[ This is a city, but it might be hard to recognize that at first. The communal housing is set in giant shells; ancient coral lines the paths in between. The entire landscape suggests a sea was once here. It has greenery, but in a sparse sense, thin plants dotting the ground and sometimes reaching up to the coral. Still, there is life here, and where there is life there is routine, particularly in an aspect so crucial as raising the children.
There is schooling.
Aerith sits in on an outdoors lesson to a mixed-age group of children, looking just as fascinated as the lot of them as the matron plucks out notes on a small harp and tells a story along with the simple melody. It might be easy to miss her in the gathering as her customary pink dress is instead a flowing white garment with light green fading in near the bottom, tied close at her waist with a colored sash. And the usual ribbon in her hair is missing. But she laughs and talks with a typical cheerfulness, helping the teacher, up until she senses the new presence nearby. Then she looks over her shoulder with cautious eyes and rises in one fluid motion to meet the stranger, staff in hand. That at least is familiar, to anyone who's seen the Princess Guard. ]Hmm? What a surprise, it's not everyday a traveler comes along... I hope we're well met. Hello there!
[ The matron is subtle but efficient as she checks that her bow and arrow are in hand's reach. The children are less so. While some young ones cower and many look on, blankly or curiously, one teenager can be seen reaching for what might be a dagger, and a preteen has a fist around a fair-sized rock for his sling.
The Cetra were used to struggle. ][ for this month's theme: ... I was tempted to throw in a velociraptor stampede or something, lol. Seriously, Gaia has dinosaur-like creatures in the present day (see this gem and yes that is a triceratops merged with a tank, Zack wtf is wrong with your hometown), so I doubt a few dinosaurs 2000 years in its past is stretching it, if you want to include that somehow.) ]
[ETA: My e-mail hasn't been working for over two days now, orz--stopped some hours after I posted. It's definitely slowed me down, but I'm still going on comments! ] ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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