SIDE:
Fecilla’s Job
FECILLA’S PERSPECTIVE
“Good morning! Have you seen Captain Oght?”
“Hi, Fecilla. No, I haven’t seen him today.”
“Thank you.”
My morning’s work began with looking for Captain Oght. The sight of me running frantically around the village watch station had become quite common there.
Many of the staff said they hadn’t seen him before I could even ask, which made my task of finding him a little easier. Whether or not that was a good thing remained a mystery, though. Captain Abira would always smile sheepishly and give me a piece of candy whenever I saw him. One of his staff members once asked him, “Aren’t you going to give Captain Oght a warning?” and he answered, “I only fight battles I can win.” On that day, he’d given me candy and a cookie.
I had been in Ratome Village for about two months now. I spent my first week following Captain Oght, having my duties explained to me, and meeting the people who worked there. In addition to the staff, there were also the trainees, which made remembering everyone’s names quite a task. I still messed up people’s names to this day, but they all let it slide, saying, “You can’t help it; there’s so many of us.” It was a constant relief to me that everyone was so kind.
Just when I’d started to settle into my job there, I had a hard time finding Captain Oght when I went to make my morning rounds and get my instructions for the day. I assumed something had come up, and when I was cleaning his office, Vice-Captain Velivera came in. When he noticed Captain Oght was nowhere in sight, he smiled angelically. I gasped in terror the moment I saw it. I nervously clamped a hand over my mouth, but our eyes had met. He saw it.
“Good morning, Fecilla.”
My heart raced, wondering if he was going to yell at me, but Vice-Captain Velivera returned to his normal demeanor. I gave him a curious look as I greeted him.
“I thought he was finally taking his job seriously…but it didn’t even last two weeks.” Velivera set some papers down on Captain Oght’s desk and sighed heavily.
“Pardon me, sir, but did Captain Oght perhaps get a sudden mission?” I figured I might as well talk to Velivera since I still needed to get my tasks for the day.
“Nope. He’s playing hooky.”
“Ohh, he’s playing hooky. Wait…hooky?” It was bizarre hearing that word come out of Vice-Captain Velivera’s mouth.
“You’re the only one who doesn’t know about the captain’s hooky habit. He does it every day without fail.”
Captain Oght…the man who diligently worked for all those days in a row…is a slacker? Sensing something odd was going on, I gave Vice-Captain Velivera a strange look.
He smiled back at me and explained, “Didn’t you know? The staff have been placing bets on when he would get bored and start slacking.”
“I didn’t know, sir… Um, let me just go look for him.”
“Don’t put yourself through that torture. I asked the staff to let you know when they see him.”
“Er, are you sure that’s all right, sir? I need to get my daily task…”
“Don’t worry. When his desk starts to get buried in paperwork, we’ll tie him to his chair.”
I smiled, amused that he’d made a joke. The man was usually so solemn.
It was five days later that I learned Vice-Captain Velivera was not joking. When the mountain of paperwork had piled quite high on Captain Oght’s desk, Velivera rounded up as many trainees as he could and conducted a thorough search of Ratome Village. An hour later, Vice-Captain Velivera had successfully apprehended Captain Oght. When I finally saw the captain again after all that time, he greeted me as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“Hey there,” he said.
“Er…good morning, sir. Um, so…” My eyes wandered; I didn’t know how to address him. I’d never dreamed his vice-captain would literally tie him up with rope. Velivera expertly bound the captain to his chair and set the documents in front of him. Captain Oght grimaced at the sight of the mountain of work, but when he saw the look on Vice-Captain Velivera’s face, he sobered up and got to it. I was dying of curiosity to see what sort of menacing expression could possibly scare the aloof Oght straight…but I was too terrified to look.
After ten hours under Vice-Captain Velivera’s strict surveillance, Captain Oght finally finished his paperwork.
During my two months here, Captain Oght was tied to his chair seven times…yet he never seemed to learn his lesson. I came to realize what Velivera meant when he said “I only fight battles I can win.” When I explained to Head Watchman Abira that I now understood what Velivera had meant, he gave me a whole basket of cookies. They were delicious.
On another morning, I was alone in Captain Oght’s office tidying up. As I was organizing his papers and doing some cleaning, one of the staff brought in a document with the word urgent written on it. Figuring I should try to find him, I started my search at the station. After I quickly found him napping in the break room, I told him about the urgent document, and he immediately took care of it. Then the next day, I found myself once again searching for Captain Oght to deal with an urgent document.
That time, I found him snacking in the canteen. I handed him the document and a pen. After this situation repeated itself countless times, I noticed that he would play hooky in the station in the mornings, so whenever there was an urgent document or a pile of neglected papers to attend to, I would spend the beginning of the day flying around the station looking for him. Since he always left the station after noon, finding him after that would be hell. In the end, I came to spend most of my mornings searching for Captain Oght. Thanks to that, I became better acquainted with the staff who looked on as I worked.
“Aha… I spy a Captain Oght!”
Today, he was sipping tea on a bench in the garden.
“Morning. Have some tea.”
“Oh, thank you, sir, don’t mind if I… Now hold it right there! Check over this document first.”
If I let Captain Oght steer the conversation his way, he would escape me before I realized it, so I always made sure to take care of business first. That was very important.
Captain Oght swept his eyes over the urgent document, scribbled something onto it, and handed it back to me.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” All the day’s documents were taken care of now. “Captain Oght, Vice-Captain Velivera was looking everywhere for you yesterday.”
Oght’s face twisted in discomfort. “Agggh… Well, it’s probably okay.” From the way his eyes wandered as he sipped his tea, I figured he must have been naughty again.
“You know how harsh he is when he gets angry.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine.”
“Ack!” I yelped, my eyes meeting with a certain someone. Seeing who it was, Captain Oght stared intently at me. The vice-captain was marching over to us, a tight smile plastered on his face. He followed my gaze and looked past me…and smiled as Captain Oght made a strange yelp.
“Now, I believe you owe me an explanation for yesterday. What do you have to say, sir?”
Now that Vice-Captain Velivera was certifiably infuriated, I tactfully avoided his gaze. Working alongside Captain Oght had taught me that Velivera was unbelievably terrifying when he had snapped.
“Ha ha ha! Well, I’d better get back to work.”
Vice-Captain Velivera answered Captain Oght with a silent stare.
I’d never known the sheer spine-freezing terror that silence could evoke until Velivera taught it to me. I had him sign the urgent document already…so maybe I should get back to work. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I quietly, slowly moved my feet in an attempt to get away from them.
“Hey, Fecilla!”
“Eek!”
Vice-Captain Velivera’s commanding voice made me overreact and bite my tongue. I could hear Captain Oght trying to cover his laughter and failing miserably. I was so embarrassed.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have been so loud.”
“No, sir, it’s all right. Was there something you wanted?”
“The head watchman says he’s glad that the documents are much easier to read now.”
Ooh, that’s flattering to hear! Sometimes the documents from the staff had illegible words in them. Whenever I noticed that, I’d have the staff rewrite them.
“Some of these bastards really do have sloppy handwriting…” Captain Oght sighed. Velivera smiled back at him in agreement. And they were right: sometimes the scribbles didn’t even look like words at all.
“All right, Captain. Let’s get you back to work.” Velivera grabbed Captain Oght by the collar and dragged him toward the station. It was impressive how Velivera paid no mind to Oght as he griped all the way.
“You come, too, Fecilla.”
“Yes, sir.”
I still made so many mistakes at my job, but I was proud that I was getting better and better at it.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login