The town! What a spectacle it was, with its cobblestone streets and clean roads, with its buildings all neatly placed next to one another, with its people milling about, more people than Lyra was used to in the village that she came from. And yet they didn't seem like a crowd at all. She remembered being taken to city once, and it wasn't nearly this nice. There were too many noise there, from car engines, from people, from shouting, and there the air had a strange unpleasant quality to it. It was different here, even if she couldn't quite explain it. The differences between the air in the two cities was like between a cloudy sky and a clear one at night; on the latter you can see the stars.

And then there's Zeke, who was like a little star all on his own. He seemed just as awed with the city as she was, or at least the cobblestone street, which he took quite an effort to take a picture of. Lyra grinned as he came back and held her hand again, his curious eyes a little more nervous than they used to be. "I'm not going anywhere, you know," Lyra said comfortingly, "I'm not going to let you be a lost little sheep."

[i]"Where are we going to go? There's ice cream somewhere, I think."[/i]

"I... hmm, I'm not sure? But ice cream sounds nice! Yeah, let's go look for some!"

Lyra didn't know where they could find one, though, so she just took a direction at random. Or rather, the direction that that she thought wouldn't have too many people around it (because Zeke wouldn't like crowds, would he?).

"Ice cream. Where would ice creams be?" Lyra muttered, on their way. "An ice cream shop? Well, if we can find one, of course. A market? A cafe? A park?"

And then as if she'd conjured it with her words, they came by a park. It wasn't a very big one, but it was an open area in the middle of the city, with just enough trees to keep it shaded. There wasn't a lot of people there, either, or at least less than she'd expected. Lyra saw some younger kids being accompanied by their parents, saw someone walking their dog. On the other side of the park, there were some stands selling small food, although there weren't a lot of buyers.

"Oh, yeah. It's a school day, isn't it? People have work. We have classes later this afternoon too. Hmm." Her humming turned into a bit of a song without her realising it. A faint breeze was flowing, and she could feel a thousand pleasant notes in it. It would be nice if she can spend the rest of the day wandering town with Zeke instead.

[@Regitnui]