Chapter Text
It was raining. It had been raining since early Saturday morning, and although it was now Monday, the start of a new week, the rain had chosen not to let up over the weekend. Heavy, leaden-grey clouds had asserted their unanimous dominion over the skies, at least for this one more day.
A woman stepped out of the carriage onto the platform at Vicarstown station.
A machine spirit, she was of slight build, with neat blonde hair falling to her shoulders. Her face, somewhat childlike, was without a single wrinkle, save for two little crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. Anyone familiar with the childs of the Machine's Goddess would have been able to tell that she wasn't young, even if it was barely noticeable. The woman was wearing a thick woollen coat, which fitted her delicate figure perfectly, and carried only one small suitcase. How long would she be staying here?
She was restless. As the train drew closer to the island, she grew increasingly uncertain and nervous. There was no one else in the compartment. The woman would stand up, take a couple of steps, then sit back down again. Her suitcase contained almost nothing she would need for the journey, apart from her documents and money.
But among everything else, there was an envelope. Throughout the journey, she would periodically open it, take out two pieces of paper, look at them, put them back, only to take them out again a few minutes later. One piece of paper was a newspaper clipping from the police section, featuring a photograph of a certain man. The other - an old one, worn and yellowed with age, so fragile that she had to unfold it very carefully - was a portrait of another man. The woman took them out again and laid them on the table in front of her. She was looking at the photographs when she felt the train slow down. The beams of a bridge flashed past the window. She hurriedly folded the papers back into the envelope and gathered her belongings.
And now, standing on the platform at the station in the big city, she was lost in thought. Drops were drumming against the transparent roof.
She didn't know why she was here. Why she had come at all. She was asking herself this question as she got to the ship to England, and again as she boarded the train to this city, but she couldn't find an answer, while her feet were carrying her forward on their own accord. And now she was here. A gust of wind blew through the station. The woman pulled the collar of her coat tighter around her neck.
Her theory was so absurd that even she couldn't understand how it could have popped into her head. Her best friend, who had stayed across the ocean and was always happy to support her - even she had said it is all nonsense and looked at her with concern, the sort of look one gives to people who are starting to lose their minds. The woman wasn't offended. They didn't bring up the subject again. It really was nonsense, utter rubbish, completely at odds with common sense, and any sensible person would have said that the theory made no sense.
However, she had still ended up here.
The woman looked around. In any case, even if people will think she is crazy, she would simply slip away quietly, return across the ocean, and never think of it again. Another gust of wind swept into the station unexpectedly, ruffling her curls.
Practicality. There was no point in standing there any longer. The woman walked away from the platform, looking for a taxi, intending to find a hotel where she could sit in her room and catch her breath after the journey. She found a car quickly. As she travelled through the streets of the red city, the woman thoughtfully traced her finger across the window.
It was raining.
