Cheal's mellow nature would have upset anyone considering the trip he and the wanderer who wears a brown overcoat were making.
Except the wanderer was and also not one of those people. He was a bit stressed about him having to make rest stops, he wasn't worried about both of them not having a single food provision.
Whether they would die because they set out without food, or that they attempted walking the thousands of leagues on foot, is the flip of a coin that they chose.
The coin kept flipping.
For the first day since coming to that divergence on the road, the wanderer had not spoken once to Cheal.
Only stopping in the middle of the dirt road and dropping down to sleep a bit when he thought a rest stop may be good, seeing that Cheal had already collapsed a few leagues behind him.
The third and fourth day went by the same. Cheal dropping down due to exhaustion from walking, whereas the wanderer flatlining his body against the road because he needs a nap.
It was the fifth day, when Cheal asked, "umm, water? Please?"
The wanderer turning around opened a bottle he used to keep those chewing sticks he still carried, he didn't find a replacement for those in Ashtrim the city.
He put the chewing sticks back in the pocket in his brown overcoat.
"That's a nifty coat. Do you just carry a house-! Hey, no I do need the water, I am parched and mine's empty." Cheal sang like the lady from the couple that occupies Regent's Palace in Ashtrim the city.
"I'll fill yours up. But I never saw you in the city", the wanderer extended his left hand out.
"I took longer quests into the outskirts. Mina was always able to get me to know some special thing or two", Cheal quipped his reply, taking out his empty bottle from the backsack he had.
The wanderer nodded taking Cheal's bottle. He turned around walking a bit further down the road, "stay there."
The wanderer did the action of water on the surface of the bottle. The water poured out after filling up the bottle.
But the water also vanished as soon as the flow lost its sourceless nature it portrayed having.
The wanderer once again drew a small circle, then another next to it, and tapped with two front fingers lightly above the traced circles mid point. Water filled up the bottle but this time it never had that sourceless nature to it.
As if the water knew exactly what was the shape of its container, and water took the space it could. No spillage.
Handing back the bottle. He asked, "how many actions do you know?"
Cheal, had a hint of embarrassment, but he did answer, "just one. The one people learn from the old couple's quest, the action of earth.-"
The wanderer nodded and turned around, while Cheal realized that in mid of his monologue he was giving to the wind looking down.
They were a long way from Ashtrim, and there was another week or even more to Cleaving.
A warning he recalled by Mina, "There is something strange about Cleaving. Whatever you do, remember what you believe in." The wanderer was considering this warning carefully. And several others about Cleaving and its possible surroundings.
The wanderer exasperated at his situation. Cheal stood next to him.
Both staring in the direction where the tinkling sounds of a stream was coming from.
"Run as wildly as you can towards the water, and do not cross the path where you or I have already stepped even once." The wanderer in a brown overcoat warned.
They needed food. The food can be hunted only from the stream, but they just needed to cross the grassland.
The grassland wasn't going over the ankles of either of them. But the height of each of those grass leaves was enough.
Enough for the action of fire to occur. It wasn't because the grass was special, the action of fire was just as much a law in this world as the light reflects is a law.
The next three days didn't have any sudden fires starting on the grasslands, at least not where the wanderer and Cheal had stepped.
The wanderer considered the possible reasons behind them. Yet he couldn't make them out. The grass according to him was long enough for a wildfire to start. He wondered the reason.
The swimbeasts were plenty, and the wanderer felt he needed to boil the stream. But for what reason, it seemed to always slip by in his mind. Any action or sound nowadays seemed to distract him from remembering that particular memory he seemed to be missing.
He remembered only he needed to be angry on it. 'The swimbeasts are quite lovely to eat as raw too', his internal voice resounded.
Both did enjoy a nice meal of swimbeast meat by hunting them down. The wanderer in the brown overcoat with his sling, and Cheal hunting them from the stream with his long dagger.
None of them did make any rest stop during one of these days and covered quite the distance compared to the previous days.
A fed traveler is a fast traveler.
The wanderer in a brown overcoat was just ahead of Cheal when he heard it.
Whooshing sound the wind makes. The sound made by several different gusts of wind smashing together over the same area.
He didn't like it, nor did he like that they were in the grassland where the grass was already above their ankle trying to reach their knees.
These grasses were about to learn the nature of this world.
A shout from the wanderer, "RUN!"
Before the sound could have been processed by Cheal, the wild fires appeared.
Now their run became a lovely picnic of wild fires, as three gusts of wind went by them.
Their desolate hell of lively greenery and tinkling stream sounds overtaken.
The wanderer ran not towards the dirt road they were trying to find for the last couple of hours after hunting at the stream, to the direction the wind was blowing and so were the smoke flares.
The heat was unforgiving. It kept rising and rising, the wanderer sped up. Cheal did too.
That was the direction of the shore, the only way a hot wind like this will flow towards. Or at least someplace cooler.
The wanderer's brown overcoat earned a few more dark ashen streaks. But both Cheal and him, made it out of the wild fires. They only had to run non-stop for hours at their top speed.
Something both didn't want to show the other.
A rare talent both possibly shared, or one mimicked the other. The wanderer aware of only Cheal being behind him at most times.
The wildfire danced along them. As if entranced of their escape run.
But their escape from the wild fires of the outlands led them.
Led them to the sounds of a city, a city that may never know their name.
Their arrival at Cleaving was just a small parting event between the wanderer and Cheal.
The wanderer searched for the main wall of the city, meanwhile Cheal searched his interests he wanted to know about at the port. Their eyes trained at the arrival destination they had chosen.