The Fireworks
Starter for @thefatalmarksman
Fireworks, the intricate bursts of color and light in the night sky were called fireworks. They were made out of small capsules of gunpowder and pigment. Workers by the lake ignited them and launched them high into the air for onlookers to enjoy. The fireworks burst into delicate flowers and bright stars, casting a kaleidoscope of colors. The warm Summer air smelled of smoke and iron but also warm food from the vendors on the city streets.
Between bursts of explosives Xion could hear people's voices below. Laughter and gasps of exclamation at the show lifting-up to where she sat. The entire city was alive, celebrating some divinity they worshipped. They ate, and worshipped, and danced, and partied, and yelled about it a lot. To escape the noise and confusion she had perched on the roof of a home.
A vendor had sold her popcorn doused in sugar cinnamon. It was crunchy, sweet, warm, and salty. She had already eaten four bags. Xion ate snack explosions while watching sky explosions. This was quite the world she had found herself in. It was also the only world where obsidian steel could be naturally mined.
Now, actually getting the material, that would be the hard part.
Xion folded her last bag of popcorn into a neat square as she used her tongue to dig out a kernel from between her teeth. In the middle of town was a grand palace, filled with fancy people, servants, and well-armed guards. In the middle of the grand palace was a vault where the rich and powerful kept the refined steel-- among other valuable things, or so she heard.
She stood and walked along the ridge of the roof. Xion slid down the shingles and dropped into the dark alleyway below. Pedestrians passed by in a solid stream of bodies and people. Then, she felt it, a twisting in the darkness and a chill in the air. Xion searched above her and her eyes landed on a balcony just above her head. She teleported, vanishing in a flash of thin light just as the dark corridor opened in the alley.
Xion crouched on the balcony, her hand curling around the thin iron railing. The shadows dissipated into ash and into the alley stepped Xigbar.
Xion couldn't tell if the curse words that popped into her head was a coincidence, or not.