A/N: Yes, yes this is supposed to be a Neptune prompt. I don't give a shit.
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Prompt 18: NEON METROPOLIS
The City had formed in a valley within the Andes Mountains, to the far south near Patagonia, surrounded by crystalline lakes, snow capped mountains, and craggy deserts. It was the product of early Guardians - then Risen, Lightbearers - and the people they swore to protect, all gathered in the soft, moonlike glow of the Traveler.
Hundreds of years later, sequestered away in its cocoon of a wall, it glowed brighter than the Traveler its inhabitants worshiped.
River knew the quiet, still of the rest of the Earth. Cities lay destroyed, abandoned, or irradiated, farmland was razed, lakes dried up. But still, here was the City, laid open for her and her friends, glass and steel and neon, pocked with green space, with lakes formed from bomb craters.
When she was a young Risen, the City had been almost nauseating to look at. The living spaces were too enclosed, the lights too bright, the sounds overwhelming. Now, she could remember another time - cities of glass and steel, cars whizzing by and choking the streets, so many people everywhere all the time. She'd seen so many places like it: New York, Washington, her hometown Atlanta. All gone now, but…
River stopped, mission for takeout briefly forgotten, and gazed up at the unending skyscrapers and the sky traffic beyond it, back down at the sparrow traffic flying past her, and was promptly bumped out of the way by a pedestrian she'd inconvenienced.
She was home.