[centre][h2][color=7ea7d8]Lauren Jones - Wall Maria: Shiganshina District[/color][/h2][/centre]

"Lauren, can you come help me with the laundry?"

The young teenager snapped her book shut, sitting up at the sound of her father's booming voice.  He was a big man so it came as no surprise that his voice filled a space easily but she knew him to be a gentle sole, a medic by trade who had only the intention of healing people and leaving the violence of a military life to his wife.  She had been lounging in the low boughs of a tree, a small seat formed by interlocking branches her favourite place to be when there weren't any other kids in the area to run about with.

[color=7ea7d8]"Of course, Pa."[/color] She climbed nimbly out of the tree, swinging down the few branches between her hideout and the ground with practised ease and then running up their small garden to where her father was setting down a laundry tub by the back of the house.  He grinned as he saw her leap up onto a low brick wall, the only place she could reach the washing line well enough to hang anything on it, before handing her some wet clothes.

They didn't speak much as they carried out the task, enjoying each other's company in the warm sunlight without feeling the need to fill silence.  He asked about her friends, when she would head out later to meet them, but avoided her questions about his own work; he sometimes took Lauren to help him but that was usually some time after he had begun treatment so that she was spared the worst of the horrors.

When the bells began to toll, announcing the return of the Survey Corps, they both looked up from their work, her father sighing and dropped an armful of wet clothes back into the tub.

"Can you finish this up, Law? I need to fetch my things." She nodded her understanding and he smiled, ruffling her hair affectionately before heading into the house with a serious expression on his face.  After finishing her chores, her father long since left, Lauren headed into the nearby fields to get away from the busy streets and enjoy some peace away from the crowds greeting the Survey Corps' return.  Finding another, slightly younger, girl there she headed a little further down the hill before lying on the grass and looking up at the clouds drift lazily by.