karma and everything { chapter 4 - open }
The observatory was thankfully still a part of the train, and still relatively pleasant despite the endless thud of rain hitting the windows. Sepia thought that once the dust settled and Dot let them be (for the moment), she could at least relax, but her nerves were still frayed from the theatre. These rules and Dot’s demonstration of them were just adding insult to injury. Or injury to injury.
Sepia sat on the edge of the fountain, closer to the door than to the windows. There wasn’t much to look at outside, and aside from that she’d brought her own distraction. But the puzzle box in her hands wasn’t much help either -- as much as she tried to focus on finding solutions, her mind kept wandering to other things. She considered just smashing the thing open when someone opened the door and saved the poor box from its potential demise.
“Nice--” she started to say something in greeting and stopped. She was silent and still for a few seconds, focused intently on some inner struggle. "Nice...” She repeated the word, but even saying it again didn’t seem to help.
“... this rule is going to kill me.” she sighed wearily as she returned her focus to the box in her lap, fiddling idly with a lever on the front of it. “I didn’t think that... girl or whatever she is could get more cruel. I hope you had better luck than I did, at least.”