Shi watched the snow fall from blood red skies, a thick deck present on the streets just below eye level from hir vantage point aboard the semi-sunken tubeway headed back home. In front of hir, a bag of a few groceries shi couldn't get more locally; in hir hand, a phone that at a glance appeared to be little more than a pane of dark frosted glass with an integrated screen, elsewhere in the tram car a few fellow passengers who found themselves daft enough to brave the midwinter weather.
The world's capital was not the far north shi spent hir childhood in with its months long darkness and all-consuming frost interchanged by an equal period of perpetual daylight and - more often than not - fog, to be sure; but winter reached all but the most equatorial regions of the althoin homeworld. Wespechitari was no exception.
"Xwarthpæjast: Iirynæqqitshom/Tuxlalthicheget. Shonvyt, þefje masukochwayj srugtaþå berxiaxal."
Hir stop. A rather bare bones one for a place usually this crowded; only made all the more lonely by how few people ventured out at this time of the year unless they absolutely had to; the platform, beyond two more people waiting there, one baseline althoin shivering and clutching their jacket, the other rocking a far more ostentatious set of bodymods and seemingly absorbed into whatever album they were listening to, the place was utterly barren. Exchanging a glance and a nod with the decidedly chillier of the pair who went for the tram shi'd just left, Thaminga quickly headed up to the street level to get to hir apartment, stat.
The althoin love for neon and flashy, glowing signage ran deep, of course. One would be foolish to think that most forms of advertisement being strictly prohibited on the planet would lead to unadorned buildings; plenty of eye-searingly blue lights dotted the street level side of the skyscraper shi called home, mounted in swirling patterns along the outer supporting beams - the main stretches of walls left thankfully blank.
The inside lobby ground floor plaza proved far more populous, of course. People had congregated seeking shelter from the weather outside, mingling, chatting about whatever over hot drinks and snacks procured from the communally operated cafeterias dotted across the 200 floor building; but Thaminga just wished to head home. Like a flash of pink, white and black with a few sandy accents, shi pathed hir way through to the elevators, and a few uneventful rides up with stops at (thankfully quieter) sky lobbies later shi was finally there.
Home.
"Egh." Was all shi could produce, before quickly getting the kettle going to make hirself some tea; making sure it was set to 'hard simmer' and not 'boil'; fry-boiling tea leaves at a toasty 153°C, while not unheard of, would be disastrous with how shi liked hirs. Letting hir tea steep for a few minutes and putting away a few items in the fridge, freezer and dry closet, shi finally wandered over to the couch in the living section, cup in hand, loose tea summarily dumped out before all but collapsing, wings clasped around hirself, clutching the hot beverage.
Finally, the sun had begun to crack beyond the horizon. For only an hour or so of course, before it would set again for the rest of the day; but for now, shi'd savor its glow.