When it Rains || Volkanon & Yuri
abutlerspride:
It was a rare occasion that Volkanon left Selphia, but it happened. More so now that he had relatively competent apprentices to fill in during his absence. This particular trip was still work related, overseeing an important delivery being made from Bokumono to Selphia. The weather had turned though and neither boats nor airships were taking the risk, so he suddenly found himself stranded on the airship dock until it passed.
There wasn’t much he could do while he waited, but there was enough to keep him somewhat busy. He was far from the only person stranded on the half-way point between the continents, so he was simply doing what he could to make sure everybody else was alright and comfortable. It was the least he could do as a butler, even if he was away from where he really worked. He needed to be busy anyway.
The sound of the central building door opening again caught his attention enough to distract him from whatever minor task he had found and he looked up. He had thought everyone was in by now, considering how heavy the rain was, but he had apparently been wrong. He gasped when he realised it was a young woman, not a crew member like he expected, and she was absolutely soaked. Hopefully there were towels somewhere.
“Miss! Are you alright?” he exclaimed as he rushed to the woman’s side, looking over her for injuries. He was probably in her personal bubble a little, but he had never been all that good at gauging that sort of thing. Least of all when he was concerned. “You must be freezing! Did you not know where to go?”
The outdated phone booth by the edge of this island was the last of a handful of places she had absentmindedly forced herself in. And the noise that accompanied her was not the incessant beeping, “No operator, please try again later,” but rather, a flat, low-wailing key. It sung out quietly, and Yuri politely cut off its haunting performance with a curt clack of the phone. Since that had been the last place to build a bridge of communication back to her mother, she determined that she had done all she could. Yuri took a long look at the rain once more and she wondered if she should have left the phone hanging off the cord to sing.
A crack of lightning split the sky open. She had left the glass haven of the telephone box, back into the blanket of rain. She was sure the stars had gone out under those heavy curtains of clouds, like old lightbulbs running their days dry. It was phenomenally wet, enough to blur her glasses by the heat radiating off her body alone. She had preemptively removed them, wading through the make-shift lakes that were once dreaming puddles some time ago. And her breath coarsely sought some space to live, for moments in time, as the drops scattered indefinitely, drowning silence in itself.
She bluntly forced the doors to the central port building open. Thunder drummed ahead to the beat of her steps. Her expression, unmoved by the rhythm, might have seemed comedic. It wasn’t like she was expecting anyone, with clouds of transparent breaths hazing up against the black backdrop. But she found it oddly comforting to see a pair of outstretched arms for her, and a voice that rung out in concern.
“Yes… I’m—“ Fine. She wanted to state plainly, before she found the older man prodding her worriedly with his gaze, waving frantically as though she had lost an arm in the storm. She blinked quizitively at him, a tad intrigued by his apprehension over someone he had never met.
“It’s fine.”
“I was just… looking for a phone. My mother must be waiting for me… to call back.”
