Once the sun rises, we gather our things and head out from the inn, handing the room keys to the attendant on the way out.
"Come on," Ayette whines as she has an arm draped around my shoulders while we walk down the street from the inn, "I wanna practice my new skills with you."
"Ayette, I already told you I wouldn't be a good training partner," I sigh and shake my head.
"Please," Ayette pouts, "Dimitri showed me some basic stances last night."
I glance over at Dimitri, who's walking beside Reine and Nathan with his hands shoved in his pockets, and he raises a brow at me as if daring me to question him.
"You would have a moderate amount of time to train on the, well, train," Reine almost laughs at the coincidence, "if you want, one of us could watch you two and give you tips."
"Right..." I clear my throat, "well...maybe..."
"Yay!" Ayette shouts joyously and lets go of me, throwing her arms up in the air, "thank you!"
"Did you also drug her or something?" Nathan muses towards Dimitri, "she seems even more animated than she normally is, and that's saying something."
"No, you twat," Dimitri snorts and smacks the back of Nathan's head, making him wince.
Mikasa giggles at the sight and I turn my attention towards her and Ciana. We exchange a small smile and I hope deep down that Mikasa eventually recovers from all that's happened to her and it makes me happy to see her have small moments of peace.
"Man, I hope they have good food on the train," Ciana sighs, "I haven't been on a train for years. I can barely remember the smell of the freshly ground coffee and the warm feeling in the dining area by the bar. Remember that one time we took a train to Sundown, Reine? Me, you, and Aislinn were worried about Dimitri, so we--"
"Ahem," Reine clears her throat and Ciana trails off, her eyes landing on Dimitri, who's now watching her with extreme interest.
"Oh...oops..." Ciana laughs awkwardly, "guess you never told him."
"Told me what, exactly?" Dimitri asks sternly.
"Nothing," Reine and Ciana say quickly and Dimitri narrows his eyes before he sighs and lets it slide.
"Where's Sundown?" Nathan asks.
"Sundown is a pretty village close to winter that has a giant waterfall that lets off rainbow mist and the entire area feels like summer even though it's surrounded by snowy peaks of mountains. It's really beautiful," Mikasa smiles fondly at the memory, "my family used to go there on vacation whenever Zen and I were little."
"That sounds nice, unlike where we're going," Ayette grumbles the last part quietly.
"I'm sure Aislinn is happy to be returning home," Ciana sighs, "I wonder how the others are doing..."
"I'm sure they're fine," I say reassuringly.
"Yeah..." Ciana breathes out, unsure.
We walk for about another forty minutes until we reach the train station, which looks...intimidating to say the least. The train station is simply a giant silver platform that stretches for miles at the end of Orina and has multiple turnstiles and booths where you buy tickets and pass through while waiting for the train to come. Beyond the elevated tracks is a vast hillside that goes on for miles and I have to raise a hand to cover my eyes from the bright pink-lit sky from the sun to see.
"Is there only one train?" Nathan asks, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion as we get in line at one of the turnstiles behind the mass of people already there.
"Yes," Reine nods, "Orina's train station only consists of one bullet-train that houses around forty thousand people at a time at maximum capacity. Typically, only about a little over half that ride the train at once on an average day. The train itself stops at multiple stations where one other bullet-train is and multiple other smaller trains are. Each sector has a bullet train, but the one in Orina is far the most popular because it travels the entire way through each sector."
"That's cool," Nathan remarks impressively.
We begin to move through the line at a fairly fast pace and although a lot of people are here, it seems that showing up early had its benefits. I glance behind us as we continue moving forward and I notice that a sea of people have appeared behind us and I swallow thickly, glad that we're not clear back there.
"Orina Express will be arriving shortly," a feminine voice rings out over the crowd through one of the booths after a calm sounding bell rings multiple times to signal that she's about to speak, "I repeat, Orina Express will be arriving shortly. ETA-5. Please stay away from the tracks, thank you."
Reine reaches the grey-blue booth first and pulls out her wallet, slipping money under the glass window to the petite woman with brown hair up in a loose bun and a blue, white, and black uniform. She then pulls out her ID and hands it to the woman as well, who quickly checks it, smiles, and hands her a ticket and her ID back. The process repeats with Dimitri and I feel panic rise over me because I don't have an ID in this realm. I exchange glances with Ayette and Nathan, who appear equally as concerned as me. Eventually, I reach the window after Mikasa goes through and I awkwardly stand there and rub the back of my neck.
"Um..." I trail off and the woman raises her precisely shaped eyebrows as her emerald eyes watch me humorously, "I don't--"
"He's with me," Ciana says from behind me, Ayette, and Nathan as she leans around the three of us and waves her ID around with her wallet, "well, the three of them are. They're temporarily visiting this realm and I didn't realize we'd be taking a train. Sorry for the inconvenience."
"That's okay, Miss Delwyright," the attendant smiles before she turns and grabs a roll of white pull apart tickets and takes off three.
The attendant, whose name plaque says Jacqueline, places the tickets on the sand colored counter and turns to the side once more to grab three little slips of paper that look like receipts. She then places them on the counter by the tickets and bends down below the counter, grabbing a black ink pad and a stamper. She presses the stamper down onto the ink pad and stamps it on to each receipt-like paper, which shows up red on the slips. Ciana then comes up to the window when the woman waves her over and Ciana hands her ID and money for the four of us. The woman counts the money and places it in a grey lockbox before she hands Ciana back her ID with a fourth ticket that she pulls off the roll. She then hands me a slip and a ticket, as well as Ayette and Nathan, and sends the four of us on our way.
"Thank you!" Ciana calls back to her as we shuffle out through the turnstile one by one.
"Sorry about you having to pay for our tickets, Ciana," Nathan sighs.
"It's okay," Ciana says and glances over her shoulder with a wink, "you'll just pay me back later."
Jacqueline chuckles as we leave and I glance down at the receipt in my hand to see that the red stamp reads 'VISITOR PERMITTED' and I raise my eyebrows. After walking through the turnstiles, we meet up with Reine, Dimitri, and Mikasa just as a silver train with a bright, baby blue, swift stripe on its side pulls up, blowing wind and stray papers everywhere around the platform. Two pairs of silver stairs descend from the platform that houses the train above us and people around us begin to ascend the stairs as two silver metal train doors slide open with a swoosh.
"Orina Express is now boarding," Jaqueline calls out, "I repeat, Orina Express is now boarding."
"Guess we'd better go," Ayette sighs.
"Yeah," Reine nods.
The others pick up any luggage they may have sat down before we head towards the stairs on the left. We climb the stairs together in pairs of two as we hurry aboard. Once inside the train, I glance down at my ticket to see that it says 'Orina Express: Cabin #419' and I sigh, not even sure which direction to go.
"This way," Reine says with a nod of her head and heads off towards the left.
"Wait, which cabin--" I start to ask which cabin Reine has, but she's already walking as if she's on a mission.
"She'll be in the same area, either way," Ciana says and claps a hand on my shoulder as she grins, "we all went through the line around the same time."
"Right," I sigh, feeling slightly more at ease.
The rest of us follow Reine, Dimiri, and Mikasa through the crowded isles of the train where people are piling in to black booths with giant glass windows and a marble table, placing their luggage in dark chocolate stained wooden cabinets above them. We eventually come to the area where the cabins are and we pass by them fairly quickly until we come to the four hundreds. Reine stops at her cabin, which is on the left side of the hall and labeled as #419 in golden letters on top of a black plaque that rests by intentionally blurred glass sliding doors that lock from the inside with a little latch. Reine goes inside of her cabin and Dimitri and Mikasa follow. I turn to look at the others and they nudge me inside before they go into the cabin beside ours, which is #420.
Our cabin consists of two black booth seats with pillows, fuzzy blankets, a giant glass window, four storage cabinets, a square decorative rug, a table between the booths, a mini fridge, and a flat screen TV. All in all, it's pretty fancy. Reine and Dimitri pull out one of the booths to turn it into a bed and they place their stuff down on it for now and begin unpacking some of their things.
"We'll be on this train for a few days, so we may as well get comfortable," Reine says as she digs through one of her over-the-shoulder pink and dark grey duffel bags, the other one being black.
"Yeah..." I nod off in agreement as I glance behind me while I stand in the doorway to our cabin.
Just as I look back, I notice a woman with long unruly blonde hair with orange swatches throughout it walk by our cabin, a green-grey cloak wrapped around her shoulders. Without even glancing over in my direction, her burgundy colored lips curve into a sly smile as she turns and walks into Ayette's, Nathan's, and Ciana's cabin.
"Hey...Reine..." I trail off as I continue looking out into the hallway, my eyes focused on the cabin next to us.
"Yeah?" Reine calls out to me as she continues unpacking and moving things around.
"These cabins hold four people per cabin, right?" I ask and look back over at her.
"Yeah, why?" Reine asks, confusion in her voice.
"Huh," I muse out and shake my head, trying to get rid of the ominous feeling, "no reason..."
Although she's probably just some stranger who got a ticket after us, I can't help but feel like something isn't right as the train sets in to motion and takes off down the tracks.