Roleplay: Emmeline x Lettie x Rory

Dated: September 26, 2026

The Post Office

Rory can be heard before he's really seen making noises behind the counter. The messy floor of the old post office has been swept clean, and all of the readable papers have been stacked and organized into a pile. Next to the old Morse code machine are several small strips of paper. Right now Rory is sitting on the floor, out of sight behind the counter, reading someone's chicken scratch handwriting on a piece of paper by the light of his wand.

Emmeline is passing the entry of the old post office when she hears something within. Catching her step, the woman suddenly turns. For a long moment, pale green eyes simply stare into the dilapidated building, wondering if her ears could be trusted any more than her sight. Booted feet carry her across the threshold and inside, where she stops again. By appearance, the woman is a warrior--she carries upon her two swords and armor adorns her figure. "Hello?" she calls, her voice wavering. Clearly the woman is lost.

Rory by appearance is a regular guy. He could not be more more average if he tried, except maybe a little more than averagely attractive. He is seated on the floor behind the counter with his pile of papers, and lifts his chin as the door opens. Footsteps. Slow gait. The noise all but rings in his head, triggering a sudden sharpening of perception that makes his head hurt a little. He runs a hand through his dark hair, sets the pile of papers aside, and stands up, careful to keep his wand lowered. "Hello there." His voice carries a thick British accent; London-area in particular for anyone familiar with British accents specifically. He is dressed in a gray T-shirt that needs to be laundered, a heavier brown coat, jeans that also need to be laundered, socks shoes that Emmeline can see.

Emmeline tenses when a man appears from behind counter, hands coming to rest defensively upon the hilts at her hips. A moment later, when she's less surprised, she relaxes. Relief passes over her features. "You're real," she states, as if reassuring herself. Her gaze flits over her own shoulder and back to the doorway before returning to the man. His accent is foreign to her.

Rory throws his arms out wide, wand still pointed at the floor. "So they bloody tell me!" he replies cheekily, a grin spreading across his face. He gives Emmeline a slow look-over and seems to like what he sees once his eyes move past the sharp and pointies. Does everyone really need to carry that stuff around? What are they so afraid of? He scratches at the side of his neck with his right hand, at a scattering of faded scars. "Name's Rory. What's yours?" He looks past her to the entrant behind her, and smiles. "Not-Mildred, hey. You all right?" It seems more a greeting than a question of concern.

Lettie dressed in overalls, the legs cuffed to her short legs, and an oversized sweater that hands off a shoulder revealing a nasty but healing gash along her collarbone finds her way to the post office. Her boot laces, still untied, making little click noises as they smack around with her steps. She wasn't trying to be quiet today having almost followed the other woman. She'd mentioned visiting here to check out the machine and so she showed, possibly late or early. Time wasn't set after all. The fuzzy ears atop her head twitching at the voices coming from inside before she entered it. Hangs hanging at her sides, though unseen with how long those black sleeves were, hiding them and what she carried, she entered finally, making sure to make noise to announce her arrival as she opened and shut the door behind her.

Lettie says [to Rory] : I'm peachy, yourself Rawry?

Rory says [to Lettie] : It's Rory, miss. Rhymes with Glory.

Emmeline 's eyes widen, clearly startled to find that someone is behind her. With a shuffled step, she moves to the side and looks, studying Lettie. "Oh, hello!" she almost squeaks. She clears her throat and manages a small smile for Rory. "Emmeline," she answers, her voice returning to its normal sound. Emma's weight shifted to her left leg. She raises a hand to scratch at the side of her head, failing to hide her bewilderment.

Lettie says [to Rory] : Rrrlory? Row-ey? Raw-ry? Rawry! Got it.

Rory gives a wave of his wand and the unlit and long-empty lanterns in the room flare to life in their dusty glass cases, casing flickering light that dances across the room and its occupants. "Rorr-eee," he enunciates, managing to sound more British than ever. He steps back from the counter and motions to the old Morse code machine. "I've been dickering with this old cunt all day. She's a talkative sort." He points to a small pile of little papers.

Rory says [to Emmeline] : Emily? Pretty name.

Lettie offers a smile to Emmeline as she studies her. She points up to her ears before the other can ask it, "Yes, they are really there. Yes, I'm really a cat." She had gotten used to those questions here in this new world, like people had never seen a werecat before. She moves around the other female to peer into the empty cubbies that randomly held things in them and ones vanished when one tucked something inside one.

Emmeline frowns slightly. "Emma, perhaps. But not Emily," and then Rory's gesturing to a machine that the woman has never seen before. "I uh..." she trails off, unsure of Rory's choice words. Regardless, a faint dusting of red appears across her cheeks. It fades a few moments later as Lettie confirms that her ears are real and that she is, in fact, of a more feline nature. "Okay, that I've seen before," she says, and this time her relief is audible. Werecats existed where she came from. Morse code machines did not, and so Emma also gestures toward it. "What.... is it?"

The Morse machine wakes with a sharp metallic click. Without any hand upon it, the mechanism begins tapping rapidly, feeding a narrow strip of paper through itself as the message marks itself out.

-.. .. -.. / -- -.-- / .--. .- .-. -.-. . .-.. / .- .-. .-. .. ...- . / -.-- . - ..--.. / --- .--. . -. / .. - / .. -. / ... . -.-. .-. . - .-.-.-

Lettie nodded to Emmeline, "Ah, well, that is good. One less person to explain what being a cat and a human is. I'm Mildred, pleasure to meet you." The same name she'd given Rory who still didn't believe it. Her ears started to twitch along to the noises from the machine as it went off. "Don't worry I've never seen one of those things either. It spits out tree skins with the tattoo marks on it. Not the flippy floppy dancing once, but the random bits of dots."

Rory is primarily focused on the Morse Code machine. The "old cunt" as he has lovingly named the contraption. "It's a Morse code machine. From my world." As the keys tap and the machine spits out another strip of paper, Rory picks it up and glances it over. "It's something different than the others, but that's the best I've got on it. there's all sorts of rubbish in here." He taps the machine with his wand. "Don't suppose you could tell me where your master kept the good gin, eh?"

Emmeline blinks. "It does wh--" Her curiosity was sated before it could be voiced, the sudden metallic click giving cause for Emma to jump. "How strange," she says a moment later, seeking to keep the brief fright from her vocals. "And it works?" Incredulity crept in, as if she hadn't just seen it with her own eyes. A moment later, the pale green orbs sweep around the room again and at the state of disrepair.

Lettie sticks her hand into one of the cubby holes and pulls out one of those eight legged little fellas from a web in the back of it. She holds it up towards Rory, "Look, you asked and it delivered one in the magic cubbies! A Gin." Of course, she had no idea he was asking for a drink. Just the odd timing of a spider arrival in the package space.

Rory 's expression brightens immediately and he looks over at Lettie. "Yeah?" He stares at the werelynx a moment before his expression falls back into ordinary good-humor. "Ah..that's a spider, Milly. Don't toy with my heart like that." He taps the machine with his wand. "Works by itself, even. I've got a bunch of little papers here, each one says something different ,but I've not located a translation guide yet. I'm surprised to find one here--a little, but also a bit not. It fits the time period."

Emmeline watches as Lettie pulls the spider from the cubby, remembering a time she'd once so casually handled a poisonous scorpion. Rory's reaction amused her and the corners of her mouth twitched upward slightly before she finally drew nearer to the counter to get a better look at the foreign object. "These do not exist where I come from. But then, several things in this place are unknown to me."

Lettie shrugged at Rory, his loss. She tossed the Gin as she proclaimed the spider to be into her mouth, a single chew then swallowed it. If it was poisonous well, she didn't think about that and would find out eventually. "Oh, well I thought it was a Gin, my bad. What is Gin then?" She asked curiously. She watched from the distance where she stood. A safe distance from the weird Morse guy.

Rory sits back down on the floor and it starts going through the pile of swept up papers again. "Gin is an alcoholic beverage, like ale or beer or wine, made from fermented grain." He picks up a paper, reads it, and then sets it aside into the taller of two piles-a discard pile of sorts. "That seemspretty standard for the people that come through here. Lots of swords, not so much knowledge trains, or more modern things."

The Morse machine wakes with a sharp metallic click. Without any hand upon it, the mechanism begins tapping rapidly, feeding a narrow strip of paper through itself as the message marks itself out.

-.. --- / -. --- - / - .-. ..- ... - / .... . .-.

Emmeline almost asks what a train is, but decides to save the question for another time. It was clear that Rory was doing something to try and clean up the place. Her gaze moved back toward the door and, deciding she would rather remain in the company of others for now, the woman reached for the broom and began to sweep.

Lettie walks closer slowly to inspect what he is doing as another paper is spit out. "Have you tried to shove the page back in to send one back? Maybe it goes both ways?"

Rory shakes his head. "No, but I've considered typing my own message once we get this translated and seeing what happens that way. If there's a recipient." He takes the new strip, looks it over and sets it aside. "That one's a duplicate."

Lettie walks around to squat near his piles of paper, "How can you can tell? They all look kinda the same to me. Dots and lines."

Rory sets the strips beside each other. Some different amounts of lines dots and dashes. It isn't just the same thing over and over. "It matches this one here precisely. They're identical."

Lettie carefully picks up the two matching ones that he was showing her. She plopped back with a thump as she landed on her ass. Setting them down she was very slow to trace both index fingers one at a time from dash to dot and on down the line. "Yeah, I guess these do have the same marks. You have been here a while to gather this many of them."

Rory nods quietly. "I've been looking for any kind of translation help, and cleaning the place up a bit There be something useful in some of this rubbish." He glances at the broken windows where the sun has long gone down.

Lettie nods her head in agreement, "Yeah, never know what you will find in these various empty buildings. I found a whole box of food stabbers!" What would she do with hundreds of forks? Make little fork people of course. One such she pulls from her overall pocket. It looks almost like the catwoman but out of fork and random bits. She hands it to him.

Rory blinks at the mention of food stabbers, but Lettie elaborates quickly enough. "Hey, nice. She's a little sculpture. You ought to show Spizzzo. This seems like something he would, which reminds me I need to send the lad a sausage roll."

Lettie looks to the little fork person and leaves it with him. It was a fork, once. "I saw him earlier checking out this other falling apart building much ways out. Looking for symbols or some kind. He is nice guy, with strange long ears."

Rory nods in agreement. "Nice fellow," he agrees. "Very sporting. I don't think he's from my world either but probably one closer to yours. He thought the train was a dragon, and my world had both trains and dragons."

The Morse machine wakes with a sharp metallic click. Without any hand upon it, the mechanism begins tapping rapidly, feeding a narrow strip of paper through itself as the message marks itself out.

.-. --- .-. -.-- --..-- / - .... .. ... / .. ... / ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . / .-. --- .-. -.-- .-.-.- / .. / -.- -. --- .-- / .... --- .-- / - .... .- - / ... --- ..- -. -.. ... .-.-.- / .-.. . .- ...- . / -. --- .-- .-.-.- / - .-. ..- ... - / -- . .-.-.-

Lettie tilts her head, "Sporting? What does that mean?" She was confused by his strange world talk. She shook her head out and brushed her tangled hair out of her freckled face. "I have seen dragons and lots of other creatures. No trayons. Those are not in my world."

Rory picks up the new strip of paper. "This one's new. Sporting is, um...fair and generous." He scratches at his neck a little more. "Those tracks at the end of Wayfair's Lane are for trains. They are large machines that can transport a lot of people or goods very quickly over long distances. England has loads of them. The dragons are harder to find, though they have to keep the ordinary people away from them."

Lettie looks at the newest paper and then back to him with a very confused look, "I don't know what a track is...or what a Wayfair Lane is? Is that more of your Lawnden nonsense?" She couldn't read, so the signs that named things or shops were just ignored by the lynx. "Where I come from there is dragons, I'm not sure how many, never went looking too hard. There is rings you wear and twisty that would poof you from one spot to another. Is that a train?"

Rory taps his wand on the floor conjure an image of a pretty early age train for Lettie. "Wayfarer Lane is the first crossing when you come into the village from the lake so if you turn right and go towards the big water tower, you'll find the tracks at the edge of the area we're stuck in. The things sound more like apparition I kind of teleportation from place to place. We had that too, but you use wand to do it not rings."

Lettie points with her finger to his wand, "That is the wand? It does makes the images and magic? All stuck inside that stick?" She studied the image of the early on train with a curious look. It seemed so strange to her. "I like walking or running places. Much easier! I did once take a boat on the waters. That was tummy twisting. Not my favorite thing.... Right? I forget which way that is. That was a new thing only just before coming out of the lake. Right and some other way. I forget."

Rory smiles slightly. "The magic is in the caster the person using the wand and the wand acts as a way to focus power for specific spellcasting. I heard there were other countries and cultures that didn't use them, but we always did so that's how I learned. It's been bloody useful around here."

Lettie contemplates the information. "Well, I wonder if we are in your world then. It has the ground bumps for your trains and your Morse guy there. Your wand that does your focus of magic still works here. Are you sure you are not really from here then? And you are really the bad guy luring the rest of us in to eat? Or is that Spizzzo? Are we sure it is rats in the stew and not the people before us? He says he doesn't remember anything, but seems genuinely unknowing and nice."

The Morse machine wakes with a sharp metallic click. Without any hand upon it, the mechanism begins tapping rapidly, feeding a narrow strip of paper through itself as the message marks itself out.

.-- .... . .-. . / .- .-. . / -.-- --- ..- / .-.. . - - .. . ..--..

Rory thinks that over. "Yeah, i'm very sure I'm not in my world." He points out the window towards the heavens. "That's not my sky. And the place just...feels different. It messes with my head sometimes."

Lettie looks to the machine as it started talking again. So, the cat talked to it, "Look Morse, be helpful. Print a map to the book that tells us how to read you." Then back to Rory, "Not your sky? I guess I have not looked up much yet to notice, though the smell is off and not my world. Too many new things."

Rory picks the strip of paper up and compares it to the others. "New one," he murmurs. "This stuff is all too outdated to be my world. Anywhere it looked like this would be better developed. Architecture looks vaguely European."

Lettie taps the new one, "Looks like the one that popped out when I was here before. Its in my sketchbook back at the farm." She glanced around and shakes her head, "No idea what that looks like, sorry. I will take your word that it isn't the right your world, but closer to it than mine."

Rory looks around. "Well a couple of centuries ago my world probably looked like this. But it evolved. The armor Gallard was wearing didn't match Anything I've ever seen."

Lettie says [to Rory] : Who? I don't know that name.

Rory says [to Lettie] : The bloke Emma and I met yesterday at the pub. He's got a metal helmet that he can't take off.

Lettie says [to Rory] : Hrm, he wasn't there when I came in. Bloke? Is that armor wearing man?

Rory says [to Lettie] : Men in general.

Lettie says [to Rory] : So...you are a bloke then?

Rory says [to Lettie] : Yeah, pretty much.

Lettie says [to Rory] : What do you call woman then? Blokettes?

Rory says [to Lettie] : Depends on what kind of woman you're talking about.

Lettie says [to Rory] : Is there more than one kind?

Rory says [to Lettie] : Sure. Pretty ones, ugly ones, old ones young ones, nice ones, mean ones.

Lettie says [to Rory] : ...whatever kind I am?

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