Big Fan Of Putting People In Situations

Mumbo had heard that she’d really leaned into being a trash collector person back in season nine, although he hadn’t been around much to see it for himself. It hadn’t occured to him that she might still do the trash collection- up until this moment, Mumbo honestly hadn’t given a single thought to who might collect the trash every morning.

Mumbo looked out over his wheat fields for a bit, admiring how the golden waves got even more saturated with color as the sun rose. He drank some tea and then went back inside his house. The fields needed weeding, and then he was going to build some custom trees. And he had to direct the person putting in his 5G tower.

There was a knock at the door right as Mumbo finished strapping his knee pads into place. He rushed to the front door and opened it.

“‘Ello Mumbo! Good to see you again.”

Mumbo did a double take as he looked at Pearl, again. She wasn’t wearing the uniform of the trash worker now, but some jeans and a shirt.

“Pearl? What? Didn’t I just see you, like, half an hour ago?”

Pearl chuckled amusedly at him. “You know, we hermits are allowed to see each other more than once a day. And I’m on official 5G tower duty now, so no dwaddling about. Where, sir, would you like your 5G tower to go?” Pearl pulled a clipboard from her inventory and flipped a page. “I have your contract all here for signing, but for transparency’s sake, I wanted to remind you that this tower will also be an operational fire tower, in collaboration with Hermitcraft’s firefighting agency.”

“Oh, okay, that makes sense,” Mumbo said, even though it didn’t, really, and signed the papers given to him at once. He was moreso wondering how exactly he’d missed Pearl being both the trash pickup lady and the 5G tower installer. He made a mental note to leave a nice letter for her with tomorrows trash, because he felt a little guilty about his obliviousness.

He showed Pearl the area he’d cleared for her to build in, although, he admitted with a red face and an awkward scratch to the back of the head, he’d been thinking about building a tree there instead. Pearl was nothing but warm and kind, and together they found a new spot. Pearl thanked him, then told him to go on and work on his trees.

A few hours later, to Mumbo’s shagrin, Pearl was finished building the entire tower, and Mumbo had a few spindly trees to show in exchange. He sputtered and gasped and gawked at the gorgeous tower that had popped up, almost flying into Pearl herself in the tower.

“Wha- how? Oh my god, this is- I am, well, I’m speechless, really. How did you manage all this in just a few hours? I’ve only managed to build three trees, Pearl!”

Pearl patted him on the shoulder, giggling. “You forget- I have a blueprint, while you are working in organics. But I appreciate the complement.”

“Do you take, like, breaks between your builds, go for a walk or anything?” Mumbo asked Pearl as they flew down to the ground together.

“No, not really. Lots to do. I’d rather just keep pounding along, you know? If I didn’t have some other things to get to today, I’d probably just go on over to Grian’s place and set up his tower.”

Mumbo gwacked at her. “God, I have to have a walk, a sip of tea, pet my dog, something between every tree’s completion! I can’t imagine just going and going on with no pauses.”

Pearl glanced at her communicator. “Well, speaking of no pauses, I’m afraid I do have to dash off. Other things to do and all that. I’m glad you like your tower,” she smiled at him, blue eyes just about level with his own. “Your trees are beautiful. You should be very proud.”

And she was gone, and Mumbo was left thinking about an upside down house filled with secret task books and deflecting her warm complements with awkward laughter. She’d learned that leaving means he can’t deflect, it seemed. He chuckled to himself, looking out at the trees he’d built. They were pretty nice, weren’t they.

Mumbo went back to his house, deciding then and there to write a letter to Pearl to thank her. He wrote it while he ate lunch, addressed it to her address. He was considering walking over to her base to deliver it when there was a knock at the door. Mumbo opened the door to a huge box in his face.

“Delivery for Mumbo Jumbo!”

“Oh my goodness, thank you!” Mumbo said, taking the box from the delivery person’s hands, his face smooshing against the side. He turned to set it down out of the way, grunting a remark at how heavy a box of leafy greens could be.

“Just need you to sign for me, good sir.”

Mumbo paused, bent over the box. There was no way, but he could swear that that voice sounded all too familiar…

“Pearl?”

And there Pearl stood yet again, in a sky blue and white uniform, a cap placed rakishly on her head. She had a mail satchel on her side, and was holding out another clipboard and pen to him. She was smiling at him, her chest rising with a giggle.

Mumbo took the pen and clipboard, a laugh of disbelief curling heavy in his chest. “How- what are you doing here again? And- wait, how long have you been doing the mail service?!”

“Only since last season,” Pearl said with a half shrug.”

“Only,” Mumbo echoed in disbelief, handing the clipboard back to her. “Pearl, I’ve seen you three times today. You’ve been working for a different company every time. You keep changing outfits.”

“And I’ve seen you three times,” Pearl replied, storing the clipboard away. “How lovely is that? I don’t usually get to see you on my mail run. And speaking of, got any outgoing mail for me?”

“I- I do, actually,” Mumbo fetched his letter, handing it over with a blush hot on his face. “It’s…”

Pearl looked at the recipient, and smiled. “I’ll make sure it gets to them. Bye now, Mumbo!”

Mumbo felt like he’d just been shot from Etho’s windcharge cannon without warning- dazed and confused. He watched Pearl walk away, wanting to shout a million questions after her, but not even sure what to ask. It was dawning on him that he just kind of assumed that things like mail and trash pickup had been done by some kind of server magic, a plug-in by Xisuma or something. He had known Pearl to always been industrious, but this was almost rediculous.

Mumbo eventually went to feed his geese and weed his wheat fields, the hard work pushing Pearl and the absurdity her three jobs out of his mind, replaced with daydreams of builds to come. He had just started placing some wool blocks on top of his future cityscape when he was punched off by Grian.

“Oh, hello Grian!” Mumbo greeted him.

“Mumbo, let’s get dinner,” Grian said in reply. “We haven’t hung out in ages, we’re like ships passing in the night.”

“I suppose I could go for a good meal and decent company,” Mumbo chuckled.

“Decent??” Grian squawked. “Excuse me, I’m a delight!”

After a quick shower, Grian lead Mumbo to a little resturant off to the side of the shopping district. It was pretty new looking, or at least Mumbo hoped it was, because he hadn’t even known there was a resturant on the server. They went in and sat down at a booth, perusing the options.

“‘Ello, ‘ello, welcome in.”

A cheerful and incredibly familiar voice interrupted Mumbo’s musings about wether to have more bread today. Mumbo felt his body close to exploding with mirth as he looked up to see none other than Pearlescentmoon standing before them, now wearing an apron over some jeans and a Decked Out II T-shirt.

“Pearl, don’t you dare tell me you work here too,” Mumbo said shrilly.

“Dude, don’t talk to wait staff like that, it’s so rude,” Grian admonished him. “I want a steak,” he said to Pearl.

“Oh, it’s quite alright, Mumbo here’s been seeing me all over the place, poor thing,” Pearl replied good naturedly, scribbling down Grian’s order. “I liked doing resturant work so much from Hungry Hermits last season that I sometimes take orders here. What would you like, Mumbo?”

“A loaf of bread and a potato, I suppose.” Mumbo said after too long of a silence where he just stared at her.

“Easy peasy, coming right up,” Pearl tapped her pen against the notepad and walked off to the kitchen.

“Dude, have you never seen a person work in a restaurant before? Stop staring,” Grian flicked Mumbo’s forehead.

“You don’t understand, G,” Mumbo took Grian’s forefinger and thumb, looking into his eyes to implore someone aside from himself to see the bizarreness of it all. “She’s not just the waiter. She picks up our trash. She delivered my package. She put in a 5G tower really quickly between those other two jobs. I feel like I’m going crazy here!”

“Why, because Pearl has a few jobs?” Grian shrugged. “Sounds like a personal issue to work through, mate. She’s always dashing around. I don’t think I’ve seen her stop moving longer than two minutes. Must be all that Hungry Hermits training. That was fun- do you remember when we did that? We used to do things together.”

“Alright, now you two lovelies enjoy your date, and just close the door behind you. I have to dash, unfortunately. Got another tower to build before the sun sets,” Pearl told them, taking off her apron.

“Wait, don’t we need to pay you or something?” Mumbo said to her, a kind of mad desperation in his voice. He felt like he should do something, show that all her work was noticed, even though he hadn’t noticed a thing until today.

“Oh, its all good, I don’t accept tips.”

“Cheap, I like it,” Grian said. “I had forgotten my wallet anyway.”

“Quick question, Pearl. Do you get paid for any of your jobs?” Mumbo asked. “Or is it all just a love for the game?”

“I just like keeping busy, you know,” Pearl replied with a nod. “A smile on my friends’ faces is all the payment I need.”

“And thank god for that, because I hate paying for things,” Grian quipped. Everyone ignored him.

“I- okay, well, bye Pearl. Thank you?” Mumbo called after Pearl’s retreating form. “You know, it’s funny, I never see Pearl normally, but today I’ve seen her everywhere I go.”

“And I never see you, Mumbo. Now what’s all that about?” Grian replied, and the two devolved into catching up over their meal.

After eating, Grian and Mumbo took a stroll around the up-and-coming shopping district. Scar was building it, which meant Mumbo got a chance to study a master’s work up close, gushing to Grian over the intricacies and choices. They talked of building, of plans and what the other person had missed in their lives. And then, Grian had an idea.

“Let’s do something fun,” Grian said, a sudden mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Let’s set something on fire. For the plot,” he pulled out a flint and steel.

“Grian, that seems like a bad- Grian!” Mumbo shrieked as Grian set a tree near the shopping district on fire. It was close enough to Scar’s custom trees that Mumbo felt cause for alarm. He scrambled for his communicator.

<mumbo: FIRW!!!!>

<Grian: fire.>

“Oh Grian, why would you do that? The whole place is going to burn!” Mumbo moaned, flapping his hands at the fire.

“She’s got ten seconds before she’s surpassed her quickest time,” Grian said to himself, a stopwatch running on his communicator.

“Grian, what-”

And then there was a siren. A figure appeared in full firefighter gear, flying towards them at top speed. They screeched to a halt in front of the two, the siren sound still playing from the goat horn in their hand. The person lifted their helmet to glare at them, and of course, it was-

“Pearl!?” Mumbo screeched.

Pearl rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, come on Mumbo, you knew this one, my base theme is literally ‘fightfighter’ this season.”

“I- well, yes, I now am remembering that, I just- what don’t you do?” Mumbo stuttered.

“Well, someone’s gotta do it all,” Pearl replied, pulling out a water bucket and hurling it onto the raging flame. It took a few more buckets and some swatting about, but Pearl got the fire out soon enough.

“You beat your best fire reaction time by five seconds,” Grian told Pearl with a devilish grin.

She took out a second bucket of water and dumped it unceremoniously on Grian’s head. “And that’s for starting your tenth fire this season. It’s a new part of the firefighter code- we dump water on any person who gets to ten fires started. I’m going to get some punch cards made up when I get the time.”

“I wasn’t part of it, only an unwilling accomplice,” Mumbo said quickly when Pearl feigned a bucket throw at him.

“Good. I may still have to come by and do a fire safety training for you sometime, boy. Firefighter’s gotta keep unwilling accomplices from becoming arsonists like their friends,” Pearl said with a chuckle. “But glad I could save the day.”

“So you pick up trash, deliver mail, install towers, wait on tables, and fight fire. Pearl, I feel like I’m going to see you in my dreams next! Do you run the entire world or something?” Mumbo asked her.

Pearl hummed. “Dreams? Only sometimes, when they’re farming related. But it’s not all that much I do, really. You’re giving me too much credit,” she patted him on the shoulder, then flew off before Mumbo could respond.