Merlin
Myrie’s dad, Ahna and even the twins accompanied Myrie to the train station. They were half an hour early because Myrie was so excited. She jumped up and down the whole time to somehow get her tension under control, but in vain. And finally, almost silently and slowly, the train glided into the tunnel. Myrie gave a hug to all of them as fast as she could, and ran into the train so that it wouldn’t leave without her. She knew that it usually stayed there for a while to unload orders and resources. Gramantra had even reassured her beforehand that the train would ask for her if she wouldn’t announce herself.
“I’m Myrie, and I’d like to go to Mount Era Boarding School,” she said, feeling very strange. Then she hurriedly added her full name: “Myrie Zange.”
“Please turn left and continue walking until you reach capsule 8. Capsules 8, 9 and 10 have the desired destination Mount Era Boarding School. Find the capsule number above the door frame,” Myrie heard an electronic, high-pitched voice that spoke directly out of her behind ears so that only she would hear it. How convenient, she thought. She did as she was told and walked through the long train. The capsules were of different lengths. Most of them were not personal capsules, but transported goods, most of them liquid, such as vacuum-packed refills for the cooking printers. Myrie knew that the load was being transferred to those of the village’s cooking printer cartridges that were slowly running out.
But some, mostly small capsules were occupied by people. Many lay relaxed in their seats and had their VR glasses on, some made gestures with their hands every now and then. Maybe they read something and scrolled the text. And the motionless might listen to something. In one capsule sat three wrinkled, old orcs and talked to each other. They stared at Myrie as she walked by.
“I’ve never seen anything like that fellow. But on the train you see the most diverse creatures,” one of them murmured.
Myrie hurried to get on.
“Hey, he didn’t mean it, little one!” one of the others called after her.
When she was almost in the next capsule, she could hear the voice of the first one again, who might also shout something apologetic, but she didn’t understand anything because the inside of her head felt hot and didn’t let anything in for a few moments. She remembered what she had tried to make present to herself over the past few weeks: that she sometimes perceived things as mean that were not mean at all. If these had been possible future fellow learners, Myrie would probably have gone back, but they were not in capsule 8 or one of the following two, and therefore had a different destination. Maybe they were much too old for a school, but Myrie didn’t want to judge. You never stopped learning, some learned late and some just looked old and weren’t.
Finally, she reached capsule 8. In capsule 8 sat an elderly person, leaning back in the seat with VR glasses. Myrie scurried on quickly before she could come to her senses and sit down next to them. Compartment 9 was empty and Myrie sat down.
The train had long since begun to glide smoothly. The seat was incredibly comfortable and fluffy. It had armrests that she could fold away, but there were lids on the front of the armrests and Myrie couldn’t resist opening them. Underneath was a small touchscreen that showed the speed of the train, and Myrie was amazed. Without really noticing the acceleration, they had reached a considerable speed. On the other hand, she had never really been fast in her entire life.
The touchscreen could also be used to adjust the lighting. Myrie turned the very dim light a little higher so that she might be able to see a face if someone came along. But of course no one came. She was the only person to board in Byrglingen and the train had not stopped a second time so far. With three capsules with six seats each, which were probably generously calculated, there were likely not too many expected on this train who wanted to go to the Mount Era Boarding School and on a good 6 hours of travel it could drag on until the next person with the destination got on.
Myrie also considered putting on her VR glasses and maybe calming herself down with a beach and sea virtuality, but she was so excited in such a strange way that it probably wouldn’t do any good. Everything was new and she lacked an overview. She was also afraid that she might miss the train stopping and someone coming along, and then she would be unfriendly because she didn’t concentrate on being attentive and friendly all the time.
She put her bare feet on the seat, played with her toes, hugged her knees and put her chin in the crack between her knees. She rubbed her shins up and down and up and down with her hands, humming softly to herself. She spent an hour in this way, and the train had stopped in two other villages.
Just as it was starting to move again, another person came into the capsule. It was a person her age, Myrie estimated. They had orange-blond, fine hair with large curls that were just the length that the hair could curl once on an average. It seemed silkier than that of most of the dwarves in Byrglingen. His face had a few freckles, he might have been a head and a half taller than Myrie, and he was dragging a heavy suitcase on wheels behind him. Myrie estimated the size of the suitcase and the height of the luggage rack and decided that it had to fit. She noticed that she had been rocking back and forth all the time since he had entered the capsule, and stopped immediately.
“Are you going to the Mount Era Boarding School?” he asked curiously.
“Otherwise, would there be a reason for me to sit here?” Myrie asked thoughtfully. There had to be some other reason, but Myrie couldn’t think of one.
“May I sit down with you?” asked the human.
“I don’t know. Who decides if you may?” Myrie asked, confused. She was also still busy with the first question.
“Actually, only your will. The question is, do you feel comfortable if I sit down with you?”
“No,” Myrie said. That was an easy one.
The human nodded and pulled his luggage through the compartment to leave it to the other side.
“Wait!” cried Myrie. Everything in her head tumbled in shambles. She didn’t want him to leave. He stopped and looked patiently into her face until she had collected herself and had her concerns formulated:
“Well, judging by my will, you could sit with me, but I would feel uncomfortable,” she said slowly.
“Meaning, you’d like me to sit down with you, even though that would make you uncomfortable. In other words,” said the human.
Myrie nodded and smiled. Unusual, Myrie thought, as she suddenly felt sympathy for a stranger for the first time in as long as her memories stretched back. And at the same time she felt the familiar fear of doing everything wrong.
“Shall I put your luggage up there?” Myrie asked diffidently and stood up.
When she stood, she wondered if this was such a good idea, because she couldn’t even reach the luggage rack on her tiptoes with her arms outstretched. She stepped onto the seats and could reach the shelf from there with the heel of her hand. That should do. She jumped down again so that she could heave the person’s luggage up there as soon as he had given his okay.
“Maybe you can help me, it’s really quite heavy,” the human pondered.
Myrie reached into the handle of the suitcase to test the weight and almost stumbled backwards with it. It wasn’t exactly light as a feather, but the way the human had struggled and with that warning, Myrie had expected thrice the weight.
“It’s light enough for me, I could do that,” she assured. Nevertheless, the human grabbed it.
“Be careful, there’s stuff in there, that may be softly packed, but is sensitive still,” he groaned, stretching, while Myrie heaved the suitcase into the shelf and he merely touched it.
But Myrie was cautious. She was, despite the fact that she was very nervous, but the suitcase got her full attention and only when it was safely stowed away could she think more freely again.
“Thank you,” said the human, adding, “By the way, I’m Merlin. I’m going to the Mount Era Boarding School for the first time this semester and it’s my first school.”
“Same. Well, I am not Merlin. But anything but that. But now back to the question of whether there would be any other reason to be in a capsule to the Mount Era Boarding School than to go there,” she repeated her question from earlier, now that there was finally room for it.
Merlin sat down on one of the soft seats and Myrie sat down opposite of him, her feet back on the seat. Merlin looked irritated at her feet and then quickly looked around the compartment. His face grew more and more grim before he answered.
“The capsules stop at all the stations before aswell. Someone might want to get off earlier. Or you could want to meet a person who wants to go to Mount Era Boarding School and therefore be here temporarily.”
“Ah, true that is,” Myrie said and nodded.
Merlin sighed, his gaze not fixed on her, but on a point to her right.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Next to your row of seats is a practical, low, and entirely empty luggage rack. We didn’t have to make such an effort,” he said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see that,” said Myrie, who was now looking there in turn.
“Hey, neither did I,” he said, and he shook his head with a grin. “As long as we get it down in time, it’s not a tragedy.”
They sat quietly for a while, looking at each other. Merlin wore trousers made of dark, velvety, sturdy-looking fabric which widened towards his feet. Tall dark purple boots with light yellow stars peeked out from underneath. Myrie liked these boots immediately. They made a sturdy and similtanuously an almost filigree impression. His upper body was dressed in a plain dark green, long-sleeved top with a collar, and over it he wore a wool sweater vest with a red and white pattern. There were, for example, maple leaves and acorns on it, and some types of leaves that Myrie couldn’t identify. Maybe they were invented. Or it could be that they didn’t grow around Byrglingen.
“I’d have a few questions, if that’s okay,” Merlin broke the silence.
Myrie nodded slowly as she continued to stare at the leaf pattern.
“What’s your name?”
That was an easy question, how nice.
“Myrie. Myrie Pliers.”
“Is it enough for me to say Myrie, or would you rather be addressed by your full name?”
Myrie looked up into Merlin’s eyes and thought for a moment. “Myrie is enough. Merlin is enough for you, or did I get that wrong?”
“You didn’t get that wrong,” Merlin said.
He had light brown eyes and his skin color was as light as Myrie had ever seen outside of virtualities. And even in virtualities, such light skin was rare.
“When you said ‘same’ earlier, if you remember, did you also mean that you are going to school for the first time?”
“Yes,” Myrie said after some hesitation, during which she remembered the scrap of conversation from earlier.
“And for the time being, the last one: Where have you got your luggage?”
“On the body,” she answered.
He looked at her skeptically.
That worried her. “Do we need anything?” she asked, feeling uncomfortably oppressed in her chest. Then suddenly she was full of panic. This feeling, which she had been trying to fight for weeks, now spread through her and she clasped her knees tightly while she began to rock back and forth again to calm down.
“Hey, don’t panic!” Merlin said soothingly. “Even if you’ve forgotten something, I’m sure I can lend you the essentials until someone sends things after you. And maybe you’re right, and you don’t need more than you have on your body.”
Myrie took a few deep breaths and calmed down. She put her chin on the arms she had wrapped around her knees and looked back at Merlin’s face. It was such an expressive face that now was friendly and reassuring. Myrie liked that. She breathed in and out slowly a few more times before she dared to say something again.
“What do you have in your suitcase?” she asked diffidently.
“Well, different clothes, for the night, or for different temperatures. A pair of slippers, a bathrobe, a pair of sandals for the summer. A towel, a fluffy blanket that I snuggle up in when I feel lonely. A stereo system and a mixer, because I like to tinker with music. A fagote, that’s a wind instrument, and Olja, a long stuffed shark.”
Myrie became more and more relaxed at the list. These were all things she didn’t necessarily need.
“Is it okay to sleep naked?” she asked as a precaution.
“I think so,” Merlin reflected. “I don’t know what would be wrong with it, unless you’re freezing because of it, and don’t want to. But you actually look like you can handle some of the cold, and the rooms will certainly be heated when it’s cold outside. Or you can use the EM suit to warm yourself up. Do you have a EM suit with you?”
Myrie nodded. Her thoughts were also tangled up because Merlin had said two things that she was now trying to think about at the same time. How did people see that she was not very sensitive to the cold? It had happened several times before that someone had said something like that to her, and it confused her. But she postponed the question. It was more interesting than the other question, but it still relieved her to mentally check whether she was missing something.
She had stowed her EM suit neatly rolled up in one of her many trouser pockets. This caused it to bulge a bit, which Myrie didn’t like at all. She preferred things to be flat and close to her body. She actually had a large flat pocket in the back of the vest, in which it was usually folded less often. But on this trip, the VR glasses also had to be taken along, and therefore it was not possible to prevent a bulge of a bag. Therefore, she wore the EM suit in a pocket opposite the VR glasses this time for symmetry reasons. It had the further advantage that her back was warmed less as a result. Outdoors, in cool temperatures, she didn’t have the problem so much, but here on the train she was just grateful for it.
“The fact that would maybe worry me most is that you don’t have any shoes. We certainly make excursions from time to time over terrain with sharp stones or sharp edges. But we certainly won’t do that on the first day, and you can have them sent to you,” Merlin thought.
“I never wear shoes. And I’m often on pebbly terrain,” Myrie replied.
“Even on rocky terrain?” he asked.
Myrie nodded.
“Are the soles of your feet so thick that nothing ever happens to you?”
“Very rarely have I caught an edge that was so sharp that I bled a little. But that hasn’t happened to me in years.”
“And do you never have cold feet?”
“The trick is to keep them well supplied with blood,” she said, standing up and bobbing up and down on her feet.
Then she curled her toes and did a few more exercises. Merlin nodded and smiled.
“May I ask you something personal?” he asked, and there was a hint of anxiety in his voice.
He’s about to ask why I don’t have a beard, she thought, and reminded herself inwardly that this was a question that wasn’t really all that bad. Besides, Merlin seemed to be nice so far.
“It’s okay if not,” he said. “We haven’t known each other long. I was just, hmm, curious.”
“My mother is an orc,” Myrie blurted out.
“Wow. And your father? Or other parent?” asked Merlin, surprised.
Myrie noticed that there was no aggressive undertone that she was used to and that she had been afraid of, but was too overwhelmed to think about it properly.
“A dwarf, what else,” Myrie answered.
It only occurred to her a moment later that this was only a known circumstance in her village, and that you wouldn’t know from seeing her just as you wouldn’t know from that that her mother was an orc. Perhaps one could also think that her parents had been troll and gnome. Or lobbud, – lobbuds usually also had no hair on their faces.
Then she remembered her visits to learning virtualities, and she realized that it wasn’t true at all. At that time, she had been asked a few times about her dad. It was just a very long time ago. She had then come up with the name “dworc” for herself, so that she could say in one word, just like the others, who she was. She grinned for a moment at the thought. But it hadn’t had the desired effect, the others hadn’t understood it or found it strange and laughed. And it was not in a way that felt good.
Merlin, however, did not seem dismissive at all. She found him to be rather thoughtful so far.
“I’m a dworc,” she said diffidently, tensely curious about what would happen next.
“That sounds really cool,” Merlin said and grinned, not at all bothered by her harsh answer from before, and perhaps added a little insecurely: “I like puns.”
Myrie suddenly had to start laughing. She didn’t know exactly why. Perhaps because she had not been able to do it at the time and was now making up for it.
“Dworc!” she repeated to herself, and yet not quietly, savoring the word.
Then she giggled to herself for quite a while.
Merlin had laughed along at first. Now he watched her with a smile.
“But actually, that wasn’t what I wanted to ask,” Merlin said as she gradually calmed down. “And the question about your other parent didn’t make it any better. The whole introduction was insensitive against the background. I’m sorry.”
Part of the fear from earlier that he might ask about her missing beard came back. But that was now clarified and he hadn’t even wanted to ask. However, through the recurrence of fear, she understood what he meant by the fact that it would be insensitive to ask. This was somewhat in contrast to Gramantra’s advice, she thought, not to suspect rejection before it happened. And she was still afraid of what he might want to ask, but she was also curious.
“What did you want to ask?” she asked.
“If you’re afraid of school,” he said hesitantly.
Myrie had to grin again. That made her think about being a dworc again, and she giggled again, but not so long this time.
“I don’t fear the building,” she said, but added matter-of-factly after a moment’s hesitation, “I’m afraid of going to school.”
It didn’t seem much more precise to her than Merlin’s question had been, but she couldn’t put it better briefly what exactly they both meant, and that annoyed her.
“Me too, a little,” Merlin admitted.
He looked to the left at the wall of the capsule. Then he also opened one of the lids of the armrests Myrie had discovered before and he tapped on it. A landscape now flew past the sides of the capsule. Myrie took a frightened breath.
“These screens show the landscape we are moving through,” Merlin explained.
But Myrie couldn’t see anything, it just shimmered in front of her eyes and she squinched them shut. But the rapidly changing differences in brightness were still there. She clapped her hands in front of her face and began to whimper.
“I’ll turn it off,” Merlin said and the flickering stopped.
Carefully, Myrie opened her blinded eyes behind her fingers and spread her fingers a little. Surely she had annoyed him. Surely he wanted to see this landscape fly by, but it wasn’t for Myrie. At least it wasn’t right now, not the tiniest bit.
“Too fast,” she said tonelessly.
“That was pretty fast. But it’s over now,” Merlin said and he had put on that soothing tone again.
“If I put my VR glasses on, you can turn it on again,” she said and reached into her pocket, but before she could take out the glasses, Merlin shook his head.
“I’d rather look at you. I can also look at this landscape later in a virtuality. I’d rather know what kind of virtualities you visit, will you tell me?” he suggested. “Unless you’d rather not.”
“Beach,” Myrie said.
That would have been the one she would have looked at now if he hadn’t stopped her.
“A game on the beach? With piracy?” he asked. “Two months ago, ›The Maar Fleet 2‹ was released, an adventure game about ecological piracy with a real historical reference, in which you can also play mermaids. I found that quite interesting, but I haven’t tried it yet. Something like that?”
“No, just the beach. I don’t actually play. Lying on the beach and listening to the seagulls and the waves is calming.”
The idea alone allowed Myrie to breathe more freely. The memory of warm sand on the skin. The idea of taking a handful of sand and letting it slowly trickle onto her arms or legs.
“Sometimes I also go to a sand shower, in which sand trickles down on my back in a thin spurt from above, and the spurt moves.”
“Sounds relaxing,” Merlin said. “But I couldn’t do just that and nothing more. I need more variety. Action, too.”
“I usually have that when I’m climbing,” Myrie replied.
“If you say you don’t play, is it a pure climbing virtuality, then?” Merlin reflected.
“I also go to them from time to time to practice new climbing techniques. But most of the time I climb outside in nature.”
“Wow!”
Merlin interrogated her at length about her excursions into the mountains that surrounded Byrglingen, and listened to her admiringly. Myrie soon became hoarse. She had never spoken to anyone for so long without a pause. She noticed that she always answered questions and didn’t have any herself. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in Merlin. She would have loved to listen to whatever he would have said, but she just didn’t know what to ask. It seemed to her like smooth stone. A beautiful stone, but nowhere could she get some kind of grip.
Time passed, they stopped in a few more villages and towns, but they didn’t concentrate their attention to it. Myrie coughed hoarsely and Merlin paused from his interrogation. He took off his wonderful shoes and tangled his legs. Then he looked at Myrie’s face again. Myrie looked at his socks. They were blue and green hooped. Myrie thought, if she ever wore socks, then it should defenitely be hooped ones too. She wondered if others would find her plain dark green clothes boring. But on the other hand, bright colors would perhaps also be more likely to scare off the animals.
“You remind me a little of my dear friend. She loves the mountains as well,” Merlin said into the resulting silence.
The phrase ‘my dear friend’ puzzled Myrie. She would have expected the phrase ‘a dear friend,’ or the addition of a name, but as it was, it was strangely specific.
“Do you have exactly one friend who is dear to you?” Myrie asked.
If she thought about it rightly, it wasn’t all that unlikely. After all, she didn’t have one at all, unless she counted Ahna.
“I have a few more. But it is a special one. I meet her every day and I really like her a lot. I like her in a different way than I like other friends, even if they are dear to me” he explained with a brooding expression.
“In what way do you like other friends and how is that different from your feelings towards her?” Myrie wanted to know.
“It’s hard to explain. I like to meet in virtualities with a few friends to play with. And I am also always happy to see those I meet in learning communities. But I don’t know if I could do anything with them outside of a game or outside of a learning community. Hermen is a friend of mine whom I know from one of my learning communities. Him I meet actually meet outside the learning communities in other virtualities, for example to do homework, and sometimes we talk about this and that. By the way, he is also starting this semester at the Mount Era Boarding School. But with Fadja, that’s my dear friend I mentioned, it’s different. It is somehow more, I think. We spend a lot of time in silence next to each other. And I often feel a soft longing to touch her. We also like to cuddle together to fall asleep. And when we talk, it’s usually very philosophical. She is quite wise.”
He stopped speaking and looked at his socks, sunk in thought, most likely. He looked beautiful as he sat there, Myrie thought. Somehow happy, Myrie could literally feel it and started to smile a little. Moreover, she felt a little flattered. If she reminded him of his dear friend, his impression of her couldn’t be quite so bad, or could it?
“Sometimes we even kiss,” Merlin added. “I don’t usually talk about it. People think I’m too young. I just have the impression that I could tell you that without fear.”
“Why do people think you’re too young to kiss? I used to get kisses from my dad when I was a infant.” Myrie was confused.
“That’s not the same. There are different types of kisses. There are like caring kisses that tell people close to you that you love them, and there are kisses that feel different, that make the person very warm and excited,” he explained.
“Hmm,” Myrie said.
Her sister had once told her about something like that, and that she dreamed of it. She had shown Myrie a movie in which two fell in love and kissed. This kiss had seemed to Myrie above all wet and exaggerated. But if people liked it, why shouldn’t they. The way Merlin explained it, however, it still seemed strange to her, but in fact more understandable, for that with such a kiss there was perhaps more to feel for those involved than just licking each other.
Myrie nodded slowly. Maybe she should try it out at some point. Should she ask Merlin? But then she decided against it. This was a topic to which people could react tenderly and where she could perhaps easily make herself unpopular.
“If Fadja likes the mountains as much as I do, why don’t you already know how to climb from her?” she asked instead.
“Fadja and I are less involved with the activity than with the view. Meaning, only a part of what you described. We usually meet in a mountain virtuality on a big mountain and enjoy the view,” he explained.
“The view even might be better there than in reality. The air is not invisible, but only very transparent. And when you’re far away from something, it always looks a bit, hmm, matt and blurred.”
“Yes, Fadja told me that too!” said Merlin joyfully. “Nevertheless, I would like to compare views in virtuality and reality myself.”
Myrie felt the slight acceleration that meant the train had just stopped again. She wondered how long they had been traveling and was surprised to realize that she had completely lost track of time.
At that moment, another human walked through the door. Maybe they wasn’t just human, Myrie thought as her gaze fell on the slightly pointed ears. They, too, like Merlin, had luggage, but they did not drag it behind them themself. It followed them on six short legs, at the ends of which were wheels.
“Is one of you Merlin?” he asked as he walked in.
“Yes!” called Merlin enthusiastically and jumped up. “Hermen?”
The other nodded.
“Great. I had just sent you a message and asked in which compartment you were sitting. But you would not answer, would you?”
“I have been talking, and therefore have not paid attention to messages. That’s Myrie!” Merlin pointed to Myrie.
Hermen’s gaze followed the hint and was now really directed at Myrie for the first time. He probably hadn’t suspected that she could be Merlin, she thought. “And you are?” he asked, looking rather skeptical.
“Myrie,” she answered, irritated.
Hermen made an annoyed noise. “What folk, I mean. You’re a few meters too small for a troll.”
Myrie felt breathless for a moment. That was the kind of conversation she had feared. But, she tried to remember, maybe he didn’t mean it that way. He had, so far, only asked a question and was a bit annoyed because she hadn’t understood it right away. And there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if she were actually a troll. She forced herself to take a deep breath.
“A dworc,” Myrie said.
She started grinning at the word again and giggling to herself.
“Dworc,” Hermen repeated and thought for a moment, then looked at Merlin with a grin. “Good one. Classic Merlin!”
“Could be classic me, but it was in fact Myrie. She was faster to find it,” he objected.
Hermen turned back to her, made an expression on his face that she couldn’t interpret and that changed quickly. He nodded, perhaps even appreciatively. Then his gaze wandered to the seat next to Myrie and then to his luggage, which had been parked next to him.
All of a sudden, Merlin began to giggle. “If you want to, Myrie and I can help you heave your luggage onto the luggage rack up there,” he suggested.
Hermen glanced at Myrie.
“Well, it’s very heavy,” he said, and yet again he looked so skeptical and condescending that Myrie felt the urge to convince him that it wasn’t too heavy. She felt it, even though it was great nonsense to put more luggage in the upper luggage rack, and it was beyond Myrie’s understanding what the heck that was about and why Merlin suggested it.
She got up and lifted the box. It was actually heavier than Merlin’s luggage, perhaps three times as heavy. She lifted it over her head, then put the box down again.
“I could,” she said and sat down again.
“Is she stupid?” asked Hermen Merlin, who was still chuckling and just shaking his head in response.
“You had it almost up there and put it back on the floor?” he now addressed Myrie.
But his luggage answered the question by loading itself into the luggage rack next to the row of seats. Hermen snorted, and started laughing too.
“You’re both silly,” he said amused, and now Myrie understood. Merlin had only wanted to make a bad joke. She started giggling again.
Hermen sat down opposite Merlin right next to Myrie and immediately she stopped giggling and froze. Hermen didn’t seem to notice that.
“So that’s the first time we see each other in reality,” Hermen said.
He and Merlin looked at each other for a while before they started talking about something. Myrie catched nothing of that conversation. She was far too busy sitting right next to a person she hadn’t invited, who hadn’t asked. On top of that, he had called her stupid. Even though they had all laughed about it at the end, it had sounded quite serious at the beginning. Myrie sat up straight with her eyes closed and tried to breathe calmly. And so it took her a while to realize that Merlin and Hermen had stopped talking. She opened her eyes again and looked directly into Merlin’s worried face.
Are you back?” he asked cautiously.
Myrie nodded hesitantly.
“I wanted to ask you if music was too much for you, but then, well, you were somehow only physically present. What happened?” he asked.
Oh dear, how was she supposed to convey that it was wrong, that Hermen was sitting next to her. But there was another question, which was easier.
“Music. It depends. If it’s slow, or has clear patterns, it’s good.”
“Those are some criteria. You don’t name a genre, but more like a shape. You’re weird, for real,” Hermen remarked.
That was suddenly too much. Myrie jumped to her feet and ran from the capsule to the next. It was capsule 10. Unfortunately, the capsule was not empty either. Three children were already sitting here, interrupting their conversation and staring at Myrie. Myrie ran back to see if the person in capsule 8 still had their VR glasses on. But there was also another person now sitting in this compartment as well, an elf suspected Myrie, perhaps female, who seemed older and strict. The human no longer had their glasses on and had been talking to the other person when Myrie came in. They also interrupted their conversation when Myrie entered. Myrie turned back and arrived back in the capsule with Hermen and Merlin, who were currently busy lifting Merlin’s suitcase out of the luggage rack.
“I’ll go look for her when the thing is down here, I think. Oh, there she is again,” she heard Merlin say strainedly.
But instead of responding, she stood ready to catch the suitcase when it no longer leaned on the luggage rack, but tipped over.
“Thank you,” Merlin said to her.
He opened the suitcase and rummaged around in it. At first, Myrie thought the clothes were spreaded without any pattern in it, but then she noticed that the cloth was simply currently being used to cushion some devices. And Olja, the shark, lay across all things. Merlin suddenly stopped searching, grabbed Olja, and held out the shark to Myrie.
“Do you want it? But be careful!” he offered.
Myrie took Olja and looked into the fish face of the big dark blue shark with the white belly. Olya looked harmless. Myrie moved to a seat at the very edge, squeezed herself against the wall, pulled her legs up and embraced Olya. She closed her eyes and put her face to Olja’s soft fur. That felt good.
She didn’t notice how Merlin closed the suitcase again and this time stowed it in the lower luggage rack. She also didn’t notice how he induced it, but suddenly the capsule was filled with the sound of music. And it was the most beautiful music Myrie had ever heard. It had gloriously even rhythms, shifted against each other, simple, dramatic melodies, and a beautiful sonority. And it allowed Myrie to focus on something very different from Hermen or what they said to each other. And so she remained until Gramantra warmed on her arm and announced that she should get ready to get out in half an hour. Not that Myrie needed much time to collect things, but she was grateful to be able to adjust.