"Are you ready?" Reine asks as she reaches up into one of the luggage compartments in her green army pants with her black thigh holsters, a pair of black over the knee boots, and a black sweater with a black infinity scarf and an army green jacket.
"Yeah," I sigh and run and hand though my hair, my luggage bag thrown over my shoulder.
"Nice outfit, by the way," Reine smiles wryly as she turns around, her bags in her hands, "it suits you."
I glance down at my dark grey ripped jeans, timberland boots, dark grey jacket with a black rune pattern on the left sleeve, and white long sleeved v-neck and shrug.
"It's no different than what I normally would wear, but thanks," I chuckle, "you look nice too."
It's about four in the afternoon and our stop is coming up soon, which is why we're gathering all of our luggage and getting ready to get off of the train. The town we're getting off in is called Saintway and it's one of the middle towns in the Winter Sector.
"I'm ready for winter," Ciana says as she enters our cabin, her bags thrown over her shoulder, in a puffy white jacket with tan fur in the hood, white calf-high boots, coral colored thigh-highs, jean shorts, and a long coral colored sweater with white horizontal stripes on it, her necklace hiding underneath the sweater where it's tucked in for safekeeping.
"Are the others ready?" Dimitri asks as he ties the laces in his black combat boots while sitting on one of the booths, his black jacket resting beside him and matching his deep maroon colored v-neck and dark grey jeans.
"You two really do sound like siblings," Mikasa giggles as she tucks her book in one of her travel bags, wearing a white and violet winter dress with white leggings, white boots, a violet infinity scarf, and a white jacket with white fur in the hood and fluffy balls of fur hanging from the strings on the jacket.
"Shut up," Dimitri and Reine say simultaneously, only further proving Mikasa's point.
"Yeah, yeah, we're here," Ayette sighs as she appears in the doorway in a black and electric blue winter outfit behind Ciana with Nathan, who's wearing a black beanie with a skull on the side, dark blue jeans, a white long sleeved shirt, and black vans, his white jacket resting in his arms.
"She's not too excited to go outside," Nathan chuckles and Ayette elbows him in the ribs.
"Nobody asked you," Ayette pouts.
The train slows to a halt and we glance around at each other before Dimitri looks out the window and sighs, picking up his stuff as he stands.
"That's our stop," Dimitri says.
"Wonderful..." Ayette mutters as the seven of us shuffle out of the cabin area and head toward the train's exit, a few other people exiting as well.
Upon stepping outside, the cold winter air blows against us and I shudder as we descend the stairs to the platform and Mikasa wraps her scarf tighter around herself and pulls in her jacket. Dimitri wraps an arm around Ayette's waist whenever she almost stumbles off of the stairs and she looks at him gratefully, placing a hand on his chest. Dimitri smiles fondly and doesn't remove his arm in order to make sure she doesn't almost fall again as they keep walking.
The town in front of us is full of tall buildings and an occasional few shorter buildings here and there, and the streets are completely covered in snow. Sleek black lampposts line the streets and as the train begins to start up again and rush by, I notice that there's a harbor behind us that goes under the elevated train tracks.
"Come on," Reine breathes out, her breath forming a cloud in the air, "let's go see if we can find a method of transportation."
We head into the town and stick to the snow covered sidewalks, passing by multiple homes, shops, hotels, and businesses. We even pass by a giant mall complex on the right of the sidewalk and Ciana's eyes stay glued to the window as we go by, longingly looking at pairs of boots. Outside of a burgundy colored home, two children--a boy and a girl--are making a snowman in their front yard and I smile at the sight, missing the normality of the human realm.
"Look!" Ayette points out across the street to a building with a neon red sign advertising its products, "there's a spa that's renting snowmobiles."
"That's odd," Dimitri furrows his eyebrows, "but I guess we could check it out. We don't really have any other leads."
We make our way across the street, looking both ways for other pedestrians and traveling vehicles as we do so. Reine opens the front door to the spa once we reach it and lets everyone else inside first before she follows us in last. The spa itself has nice wooden floors, is comfortably warm, has a small waiting room off to the right with black chairs lined up and a magazine rack, a front desk with an attendant, and a wall sized fish tank off to the left with koi fish swimming around in it.
The redheaded attendant straights up as she sees us entering the shop and she smiles, adjusting her ponytail in the process.
"Hi, how can I help you?" she asks as Nathan approaches the front desk.
"We saw out front that you're renting snowmobiles?" Nathan asks.
"Yeah, that's correct," the attendant, whose name tag says Bianca, nods as her hazel eyes flicker between Nathan and the rest of us, "we're partnered with a ski resort and we're allowed to rent some of their equipment to gain profits for both companies. Would you like to rent?"
"Uh..." Nathan turns to face the rest of us uncertainly.
"Yes, please," Reine nods, "how much does renting each snowmobile cost?"
"Each snowmobile costs two hundred dollars per day to rent," Bianca says, "if I place your order, you can leave them at any one of our stores in order to save the trouble of coming back to this particular store. You can either have a fixed rent where you only rent them for so many days and that's it or you could rent them up to a week and decide how long during that week you wish to rent them for as you go. For example, you could pay upfront and say you wish to rent for five days and that would be all the time you get, or you could pay a small fee and then pay the rest of the money later once you decide when you're finished renting, but you can only rent for one week total."
"How much is the fee?" Reine asks.
"The fee is thirty dollars," Bianca answers and Reine sighs thoughtfully.
"Alright," Reine says, "we'll rent four snowmobiles for two days."
"That'll be sixteen hundred dollars. Cash or credit?" Bianca asks and Reine hands her a plastic credit card from her pocket.
Bianca slides the card into a credit card reader as she motions towards outside with a head nod.
"The rest of you can go ahead and get ready while I finish up the order," Bianca says, "the snowmobiles are out front. Your friend will have the keys once the order is finished."
"Go ahead," Reine encourages with a nod, "that way we can leave faster."
The six of us grudgingly leave the warm spa, trading it for the cold outside of Saintway. We make our way over to the black snowmobiles that each have a different colored stripe on the side and examine them with interest while we wait for Reine to come outside. A few minutes later, the door to the spa opens to reveal Reine holding up four sets of keys with a color coded piece of tape wrapped around the chain to each key.
"Each key has a specific color that matches the stripe on the snowmobiles," Reine explains as she tosses Dimitri a green key, Ciana a pink key, and Mikasa a yellow key, keeping the blue for herself.
Dimitri goes over to the snowmobile with the green stripe and puts in the key, making it hum to life as he sits on it and Ayette climbs on behind him, making him jolt slightly in surprise and turn to look at her.
"What? I don't bite," Ayette teases and Dimitri laughs sheepishly before she winds her arms around his torso and scoots closer to him.
I smirk as I notice a pink tint dust across the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones, and I'm doubtful that it's from the cold. Meanwhile, Mikasa smiles as she finds her snowmobile and turns it on, climbing on with ease and waiting readily as Ciana finds her snowmobile.
"So..." Nathan trails off and walks up to Ciana as she puts the key in her snowmobile while she's sitting on it.
"Climb on, Casanova," Ciana grins and Nathan sighs at the nickname before he climbs on the snowmobile.
Suddenly, Reine tosses me the keys to the snowmobile and I blink in surprise. She smiles softly before gesturing for me to turn on the ignition to the snowmobile and I do so, watching as the machine comes to life and the controls, speedometer, and other panels light up bright blue and red.
"Let's go," Reine whispers softly as she climbs on behind me and puts her arms around my waist, resting the side of her face on my back.