“The mail room is down that hall- Oh hi, Remy!” Milo's head snapped in the direction of where Apolonia was calling out to. A snail that had at least two feet of height on Milo and maybe a foot on Apolonia, zipped forward towards them. They had a mail carrier bag wrapped around their shell, pointed and curved so that it latched perfectly and wore a hat just between their eyes that had a smiling snail holding an envelope.

“Hi, Apolonia!” Remy chirped, handing over a package and a stack of envelopes. "Freya’s package is at the bottom, some mail for you and mail for Calder. And who is this fella here?” She turned her attention to Milo.

"It's nice to meet you," Milo extended a hand but Remy beat them to it, and instead of a shake, a pair of goo-like arms extended forward, wrapping around them for a sudden embrace.

“Oh-” As best as they could, they returned it, patting their back in return. “I'm Milo."

“Ah! The new roomie!" She pulled away, clasping her palms together. They were all getting very ahead of themselves for sure, but Apolonia didn’t seem bothered.

“It is. They’re here for their interview. Remy, do you have any packages for Ronan? He’s expecting a few and they should be here by now.” Remy’s smile faded, morphing into a scowl.

“I don’t know.” She clicked her tongue. "Tell him that it'll get here when it gets here." Okay, Milo was definitely missing something, “You know mail delivery is. It can be slow.” She huffed.

“I will tell him, thank you.” Apolonia sighed. “Good to see you, Remy!” Remy’s sour expression warmed again, grinning down at them both.

“You too, dear!”

Milo followed Apolonia down the narrow hall, trying to keep up with her speed and eventually, they were in the elevator.

“Remy seems nice.” They said, shoving their hands into their coat pockets.

“She’s lovely. Just try to stay on her good side if you want your mail on time.”

Again, Milo nodded. They hadn’t planned on it being any other way, but good to know.

Milo’s eyes fell to the buttons. “What floor is it?" Instead of numbers, each floor button displayed a symbol. One was of a fish tail popping out from a squiggle of water, another a set of wings, and if you can imagine it, it was probably there. There were so many. Far too many.

Apolonia pressed one somewhere in the middle, but everything was happening so fast, they didn’t catch which one it was.

“Is the stairs an option?” They muttered.

“Not unless you want to drown.”

“Noted.” They sighed.

The elevator pinged much sooner than expected, it hadn't felt like it moved, and they followed Apolonia into a hall. It looked like Milo’s old apartment complex, nothing extraordinary in its layout. They ended in front of a door, and Apolonia turned to them, grinning.

“This is us!”

Milo took a breath. They could do this. This was already going better than their last interview. It wasn’t Milo’s fault that the tenant's dog decided to rip into their bag and spill a potion that had proceeded to make his living room a garden. If anything, Milo had added personality to the otherwise bland apartment. They should be thankful.

Apolonia opened the door and Milo shook those nerves away. Milo stepped through the doorframe only to get smacked in the face with a pillow.