Follow Your Heart Auto Memories Doll

Chapter Ten

"Ughhhhh," Iris groaned loudly. "Why does this train leave so early..." The pair had gotten up well before dawn and met at the train station in Leiden to catch their ride out of the capitol. She'd packed her bag the night before and she was cursing herself for packing too much. She always did. Every time she got requested for something outside the city limits she packed too much and had to haul the bag everywhere she went.

Not like Violet. She sat beside her on the platform, waiting for the train with her usual calm and collected air about her. While Iris was hunched over and resting her chin in her hands, Violet was sat bolt upright with her hands folded neatly in her lap. They were both dressed in their Doll uniforms and Iris marveled again at how well Violet handled the elements. It was not cold this morning at all. It was already hot before the sun had come up and Iris already felt like she could melt into the bench they were sitting on.

"It's the only train going to Fredericksburg today. We didn't have a choice," Violet said plainly and Iris huffed. She knew that. She had tried to stop asking rhetorical questions around Violet but it had been proving difficult.

When the train finally arrived the girls handed their bags off to the attendant for the baggage car and headed for their seats. Iris had kept a blanket she had packed with her so she could go back to sleep. The coaches were at least nice and each booth had two well-cushioned benches and it's own door to close the passengers off from each other. There could only be so much peace and quiet on a steam train but Iris would take what she could get. She practically face-planted into her bench and listened as Violet gently sat down all the way in her bench against the window. She figured she was probably looking out the window but she didn't have the strength to turn her head and look.

Instead, she pulled her blanket over herself and curled up on the bench and almost immediately fell back asleep.

Violet may have looked calm, and she knew full well that Iris needed to sleep more, but she had wanted to talk to her. She would have her chance later though. Her mind had been racing and they hadn't had time to talk at work much. After her last encounter with Trevor, work had suddenly picked back up and now the two of them had been requested as a pair to go to Fredericksburg and both write letters for an entire company's staff. Each one had to be a unique thank you letter for all their hard work or something. She didn't remember the exact details. Normally she would have memorized every detail but lately, her mind had been too occupied with other things.

Things she never expected to be thinking about. She wanted to run everything by Iris and bring her up to speed and gauge an opinion from her but they would be on this train all day. She would have time. Iris couldn't sleep the entire way...could she? Violet shook her head. She didn't want to worry about something so trivial as that.

She returned her bright blue eyes to the window and rest her cheek into her gloved palm, elbow on the window sill, and she waited.

It took a few hours for Iris to finally sit up and even when she did she kept the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. It wasn't cold. Not at all, but she'd done it simply to stay as comfortable as possible. Her hair was a mess and her outfit was all out of place. She'd slept restlessly again. She had slept badly all week. Every night since...

"Are you alright?" She heard and her dull amber eyes shot up to meet Violet's. Had she been sitting like that watching her the entire time?

'Probably,' Iris shrugged. She'd come to be a little more comfortable with someone watching her sleep in the last year. Not on purpose of course but when you go on trips that last several days with one Violet Evergarden, you are forced to get used to it. Violet didn't sleep much when she had first joined the company. Five hours or less. Like if she slept for a minute more she would miss a grenade being slipped into her trench.