First Mile Marker

Either Jeff had a penchant for adventure, or adventure had a penchant for him.

One way or another, he found himself out on the dusty trails pursuing a goal for the good of his people, and by that he meant the fans of his little rinky-dink traveling webshow. He spent more time on those trails than he did at the home he treasured. This time, though, he wasn't out on a quest for notoriety. He was on a quest because he could.

His stint on a ridiculous, drama-breeding reality game show he didn’t even want to think of the name of had just recently ended, and he was actually quite glad to be home, and by home, he really meant 'not there.' The amount of chaos was quite a drastic change from someone who, aside from the adventures, lived a quiet life. The hootin' and the hollerin', back and forth with the arguin', who you are, where you're from, what you're makin’ and what kind of car you're in.

Oh yes. It also warrants mentioning that Jeff had grown an odd fondness for rap music during his third stay, one of a grand total of probably about five modern things he could appreciate. The internet was another. TV was definitely not. Not that rap changed him into a pimp, but good rap music was an art form he found an appreciation for that contrasted a lot of him and his life. He never fell into the status quo trap that was subtly in the ranks of the contestants. He just wanted to be him and compete with the best-a notion that turned into deluded idealistic bullshit pretty quickly after the start.

But, really, not much had changed with him. He occasionally took out his cheap mp3 player to listen to some music. But he was still the same reserved, dedicated and self-confident traveler of the path not taken that he always was and always would be.

Truly, after the game show ended and everything-he had technically won although he didn't feel like he had- it was nice just to return to one's roots. And that's what led him, in a time gratefully without execs to hassle or fake plastic people to bicker with, to go on an adventure of his own accord.

Thus, he wandered north on the dusty trail in the hinterlands of…probably Spain. He wore his more modern clothes, but his outdoor supplies lay in his old bag and his favorite old-age collectible sword in his sheath next to it should he need a defense. A bluff created a wall to his immediate east and curved around towards the path a few miles away. To his west were the plains, full of wilted pale green and almost clear brown grass and occasional shrub. Occasional fruit trees lined some of the paths, untamed but welcome to all. It was similar to a desert, but with fertile land in it. He liked it.

He noticed a small pond by the road, no bigger than a large puddle with a lone duck in it. He glanced down at his reflection. His orange hair, once polished and done up, was reclaiming its shag down his back, around his neck, and he was starting to grow his goatee again; slight hairs were starting to appear just at the base of his peculiarly pointed ears. He was twenty-nine years old but he preferred to look a bit older than that. It was satisfying to feel and see that he was returning to normal.

On purpose he had not brought a map; he simply got off a plane in London, took a taxi to the shores of New Romney and went from there blind. He had chartered a boat from Portsmouth to France, and the pilot let him off in Le Harve. The days after that he had made his way through France and into Spain, and he wasn't about to stop yet. He didn't want to decide where he ended up just yet, but to let the luck of the draw guide him. Sure, he'd ask people he ran into occasionally where he was, but it wasn't that big a deal.

It had been three uneventful days since he had last been in any sort of township. The last one was Alloza, Spain, in the hillside. The journey was getting a bit too aimless for his tastes, but he was living with it with no regret. It had allowed him to think, detox the life in the mansion. He appreciated having that.

He sighed with a melancholy content; although he was happy, he couldn't help but feel that something was missing; not to mention detoxing off the chaos of the TV mansion was, to put it in most appropriate terms, a bitch (a word of more modern vocabulary that he had learned, perhaps through his music.) Exhausting his soul but allowing his proper contents back in. Like jumping in a cold lake; freezing cold but refreshing. An idiom said from experience.

He looked around at the fruit trees aligned on an intersecting dirt path, considering grabbing a bit of cherries from a row of cherry trees along a thinly wired fence he had not seen before. Funnily, there were both fruit-bearing cherry trees and cherry blossoms. Jeff had to admire the oddity that cherry trees had been planted so close to the equator, out of their natural habitat. The farmer here had some tenacity.

It seemed too coordinated to be a coincidence, so Jeff confirmed that it was part of a farm. He walked over anyways to see a wooden sign before the crossing that read in white painted letters "Sirva-se à minha cerejas” in Portuguese, which meant that people could help themselves. Jeff thought that a good enough and convenient enough sign to take one off of the vine.

The path that intersected with his own was intriguing to him, and since he had no set place to go, he decided to follow it. He had barely taken two steps down it when he heard a voice.

It was a female voice. Soft, low and laced with moderate cheer, and definitely an English accent if ever he had heard one. Considering he just got out of England, he could say he had, and she was English. He looked around to see its source; a young woman with short green hair and eyes to match, and dressed in a blue jacket, green undershirt and jeans. Her boots were light brown leather that looked very durable. She looked quite familiar, but any dwelling on that thought was dashed when Jeff saw her reaching up with a Khanda- a sword he recognized very familiarly from his exploits and was absolutely gobsmacked to see in her grip- to the top of the trees, as if she was trying to get some of the cherries off. The voice was somewhat robust, so he could hear her words clearly.

"Just a little more... almost got it..." she accented this with a leap, as if to reach higher. “Crikey. A little more that-a-way, and-" whatever self-encouraging words she had to say next were interrupted by a surprised, albeit bemused yelp as a large cluster of cherries fell on top of her, enough to make her stumble as she caught the branch. "Wow," was all she had as a response.

Jeff looked on in amused surprise as she shook a few camouflaged leaves out of her shocks of green hair and caught Jeff's line of sight! "Olá, o viajante!" she greeted him in Portuguese with a smile and evenly upbeat words. "Você poderia usar algumas cerejas?”

Jeff nodded, not about to let them go to waste as he walked the ten-foot distance between them. “Yes, please!” he called back, saying two things at once.

She chuckled and, shaking the last cherry out of her loud locks, replied “Oh! You speak English! Good to know!” Her smile broadened as she cut the branch straight down the middle cleanly with her sword-a beautiful, strong model, Jeff mused. She gave the smaller lopsided half to Jeff with a slight brush of the hand against his. Making nothing of it (while Jeff had gone slightly red; surprised by the gesture), she explained "I hope you don't mind the smaller half. I didn’t know how oddly it was shaped."

"No worries at all," he responded, his voice quiet as it tried to get used to conversation again.

She smiled, tucking her branch away in her brown knapsack. She gave Jeff a once-over and said "Say... that sword looks familiar. Where have I seen that before?"

“It's an authentic Ida. I got it from my travels in Africa,” he explained with a smile, remembering his trip into the Yoruba tribes of West Africa, and what hospitality they showed. One of his best adventures.

“Of course! I knew I recognized it!” she grinned, looking up at him mirthfully. “So, you travel a lot?”

Jeff nodded. “I do a little webshow. You travel a lot, too? That Khanda looks gorgeous.”

She herself nodded with vigor. “Well, not a lot, but I'm really into artifacts. This one here,” she carefully held it sideways in both her hands, “is my favorite one, and since I'm out here I figured I'd keep it handy.”

She looked him over again and asked “Say, you look familiar. Like I've seen you before. Have I?”

So she thought him familiar as well. He must know her. "Well, perhaps you've heard of me," he replied. "Jeff Link, from Indiana of the USA. I have a reputation for being somewhat of a traveler; my webshow's pretty well known.” With a sigh of annoyance, he added “I just got out of that dumb reality show in America, Living The Nice Life. You know, with the people living in the house until they go  blue in the face and whoever doesn't get voted off wins.” Scratching the back of his head as he came out of the rant, he added “Considering the coverage of the show you may have seen me there."

A grin crept up on the girl's face as she held out a hand. "Of course! I was there too, as one of the production assistants!" When Jeff, processing this information, didn't accept her handshake, she politely took his hand for him. "Elizabelle Stavros, from jolly o' England. It's nice to see you again, Jeff, and it's good to see I'm now the only sword owner I know."

Normally anything associated with the damned mansion would have grated on Jeff, but Eliza had a presence that felt as if she meant no harm; that she was authentic as her artifacts. She gave him the briefest of winks that he almost missed, and so he couldn't help but crack a grin as he finally fully recognized her. How could he forget; towards the end she was the only one in good spirits as she prepped the cameras. "It's nice to see you again, Elizabelle."

"Oh, I prefer Eliza," she responded, looking away only as she uttered that sentence with non-accusatory disapproval. "Anyway, before you apologize, let me stop you and ask you what you're doing out here."

"Oh, err..." Jeff was caught off-guard a bit; sure Eliza was an acquaintance of sorts but he wasn't expecting that question on his journey. "I'm not really sure; I'm just letting the effects of the show wear off, I suppose."

"I understand," she took his hand and clearly thought nothing of it, and Jeff was learning to ease into it. Eliza was simply an affectionate person- not that it made it any easier of an adjustment. "It was mildly, how to say, insane."

Jeff liked her analogy. "I agree on that one," he mumbled with a dry chuckle.

"I suppose I've been doing the same," she replied with a drawn-out sigh to accent her statement. "I'm closer to home than you, but it's still somewhat renewing."

"Where am I?" Jeff asked. "I haven't kept track."

Eliza laughed. "Myself neither, but yesterday it was within Spain. I guess we'll work it out for ourselves later."

"Ourselves?"

Eliza blinked, and let his hand go. "Oh! Excuse me for being assumptive; would it be all right? If I traveled with you, I mean. It's been getting lonely and I'm a bit of a social butterfly and all." Her last half of the sentence was accented by a nervous chuckle, somewhat embarrassed by her mistake.

Jeff considered. He wasn't expecting company but he wasn't denying any either. It wasn't like Eliza would be a burden; she was a bit overeager, but polite and warm. Most importantly, though, she was experienced. "I'd enjoy that," he replied.

"Excellent!" Eliza grinned widely and, before Jeff could react, enveloped him in a happy embrace. She drew away, a hand on his shoulder without overwhelming, with little awkwardness and chuckled again

"I apologize; I've noticed myself growing less... composed. I like it, though." With a playful wink, she added “It’s quite fun.”

Jeff gave her a polite smile. "You needn't worry," he replied. He shifted his gaze to the sunset and stated "We should make camp. Brought any camping material?"

"Me? No, I'm a rather warm-blooded person. I don't really need to cover up. I prefer to lie under the stars."

"Huh." Quite the idealist, this girl. "Suit yourself."

"Boring," she teased. "So, under the cherry blossom cluster over there?"

A response came a bit slow-it seemed to Jeff that she held no barriers to anything; it was almost like she considered him a close friend already. He found it somewhat spontaneous and uncomfortable, but people are what they are and he’d have to learn to deal with it.

Eventually, Jeff looked in the direction she was pointing. There was a group of cherry blossom trees by the base of the bluff wall. He thought it a nice retreat. "I like it. Shall we?"

As a response, she made a slight bound towards the area, and Jeff followed with a smile. This was going to be most interesting.

Making camp took a grand total of five minutes- Jeff set up his sleeping bag and Eliza gathered fallen sticks and branches for a fire, which with a bit of effort (and flint) she was able to start. She relaxed a bit and allowed herself to bask in the warmth as Jeff brought out a small branch of cherries from his bundle.

He tossed a couple to Eliza, who caught them instantaneously. Fast reflexes, he mused.

"I have a premonition," she declared, "that this is going to be the start of something great. Well, that's not saying much coming from an unyielding optimist such as myself, but I tend to believe it anyways."

"Might as well," he responded, under the base level of mirth.

Eliza wrinkled an eyebrow. "You don't agree?"

"No, I'm game for anything," he argued defensively.

"But do you hope so?"

There was a youthful expectancy in her gaze that made it hard to respond. "Erm..."

"Well, if you don't, do," her response had a level of discipline in it. "Because it makes it more fun."

Jeff spared a slight chuckle. "I... don't really know what to expect."

Eliza crept next to her companion, putting an arm around his shoulder, placing a palm on his forearm. "Well, if you don't know what to expect," she lilted dreamily, "may as well expect the best. I mean, look at it." Admiring, she motioned towards the sky, night finishing its fall. "The stars, the moon, they could all have been blown out, y'know, but they're not. And I don't expect them to be. Because every one of them represents a possibility of what could happen. The stars are gorgeous, so I believe they are all good ones. I just gotta find them, and in order to find them, I've got to expect them. And I'm expecting them right now. I've already traveled a few weeks in that mindset and it's helped me relax a bit. I mean, two people running into each other again in the middle of the vast empty part of Spain has gotta be more than coincidence, right?"

"Ah..." he rather liked her spirit and words. "I'll have to remember that."

"Please do."

She released her hold on him and reclined a foot away from him, and Jeff found the space to be somewhat empty. It was ironic; earlier he thought that she was much too close. She sat in quiet, glazed contemplation towards the stars she loved so much. The minutes went by somewhat emptily, and Jeff found the emptiness to be somewhat disorienting. It was amazing how meeting someone after going alone for a month made such a difference. He felt a bit of reassurance at her presence, and acknowledged with a bit of exasperation how emotionally raw he must be right now.

Eliza spoke up to clear his thoughts. "Say, Jeff, how would you like to find a destination?"

"A what?"

"A goal. Somewhere to go, instead of wandering with no end in sight. Not something I usually do, but I feel it right."

"You have somewhere in mind, don't you?"

"You already know me so well," she chuckled, although it was more of an enchanted giggle. "You prepared for something outlandish?"

"I already was."

Eliza punched him in the elbow. "Of course you were. Well..." she hesitated but went on with a 'hell with it' shrug, "I always wanted to see Sydney."

"...that's in Australia."

"No, really?"

"...that's in Australia."

"I am fully aware of this. Are you in?"

"...if you insist."

"If you're gonna do it," she regarded him with a stern glare, "then at least want to do it."

"I do, I do."

"Damn well better," a bit of lightheartedness returned to her words. "And I propose we take the long way to the place."

"That I can get behind. You wanna see the land of our world?"

"Of course. Through the fire and the flames, or through the mountains and the fields of gold; the cities and the wilderness; the world is our oyster, after all."

Jeff found himself taking her hand, endeared by her enthusiasm. "Of course. Why do you want to go to Sydney?"

"Well, first off, it was where I was born, but I didn't spend more than two weeks there. But, really..." Eliza looked away, somewhat embarrassed. "...I think it'd be nice to go as far away from everything I know and then contemplate what to do with it all, among the voices and the stars, atop the bridge overlooking the harbor, and perhaps find P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, starting anew from where I was born. I was recently diagnosed with a bit of ADD-“

Jeff found himself accidentally interrupting her. “Really?” he asked. It kind of made things a bit clearer.

She had no offense in sparing a self-depreciative laugh. “I know, big shocker there. It’s not a huge amount, but it has me puzzled so I’m traveling the world to see what kind of difference it makes. If it makes a difference."

“I figured it’d just be the same old, same old, just with a name now,” Jeff offered.

Eliza looked up at him with a smile. “Smart man,” she declared in a whisper of pride. “I do believe you have a point there. Maybe it’s just being able to go back and pinpoint everything.” She sighed with a giggle and mumbled “Or just an excuse to go to Australia.”

Jeff chuckled remembered fondly the one true friend he had in the game, Diana, recounting enthusiastically her adventures of Australian travel. The first part of the show was somewhat relaxed, though, which he attributed to less romantic tension. Probably due to neither hide nor tail of Rocky, the player of the mansion. He urged himself to let the thoughts of the mansion go. The thoughts of Diana hand-in-hand with the bodybuilder. Of her madly kissing the bastard. The look of betrayal on her face when she found herself voted out before the final two. The fact that they never spoke since.

Eliza looked at him knowingly, and on instinct wrapped an arm around his chest and drew him close to her in a sideways embrace which he accepted without ceremony. "It'll be good for you, too," she tenderly whispered into his pointed ear.

Jeff smiled at her words and the obvious care she had in them. Quietly, he moved out of her arm and went towards his sleeping bag. "I'm going to head in for the night."

"Of course," she replied, unfazed. "I should do the same." She crawled over next to him and gave him one last hug. "Sleep well, Jeff," she told him comfortingly. Jeff was a bit startled on how well she picked up on his feelings but awkwardly returned the hug. He was too tired to resist her affections and really didn’t mind it as much right now.

Eliza frowned a bit out of Jeff's gaze, but deduced that she'd get him to warm up to her affectionate ways. She let him go and watched as he crept into his sleeping bag, burying his face into the built-in pillow. She lay on the patch of grass, a petal falling on her face. She liked moments that were picture perfect like that.

With a short prayer to a god she didn't know the identity of, she closed her eyes, put Jeff's headphones in her ears, turned on the player and relaxed.
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All the burrowing in his pillow in the world wouldn't get him to sleep that night.

He knew he should have kept it off his mind, damn it. The thoughts of the woman he was sorting out his feelings for in the arms of another just after he could get his thoughts together and tell her he loved her. It was just plain dumb luck slapping him in the face. One would see it as executive-manufactured for the show, but the time he spent with Diana before drama kicked in was some of the most real moments he had in a long time, and he cursed himself for letting things get out of hand.

Oh, well. He'd never get past it if he hid it away. But he didn't want to get past it now. He wanted to sleep, damn it.

He adjusted himself so that he was looking to his right, and he noticed that Eliza was asleep, the lone cherry blossom petal floating just above her nose with every breath. She still had a smile on her face, unfazed even in her dreams, dreams that were probably as vivid and happy as her. Dreams he’d heist out of her mind just to have right now. He looked at her with a smile, wishing he had her fortitude. His gaze adjusted to something familiar- was that...

Hah, the rascal. Swiped his music player. Surprising that she had gotten it off of her when he wasn't looking. He traced the headphone cord to the little capsule she had placed on her chest, moving up and down with it every other second in coordination with her heartbeat. When he strained a bit, he could hear his favorite rap song playing out of the buds; Live Your Live by T.I. He deduced that it must have switched there as she slept, but relaxed in the sound of secondhand music.

Gingerly, he removed the headphone from her right ear and awkwardly placed it in his left. It didn't quite fit, but it was good enough. He let the reassuring music play in his ear in order to relax off to sleep.

In the ear turned away from her, he heard Eliza whisper "I love that song." He glanced over in surprise to see a very much awake Eliza, eyes still closed but mouth still moving with the song. "Hey-ayyyyaaaya, just living my life." She interrupted her singing to add "Heh... Viva La Vida, Live your life; I like doing it best I can in any language.” She started to sing a song different than what she had on for a short moment “I won’t blame it on my ADD, baby."

Jeff indulged in the split second thought of how… adorable it was that she had contradicted herself, and admiration that to her it didn’t matter in the end.

As Rihanna sang "Got everybody watching what I do," she started to sing again. Out of earshot, he sang in coordination with her quiet, mirthful tones. She had a nice voice, as gentle and uplifting as the woman herself. He looked at the stars, and back at her, and deduced that she was onto something with her premonition. Perhaps she was just what he needed to snap him out of it.

It was too soon to tell, but he had a feeling this was the start of something magnificent. The first page to his best story yet. Or with his philosophy, the first mile marker on a path to bliss.

And it was.