The Sun in the West

Chapter 1

Stella looked out the window, everything a blur. The train whistled again, and Victoria jumped beside her. "What is wrong with the conductor today..?" she muttered, flipping a page in the paper she was engrossed in. Stella glanced at her, then with a sigh turned back to the scenery as the train rattled. She gazed outside the clear glass of the compartment window, seeing nothing but colossal mountains that reached the clouds, and so many green trees. Most unlike the city.

She shifted in her dress, turning away from the window and raising her chin upward in a proper manner. Her striking blue eyes were blank as could be. Stella had left the city with an old friend, Victoria. Both young women had boarded a train, and were now on their way to Oregon. What a fuss Stella's parents had made when they found out she was heading back to Ruby Point, a small western town within Oregon's vast frontier. Yet it wasn't like she herself had a choice. It hadn't been her own commitment at all. She would've been perfectly fine in her lavish estate, one that her family, the prestigious Cones, had had for generations.

And here she was, off without any emotional thought, to the frontier. Her former city life was slipping through her fingers every step closer she took to the country. And Victoria didn't seem bothered in the least bit. She hummed occasionally to herself as she flipped through her paper article, as though her choice of moving to the country was the most pleasant in the world. Stella shook her head mentally at that—how could she be so relaxed?

She looked at her friend, taking in her appearance. She was wearing a plain cream dress similar to Stella's with red ribbons around her waist and to hold up her sandy hair. Her dark eyes all the way down to her brown boots seemed very ladylike, until you saw the way she were always sitting. Legs crossed and back hunched against the wall like a man, not very classy at all. But, of course, this was Victoria. She was only classy when she wanted to be, other times she didn't mind stooping her body like she didn't have any energy left. She was bold that way.

"So," Victoria said without looking up from her newspaper. "Are you excited?"

The air thickened around Stella. She scoffed quietly and straightened herself up—at least she was the sophisticated one. "I don't have a need to be." she said simply. Victoria peered up at her for the first time with a raised brow.

Stella felt herself frown. "Why do you look surprised?" she asked in a falsely innocent voice. Victoria sighed. The train horn sounded again, loudly. She shut her paper and threw it to the empty seats across from them. Stella winced at that: very unladylike indeed. But Victoria couldn't care less.

The young woman with the sandy hair sighed, shaking her head at her friend. "Stella... he's waited for so long. Both of you have." she said quietly, but Stella merely let out a 'hmph!' and turned away from her, crossing her arms. "So what if he has?" she said coldly, blinking away the anger that approached her eyes in haste. "It was his fault I couldn't see him for five years!"

"Do you think he wanted to?" Victoria retorted sharply, trying to talk some sense into her friend. But Stella didn't look at her, but at a bird as it flew past. It wasn't a city pigeon at all, unsurprisingly. But something black and ugly. Most likely those crows that feast on anything they could find.

"He missed you more than you missed him, which I wanted to believe wasn't true. You had cried for days, Stells—.."

"Don't call me that!"

Stella felt her forehead, closing her eyes with furrowed brows. Her head was aching again and she didn't like it. 'Stells' had been a nickname given to her by.. by her..

Suddenly the train rattled to a stop. Stella hadn't even noticed it had been slowing down. She glanced hurriedly out the window, and inhaled sharply as she saw the open train station of the town she had been heading to. It was made of wood planks, built clumsily on top of each other to create a barn-shape almost, but with no walls. And atop the roof was a crusty billboard that read the usual, the expected 'Welcome to Ruby Point'. Stella took a look at the few public there were.