Summary: Sunati and Austen reflect on each other after the first time they saw each other again on the train.
Rated: K
Genre: Romance, Fluff
Dedicated to tumblr user walkingnorth.
Austen saw the girl on the train heading to Little Europe early on Saturday morning.
After a week of testing, essays, lectures, and homework, Austen needed break. Without mods for memory or even patches for a Mind Tutor, she had to constantly spend time hunched over tablets, clacking out essays and taking quizzes with blue-white light regularly filtering into her eyes, keeping her up late at night even after her roommate, Chalice, had gone to bed.
So early on Saturday, she'd woken up and done a routine she often found herself returning to when she needed to get away from University City: she pulled out a custom paper map of the entire city, unfolded it, and with eyes closed, let her index finger drift until it landed on place. When she felt the crinkle of the map, she opened her eyes, finger centered on two words.
Little Europe.
Little Europe was modeled after old world Europe, a district filled with man-made canals, old brick buildings made from requisitioned clay bricks that had to be replaced every decade, and creeping ivy that spread across the glass roofed buildings. It was a purely touristic place, despite the fct that many young adults her age had taken up residence in the area, enjoying the delights of a majority tech free zone.
Austen had read about it before, but had never been: her finger had never landed there. Yet today was her lucky day, and so she dressed quickly, letting the A.I. style her hair as she brushed her teeth and washed her face.
On the train, Austen stole a seat: the last one as it filled up with patrons. All around her, new styles shimmered: Manga Pops with large eyes and florescent hair paired with schoolgirl uniforms, Elvens with point ears and streamlined features, and Cafes, with thick black glasses -plastic lenses, not correctives- stacks of dead paper books, velvet looking capri pants with rolled cuffs, and requisitioned sweaters made from thick, recyclable fibers in muted greens, reds, browns and yellows. Yet one girl stuck out: a tall, brown skinned woman only a few feet from her.
She had florescent, short pepper red hair hair, paired with slick black pants that shimmered with white thread constellations and a red shirt that fluttered like ink spilling through the air. Compared to Austen, she looked ethereal, and with a spree of silver and black feathers in her hair, like a mythological creature. More striking though were her shimmering, yellow eyes, irises rimmed with black, and the spree of red tattoos that shifted on her cheeks.
Eyes that were staring at Austen.
Austen sucked in a deep breath, holding it as the train smoothly glided over the canals and locks that encircled the Little Europe district, watching as they snaked through all glass store fronts and wrapped around brick condos with hypo-vines crawling up them. Only when she was sure that girl hadn't noticed her staring did she exhale, a sharp whistle of a sound, hoping she'd faded back into the blur of the crowd. She felt her heart flutter like it did for the girl at the planetarium, and for a moment, Austen though that the feathered woman may just be here.
Thankfully, the doors hissed open a minute later and a tinny mechanical voice announced her stop. Austen fled from her seat, jolting to her feet, and groaned as her hip thudded against a carriage, the sharp klaxon of a baby's cry piercing the air. She muttered an apology and bolted, boots softly clopping as she ran into Little Europe, train hissing behind her as it sped off on the magnetic tracks, curving around a bend.
Sunati saw the girl on the train on her trip to the shopping district.
Exhausted from a week of work-study at the Virgon Observatory, Sunati had given herself the promise of a treat, which meant shopping for new patches and mods for her phrase of the month: Old World Mythos. It was a hot craze, and Sunati had jumped on it, decking herself out in feathers, rippling techno clothes, and ancient tattoos that crawled across her skin, wrapping back around to rest in new locations on her face. She had wanted wings, but all the mods had been totally missing, so as a promise to herself, she worked her six hour shifts hard, and would reward herself today with a set of fluttering silver and black wings, completing her stylish statement until the next month rolled around.
Sunati was glad to see that on the train, she was one of few with the style, and that eyes were quickly skimming her, pings ringing in her ears as strangers sent her comments and digi-chats. Most were statements, not needing reply, but she still flashed smiles when she could, drinking in the atmosphere.
Suddenly, Sunati felt a stare focus on her, and she turned, torquing from the waist, and caught the eyes of a girl.
A rather familiar girl.
She had tumbles of mahogany hair, styled half up, the rest down around her shoulders and lower back. Sunati instantly recognized her: she'd seen her a few months back at the Lumen Observatory, moments before the planetarium show had begun. She'd been wearing a Dilithium United College in primary colors, and had been sniffling from the cold, though she didn't wear the hoodie today. Instead, she had on a flowing peach toned dress and soft brown boots, with a fluffy, orange cardigan with lace trimming. She looked to Sunati like a model for old world fashion in her simple outfit: delicate and charmingly cute. It made her heart race, and she cleared her throat softly, trying to calm down as the tips of her ears warmed, tingling with a bright blush.
Sunati must have been staring too because the girl's gaze dropped to the floor as they entered Little Europe, three stops from where Sunati would get off. A minute later, the train doors hissed and the girl dashed out, bumping into a hover-carriage, the baby inside crying from shock. Sunati felt her cheeks heat beneath her tattoos and she started to tap her foot out of anxiety, hoping to get to the shopping district sooner than later.
By the time Austen had gotten home, Sunati was still in her mind, though she didn't know that was her name.
She changed, taking a quick shower and letting sweet smelling soap flow over her until her skin was wrinkled and she felt raw. She let the A.I. in her dorm dry her off, hot heaters blowing up underneath her so fiercely she nearly lost her towel, and had to scramble to keep it wrapped around her. She flex her fingers and cut it off abruptly, wavy hair a mess of frizzy locks. "Great," Austen said, lips pursed. "I look like a ball of fluff."
Back in her dorm room, she brushed it, braiding it into two, long braids that thumped against her back. Chalice, like every weekend, was gone, off to a hoverclub for a night of technicolor drinks and loud, thrumming music. It was nights like this that Austen wished that Chalice was here: she'd have advice for how to do this, how to ask a girl you didn't know out, or even how to just... approach her. Chalice was level-headed like that, had infinite amounts of knowledge about fluttering hearts and shy smiles. Yet her roommate wouldn't be back until eight o'clock classes, and so Austen would have to wait until then.
With a deep sigh, Austen climbed onto the lower bunk bed, settling down with her back to the wall. From under her pillow, she pulled out a dead paper book, the cover worn to nearly falling off. She opened it gingerly, placing it in her lap, but found that the will to read couldn't come. Instead, all that flashed in her mind were piercing yellow and black eyes, and the small, shy smile she swore was on the girl's lips when she managed to finally look up.
Sunati came home late at night, feet aching despite the Sooth Patch she bought on the walk home.
Her new wings felt heavy on her back, silver and black feathers flexing even as she stepped off the elevator and scanned her i.d. chip to enter her apartment. Luna, her A.I., rang out, greeting her with the time: 2:03 a.m. It was later than Sunati had planned on being up and out, but when her friends had asked her to come to a club to show off her new look, she couldn't resist, and had spent the last six hours around thrumming music, drinking lemonades and howling with laughter as the hoverclub whirled around the city in a smooth orbit seventeen stories off the ground, high enough that Sunati always got dizzy when she looked out of the windows
She quickly took off the wing mod so she could lay on her back, shed the mods for her eyes, feathered hair, and tattoos, and pulled off her clothes, dropping them down into the laundry chute for cleaning. Sunati forwent a shower, instead flopping down onto her sheets, headache already forming from being up for so long.
Turning onto her stomach, she though about the girl, sans her college hoodie, in her flowing dress. She thought about her lips and her eyes, both wide with surprise when Sunati had noticed her, and thought about the blush that extended across her slightly chubby cheeks. The girl went straight to Sunati's stomach, butterflies filling it up until she forced the tingling anxiety away with a nervous laugh. "Yeah, right," Sunati chuckled. "She's probably taken." That was that, she told herself, and she turned back on her back, flexing her shoulders.
"Good night Luna," Sunati called, and the lights in her apartment went dark, leaving her in the glow of the city. She snapped and her curtains zipped closed, forming a pitch black cocoon for her to sleep in as she let her eyes close, soft snores filling the apartment only moments later.