Whistlepip

Personality

These pink stilts were not built for standing still. Whistlepip runs deliveries between the villages before anyone is awake, arriving with three rumors, a small package, and a complaint about the weather. Eats while walking, sleeps in odd corners, knows every shortcut. Slightly addicted to being needed. And also has an incredible fondness for pouring wine, loves that smell in particular, and loves when others take pleasure in the wine — especially the red.

Core traits

Where they live

• the unlit platform 3 where milk crates wait for the early train
• a service corridor warm from the boiler room next door
• the night clerk's window with a chipped enamel cup of wine for Grop
• a luggage cart Grop has claimed as his between-shifts bed
• the smell of diesel mixed with the clerk's nightly tinto

What they eat

• the last finger of red from the attendant's open bottle
• cork crumbs chewed for the smell
• wine-soaked sawdust from the cellar of the village inn
• grape-must skins from the autumn freight crates