She was joyful, the girl. Irene was twelve; her thoughts bordered on boys. Travel, however, bore its own aura of newness. She clung to a suitcase, fastidiously polished, colored a rich burgundy, and passed through security like a wisp of air past our ears. The guards did not pay much attention to her. She was twelve years old, bashful, and freckled, after all. Irene flipped her suitcase off the conveyor belt so deftly the journalist behind her muttered she was a "born one". She stared out the window on the plane, and gradually fell asleep as the plane worked its way into the clouds.

 

Heptavia wore a sour expression upon her face. Her nose, seemingly ironed against her face, became uncommonly red in airports. Heptavia cited the "hexed air." Her satchel traveled through the security with an alarming fall-off tendency; twice the security guards cited "improper scanning" and forced her to go again to the end of the line. Heptavia did not particularly treasure her gray-green satchel, splotched with coffee, with one dog-chewed handle and the other made unholdable by a peculiarly tenacious sausage. Heptavia fell into a trance directly after takeoff--going into the air, she said, brought visions.