Difference between revisions of "Log:Mavis the Bloody Unicorn"

29 September, 2019

Mavis looks for employment at Ninth Spectrum Paintball, and acquires it!

Ninth Spectrum Paintball

      At four thirty on a Sunday afternoon, the range is a busy place to be, albeit a chilly one. It's been mostly cloudy all day, with a few rare patches of sun to peek through all that grey, and with that in mind, the management has set up a table near the rental office with hot drinks at dirt cheap prices. Coffee and tea for adults, cider for anyone who wants something sweet, because it's almost October and mulled cider is totally okay. It's even from a local apple orchard, because the owner of the business prefers to support local growers.

      The parking lot is fairly full, but it's still easy enough to find somewhere. For someone without a car... this place would be a very, very long walk. Mavis may have needed to take an Uber or something, or ride a bike, and it would still be a fairly long ride. The business is toward the southeast corner of the land claimed by the city, a good several miles south of the Red Clover hotel.

      The rental hut itself is a fairly large building, given the amount of storage it has to deal with. People go through a lot of paintballs every day, not to mention the gear that has to be rented out. There are employees behind the counter, and there are employment forms easily accessible, listing expectations.

      A silver Prius with an Uber logo pinned inside of the front window drops Mavis off in the parking lot then navigates its way out. She has brought only herself, wearing a hoodie of monochrome, gradient colors and worn, but clean denim jeans, and study boots with mismatched shoe laces. Her glossy, black hair is kept and brushed, pulled back into a twisty bun that highlights her youthful features.

      The corners of a newspaper are crumpled up in her hoodie pocket and Mavis draws it out as she steps over to the Rental Building. She smiles shyly, flashing the sliver-gap between her two front teeth at one of the employees behind the counter, and points to a circled ad of the newspaper classifieds that Amity had so graciously acquired for her. She accepts one of the forms, once they're pointed out to her, asks for a pen, and scoots off to the side to fill out the application without getting in the way of customers trying to rent their time out on the killing grounds.

      The employees are happy enough to help with the forms, and to help answer any questions about the questions -on- them. The forms themselves are very up front about the fact that NSP will gladly hire people with no previous job experience, which may explain why so many of the employees are so very young!

      Around the time Mavis is almost done filling it out, an androgynous young woman walks out from the back rooms, clipboard in hand, and...yeah. Even without the oddities, there's something about her that makes it hard to look away. She's a good 6'3" in those kick-ass leather boots, every movement perfectly choreographed, perfectly graceful, and she has an air of absolute self-confidence and competence -- but not arrogance. She's smiling the moment she gets out, and she's still smiling while going over some paperwork with one of the employees managing the registers.

      As for those oddities..? Her skin is so pale it's almost white, but it has just enough of the healthy peachy glow of Irish/Scottish heritage to avoid looking pasty. Then there's the teensy fact that she has no navel, but maybe she had surgery as a kid or something? Her calf-length hair can't possibly be real, as crystalline as each and every strand appears, though whatever it's made of, it can certainly still be annoying: after the third time it ends up sliding down onto what she's trying to read, she grabs a hair elastic from around her wrist and loops it up into a glittering, eye-catching ponytail instead, which just makes the OTHER oddity more obvious, really: she has pointy ears. Like, seriously, she looks like an elf. If those are cosmetic, they're damn near impeccably applied. If they're surgically done...yeah. Maybe she's rich, and has a really good surgeon?

      Last but not least, her slanted eyes are a warm, quite inhuman honey-green when something the employee says makes her lift them to fix her attention on Mavis. Contacts, must be. The attention is curious, a polite appraisal without being intrusive, before she looks back down to point at something on her clipboard and ask a question of the employee. From where Mavis is, she can't quite hear the words, but the accent has a bit of Irish in it, and the voice is a pleasure to listen to. Very smooth, with a musical lilt. A storyteller's voice.

      It would have been ideal for Mavis to arrive during less busy hours, but she realizes the errs of her ways too late and the Uber trip had cost her what felt dearly. She's here so she might as well do what she set out to do and fill out the application. Employees behind the counter are busy handling customers and Mavis can tell now's not the time to be a nuisance. She tries to make herself unobtrusive, off to the far side of the counter and out of the way while scribbling out her details in the application's information fields.

      For race, she puts an "x" in the box for "Other:" and writes in "Human". Although, she's definitely biracial something-something.

      Tch. Artists, amIrite?

      The rest of the application fields are filled in with her spotty resume: construction here, did some work in car-shops there, worked on a golf course for a little while, but she left off the messy stints in fast-food and retail. She puts in her own contact number, but all of her references are out of state and emergency contact is someone named Franky in Georgia. Also, her address, for the moment, is the Red Clover Hotel.       Just as she finishes signing and dating, Mavis looks up. She's left-handed as indicated by the ballpoint pen in her hand, wears a lot of bracelets around both wrists and lower forearms. Her dark head snaps up as if yanked and Mavis' hazel eyes latch onto the new arrival. Tall, ethereal, and... strange.

      She left the crisp click of boot-heels in her wake and the stain of color in the air.

      Mavis blinks, taken aback, then freezes when the snowy-skinned, pointy-eared woman looks dead at her. Had she never seen the sun? For the barest instant, Mavis emulates a squirrel stunned in the beam of headlights and about to flee, but she stays there with her application and pen forgotten in hand. She bites her bottom lip, deducing that this woman must be the one in charge and... trudges forward, mumbling a polite, "Excuse me," to a customer she brushes near. The application is held out, an offering, as she draws nearer and Mavis' uncertain glance flits from the employee who helped her over to November and back to the other again.

      "Hi, I'm Mavis. Just moved here," Mavis explains in a voice that sounds scripted, and she manages to smile at just the right time. "I saw an ad in the newspapers about part-time work?" She squirms and turns her feet inwards, scuffing the top of her right boot with the sole of the left. "Uh..." Yup.

      Catching sight of Mavis' approach in peripheral vision, November flashes a quick smile toward the employee behind the counter, tucks her pen behind an ear -- and my, how convenient having pointy ones must be for THAT -- and turns to study the shorter woman with the application form.

      Accepting the form with gloved fingers, she glances down at it, then back to Mavis, weight shifting idly to rest not -quite- hip shot, but certainly relaxed. "This time of year, we can definitely use an extra pair of hands." She glances toward the clock on the wall, considers, then asks Mavis, "You have time to do an interview today? I can take you in the back." As an afterthought, she adds, "I'm November. Owner extraordinaire." She flourishes a bow, and .. yeah. She just...yeah. She should be a dancer. She should TEACH dancers. Nobody should be THAT graceful, or THAT perfect.

      "Oh, yeah. I mean, I have hands," she blurts out then wonders why the FUCK she'd said that in response. Funny, the hotel clerk, Amity, had been plently pretty, too, but she hadn't been like _this_ about it. Mavis clears her throat and adds, "I pick things up fast and don't slouch around." She's earnest, give her points for that.

      The range owner was... well, pretty is an understatement. Mavis could stare at her for awhile, although she clears her throat and looks away when she catches herself doing that. The stranger was interesting and different, that was all: pointy-ears, slanted eyes, and lonnng, looong hair that Mavis just wanted to run her fingers through. Andboy was she tall. It wasn't that weird, Mavis' is an artist at heart and human.

      Mavis nervously twists a ring around her thumb then balls up her fists and shoves them into her hoodie pocket, which further crumples the newspaper classifieds crammed inside of it. She's anxious about being prompted to interview right away, but on-the-spot interview and subsequent hiring was her ideal outcome. She'd done some walking today, applied at some gas stations and places around town. Working at a paintball range just... sounded cool.       "Yeah," she agrees with a bob of her head, glance at the clock, and then adds, "Sure, I would love to.. I have my ID and Social Security Card with me." Mavis pats her back pocket, trying on an easy smile and finding it awkward and uncomfortable. She stiffly bows back, lacking the grace and poise of November's refined form but it... just seemed like the right thing to do? Whatever. "I- I'm Mavis. Mavis Octavia Baines." Her brows knit, puzzled as to why she blurted out her full name like that. Just "Mavis" and "Baines" was fine.

      "It's nice to meet you, November," Mavis remembers, clearing her throat and glancing down at her mismatched shoelaces.

      However awkward Mavis may feel, she can rest assured that November hasn't seemed to notice anything unusual. Then again, if people act that way around her all the time, why WOULD she notice anything off..?

      "Good." Approval warming a tone that's already easy on the ears, she half-turns, beckoning for Mavis to follow her with the hand -not- holding the application, and heads toward the Employees Only area. Pausing once she passes it to hold the door for Mavis, she continues on, heels thunking steadily over the floor, and explains, "We hire a lot of students during the summer, but this time of year, they're back in classes, so things open up."

      She walks past an open door on the left, a storage room from the looks of it, and two doors on the right, first a break room and then a closet, before stopping at the third door on the right at the end of the hall. It looks like someone had fun with paint splatter, but all it says on it is OFFICE.

      The room itself is fairly small, or...well. The floor space is. Clean, though. Ruthlessly so. Clutter wouldn't dare to THINK about breeding here, but if it did, it, too, would be as organized about it as the colour-coded charts and calendars and storage containers on shelves. Everything has a place, and from the looks of it, everything is precisely IN its place. The general of this army isn't going to suffer from sloppiness if she's ever audited!

      "Not a lot of room in here, but why don't you have a seat on the futon, there?" For herself, she eases that leather-clad posterior up onto the stool and props her feet on one of the rungs. "Have you ever been to a range before?"

      Mavis follows along, flashing an uncertain smile at the other employee's on her way back and making wide eye contact with them. She's not sure if THEY find November to be as curious a distraction as SHE, but somehow the range owner's employees manage to get their jobs done. That meant she could too. Actually, the notion of _not_ diligently working seems absurd to Mavis as she trails behind November with her attention on the woman in front of her.

      Get a grip, Mavis.

      She squeezes into the office, craning her head to peer around and puffs out her cheeks a little. Awfully organized and cramped in here and it seems smaller with November occupying it with her. Sitting down on the indicated futon, Mavis smooths her hands over her overly long, overly baggy hoodie and smiles.       "Thanks for interviewing me right away," she comments with a nervous lick of her lips. "And, uh, yeah. A couple of times. A few friends and I got together, went a few weekends in a row," Mavis elaborates, trying to maintain a steady stream of eye contact with the woman across from her. She crosses her ankles and puts her hands in her lap, twisting one of the rings around her fingers. "It was a lot of fun, but.. kind of an expensive hobby, you know?"

      She does have a rather strong presence, yes, but on the bright side, at least November is thin? Not a lot of -physical- space is taken up. The androgynous young woman is fine-boned enough to make modeling agencies drool -- and to make those pointed ears of hers make perfect sense. Give her different hair and different contacts, and you could toss her in a fantasy movie lickety split.

      Dismissing/accepting the gratitude with an easy, "You had good timing," and an impish smile, green-gold eyes amused, she leans back against the counter, listening and watching Mavis fidget, before agreeing, "It's not for everyone. I keep the prices fairly low, but even so. It's always going to be more than a trip to the movies."

      November lifts the application form, drawing attention to it, then sets it on the counter behind her. "You'll not be wanting work as a firing instructor, then, at the range," she assumes, but tilts her head to ask, "unless you can shoot as well? We've pistols and rifles, and the melee weapons of course, foam sponge grenades..."

      Mavis' eyes peer around the office, trying to find something else to look at while November leans and breezes through her half of the interview. The dusky-skinned, dark-haired artist on the futon, however, stammers through explaining, "W-Well, I could instruct, but I have never done that kind of thing before. What's that.. like giving people the safety breakdown?"

      It couldn't be that different from power tools, right? And did she say "melee weapons" just then? Mavis gives her a bit of a startled look at that, but who is SHE to question it?

      "I could work up at the front, answer the phones.. Probably put up obstacles and cover, too, if you wanted to switch things around out there or something needs patching." She leans forward a wee bit and lifts a hand out of her lap to point at her resume. "Have some construction skills, basic level. And, well, someone has to go clean up the range, right? I'm sure it gets wrecked out there. Oh!" Something occurs to her and she perks up. "I also have some first aid skills, yanno. Just in case someone gets hurt. Unlikely, but accidents happen and I'm not squeamish or anything."

      Basically, anything BUT instructing classes.

      Shaking her head, November breathes a light laugh and assures, "No, you wouldn't have to instruct if you didn't want to." Leaning a bit to the side, she stretches out an arm to open a drawer, then fishes inside of it for a sheet of paper. Straightening, she leans forward again, this time to hold the paper out for Mavis. "The weapons we rent. Pistols and rifles use paintballs and hoppers, the usual. Grenades are more or less Nerf sponges impregnated with paint. Swords, axes, bows... Some groups like to pretend their D&D battles are real, and if they're willing to pay to rent a range for an hour or two to have them, more power to them. It's foam again, stiffer in the middle and impregnated with paint on the edges, and sometimes a bit of chalk for staying power."

      She leaves the list with the mortal, and adds, "They get wiped down after every rental, but refilling them/deeper cleaning's something we can always use more hands for. It's tedious, but the paint won't stain skin." Retrieving a pen from a plastic cup full of other pens and pencils, she grabs the application, flips it over, and writes something on the back. "Reception's a possibility, too, then. Rentals. You're a bloody unicorn if you know how to -safely- use power tools." Her lips twitch, simultaneously amused and frowning -- apparently some people haven't been as skilled as they claimed they were. "Maintenance and repairs, then, and range prep." She writes on the sheet as she speaks, and taps the butt of the pen on her chin, thinking.

      Slanted green-amber eyes fix on Mavis again as she asks, "Any limits on the sorts of hours you can work?" and circles the pen in a loose gesture, encompassing the park. "We stay open after dark. Night ops, UV-reactive paints. Part time's fine; we can work a schedule out around what times you're free."

      Mavis watches the other woman, her movements and speech. She tries not to stare too much at her pointed ears and long, lustrous hair, but she's only a mortal. The punky artist's head turns when November reaches to open that drawer, hazel eyes attentive and absorbing visual details. She had a keen, sharp memory, but the good news November relays is slow to sink in.       It takes Mavis a second, but she blinks and her eyebrows raise. She smiles, revealing the millimeter gap between her two top, front teeth.       "Really?" She perks up on the futon, bouncing with excitement and forgetting herself. "Just like that? Wow, I mean.. Yes! Hah, yeah, I can operate power tools. It's not that hard, really, when armed with some safety equipment and common sense." She laughs, a little giddy, uncrosses her ankles and re-crosses them the other way. "And my schedule's wide open, I don't know anyone in town so no night plan's or anything like that. No kids either." That was something employer's were usually glad to hear, no trifling with school buses and doctor's appointments. "Just slot me in on the schedule where you need someone, I could start right away." She deflates, shrinking back down to the futon. "Uhm.. To be frank, though, my car couldn't hack the trip here. Broke down just outside of town.. Is there some kind of car pool or.. something? I have gas money, but if not then Uber's fine til I save up enough to fix my old car or get something else."

      And this is with the truth about her nature dimmed -down-. If she weren't hemorrhaging power to make herself less awesome, it would be even stronger. Nothing quite like leaving people speechless just by existing.

      Mavis' excitement elicits another laugh, and it's a lovely laugh, too, light and clear. "Yes. Just like that." She lifts the clipboard with the application on it, assuring, "I'll check your references, run the numbers, but if you can do what you say you can, I can't imagine why I'd turn you down." She lifts her chin, narrow jaw as lovely as the rest of her, to indicate the hallway outside, and, presumably, the main room beyond it, given the next words out of her mouth. "Talk to Emily about a car pool. She and some of the others help each other out. There are buses in the city," she frowns slightly, "but they don't come this far out. Could get you closer to the car pool route, though the Clover's pretty close to a main road. I can't imagine you'll be too far off."

      Shaking her head to rid it of bus thoughts, the rainbow-haired young woman reaches over toward a different drawer and pulls out another form, and tugs the papers on the clipboard -off- of it, so she can put the form on it and hand it to Mavis. She takes the pen out from behind her ear while she's thinking of it, and hands that over, too. "SSN, preferred payment method, employment legal mumbo jumbo. Folks start at $15/hour-" which is a good $3+ over Vermont's minimum wage, "-but if they've done good work, there's a raise every year."

      She nods her head rapidly, loosening her the strands of black hair bound back in her messy bun and some of the locks fall free. Mavis unconsciously tucks them behind the shell of her ear, bracelets sliding down her forearm. She's grinning a broad, dopey, and very much elated human kind of smile.

      "Gees-- no pressure, right? But, seriously, thanks for giving me a shot. You seem pretty cool and I was pickin' up on the vibe out there. Everyone's happy?" She's rambling a bit, which isn't like Mavis. The artist's head turns to look the way that November indicates and it's like she'd been expecting someone to be standing there, but Mavis goes, "Oh yeah? Heck yeah, I'll chat her up on the way out." She then looks back, blinks, and accepts the new forms being offered to her. She hesitates before accepting the pen, because it had been behind November's ear. It was fucking special or something, somehow. Mavis struggles with that bizarro impulse then pulls herself together, acts like a normal person should, and just takes the goddamn pen with a little thought clearing. It's a regular ole writing utensil, Mavs, stop being weird.

      Mavis glances up once, self-consciously, after settling back against the futon with the pen in hand. She begins to scribble through the forms clipped to the clipboard with a practiced touch. All of these things were pretty much the same everywhere she went and the tip of the pen makes scratchy sounds like a rat inside of the walls trying to get through. She stops, looks up at November sharply when starts talking figures.

      "Fifteen dollars an hour?" That's a lot of ramen noodles! Mavis would live like a KING. Or Queen. Whatever! She flusters a bit then blurts, "Pftbt- yeah! Gees. When did you want me to start? Do I need to adhere to some kind of dress code or is this," she lifts the clipboard and opens her arms to indicate her casually-dressed self, "all fine?"

      She IS a goddess. Treating the pen like it's a holy relic is totally rational. Mavis is just tapping into The Truth!

      November works on the computer while Mavis is busy filling out the forms, the tap-tappy-click of keys and mouse buttons ensuring that there's no awkward silence involved. "We have black tees with the logo on them, for big events, but you can wear an ID on a lanyard over street clothes if you like. If you want a tee, we can stop in the supply room on our way out."

      The rainbow tucks the paperwork in a locked cabinet for the time being, however, to securely store all of those sensitive numbers, and leads Mavis out to let the other employees hear the good news!