Ink on Paper

Written by Whimsical Symphony

Well, hello to the Letter Bee fandom, if anyone decides to read this story. I'm not used to writing for small fandoms at all. But I wish that Letter Bee was more popular - it's such a great work, when it comes to characters and the writing, and the art is wonderful too.

This is a Jiggy / OC story. I do try to create characters that are likable, but if she's not please let me know. Constructive criticism is welcome, as are all thoughts.

I also don't know how long updates for this story will take. I planned to post it much later, but I thought what the hell and just decided to do it.

As Jiggy is an Express Bee, there is a three week timeskip between the first bit and when they next meet. Can't expect Jiggy to be there all the time while he's off delivering letters. Don't know how long his journeys usually last, but it does say that he rarely visits the hive since he's always out. Please let me know if I didn't write him accurately. He needs to be cool, since otherwise Zazie wouldn't be a fan of him.

Chapter I – The Equation's Variable

"Here's your bundle of letters." Elsa pulled out Moc Sullivan's bundle of letters from the other ones sorted for Bees, and passed it to the young Letter Bee with a perpetual scowl on his lips. "Have a good time and stay safe."

"Sure," he replied, giving her a blank look, before walking away, letters in hand.

Perhaps this Moc Sullivan thought of her as stupid. Didn't he recognize that she'd said it as a formality? He would be battling plenty of Gaichuu on that route along the way – so he'd neither be safe or have fun, so it wasn't as if she could actually mean it, anyhow.

"Working front desk is so stupid," Elsa grumbled to herself, putting her head down on the wooden desk she sat at. Her head pounded after a hard day of work, and the cool surface of the desk eased the heat building up in her skull a little. "If they got more clerks… then I wouldn't have to."

She wanted to spend time in the libraries like an archivist should, perhaps helping people in Yuusari Central study for the preliminary Bee exams with her knowledge, or find the books they searched for in the vast library. But her duties also included sorting out letters in the large rooms they were kept in, keeping the ones in the cold letter department up to date, and taking over the duties of a front desk person when short-staffed – a rather common occurrence.

But Elsa loved the smell of aging paper and ink, loved all the knowledge about Amberground and Gaichuu found in the Beehive. Even if she disliked dealing with people, with Bees, she questioned with curiosity and wonder, about their experiences on the road.

Of course, without wonder, anyone would have clearly lost their sanity in a desolate world like Amberground, with light so close yet so far, and completely unreachable, just teasing those in Yuusari with its presence, and killing those in Yodaka with its distance.

Elsa read and read to keep wondering – keep wondering what lay beyond Yuusari, what knowledge lay in the secretive, unreachable capital of Akatsuki, the only place in Amberground with light. Elsa wanted to know, all about what happened during the Day of the Flicker, about spirit amber and the government, the artificial sun: all of it. Unfortunately, as a regular citizen, such knowledge was kept under tight guard.

Even if she couldn't feed herself half the time from menial pay, and got sick often due to tending to two jobs, she wanted to read and read and read, and someday, get transferred to Akatsuki if she worked hard enough and learn there, finally see the capital with her own two eyes.

Elsa wanted to know about this strange world they lived in, so lonely where everyone's hearts only became connected by the words they wrote on paper.

"I'm done my job. I also have letters to drop off."

A little startled, Elsa lifted her head off the desk and wiped the drool that escaped her lips because of her own exhaustion and constant micro-naps she'd taken throughout the day. She met an unfamiliar face and blinked once; a definitely attractive man who looked a bit younger than her – the cool type, she surmised: a sharp gaze, tousled brown hair, and a scar on his face that must've been from a pretty nasty accident – a nice package finished with the Letter Bee uniform. His dingo, a hawk, also made his forearm his perch.

"I see. Please pass them over to me," Elsa told the man, holding out her hand, immediately cleaning up her speech. She needed to, she had no other way. He emptied the contents of his delivery bag on the table, and she decided to sort them later, finding far too many. "I haven't seen your face here before. What is your name so that I may mark down the completion of your deliveries?"

"Jiggy Pepper… Express Bee," he introduced. "This is Harry," he said, lifting his arm to indicate his dingo. Looking at her for a moment, with a gaze that made even her squirm, he said, "I haven't seen your face here either. New?"

"Not new, I just don't normally work front desk. I'm an archivist, you see, though I usually do get assigned other duties," she explained to him, calmly marking down the completion of Jiggy Pepper's deliveries. Now that she thought about it, she heard his name plenty of places – the Bees often talked about what an experienced Bee this man was. Not to mention, she remembered that other Bee, Zazie, go on and on about Jiggy to his friends, idolizing this one quite greatly. "And so, because of that, it's quite understandable I've never seen you." Looking up at him for a moment, gauging his reaction and finding none, she sighed and concluded that he was a hard-ass. "Well, I assume you're staying in Yuusari Central for a couple days to relax, correct? We can assign your next deliveries in a short while, Mr. Express Bee."

"Got it… and just Jiggy. 'Mr. Express Bee' doesn't sound right," he said, tasting the words on his tongue.

Smirking deviously for a moment, she placed the tips of her fingers on her cheeks, allowed her eyes to fill with wonder, and (if she even managed) a blush to paint her cheeks. "Is that so, Jiggy? I see why everyone's so crazy about you! I think I might be falling for you a little myself!" He clearly didn't know what to say about that, and so wisely kept his mouth shut and looked away from her. "You're no fun. You do know I'm just joking, right?"

"… I hoped you were," Jiggy said bluntly. He gestured to the binder then. "So, finished then?"

Elsa wondered whether she should have been hurt by his comment. After all he basically said he wouldn't like it if she did have a crush on him. What a funny Letter Bee, she thought with a smile. "Yes, yes, I'm done – impatient Express Bee. Be off, and be sure to relax for your next deliveries. I bet Gaichuu are nasty. And you're away for long periods of time."

Jiggy nodded. "Definitely nasty." Then he turned around and walked to the exit. Looking at her briefly, he sent her a lazy smile and said, "Until next time, Elsa Marchen," before departing with all that mysteriousness of his.

"Thinks he can amaze me by reading my nametag?" Elsa chuckled, amused by this mysterious Bee. "However, I can see why people drool over him." And just as she said that, she saw Zazie, with his friends Connor and Lag. Zazie was blushing and stuttering and looked so excited to see his idol walk out the door.

Zazie whistled. "Dang, I don't know anyone cooler than Jiggy Pepper!"

Some things, Elsa thought with a laugh, would never change. Like those letters Jiggy dropped off, still staring at her with their irritating white envelopes. She'd always have to sort them, always, always, always.

"Starting with the last name letters of A…"

When Jiggy next came to Yuusari Central, three weeks after his last visit, he needed to rest up before his next long journey in a couple of days. He'd grown low on heart from shooting heart bullets and riding his motorcycle, as well as plain old exhausted from travelling around so long. He came into contact with plenty of Gaichuu through his journey through Yodaka, and that had been more than exhausting.

Jiggy remembered the first time he ever faced a Gaichuu during his Letter Bee Exam. Back then, he felt that jolt of fear travel through him just by looking at the Gaichuu, before he remembered that the reason he left Kyrie was to become stronger for Nelli, to protect his little sister and brother, before Nello died.

Now, though not perfect, he at least gave himself props for not freezing at the sight of them, not fearing the fact that he'd become a Gaichuu's next victim. He couldn't afford to. A Letter Bee put everything on the line for his letters. Jiggy also put everything on the line for his sister. He couldn't be weak, not now, not ever.

Lazing around his home had been a nice change for once, rather than driving around delivering mail and fighting Gaichuu. Just like every time he came back, each part of his home looked exactly the same. Sure, he found it lonely to be living alone, but somehow, it comforted him to know that despite his job that turned him into a wayward postman, he always had a place to return to – he didn't actually not have a home, he just barely used it. Now that he thought about it, that might've been the reason he invested so much into his home, spent so much Rin on it and its interior, so that it could feel like more of a home.

Without Nelli though, nothing really felt like home. Perhaps that was why he didn't mind being an Express Bee. He didn't have that many attachments anyway.

Jiggy opened his eyes from the short nap he'd taken when he heard his stomach make a noise of protest. "Suppose it's time to go and get dinner," he muttered, willing himself to get up, off the couch, and exit the house. "Harry, I'll be back." He greeted his dingo who rested on a perch he ordered from some furniture store long ago. He couldn't see Harry in a cage – his partner, his dingo. The bird was free to wander wherever he pleased.

Harry crowed in approval.

He walked through the streets of Yuusari Central slowly from his home to grab himself some dinner, as if to finally break the fast pace he set for his express deliveries, riding on the power of his heart for hours at a time before taking a quick break, then continuing, then stopping off at a random town to use an inn. The weather was a bit chilly, but not what he grew used to while riding from one town to another.

"Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Gobani. I tell you, your bread is delicious! How do you make it so well?"

He recognized that voice. Just as he suspected, the archivist from three weeks ago – he'd remember that red hair and those strange mannerisms anywhere - who sorted his letters talked to the Gobani's, complimenting the bread that Sandra Gobani made before waving and giving them a nice cheerful goodbye. The strange archivist who actually had it in her to tease him about her having a crush on him. Yeah right, he thought then, he knew she'd been joking by just that teasing tone in her voice.

"Ah, Mr. Express Bee. Shouldn't you be resting?" Elsa looked at him with a small smile of greeting. She held a large bag of Mrs. Gobani's bread in her hands. "It's been a while since you came here."

The smell wafted out of the bag and clung to the air, and he couldn't help but remember that the few times he'd tasted Sandra Gobani's bread, it had been fantastic – the texture, the sweet and salty flavours melding into one. He wasn't big into food, but that bread, he couldn't help but compliment.

"It's natural that I only come here every few weeks. And, I could say the same about you," Jiggy pointed out, indicating the giant bags that stuck out like a sore thumb under her eyes. "You look tired. And, I told you, it's Jiggy."

"Jiggy then," she said almost dismissively. "Pointing out a girl's flaws right in front of her, I am shocked," Elsa told him with a small laugh. "Though, one might say you do have a subtle way of going about it."

He could still hear it from the way she talked. Jiggy probably surmised most people didn't hear the fact that she constructed the way she talked bit by bit, word for word, and underneath it all, he could tell that she came from Yodaka. Most people probably thought from the way she spoke, the way she carried herself, that she'd been born in Yuusari, though she spoke even more delicately than here too. But underneath, he heard the original way she spoke. Occasionally, she spoke casually – 'I bet they're nasty' for one, which sounded so undecorated compared to this flamboyant language.

But he know he'd been observant, not many people knew but himself, probably.

"Subtle… just like your speech," Jiggy said with barely contained curiosity. "Why do you talk differently than most from Yodaka?"

Her eyes widened, surprised he'd noticed. "You're sharp." Then, shrugging her shoulders and averting her gaze a little, she looked like she wanted to speak again. Jiggy saw the curious archivist bite her lip, considering what to say next. "That, my dear Express Bee, is a story for another day." When he had been about to open his mouth, she cut him off with a cluck of her tongue. "Before you say it, I'm not a criminal. You have no need to worry – I'm not going to stick a knife in your chest as you sleep. I wouldn't either, because I know you for one, who fights Gaichuu daily, would have no trouble clobbering little ol' me."

"I wasn't going to say you were." Jiggy looked at her – slight, a short shock of red hair, a wardrobe that made her look like a scholar, pencil skirt and white blouse – yeah, not criminal material. "And… I understand there're things you don't want to talk about. We all have those. Just wanted to make an observation since it sounded like you were from Yodaka."

"Mm… is it obvious? It wouldn't be life threatening if it were, but I'd like my work to pay off somewhat…" Elsa questioned him worriedly. She bunched her hands overtop her skirt, crinkling it.

"No… I'm from Yodaka myself. I'm also pretty observant – it's not obvious," Jiggy told her honestly, giving her a reassuring look. Really, he didn't know why she needed to hide it, but supposed she had her reasons. He didn't have any right to know.

"You know what? Come with me. You can share Mrs. Gobani's bread with me today. You probably need dinner, right? Think of it as thanks for the fascinating conversation." Elsa smiled slyly. "You will keep me company, won't you?"

"You barely know me," Jiggy replied bluntly, narrowing his eyes a little, analyzing her further. He didn't know why she insisted, besides maybe the odd possibility that maybe she did like him – he knew people were like that sometimes, but he highly doubted it with her.

"Come now, accept my generosity, spoiled sport. I have bills to pay, so I could have walked right by you and eaten all this delicious bread myself," Elsa snorted, and held the bag up, so that he could smell the delicious scents of Sandra's bread. "Aha, I knew you found it delicious. Now, let's be off then, shall we?"

"Wait… this is your dinner?" Jiggy questioned her, not even the least bit alarmed that she'd chosen to pull him by the sleeve of his Letter Bee uniform.

Just when he said that, he saw the formerly bright expression on her face become somber, somewhat thoughtful; it reminded him of the look that Aria sometimes got these days when she thought about Gauche Suede. Just as immediately as he noticed it, it disappeared.

"Not everyone can afford a good dinner, Jiggy Pepper, even in Yuusari," Elsa said simply, leading him off to somewhere. "I'm from Yodaka. It's a given that I grew up poor – don't let my clothes fool you."

Sure, Jiggy knew that. He'd grown up in poverty himself back in Kyrie. But, he didn't expect someone who looked so put together to have to worry about meals. But a poor person could get other meals but bread, he knew it. Puzzling indeed. Regardless, not for the first time, he wondered what everyone in Akatsuki even did, so isolated, while so many people suffered.

"Prayer Hill?"

Jiggy looked at Elsa, who promptly sat down, pulled out a bun and began to munch on it. She looked at the artificial sun in the distance curiously. Jiggy wondered if she, like most people in Yuusari, wanted to reach out to that light so far away. When he first came to Yuusari Central, he remembered how much closer that light seemed to him, how different it seemed from the complete darkness he lived in while residing in Kyrie. Then, when he thought about that, he felt even guiltier for leaving Nelli behind in Kyrie – felt the permanent loss in his chest, that emptiness when he heard Nello died. His little brother, the person he was supposed to protect.

"Didn't figure you for the religious type," Jiggy voiced, reluctantly sitting beside her, though quite far away. He didn't know her after all.

"I'm not. I just wonder…" Elsa trailed off, before shaking her head and turning to him. Her specialty, she decided, to question him about his adventures, since she couldn't go on any on her own. "So, how is it fighting a Gaichuu? I know in theory the goal is to find a break in its armour and send a heart bullet into it, so it resounds within the empty shell of the Gaichuu. But I do want to know how it is really? Frightening? Seems like it… but Gaichuu really do seem like sad beings. I wonder how it is, having no heart, no memories, yet having a physical shell that continues to move."

Jiggy wondered what she'd actually been about to say. And how the conversation became so different.

He noted that she did in fact become incredibly animated when talking about Gaichuu and theory of all things. Somehow, it felt as if he were being interrogated, but then that wide-eyed look others, waiting for his words shoved that thought right out the window. Weird, he thought, most people didn't like talking about Gaichuu at all, including himself, but her curiosity far surpassed that. He thought that the girl and Thunderland Jr. might become great friends one day.

"It's more an aspect of having your dingo distract it or lead it around to showing its weak spot. Harry does that for me and I shoot it with my Shindanjuu. Some are easy, some are difficult," he explained, then shrugged. People always did say that he wasted as few words as possible. To appease her though, since she clearly expected more out of him, he reluctantly said, "Don't think of them as sad. They're empty, that's that. And they kill a lot of people, eat a lot of hearts. They're not really alive."

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have said anything…" She looked at him apologetically. Jiggy noticed as well, that she really must've been shaken by asking that question – she sounded almost normal just then, like any old person, like someone back in Kyrie would have spoken. "I'm told I can be insensitive with my questions. I… that was terrible of me. It's just… I want to know. But I'm a coward – hell if I can do what you do." She pushed the bag of bread toward him and he silently took a bun from the bag. "Have you ever just wanted to know? That's why I came to Yuusari, by pure chance of course. Not every citizen is lucky enough to get a crossing permit. And I promised that I'd know, everything, find out everything. I've always been a bit of a bookworm, though that leads to me irritating people quite a bit, just like I did with you. I'm hardly good at interacting with people."

"You seem to interact just fine to me." Jiggy gave her a look. "You complimented Sandra Gobani for her skill at making bread. That's called interacting well."

"For every person I compliment, I piss off just as many. My apologies, Jiggy," Elsa told him with a sheepish smile. "I'm incorrigible, really. Thank you for telling me your experiences though. They were fascinating."

Jiggy shook his head and said, "I'm not thin-skinned. You just asked a question – might've been a sensitive topic for most people these days, that's all." He looked at her, averting her gaze, mulling over his words, before he continued, "Knowing is a hard thing to even deal with in Amberground. There're a lot of secrets."

Elsa nodded in agreement, taking a bite of her bread. "That is so. Do you know what I first wanted to know? I wanted to know the duty of a Letter Bee, what makes people so happy about receiving a letter, what makes Letter Bees so willing to risk their lives to deliver them? What makes letters themselves so special?" She fiddled with her fingers, a gesture done purely out of anxiety. "Albeit, it has nothing to do with history, but I feel it's important."

"If you get a letter, you'll understand," Jiggy advised, intrigued by the line of questioning she'd chosen. Yet, still confused. Anyone should have known the joys of getting a letter. Even a Letter Bee like himself felt it occasionally, like when Nelli sent him one.

"You see, I've never received one." Elsa shut up quickly after that, and looked at the ground of prayer hill mumbling, "My apologies. Come now, I suppose you need to get to bed, and I must get going as well." She looked at Jiggy Pepper and smirked, tapping him lightly in the shoulder then, playing the part of a flustered girl. "Oh you, you're so charming! I might be falling for you."

Jiggy thought that perhaps he shouldn't bring up what she said. Not receiving a letter? Practically unheard of. Somehow, he pitied her for it.

"Cut the crap," Jiggy told her bluntly, peeling her arm off his shoulder. When he looked off to the artificial sun again, and the mysterious capital of Akatsuki below it, he wondered if one day, everyone could feel that light.

"As you wish…" Elsa responded mockingly, having another bun to satiate her hunger. Standing up, she pat Jiggy on the shoulder once in an amiable manner, then picked up the brown paper bag. "Thank you for the splendid conversation. I do think I'll be talking to you more if you always answer my need to know like this. Goodbye, and stay safe. Those Gaichuu must be hungrier than the people I grew up with back in Yodaka," she smiled bitterly – quite a morbid joke, if he did say so himself.

Jiggy knew then, social tact didn't exist to her.

"Alright… take care too, until next time," Jiggy responded to her goodbye. Then, without a word, like wind, she disappeared, almost as if she'd never been there in the first place. Randomly inviting him to eat with her, then randomly leaving. A strange woman. "Never gotten a letter, huh?"

That night, Elsa didn't sleep after working her second job. She stayed in the Bee Hive Library and searched through all the books offered, about Akatsuki, Amberground and last but not least, books on psychology as to why people seemed to enjoy letters so much in Amberground. Of course, she could speculate, but like Jiggy said, if she got one, she'd truly understand.

"Shame I have no one to send me one…"