Courier's Oath

“‘m afraid lutherie is pretty different from mail carryin’,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I’m pretty sure almost smashin’ your fingers to pieces with a chisel wouldn’t be considered healthy!”

He let out a chuckle before realizing that “smashing your fingers to pieces” wasn’t exactly a line someone said before laughing. In fact, it wasn’t the kind of thing someone wanted to say while they talked about their job. Oops.

Before he had time to try and recover, the small girl’s hand was around his and she had given him a shake that was more like a small squeeze than a shake.

"Liesel, huh? That’s easy to remember," he said, the name rolling off of his tongue with ease.

Boy was it refreshing to say a name that, to him, wasn’t too hard to pronounce; his Japanese was, admittedly, still quite shaky and trying to pronounce his classmates’ names had become somewhat of a chore.

Despite this, the courier was familiar with a French thoroughbred racehorse by the name of Luthier! Although she doubted Nicanor was secretly the retired champion sire in disguise. It would have been neat though. What a bummer.

"A chisel? That's a lathe tool, correct? I'm not really too well informed on this subject, however I hope your fingers never smash to pieces!" The Swede exclaimed, trying to match his attitude towards the subject of the conversation. "O- One time I tripped and scrapped my knees while on a delivery route, but I handled it like a real tough viking -- I think I only cried for about two minutes."

The courier title distinguished her from ordinary mail services in several different ways. The teenager was officially a special messenger, carrying diplomatic correspondence. A spy affiliated with government -- the scrapped knee was really the least of her troubles.

But she wasn't allowed to say too much about the job for obvious reasons, so the girl continued on with the conversation.  

It might've been a popular name in Germany, but 'Liesel' was definitely not a common name in Japan. It felt weird. Most of her new friends had trouble pronouncing the name, but Nicanor had done very good -- like a true German speaker. The sound was extremely refreshing!

"Yes, some of my close friends even call me Lieselotte! Also please don't mind me asking but do you speak German? It would be ever so nice to find more speakers."

If he's able to speak German, we'll be able to talk together! I'll finally be able to drop the Japanese for once, she thought. The language had always been confusing for her, so she tried to speak other languages whenever it was possible...