Tales of Aria | Piercing Lightning

I: Departure and Arrival

"Oh... Oh, wow!" the sleepy, shocked expression from the nightmare before quickly turned to jumpy exhilaration. Before her lies countless of buildings, stretched to the horizon. Just from seeing the vibrant environment that lays in front of her eyes, she could already see countless of things that she had never seen before in her hometown; from trams to steam carts, buildings with cemented bricks, steel pipes and glass, dozens of new fields of work. She noticed the headquarter for a mailing company to be the most standing out of all of them though. "Ray, Ray! Look at that! The Beacon Mailing Company!" The boy smiled. "Working there was your sole dream, right?"

"Yeah! I've always wanted to see the pigeon station for myself." She can't stop looking at the mailing company until Ray lured her onto another business they had. "Well, we may have time to visit the Beacon Mailing-" the girl cut Ray's sentence, "Really?!" Suddenly Ray felt everyone near him started clearing their throats. He quickly calmed the girl's excitement. "After we finish any business the academy have with us, and generally find a way to survive."

"Well... Yeah, I guess. We did run away from our parents." She gave a pained smile with her reply. Obviously, Ray regretted his words. "Come on, don't be like that. You're strong, and you know that." The girl rested her head onto the window, a heavy sigh followed. "I guess you're right. Thank you, Ray." She smiled, lowering her eyes. Ray perfectly knew how to handle this situation. "Now cheer up, will you? We're almost there." The girl gave Ray a slight grin. "Yup!"

She glanced at the window again when a set of building near them obstructed the mailing company's headquarter. "Ah, the Beacon Mailing's headquarter disappeared!" Said the girl, she felt like pouting her mouth. Ray chuckled, "Looks like there are more tall buildings here than on any part of Hope. Well, that's the working area for you."

"I see..." She rested down to her seat, finally calming herself. Not long after their conversation, the conductor came up to their freight, and rang the bell. "The train will be arriving at working area's southeastern station in two minutes, and will stop for 30 minutes before continuing the trip to working area's eastern station."

"Aaaand that's our cue." Ray said while the conductor is still announcing the train's stop. He and the girl grabbed their luggage, packed what needs to be packed, and wait for the train to stop completely.

The station was crowded. The noise from the trains and countless of people's footsteps echoed through the dome-like roof over the top of the station. The crowd wasn't something to be taken lightly, as there are many reports of slight quarrels, missing and found of items and even children, even robbery and kidnapping to some extent in this station, in every station. The crowd in and of itself was enough to made people who haven't had their breakfast collapse, due to the amount of people, lacking air in turn. Ray had already been in this situation countless of times, thanks to his constant travels to the main city's working area, but it's the first time for the little girl. Before Ray realized it, she was bumping into a lot of people. Ray noticed that she was getting scared, so he grabbed her hand. "Don't ever let go of my hand, okay?" Feeling relieved, the girl sighed, and smiled. "Okay!"

"Let's go, Lyria."

The main train would only take Lyria and Ray to the southeastern station, which was still fairly far from the academy, located on the southeastern most part of Hope, bordering directly with the ocean. They decided to take the tram. They could've foot the distance, but since it's Lyria's first time in the main city, and considering the look on her face when she saw the trams, Ray thought that Lyria would like it. Turns out he never felt more 'right' than that. In the tram, Lyria's childish persona came to life again. She wouldn't clam up about how smooth the ride is compared to horse cart, which gave Ray a sense of paranoia for people around him. She also couldn't stop scrutinizing all the shops and restaurants, which gave people near the tram their sense of paranoia to her. Ray started to think that maybe he had felt more 'right' than this time. He tried to snap Lyria back to reality. "Come on Lyria, sit tight. Everyone's looking at you." He said with a slight chuckle. "Ah-!" Lyria did snap back, quickly sitting diligently. "Manners, Lyria. Manners!" But Ray knew that it wouldn't be for long, for she couldn't stop showing the stars in her eyes when the Beacon Mailing Company's headquarter came into view again. The tram trip then felt really long for Ray, but the other way applied to Lyria.