Re: An Afternoon Stroll

by Shula Brighton Tue Mar 01, 2011 12:05 am

Blinking, Shula paused staring at the items in the next window where she had been planning to walk to next as she listened. Jack was from the settlements out in the desert? Really? Her eyes brightened and widened with sudden interest and unyielding curiosity. "...Really? That... is so cool! I've always wanted to go.... When we were little, my grandparents asked my mother to let my brother and I go live with them and be "raised properly," but.... " The excitement in her voice was evident and sparkled in her face. As she'd said, outside of her own family she'd never met any other Ishvallans, especially not ones from out in the tiny clusters of almost portable cities. Her grandparents had been very insistent that since her brother was becoming so engrossed in his pursuit of the unnatural and bastardized science that their home wasn't a good environment for Shula, and that the only way she could grow up to be a decent person was to remove her from what might influence her. However, given her health, her mother nearly went into a panic at the idea.

"My family comes from a settlement they built right where the town used to be. It's called Uskudar'a... It's how I learned fire dancing." Long before Ishval had been obliterated, Uskudar'a had been famed for its exotic fire dancers, and their skills and secrets were closely guarded and passed down through the generations. After the war, the town was decimated and only a small handful of surviving Ishvallans knew the dances. Even now the mastery of the art was still not something everyone was taught, and all the real ones came from those few families from Uskudar'a.

Shula smiled warmly, still twiddling with the rose in her hand as she stood in front of the shop window. "What's it like out there? I've heard all sorts of things, but... I wasn't allowed to leave to see it for myself. Still... I want to go see it someday."