[ There’s a lot to unpack here, and Aerith hasn’t had so much as a second to even start trying to wrap her head around what’s happened. One minute she’s on the road to Kalm getting tips on how to hitchhike from Tifa and the next, she’s plunging feet first into briny, tumultuous waters.

After a fair bit of extremely useless thrashing and flailing (it’s not like the Sector 5 slums has a YMCA to get lessons at), Aerith’s scooped out of the water and deposited on the deck of a ship where she now sits - in pants and a tunic that can only be described as too tremendous for a human being - wiping the salt water out of her eyes while she catches her breath.

Once her vision clears and her chest stops aching from all the sputtering and heaving that happened back in the water, she gets to her feet, frowning down at her strange attire before the sound of other people milling about draws her attention.

Holding up her pants she heads over to the first person she spots who looks like they might have a clue - or at least looks a little less harried than she does at the moment - and starts there. ]

Hi! Um, I don’t suppose you know where we are, do you?

[ The prospect of being reunited with her things is an appealing enough prospect that Aerith manages to ignore the din of Eltrut, ignoring the curiosity that rises in her with every new sight and sound to instead follow the map she’s been given to her possessed down to the letter.

Or, she thought anyway.

Because this empty stone wall that waits at the end of the alley she thought she was supposed to follow to the next fork in the road suggests otherwise.

After spending a few minutes going between the featureless wall and the map in her hand, Aerith huffs, undaunted and not yet willing to rule out the possibility that she really has come to the right place. She strides up to the wall and starts poking at it, making her way across the end of the alleyway while she taps and prods at the stones. Everything’s been weird so far, she’s not going to rule out some kind of secret passage and waste more time wandering this city looking as frazzled and ridiculous as she’s sure she must by now. ]

Look out behind you!

[ Is she a lethal warrior? No, but Aerith’s gotten into enough scrapes at this point that she recognizes both danger and an advantage when she sees one. As one of those dangerous, toothy birds she’s been warned about swoops down, its jaws opening to take a chunk out of some unsuspecting soul, she calls out before darting into motion.

While the staff she carries is usually being used to help her cast her magic while her more battle-ready friends leap into the fray, it works great when she grips it like a baseball bat and takes a swing, connecting with the diving sharkgull and sending it flying.

Shocked by and just a little proud of herself she’s still brandishing her staff like a club when she turns around to meet the eye of the sharkgull’s prospective victim. ]

Are you alright? We should get out of here before it comes back!

[ Too full of bravado to ever admit it but, she’s not that sure she can pull something like that off again, not that she wouldn’t try if she had to. ]

[ something else? feel free to pm me if you'd like to plot out something beyond the prompts above. ]