Chapter Text
A lady stared out at the empty tracks, waiting for the next train to arrive. The station was quiet, with perhaps only two other people around. The lady didn't pay them any mind. It didn't cross her mind how easy it is to go over the edge until a sudden force sends her forwards, onto the tracks. The train was fast approaching. She got to her feet and makes her way to the ledge of the platform, but she couldn't pull herself up. Did anyone see her? Would anyone help her up?
As she struggled to find her footing, a powerful burst of sound brought her up in the air and safely back on the platform. A second later, the train arrived.
As she sat on the platform, she looked up at her rescuer. A man wearing a Canary College sweatshirt. He couldn’t be much bigger than the lady’s own husband. (Or herself, by the transitive property of equality.)
The student extended his hand towards the lady. The lady thanked him as she grabed the hand and began to pull herself up. The student yelped as he fell to the ground, unable to support the lady’s weight.
A powerful sonomage whose spells could lift a person out of the train tracks in less than a second, yet he couldn't even pull that person up with his own arm? It was such an absurd situation that the lady forgot that she could have been flat on the tracks just moments before.
The lady apologized before getting herself on her feet, and then she helped the student up. The student sighed with embarrassment over his lack of strength.
An announcement rang out, signaling the doors’ closing. The lady and the student rushed into the train.
The lady sat and took a moment to process it all. Who pushed her onto the tracks? Weren't there any guards around here? Even in such an empty station, she thought nobody should have been able to catch her off guard and shove her off the platform. Wouldn't she have heard footsteps? And why would only a lone college student be there? Surely the platform was wide enough that her assailant would have still been in sight.
“You seem bothered,” said the student, sitting beside the lady.
“'You seem bothered,'” the lady echoed back. “Is that how you start a conversation?”
“I'm not one to make conversation, but...”
“But you've already started it.” The lady thought the student was quite tactless, but she wasn't one for tact either.
And just as the conversation started, it went dead silent.
“Hey, what's your name?”
“Excuse me?” That was some way to change the topic, though she probably did that with her friends all the time. Not the part about asking their names, of course.
And they managed to exchange names as if neither of them had anything to hide.
After another few moments of silence, the student spoke up again. “Aren't you a bit curious about what happened?”
“Absolutely burning with curiosity.”
“Let's talk it out. What do you remember first?”
The lady was standing just behind the edge of the platform where the doors would line up. There was music playing in the background, but it was not to her taste, so she tuned it out.
“Wait, music?” the student asked.
“Why is that surprising?”
“If there were any buskers, I would have heard them. They're usually closer to the escalators.”
“You think the attacker was trying to disguise a spell with some music?”
“It's possible. What else do you remember about the music?”
“I told you, I tuned it out.”
“Okay, let's suppose there was some sort of spell going on. Let me try to work it out.”
The student was sitting on the bench. He saw a lone lady near the edge of the platform. She was minding her own business, so he would mind his too.
Was there anyone else around? He thought there was some stirring by the escalator, but he was too absorbed in his device to be sure.
Any music? A faint tune by the escalator. The melody wasn't pleasing, so he kept his eyes on his device and his ears on the train that would eventually approach.
And then the lady screamed. There was nobody else on the platform. If there was any music going on, the student couldn't hear it over the sound of his sprinting, his own quick breaths, his sonomantic burst that pulled the lady off the tracks, the arrival of the train.
“So it's possible that someone attacked me from a distance,” the lady said.
“What kind of motive would they have to-” the student began, but the train pulled to a stop as the announcement speakers went live. “Oh, I guess that's my stop. If you want to keep chatting, I'll see you another day. That is, if you still trust trains.”
“Sure, I'll see you if I see you,” the lady responded.
“Just be more aware of your surroundings.”
“You too.”