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Traveller

I had some trouble with formatting this one on the website- let me know if anything seems out of place!  (random words in bold, literally no paragraph spacing, etc)

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The market was more crowded than usual this year.  So many people- too many people, in the traveller's opinion.  He was grateful to be secluded away from the busiest part of the market, here in his little marquee, surrounded by tables displaying his own creations.  He turned a small starglobe over and over from one hand to the other, calmed by the familiarity of its glassy surface.  This one was not for sale- it was his own, one that captured the piece of universe around the planet he usually called home.  When he wasn't working, that was.  Between travelling to observe newly discovered worlds and going to places like this to sell the pieces he made, he rarely stayed in one place for very long.  As much as he loved seeing what the universe had to offer, he did get homesick from time to time, and this helped.  A vision of home he could take with him anywhere.

The woman who had just come by had bought two globes quite similar to it, though those ones showed the stars of Earth.  They sold well here- he knew from experience that people had greater connections to what they were familiar with, after all.  The adults, in particular.  Children, on the other hand...  there were some coming over now, likely twins, and looking a bit too young to be running about without a parent, but here they were, nonetheless.  They went straight to the planetary globes, seeming not to notice the assortment of Earths that covered almost a full table.  Small hands reached for brightly coloured replicas of distant worlds.

"Careful with those," he pointed out, though they were sturdy enough that they wouldn't break from a fall into the rain-damp grass around their feet.

"Sorry!"  The one on the left chirped, putting down the deep blue orb she'd been holding.

"That's alright," he said, without thinking very much about it.  Children were always eager to examine new things, and these two were likely too young to be thinking things through very much.  The one on the right, however, didn't put hers down.  She held a globe alive with greens and browns- one of the forest worlds. 

"Sal," her sister warned.  "He said to be careful."
"I am being careful, Vic."  She looked at it closely, and he silently hoped that her fingers weren't sticky from market-food.  "Is this really from another planet?" She asked, torn somewhere between wonder and disbelief.
"Well, I usually make them on my home planet, so, yes.  That one, though..." he squinted a bit harder at it, dark eyes narrowing.  A particular region of gray just about the equator, almost covered by her fingers, helped him to identify what world it was.  "That one's of Arbora.  It's a few systems away from here, and it's just lovely."
"Do people live there?" She seemed to be looking over the planet for signs of settlements or people.
"Not many.  It's mostly a holiday destination, but an obscure one.  Very beautiful, though.  The settlements there are small enough that you cant see them in the globe."  The explanation came easy to him- he remembered well the majority of the planets he'd visited, and it wasn't until the children's faces lit up with surprise that he realised.  Living on Earth all their lives, he assumed, the idea of a planet where the cities were not visible from space would be quite different than what they were used to.  

"There are so many trees," Vic said, looking close at it.
"Earth had trees like this once, right?" Sal commented, looking up at the traveller for confirmation- though that was well before his time.  Time hadn't been particularly kind to him so far, but no, he wasn't that old.
"It still has trees," he pointed out.  "Just not that many."
"Grandma says that when she was little, there were lots more- really big forests, bigger than the city!  So big that you could get lost in them and never find your way out."  Her eyes were alive with imagining, now looking at him while still cradling the orb, probably seeing something quite else.

"What about this one?" The other girl asked- she'd lost interest, and was now examining another one of the blue orbs, this one lighter and more vivid in colour than the first.  "Do people live here?"  Oh, this was one of his favourites- he'd been one of the first civilians to capture its image. 
"No, no people live there.  There's already things living on it, so we left it to them."  The girl held up the globe into the sunlight, shining through the ocean blue to highlight the vivid reds and greens of plants rising up through the water, crimson flowers seeming to float on the surface.
"The plants?  But there were plants on the other one, too... oh!" It took her a few moments to spot something more.  Fish- or rather, creatures very similar to fish- swum amongst the vegetation.  They blended in with the colours of their environments, some with mottled red scales, others speckled with aquamarine and viridian.  The model was too small to see much more detail, but the thought of an ocean paradise on another world filled her with fascination.  "Sal, look-" she held it out to her sister- "there are fish!" Her sister looked for a moment, but overall she was more interested in the world of trees.

"We looked at them for a little while, studied them, but then we left them be."  He explained, remembering how it had been, knowing he was one of the lucky few who would be able to see that world in such detail.  He remembered leaving and watching the beauty of it fading out in the distance.
"So we don't hurt them," Sal agreed, running her fingertips across the image of a distant world, one with forests huge enough to be forever lost in.
"Yes," he nodded, his gaze drifting to his collection of miniature Earths.  The old world of their grandmother's time, more green than gray.  There were few of those left, people often bought them.  They were more popular than models of the Earth of his generation, the one that humanity had almost destroyed with their negligence...

"Sally!  Victoria!  There you are- do you have any idea how long I was looking for you?!"  The dark-haired woman approaching at a rapid pace was certainly their mother, an older version of the same faces that were here, finally looking up from the globes with faint guilt in their expressions.
"Sorry, Mum," they chorused, though they didn't sound particularly sorry, not really, their tones shifting straight back to excitement.
"I found a planet with forests like the ones Grandma talks about!"
"And I found one with fish!"
Her worry dissipating, their mother half listened as she sent a quick message using her pocket-screen. 
"That's lovely, girls- but you have to stay with us, next time.  Your dad was looking for you on the other side of the market- I've let him know he doesn't have to worry now I've found you."  Her sigh carried a mixture of tiredness and affection, looking down at her eager daughters and their new discoveries.  "I hope they didn't bother you," she said to the traveller.
"Not at all.  It's nice to see kids having interest in other planets.  Mostly it's the Earths that sell, here."  The woman nodded.
"People like what they know.  Particularly now."  Now that we have come so close to losing our home.  Though he did not call Earth home, and hadn't for many years, the same thought struck them both as they looked at the emptiest space on his table, where a few modern Earths still remained.
"I think I'll take one of these," she said thoughtfully, picking one up that was the perfect size to neatly fit in her palm.  "Girls?  Do you want to buy those ones you've got there?" 
"Oh!  Yes!"
"Thank you!"
The world these children would grow into would be different from the one before it, dotted with the vibrance of city lights and new planted forests.  A world recovering from the damage done to it, as humanity travelled out through the universe with a new care for the planets they touched.  A world of hope.
The traveller smiled as he handed over the globes, safely wrapped in paper.

"There you go- you look after them, alright?" 

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