More World and Character Building! Woo.

Cracked concrete lies within the neglected city behind me, with rusting buildings and chipped, peeling paint. I live in one of the more northern cities, where the sun has less strength during the day than it does in the south. The days can still be blistering hot, but we can also get severe winters. When you do see grass, it is in balding patches which die almost as quickly as they come. They die easily in the unpredictable weather. One day may be sunny and warm, the next a blizzard. This prevents wildlife from venturing so far north. Birds are seen occasionally, but they rarely stay for long. Most of the animals that we do have are vicious and sickly. If you go farther east you reach the oceans. There is an abundance of wildlife there. My father used to travel there from time to time. He said that the buildings were being choked by vines, and the people had to carry machetes with them to create paths in the every-growing grasses. He told stories of large animals that could wipe out entire armies, you wouldn't even be able to see them coming because they could hide so well in the grasses. That’s not the case here. It’s flat, so on a sunny day you can see for miles. The only time you can’t see anything is either when it’s a blizzard, or when there is a sand storm.

My city is called the Northern Pass. We get a lot of travellers through these parts because it’s based off the main road that travels from the south to the north. There is another main road south of here, just two days walk. It heads from east to west. I've travelled to that road a couple of times when I was younger when my father was leaving or when he came back from a long business trip. I haven’t really left Northern Pass since he died. Ma says that it’s too dangerous for a girl to go off on her own. I fought with her for a while, but honestly I don’t know what I would do outside of the city anyway. At least here I have a warm bed and food. I think I only fought her about it just for the sake of fighting.