But the best thing had been the realization that she would not actually be cold forever more. The insides of buildings were all warm enough, heat spells keeping the freezing temperatures out. And Tove had promised her she would help her go find some properly warm clothes some day soon, so she wouldn't have to be too cold outside either.
Alaia was now lying in bed, failing to sleep. It was partly because of the unfamiliar weight of the thick blanket she was under, partly because she was in a completely new place, far from home and nothing quite made sense, partly a mix of nervousness and excitement for the next day. But mostly it was the quiet. It was so quiet. The apartment building where she had settled (a simple one bedroom apartment, with windows in the living room out onto the street below) made some noises, but they were small sounds. There was maybe the faint sound of someone sneezing coming through the walls, or some humming sound from the walls, but that was it. So she lay in bed, scattered thoughts running through her head, listening to an unnatural silence, until she finally drifted off to sleep.
~X~
Alaia stood at the street corner, trying to orient herself. She and Tove hadn't had time the day before to go see the office and she was trying to find her way there now. The office wasn't that far away, so Tove had drawn her a map and told her it would be easy to get there, 15 minutes on foot.
It wasn't easy. It was still dark (though the city, at least Old Town, was filled with absolutely beautiful lights hanging from buildings and poles at the sides of the roads) and she almost couldn't feel the fingers of her right hand, despite having gloves. In her left hand she held a cup of steaming coffee she had managed to buy from a tiny corner café, speaking only Fjellish. It hadn't been too hard, but it also hadn't been easy. The woman at the counter had asked her something she hadn't understood, so she had just stood there staring stupidly without knowing what to say (she really needed to learn to speak Fellish properly if she was really going to live here), until the woman had realised what was going on, smiled warmly and told her how much the coffee cost. It had not been as much as she had been afraid it would. All the coffee they got here were obviously imported, from somewhere like Cametonia, where coffee plants and people didn't freeze to death. So it could have easily been more expensive. But then, Tove had told her they drink a lot of coffee here, so maybe the sheer quantity of it here made it cheaper. And on top of not being as expensive as she had expected, the woman had mixed in some spices she didn't recognise. They made the coffee taste odd, but in a way she liked. The taste seemed to fit a place like this.
She finally figured out which way the map was, or which way the world was, which ever you want to use as a reference, and started down the road that lead in the right direction. Tove had been right. Now that she'd figured out which way was the right way, after walk that wasn't too long despite the cold she came to the spot that her map said should be the right place. She looked up at the building she was standing next to. It said EFAR on the wall above the door, with big warm, friendly letters that were currently half-covered in snow. Alaia smiled to herself, tucked the map into her coat pocket and let herself in.
Inside the door was a wide hallway, ending in wide stairs. She walked to the stairs, and up them. She came to a lobby, which had a couple of nice-looking couches in it and which lead into a huge room simply filled with desks and people working at those desks. She stopped at the edge of the room. She didn't really know what to do. She should probably find Tove, but she didn't know how. Should she just go in there....
She was pulled out of her thoughts by someone saying something to her. She turned to see a tall blond woman next to her, looking at her curiously. What had she said? There had been an intonation, so it was a question. But what had she asked? Probably what Alaia was doing there. Or if she could help. Or something.
"I..." Alaia started, trying hard to find the words in Fjellish. "I am... The..." She waved her hands around, frustrated, trying to get the meaning of correspondent across. She failed. "From Cametonia," she finished, defeated. But the woman seemed to understand, as she smiled and nodded. that gave Alaia a bit of hope. "Tove Nielsson?" she asked before letting the woman ask her something more in a language she didn't speak.
"Sure. Let me show you where she is," the woman switched to Esperanto and waved for her to follow. "Well, where she probably is. She's not always here."
"Does everyone here speak Esperanto?" Alaia asked her as she fell in step next to her.
"Most speak at least a little," the woman answered, leading her along one wall around the desks. "Here at the office, everyone speaks it decently. A necessity for the job."
They passed several doors and when they were almost at the far corner, they stopped and went through one. The door had a plaque with something in Fjellish, but Alaia didn't have enough time to understand what it meant. They entered into a room, a much smaller room than the previous, filled with only a few desks. At the other end were two more doors and the woman walked one of them and knocked. She didn't wait for an answer, opening it right away. Inside was Tove, sitting at a desk, reading some papers and sipping a cup of coffee. She looked up as they entered.
"I found something for you," the woman said and nodded towards Alaia.
"Thanks, Johanna," Tove said. The woman nodded and left. Tove turned to Alaia. "So, you found your way."
"I did. And then I couldn't quite figure out what to do once I got here, so I just asked for you from the first person who talked to me," she answered, feeling immense relief at seeing someone she knew. Well, knew at least a little.
"That'll work," Tove said with a chuckle and stood up. "Let me show you around the office. You can leave your coat and stuff here and come and get them after."
And so they walked slowly around the whole office. The big main room was where people worked on basic news for the daily paper, and the doors along the outside led to the offices of some of the senior staff and such. The room Tove's office was in was reserved for the few investigative journalists working there, who took a long time and put a lot of careful work into all of the articles they put out. The room next to Tove's office was the office of the investigative journalism department head. Tove got her own office because she was the quote-unquote best at her job, so that made her second in command of the department. She had apparently worked for EFAR for a few decades now, since she was a teen.
Up the stairs there was a room for the science journalists and one more floor up was another for foreign news, who received news from their own correspondents from all over the world and chose which ones to share in the local papers. Right next to them was a room reserved for some foreign correspondents from other places working in Embärfjell. Most correspondents worked from elsewhere, but some companies had made deals and were allowed to work at the EFAR office. Like Alaia's company. Most companies they allowed in were the national or public news organisations of countries, but a few respectable news companies had gotten their foot in the door too. The EFAR office was a great place to work for correspondents. What better place to keep up to date with the local news than this?
They had the facilities of the radio station on the fifth floor. According to Tove, most rooms on that floor were sound proof, because they had several recording studios in addition to the work stations for the people who wrote the content. They had their own lounge area, though apparently the radio newswriters often spent time in the lounge of the main news floor, to keep up with the news everyone else was working on.
Most floors also had a kitchen for the staff to use. Alaia could hear laughter coming from a bunch of them, with groups of people sitting around the tables, drinking cups of what was probably coffee. Tove introduced her to a lot of people, regular workers and depratment heads included, so they would know her face. She had no chance of remembering all of them, but she tried to memorise as many as she could, especially the important people.
After the tour they went to bacl to Tove's office to pick up Alaia's belongings, and then headed to the room that would be Alaia's from now on.
"Most correspondents don't get their own offices, but the Mr.Marqués had been here so long they'd given him one at some point," Tove explained as they came to a stop in front of a door on the fourth floor. "So now you get to inherit it. Tada!"
They both stopped short as Tove threw open the door. Alaia just stared for a moment.
"Tove," she said, with uncertainty in her voice.
"Yes?" Tove asked. Alaia could hear the laughter in her voice.
"Why are there a hundred tiny ducks covering my whole desk?" she asked.
"Ah. Those," Tove answered, mock-serious. "Are you telling me you Cametonians don't work on desks with a hundred tiny ducks on them?"
Alaia looked at Tove and couldn't help but grin. Tove was barely holding it in either.
"Why are there a hundred tiny ducks covering my whole desk?" she asked again.
"It's our way of greeting new people."
"In Embärfjell?"
"No, at the office. It's been done for as long as I can remember. I don't even know how it got started, honestly. There's so many different stories going around about the origin, it's really turned into an urban legend at this point."
They both kept looking at the ducks for some time longer.
"Well," Tove said. "Good luck with those. I have to get back to work."
She turned around and walked away. Alaia sighed (not quite being able to decide whether out of amusement or annoyance) and sat down at the desk filled with ducks.
__________________________________________________
I have no idea. But this bit has gone on long enough.
The topic for tomorrow is Chase.
~matu
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