The opening scene isn't eventful, but it's enjoyable. I love that comment about recent converts being the most reactionary!
Nitpick radar: "she'd never met a summoner in whom she could place such trust" (nevermind that my own use of which/that tends to be rather muddled)
Awwwww, Erna. As soon as one starts liking this girl one knows bad things are on the way...
The next scene is delightful and I don't feel like dissecting it, but I love the dynamic between Ginnem and her "girls", displaying some of the same big sister/maternal feelings for her Guardians as Lulu would later have for Yuna, except expressed in a much more bubbly and earthy way. And Lulu's nose always in a book. Mneme_forgets did that with "Good News" too. it's so logical-- Lulu couldn't have gained all that knowledge simply from two past pilgrimages; she probably studied her buns off to overcome her backwater roots.
Oh, I love the wild rumors about Auron. Almost right, too. :)
(DIES at the aside about Chappu's morning breath..) And ouch, maybe I don't like Erna quite so much. Lulu might have been able to fight, maybe not, but what very realistic bit of sulking that is. It makes Erna's words fall on deaf ears at the end. "I don't deal in stolen goods." She's wise, and yet annoying, and yet it's like Paine and Lulu -- who says characters always have to be nice and agreeable? Blunt can be fine. So in one simple chapter you've filled out an OFC who's quite interesting in spite of being not-all-nice.
This sounds about like the Lulu I'd imagined from two pilgrimages back: a lot more naive and inexperienced, idolizing her Summoner. (Which makes me speculate that she would have overcompensated for past mistakes in some quite annoying ways with Zuke.)
It's true that not much happens in this chapter (I thought I had the market cornered on that!) but it seems like a lot of good character sketching to me, and I enjoyed it. Character interactions, especially those tinged with sad nostalgia and a sense of "hoo boy, this won't last" really are my favorite, which is why FFX was so poignant. (Of course, a teensy hint of yuri/yaoi/whatever makes me fuzzy, also... not the sex, so much, but the affection. I see some parallels with Auron's intense and probably unexamined emotion towards Braska.)