Mira sat behind the counter, her head propped up against her arms as the melodic sounds of heavy rain crashing against the window. The temperature in the room slowly became cooler as the wind outside picked up in speed. “I wish I could close the shop early,” she thought, her eyes now growing heavy as all traces of the sun dissipated behind the dark sky.

With a heavy slam, the door to the shop burst open as blasting winds crashed into Mira’s face forcing her to tightly grab onto the counter or risk falling off her stool. The gentle sound of the bell placed above the door was now replaced by the bombastic crackling of metal as the bell jittered back and forth like the flapping of a bird’s wing.

“Sorry about that,” a tall lanky man said as he closed the door behind him.

Unable to see the man due to how dark the room had now become, Mira secreted out a small lamp that was set behind the counter. Lighting it, she could see that the man was wearing a beautifully tailored blue robe, which in themself would have been out of the ordinary if not for the winding gold trim that snaked around his outfit in an alluring leaf pattern. The color blue was not often seen outside the upper crust as the pigment themself were not only rare but were extremely dangerous due to the fact that they can only be harvested from black hornets. Another thing that stood out to her was how the man who was just out in the heavy downpour was not covered in a single drop of water. “Who is this guy,” she thought, scanning him for any other signs of identification.

Moving closer, the man placed a small crate on the table. “Is Master Luke in?” the man asked.

To Mira, the crate looked oddly familiar not because she had seen this exact crate before, but because she had seen several hundred like them. Taking a closer look at the man, her eyes were drawn to a small pin that sat above the man’s upper left shoulder. “Wow,” was the only thing that came to her mind as she gazed at the pin in awe. The pin was in the shape of a diamond with golden wings protruding from either side, in the middle of the diamond where a small set of markings that Mira could barely make out in the shape of a crown. The marking as well the material of pin denoted ranks within the parcelman hierarchy. While she had seen many bronzes and a couple of silvers, she had never seen a gold parcelman before. But this man, the man standing in front of her, was a diamond parcelman. Diamond parcelman, or royal runners as many commoners refer to them as, were only used to deliver packages between royal families and were highly sought due to their quick, efficient, and most notable of all, their discretion in deliveries.

The reason why they were so rare was because of the process it took to become a diamond. Mira was not too sure exactly how the process worked, but when she talked to the handful of silver parcelman that would deliver their packages, they would tell her that in order to become a silver you had to win the yearly challenge set out by the guild. The challenge consisted of a hundred mile run between two towns and only the first three people that placed were promoted up to silver.

“No, Master Luke is out and won’t be back for another hour, maybe even longer if this weather persists.”

“Yeah the weather has gotten quite nasty since this morning,” the man said, walking up to the window and peering out into the sky. “Would you like to sign off on the package?”

“Can I?”

“I don’t see why not. Master Luke has put you down as an authorized receiver.”

“He did?” Mira said with a shocked expression.

Reaching inside his robe, the man pulled out a pen along with a small bottle of ink. Reaching back in his robe, he now produced a small box and placed that next to the pen. Putting down a small book, the man pointed to a small line, “Sign here.”

Mira grabbed the pen, her finger trying to find the correct position as she had only learned how to write her name a month ago. “Sorry, I’m still not very good at this.”

“Why don’t you try the powder?” the man said, opening the small box next to the bottle of ink.

“What is it?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know about it since it was Mater Luke who introduced it. Taking your thumb, you press it down on the powder. After that, you firmly press it against the paper.”

Taking the man’s advice Mira did what she was told and was surprised to see a perfect copy of her thumbprint on the page.

“Looks good,” the man nodded, sliding the box over to her.

Opening the box, Mira could make out a bunch of random items that they would receive on a weekly basis. Taking them out one by one, she wondered what could be in the box to warrant a royal runner. After getting through the box, the only thing that was of slight value was an enchanted ring that gave one the ability to have a better night’s sleep.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” the man said as he perused the store looking at the different items sitting on each shelf.

“Why are you making a delivery to Master Luke.”

“Because no one else could do it,” he said nonchalantly while staring at a dagger.

“No, what I mean is...” Mira said, trying to think of the right words.

“Why is a person of your caliber,” pointing to his badge, “ making the delivery. I know most parcelman won’t make delivery in this type of weather, and most would just wait for more favorable weather. But what makes this delivery so important that it needed to be delivered today.”

“Has Master Luke not told you a single thing about the Parcelman? We parcelman find it an honor to deliver his packages some even fighting over the privilege. Usually, this package would be assigned to a bronze, but I found myself in a lucky position not having to deliver any royal parcels. The guild decided that a gold was going to deliver the package as a bronze or silver was most likely going to damage it in the storm. Since I outranked the golds, I asked for them to reassign it to me.“

“What?” Mira said, looking over at the pile of junk that she had pulled from the box. “I still don’t get it.”

“Master Luke was the one who started the parcelman. If you looked at a map today and a map from ten years ago you would see that not only had he mapped out and named each road, he was the one who gave a number to each plot making it incredibly easy to track and deliver packages. Without him, none of us would have a job today.”

“That’s incredi...” Mira started to say before she was cut off by the sound of howling winds as the door slammed open.

“Mira can you get me a towel,” Luke said, wiping away the water dripping onto his face. “Oh, Vesta, what a surprise, I was not expecting to see you here.”

“Good to meet you too sir,” Vesta said, extending a hand out to Luke.

“So what brings you to my small shop, planning to buy supplies for a delivery.”

“No, I actually brought a delivery to you,” he said, pointing to the box that had been open on the counter.

“What? Don't you have more important stuff to deliver, I’ve told the guild plenty of times to just leave all my deliveries to the bronze,” Luke said, taking the towel that Mira delivered to him and wiped away the remaining water in his hair.

“None of them were able to make the delivery, so I took it upon myself to do it.”

“Do you have any more deliveries today?”

“No, this was my last.”

“Great, why don't you join us for dinner,” Luke said holding up a bag of groceries.

“Oh, no, I couldn't intrude like that.”

“Nonsense, I insist.”

“Alright,” Vesta said, following Luke to the back room.

“So where is Kelsie? I haven't seen her in a while, last time I heard from her you guys were still in gold fighting it out for diamond,” Luke said, igniting the large golden sword that sat in the kitchen.

“She stopped making deliveries a year ago.”

“What? Did something happen?”

“Yeah, we got married, and she’s at home taking care of our baby boy.”

“No way,” Luke said, almost dropping a large wooden spoon from his hands.

“What did you name the baby?”

“Ha, well...” Vesta said, taking a slight pause. “We named him Luke, after you.”

“Wow, I'm honored.”

“I can't believe you have a baby named after you,” Mira said.

After an hour of chatting and eating, Vesta stood up from the table “I need to get going, I don't want to keep Kelsie waiting.”

“Alright, it was nice catching up, please give Kelsie my regards. Also, next time you have a free day we should all go out to eat, I would love to meet baby Luke.

“That would be great, I’ll definitely let Kelsie know.”

Walking back out to the front of the store, Vesta placed the bottle of ink along with the box and his small booklet back into his robes.

“Wait, before you go I have something to give you,” Luke said, rushing to the back of the store. Rummaging inside a small chest that sat at the foot of his bed, he pulled out an old backpack that looked like it had been through hell and back. Unzipping one of the side pockets, he pulled out a small yellow box and handed it over to Vesta. “Here, give this to Luke, I'm sure he will find it way more useful than me.”

“What is it?” Vesta said, opening the tab of the box.

“They are crayons.”

“What a crayon?” Vesta said, grabbing one of the eight color sticks. “They don't seem magical in nature.”

“That’s because they're not, they are like pens that don't use ink.”

“Are these magical artifacts?”

“No, no,” Luke said, taking out a sheet of parchment from under the counter. Taking one of the crayons, he drew a rudimentary flower. “See, they are just colored pens.”

“I can't accept something like this,” Vesta said, trying to hand the box back to Luke. “Something like this could easily sell for thousands of gold.”

Crossing his hands, Luke shook his head. “I’m not giving this to you, I’m giving this to you so you can deliver it to baby Luke. And I mean It would be awfully rude to decline a parcel request.”

“You got me there,” Vesta said, securing the box inside the inner lining of his robe. Giving his final farewell, Vesta walked out into the still down pouring rain.

Rushing to the window, Mira kept an eye on the man as he gave her a parting wave. Like a flash of lightning the man darted down the road, his speed so overwhelmingly fast that it left a trail of dry pavement that after a few seconds started to fill back up with water.