Chapter 2: a Red headed girl approaches
On the other side of the city of Wanderlust, the Eastside, was a long winding road that led up to the city gates. Well, it also led away from them, but that would be obtuse to point out wouldn’t it?
On this road, approaching the village, was a crowd of people. Among this crowd, literally right smack dab in the middle of them, was a red haired stranger. She was a stranger to these parts, and I’m sure was stranger to you as well, seeing as how she had only been born two months earlier. The only reason that I would even mention this red haired girl is that she is one of the main characters of this story, and on her I will focus for the time being.
Looking at her, you’d see that she was walking slowly, lost in thought, and reading a tattered map. Among a crowd of other people though, she would not blend in or be seen walking slowly since she was at least two feet taller than many of the people she was out distancing each step of the way.
The Red Haired girl’s speed came as no surprise to her as they were her legs that were speeding, but it did come as a great surprise to the many people that she happened to run into or trample. Her legs were very long, even gangly, and for every step that she took, the people around her took two or three steps depending on their size. You can imagine the looks she got, when a tall, redheaded strange girl flew passed them in a slow crawl, holding a large tattered map up in front of her face.
There should not have been a town directly ahead, as per her map; instead of a bustling town it should have been a lake. The Red Haired Girl was quite upset at this, which would explain her extreme ignorance of the wails and suffering of the trampled and put out. She eyed up the map, and then the approaching town, and then she eyed up the map, and then the town, and then she… She was confused, and since there were no sailboats lazily sailing, and no swimmers lazily swimming and no ducks lazily ducking, she could only assume that either her map-reading skill had gotten worse or her instant random teleportation skills had gotten better.
“Maam?” Came a voice from far below. She looked around her in each direction, finally settling on the down direction and saw that she was now looking at an extremely pleasant man on whom, whose back she was presently standing.
“I’m terribly sorry!” he said as she helped him to his feet. “I must have slipped and your foot helped me from rolling off the side of the road.”
The Red Headed Girl saw that the farmer had dropped his large basket of potatoes and scurried about trying to help round them up. The potatoes that had escaped from the basket the man had been carrying were busy fleeing towards uncertain freedom after their unexpected release. The trekking tubers would have gotten far in all the commotion, but sadly they were too slow, lacking the necessary appendages needed for escape. Since most of the potatoes had no friends in the area that they had called before hand, and since it would have been rude to drop in on any but close family members unannounced, they thought it was better this way, as one by one, the farmer and the tall red headed girl scooped them up, and deposited the them back into their prison/basket.
“I’m sorry sir.” said the astonished girl. She was always astonished nowadays it seemed. She was astonished at being born, astonished that everyone was so much shorter nowadays, and frankly astonished that she could say that she was astonished at anything. This whole speaking thing would have to be gotten used to. Two months ago she was astonished at being born, and been more astonished when, for no apparent reason she started talking. Since then she hadn't been able to stop the astonishment or the talking.
“Oh, that’s okay love, no harm done.” Said the man, closing the top of his basket. All of the potatoes had been caught except for one. That potato had closed its eyes and pretended that they couldn’t see him, the ploy worked and he was well on his way to freedom.
The pace of the crowd slowed considerably after the potato roundup, and after running down three more people; and apologies all around, the red headed girl noticed that the gate that she’s seen in the distance was no longer in the distance but right in front of them. The people around the girl started swaying back and forth in a slow walk like penguins. The people around the girl, including the girl herself, had no idea what penguins were but I’m guessing that you do, so the people who I’m sure might someday learn about penguins from watching a television show about penguins, if they ever got a TV and if someone ever made a show about- The people jostled and poked their way into line to go through the gate.
The red haired girl was confused. She turned around suddenly, not sure if she wanted to go through that gate. To her surprise, the man that she had spoken to before, had dropped his basket again and she found that, for some odd reason, she was standing on top of him once more.
After another bunch of apologies, they rounded up the potatoes again, who were all thrilled that they’d tasted freedom for the second time that day. As they rounded up the second escape attempt, she asked the old man about the crowd.
“Oh!” was his reply, as he nabbed a lone potato frantically sitting still, “These people are all going to sell their veggies at market. It’ll be great fun. You should watch yourself though lassie, the market can be a bit hectic this close to King's Watch Day.” That cleared up the confusion in the girls mind leaving only the burning questions of what exactly a ‘veggies’ was; what was King's Watch day, what were they doing with those veggies in the ‘market’?
The girl though for a moment and then turned back to the crowd’s general direction, which was actually pretty specific. The crowd surged towards the large gate in front of them.
“That must be the market,” she said, as she elbowed her way towards the large wooden doors. In a moment she would find out where these veggies where going and what they did when they got there. The red haired girl entered the gate with the thronging throng.
By about midmorning, just as Fallow was finishing up the floor of the bar, the red haired girl had entered the city of Wanderlust and the traffic of the morning was dying down, leaving the road empty. By noon the road was completely empty, and the only things left sitting on it’s dusty surface were footprints, a lonely wheel, sad that it's owner had abandoned it when they left it behind, and a small single, struggling, dust covered potato; scared and fleeing for his life.
