The Northern Couriers Guild - Part 1

All Maisie could think about was falling into a guild bunk, they were that close. The last stretch had been a bit much, but they could finally see Perth, and soon she'd be passed out in a bed. She heard Peigi let out a heavy breath before saying, "Just about there, huh?"

"Just about." replied Maisie, doing her best not to roll her ankle on the crumbling road.

"You going to handle being stuck in town for 2 whole days?" asked Peigi.

"Yeah... I think I'll manage."

"Try not to drive Fiona up the wall."

"I'll do my best."

The two of them staggered their way into the guild office and hefted their packs on to the counter.

"Afternoon, ladies." said the woman behind the counter.

"It's well past fuckin' afternoon, Fiona." said Maisie.

"Still bright out, ain't it?" said Fiona, giving Maisie a mocking smile.

"Aye, because it's the middle of fucking summer! It's always fucking bright out!"

"No need to get so heated, Maisie." said Fiona, still holding the smile.

"Please don't wind her up, Fi." signed Peigi.

As she said this, Fiona finally looked over to her and gave her a seemingly genuine smile as she said, "Ahh, I thought I sensed a bright and beautiful presence."

"That the best you got?" quipped Maisie.

"With a beautiful woman like Peigi, you can't just go right for it, ya know?" replied Fiona, looking back over to Maisie, mocking smile suddenly back.

"Maybe you can't, but all I gotta do is-"

"Not that I don't love the attention, you two, but I'm exhausted." said Peigi, cutting Maisie off. Patting her pack she said, "This is mostly from Glasgow, a couple bits from Sterling."

Fiona and Maisie held each other's gaze for a moment before Fiona finally broke free to look back to Peigi.

"Thanks." she said, shifting gears into a bit more professional of a tone, "You going to be in town long, or are you heading out tomorrow?"

"Two days." said Peigi, looking over Maisie, who was still staring daggers at Fiona, "Then I'm not quite sure where we're heading."

"Well then, let me know when you've made up your mind."

"Will do."

"You're the only two here, so take whichever bunks you want." said Fiona, thumbing over her shoulder to a door behind the counter.

"Thanks, Fi." said Peigi, giving her a nod, and heading towards the back.

Maisie locked eyes with Fiona again, before sticking out her tongue and following Peigi into the back. As she crossed the threshold she heard Peigi say, "What did I say about driving her up the wall?"

Maisie was splayed out on the sofa, trying to struggle through the summer heat. She really wasn't suited for this kind of weather. At least outside, in the open, there was always a breeze, but inside, even with the windows open, the air barely moved.

She eventually managed to drag herself upright and over to her pack. She pulled out a small netbook and a power brick, then dawdled her way over to a table. She plugged the power brick into the extension cable on the table, then opened the laptop. She slumped back in the chair, head hanging over the back, as she waited for the machine to boot.

When the machine had finally lumbered it's way back to life, Maisie connected to the wifi and logged onto the local net. Three new messages and one outage. Might as well check the outage first, she thought to herself. She opened the network status page, and glanced over the logs. The only new thing since Stirling was an outage all the way up in Thurso. Seemed that the line running up there was out, and techs wouldn't be able to make it up for a few weeks.

Thurso was a while away, and someone else might make it there before they did, but it was worth keeping note of. They didn't really have anywhere to be, and bringing net messages was always a nice job. Light, and easy to carry. Plus, folks were always grateful to get news and messages.

She opened her inbox and scanned the messages. As expected, they were all from friends, other couriers, letting folks know where they were heading. She looked over the 3 new ones. Stranraer... Nope... Glasgow... Just missed them... And Inverness... Inverness was on the way to Thurso...

She sat hunched over the laptop but shot bolt upright when she realised it was from Isla. Isla! She hadn't seen Isla in months! And she was heading to Inverness! She opened the message and gave it a quick excited scan. She was coming in from the south west, and would be there in a couple weeks.

A couple weeks might be a bit of a problem though... It was only about a week and a bit to Inverness from Perth. Even taking it slow they'd still have to hang around in Inverness for a few days, and Maisie didn't like staying in a city for that long. The two days here were going to drive her mad as is, forget waiting around for 3 days, at minimum, just to see Isla for a night.

Eventually Maisie managed to convince herself it'd be alright, and that Isla was worth going stir crazy in a city for. Now she just had to wait for Peigi to get back. She tapped around on her netbook for a while before closing it, then sprawled back onto the sofa.

After a few minutes she wailed, "Fiiooonnnaaaaaaaaaaa."

"What do you want, Mais?" shouted back Fiona, from another room.

"Entertain me, Fiiooonnnaaaa." she wailed again.

"Entertain yourself!"

"I know it's just us two here, but I'd rather not break guild rules."

"Fuck you, Maisie!"

"As much as I like you, Fiona. Rules are rules." replied Maisie.

"Go fuck yourself!"

"We just went over this." said Maisie, somehow contriving to sprawl across the sofa even harder.

"I fucking hate you!"

"Love you too, Fiona!"

It was night before Peigi got back from seeing her friend. She walked into the back to find Maisie spread out, face down, on the floor.

"Comfortable?" she asked.

"Very."

"Have a fun day?" she asked.

From behind she heard Fiona say, "She sure fucking did."

"Mmmmmm" hummed Maisie from the floor with her eyes closed.

"You could have gotten out you know?" she said to Maisie.

"You know I don't like cities..." replied Maisie, eyes still closed.

"They have parks."

"Don't like parks." said Maisie, "Outside, yet still surrounded by city. Kinda like a nightmare."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that tomorrow." said Peigi.

Maisie rolled over and sat up, her eyes suddenly filled with excitement.

"Why's that?" she asked, hope filling her voice.

"We can head out tomorrow. Nat got her schedule mixed up and can't actually see me tomorrow."

"That's a shame." said Maisie, with a broad smile on her face.

"Yep. Now we have to figure out where we're going."

"Already done!" exclaimed Maisie, as she hopped to her feet.

"Oh?" asked Peigi, looking a little surprised.

"Thurso!"

"Thurso?"

"Thurso!" repeated Maisie.

"Why Thurso?" asked Peigi.

"There's a net outage up there." she replied.

"Okay..." said Peigi, looking at her expectantly.

"Also... Isla is going to be in Inverness in a couple weeks!" said Maisie excitedly, "And Inverness is on the way!"

"Inverness will only take us a week and a bit, so we'd need to-"

"I know! But Isla is worth it!"

"I love Isla too, Mais, but a few days... Come on, babe..." said Peigi, looking at her with concern.

"I'll be good, Pegs! I swear!"

"Well, okay then."

Maisie jumped with excitement then shouted, "Fiona! We're going to head off to Inverness tomorrow!"

"Thank fuck!"

Maisie bounced up and down at the counter as Fiona rounded up all the packages and placed them on the counter.

"So you're actually going all the way up to Thurso?" asked Fiona.

"Yeah, probably. Inverness is just the main stop." said Peigi, with a sigh.

"Well, I've got one here for Thurso. So if you don't actually head up that way, just leave it at the Inverness office like usual."

"Will do." said Peigi.

Fiona paused for a moment then asked, in a hesitant voice, "Would you two mind doing me a favour?"

"Depends." said Maisie.

"I've got a package here to go out to Keith. It came in last night and I could wait for someone to take it out to Aberdeen and they'd probably get it there... But..."

"But no one wants to go to fuckin' Aberdeen." said Maisie, still bouncing.

"You said it, not me." replied Fiona, "And the next medicine van isn't going to be up for at least another few weeks, so I can't even ask them to take it. It'll add a few days to your trip but..."

"We'll take it!" exclaimed Maisie, throwing her hands up.

"What she said." sighed Peigi.

"Thanks you two."

"Can we go now?!" asked Maisie, bouncing even harder.