wooden threshold of the house. It was so quiet here. The world was unaware of anything but their own simple needs. The birds didn't know where they would get their food, but they sang all day.

As did Ewen, but in a starkly different way. "Don't forget the-"

"yes! I won't!" James reassured him. He heard Ewen chuckle inside.

The town was not far, but James wished it was much farther. At least the gravel road, worn down by hooves and wheels, provided a span of time to ready himself for the unwanted barrage of attention. Ewen said he "couldn't just avoid the public." James saw no problem with avoiding people.

People and buildings peppered the road as he entered the town. Parents lifted a hand and smiled, while children looked at him with something close to awe.

He lifted his hand and smiled, hoping his fast gait would travel the message that he has business to attend to.

All he had to do was get to the post office and back. It was situated in the town square, the most convenient sport for the townspeople to bring their service too. A quaint little white building bedazzled inside with stamps, envelopes and various other mail related nicknacks on every wall. It was thankfully empty when he arrived, although he had the uneasy feeling that he'd eventually draw people inside anyway.

The mustachioed postmaster greeted him with a wave of his inkstained hand. "Ah! the great sir hemming has graced my little post office has he!" He chuckled,"come to collect your bounty of fanmail?"


Fanmail? He wasn't familiar with that term.
James grunted and tapped his fingers on the counter,"actually I'm here for a package, under the name Ewen?"

The postmaster stroked his curled mustache,"Mhm yes we do have that," he turned, looking at the shelves behind the counter. He scanned each label, before letting out a robot, "ah ah"

He set it on the counter, but pulled it out of James' reach before he could take it,"Oh no, you're not leaving without your flowery mail. It's been clogging up my shelf space for long enough."

James blinked. "fan mail." He said dryly.

"Fan Mail!" The postmaster disappeared into the backroom. then emerged with what did seem to be a flowery pile of colour envelopes. They spilled onto the counter, advancing on James.

"oh." His first thought was how on earth he was supposed to carry all that, plus the package.

"Here" the postmaster tossed him a small bag,"for the letters."

"right." James reached for the package quickly, lest the postmaster bring out more letters.

He managed to stuff the letters haphazardly in the bag, capture the package in both arms, and wish the master a quick "good day," before all but sprinting back home. The upside of having a package in your arms, is that nobody really saw your face properly, and they tended to ignore the obviously busy person who had their arms literally full of other things to worry about. Although it did make not tripping harder, and the package survived a few near tumbles to the ground.

When he arrived home, Ewen was nowhere in sight, so he plopped the package on the kitchen table and then found a large tree in the yard to settle down and sit through this mysterious bag of "fan mail"


"I really didn't expect to have kids write to me." He said, plucking a peach coloured envelope out of the bag. An elegant scroll of text detailed his name in the middle, but no other information sullied it.

He sniffed, something smelled funny. Flowers? No. but they weren't in bloom yet. James tore open the envelope and the smell intensified. Was it the envelope? He brought it to his nose then immediately choked on the smell. Someone musta spilled something on it.

He pried the piece of similarly coloured paper out, discarding the envelope and gingerly unfolding. The message, as elegant and fancy as his name on the envelope, was detailed in a short paragraph, but ended with a large flowing signature. He squirted and read the message a few times, picking out the words that seemed so overly expressed in their lines that they were nearly incomprehensible.

It became more and evident with each read that this was definitely not written by a kid. It seemed to be written by a woman? Possibly under the influence of some wine.


He lowered the letter, dismayed, and picked up more of the envelope from the basket, picking them up and chucking them to the side after reading the envelope," Tibus Hemming, Tibirus Hemming, Tibisus hemi- These are all the same!"

Why would some woman write him so many letters? Clearly she was under the influence of something, why else would they be so... he pondered the words "Darling”, “Sweetheart”, “Dashing,” It all sounded so... Frivolous!

He looked at all the colourful enveloped strew about, like giant confetti surrounding him. He briefly wondered if the king had started sprouting him off for marriage proposals. A "War Hero" certainly seemed like a decent reason to latch him to some foreign princess and rope him back in court. Which was aout the last thing he wanted.

James had reviewed his fair share of political alliance proposals, proposals in general from nobles hoping he’d become a son in law, clearly after the boating rights and power.
Was it a dare? A prank? What would they gain from this? His humiliation? Some secret information?

James decided the best course of action was to simply write to her, relay his thankfulness, delcine, and never hear from her again. Easy.

It was in fact not easy.

A few days later he was awoken by Ewen handing him a shining pink letter with a twinkle in his eyes and laughter spilling from his lips.

It’d arrived in the footsteps of the house. The post master must have revealed his location to avoid clogging up the postal house space.

He’d have to wait it out.

And among a pile of envelope confetti he did.

@oc3an @avimoon The character still available is Max Howell, I put that down for oc3an, if that’s alright. ^^