"Excuse me, miss?" It was a man's voice that spoke, and Maura Ingram looked up, startled, to see a grey-eyed stranger smiling at her from inside the passage. He looked to be in his late twenties, three or so years older than she was, and his grey sweater and black trackies were, at a brief glance, unwrinkled and unstained.
Clearly not trouble.
Maura realised she'd tensed in anticipation of... of what? The Grey wasn't the normal world for sure, but the risk was only a little higher for a single human. No need to fear attack, though it took a little while before her muscles started to lose their tension.
"I'm sorry. Can I help you with anything?" She asked politely, and shifted to a more upright position on the hard leather seat. Best look nice.
His eyes flicked to a spot somewhere behind her, then returned; he couldn't see inside from his position by the door-window, she realised.
"Would you mind sharing this cabin with me?" He asked. "The cabin I was in become... crowded."
His voice had soured, and she wondered if he'd come from one of the back cabins - she could hear them now, quieter than before, but they were still trying to sing 'Whiskey in the Jar'. Stupid drunks.
"If it's no bother." He added, then ducked as something whizzed by the the space his shoulders had formerly occupied, and turned to see what was going on.
In the cabin, safe from flying objects, Maura frowned and half-rose before deciding it wasn't worth the effort.
"Richard!" An older woman's scolding voice sounded out in the passageway. "I told you, throwing things at people is impolite!"
"But mummy," a little boy's voice whined, "I didn't use my hands."
Maura's eyebrows crept up into her fringe, and she stole a quick glance out the window as the mother finished off her scolding. Unfortunately, the window was too small to get even a glimpse of who the mother and son were, but she got a nice view of the stranger. Well-trimmed brown hair, classic square jawline... good-looking, but his voice was more attractive...
He caught her studying him and she jumped, restraining a guilty curse.
"So uh, am I right?" He called to her, then spread his hands. "I'm at their mercy out here!"
Maura smiled; she couldn't help herself. "All right, but you'll be at my mercy in here." Quickly, she adjusted her name tag, and smoothed her rumpled red tee.
Paying no attention to her impromptu grooming, the man smiled in thanks, and sid the door open and closed easily, setting himself down by the window, directly opposite her.
"It's getting difficult to find a quiet cabin these days," he remarked, then dug around in a side pocket and came up with a tube of Smarties. He tapped a few out, then silently offered her some from the tube. Maura shook her head, smiling, a memory of her mother telling her never to accept sweets from strangers rising to mind.
He placed the tube on the table between them, glancing over at the empty sandwich packet and small pile of books Maura had shoved to the other end, but didn't comment.
They sat in silence for a short while, then the stranger noticed her tag.
"So, your name is... Maura?" Her name was drawn out after a brief hesitation, and he quirked his eyebrows as he said it.
She nodded, then looked up sharply, realising what had happened. The Grey had twisted it, like it twisted everything human it came into with, elongating and stitching her name until someting similar was revealed.
She remembered what the servant at the gate had said about that, and her head drooped down again, her hand reaching up to rub her forehead.
"Are you all right?" He was instantly alert; she could hear it so clearly in his voice, and when she looked back up at him, he was leaning forward, looking at her more in curiosity than anything.
What a strange man...
Brushing away the thought, Mora tried for a smile and a bright tone, "No I'm fine thanks." She scrubbed at her hair self-consciously, as if ruffling the shaggy black mass would convince him.
Either way, he seemed satisfied that she wasn't about to collapse, dead, on the table between them. He flicked his gaze away as he sat down, apparently watching something out the window.
She looked at him, appraising his smooth, calm face and his plain grey jacket before dropping her eyes and turning to stare out at the bleak, sky-dark landscape herself.
Just two strangers on a train, in the Grey. One so simple and normal, the other, the Grey, so absurdly unreal. But she was glad she'd met him before anyone else. Mora had no desire to come across the more unfriendly denizens of the Grey, and there were bound to be more of them than the gentlemen that this man seemed to be. Or trying to be... a surprising thought: was there a difference?