The train slowed to a stop. With a hiss the glass doors slid apart and someone stepped through, making the utilitarian platform seem more dignified just by being there. They were tall, tall, with gleaming black skin and a smooth-shaven skull, proud collarbones and hooded eyes. They were dressed in robes in bright colours, yellow and blue and green.

“Orfeus the singer?” they said.

Orfeus for no real reason made a sweeping bow, cloak tucked behind her back. She straightened and smiled up at them. Disorienting when people were taller than her. “So they call me. And you?”

“Your escort,” they said. “My name is Rivasoa. I use she and her.”

Orfeus nodded. “As do I,” she said, “but you know that, don’t you? You know all about me already.”

“Yes,” Rivasoa said, frostily.

Orfeus felt her brows lift despite herself. She couldn’t think why this woman would have taken a disliking to her with so few words exchanged, but it wasn’t unheard of. She stretched a grin at her, unwise perhaps but always her first reaction, to taunt, to tease. Rivasoa turned in a flare of bright fabric and without a word stepped away into the train.

Orfeus leaped nimbly up, and tucked her cloak and bag and guitar all safely behind her. She stayed standing by the doors for just a moment as they hissed closed and the train began picking up speed, her familiar world blurring by past her.

She’d left it a little too long and had to stagger her way to where Rivasoa sat, graceful and stately with her hands clasped in front of her. Orfeus stowed the guitar up above them in the plain white cabinet above the plain white seats. She barely got herself into a seat, jostled half out of it before she grabbed for the straps and secured them around her waist.

She settled back and gave Rivasoa a dazzling smile. Rivasoa blinked once, slowly, and in that moment Orfeus felt a pang of unease. Woven through the deep brown of the woman’s irises were threads of silver and gold, and her pupils shifted strangely. Not a normal eye.

Rivasoa turned to look out the window, though little could be made out but colour and blur. Orfeus wasn’t one to be deterred that easily. “Please, correct me if I’m mistaken,” Orfeus said, “I defer to your knowledge, but I feel you might have some slight dislike of me.”

Rivasoa turned her head slowly and looked at her. “Yes,” she said.

At least she didn’t waste time. Orfeus could respect that. She leaned forward as much as the belt would allow her, rested her chin on her hand, tilted her head sideways and batted her eyelashes. “Want to tell me why?”

“I disapprove of you,” Rivasoa said without any notable inflection.