“I was told you’d pass by here.”

Fiera’s first instinct when she heard the words was to slip her hand to get hold of the sword. A tremble went down her spine, whatever spoke those words, was not human by any means.

The sky was still dark except for the eastern side, where it was turning to orange and the Station was mostly empty, except for the train with it’s diesel engine, coming to a slow stop with smoke billowing, filling the platform with it’s purple clouds.

“By Aaron?” Mist asked, trying to wave the smoke from his eyes. The smoke cleared briefly, giving Fiera a glimpse of a skinny woman dressed in the navy-blue Station-Master uniform standing a few feet before them. She shifted her uniform cap, and bared her teeth.

“Take a step back,” Fiera said, drawing out the sword.

Who was this woman?

A god?

“Oooh~” The Station-Master leaned closer to the blade, her hair tumbling down her shoulders in black waves, “It’s been a while since I last saw you,”

“Who are you?” Fiera asked, raising the sword threateningly, and the woman took a step back.

“I have many names,” her voice sent another tingle down Fiera’s spine.

Definitely a god.

Mist tugged Fiera’s arm, “Fiera, we don’t have time for this.”

The train.

They had to get out of here first.

“Don’t worry,” the Station-Master smiled, “Humans will always find themselves at crossroads. And there you will meet me again.”

“I need to know who you are.” Fiera said, pushing Mist to get on to the train.

“You do, because this isn’t the first time we meet and it isn’t the last time we meet.”

Fiera sheathed her sword.

Why were these pesky gods always so infuriating, always speaking in such fantastic riddles and worst of all, always trying to ruin her day?

She let out a frustrated sigh before climbing into the train, when she looked back again as she closed the door, the Station-Master had vanished.

Typical.

The train let out another low whistle, and Mist led her to the carriage Aaron had booked, which was four carriages apart, and unsurprisingly there were very few people on the train, perhaps because it was going to board most of the passengers in it’s return journey from Pauza.

“These are ours.” Mist said, unbuckling his bag, so he could put it on the top. It was one of the more expensive carriages, with seats facing each other and actually clean windows. They had pulled out of the Inahe Station, and were rolling along the snow-covered countryside with the sun peeking shyly over the eastern horizon.

“Great.” Fiera muttered, shoving her bag up as Mist proceeded to sit down.

“Do you want to get breakfast?” Mist whispered, waving his wallet to her.

“Yup. I need to wash my hands before that.”

Mist had ordered a fair sized breakfast of rice-pancakes, coated with salted crushed coconut with large cups of crushed apple & milk. Fiera inhaled the sweet scent of food before digging in.

“I have a lot of questions.” Mist said, taking a huge scoop of crushed apple.

“So do I. I think we need a pact.”

“A pact?”

“Let's have a pact, so that we know for sure that whatever we discuss or reveal, stays between us irrespective of everything.” Fiera rolled a bit of the rice-pancake on her plate. She had been too emotionally invested to suggest something of this scale to Rose, because of which, all of her interactions that put her life on an edge, had to be held in secret from even Rose, and she had had to be so, so, so careful. All because she couldn’t bring herself to trust Rose.

“You mean, we don’t snitch on each other?” Mist narrowed his eyes.

“Yes.”

He paused, downing the rest of the crushed apple. “Fine,” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, “I guess if we’re going into hiding, we need to have each other’s backs.”

“Precisely.” Fiera said, “I know it’s hard because,” she waved the spoon, “We don’t really know each other.”

“Actually,” Mist interrupted, “It doesn’t really matter.”

“Then we have a pact?”

“Yes we do,” Mist set aside his spoon to offer her a hand. And she held it.

“First question,” she asked. “What are you?”

“What am I?” Mist frowned.

“You’re not a Wind Practitioner, Water Practitioner, Earth Practitioner or a Fire Practitioner. So what are you?”