Cross the river together? That did not sound like a terrible idea at all. In fact, it sounded like a very good one! Alekhi smiled brightly.

"Okay," the girl said merrily.

With that, she stood and decided to follow by Ryuku's side. He had a lot more direction than she did, so why not? Additionally, Alekhi was still curious about him.

"Where are we going?" she asked in mid-stride.

Not that Cizokian topography would have made much sense to her. After all, she had earlier state that she had no idea where she was or how she got there . . .

Ryuku didn’t really have a destination in mind at least not a physical one, he had learned that his journey was one of a spiritual nature and did not think it mattered where he ended up along the road or even lost in a forest.

“One place is as good as the next.” He said in a tone that showed he didn’t truly care. “The first step is to get across the river and head west, outside of Cizok borders and then from there who knows?” He shrugged casually and continued walked down the soft sand.

“I want to see what’s out there, I want to see everything.”

"You want to see everything?"

Wow! That was a big goal! Alekhi momentarily thought about it and how it would work. She tried to think about everything as a tangible thing that could, in fact, be witnessed, and after a moment, this began to hurt her brain. Try as she like, she simply could not grasp the concept of "everything," let alone how it could all be seen. For a second, she wrinkled her brow in confusion.

"That is a lot to see," she thought aloud, "Do you think you will be able to see it all?"

It was by this point that it should probably have become clear that girl's speech was eerily proper, as if she were speaking textbook Common and not the various informal brands of Common that human beings spoke.

It might have been a bit of an exaggeration for Ryuku. But he did want to see everything there was, though even he probably didn’t understand his own unrealistic statement.

“Well, I hope so. You have to reach for the stars, try to do what everyone else says is impossible.” He looked down at Alekhi and smiled as they continued to walk. “If you go about your whole life not doing stuff because people say it can’t be done than how do you know?”

“I may not see it all but that’s not going to stop me from trying.” Ryuku paused briefly. “You should have a goal, I know your young, but it’s never to early to try and achieve something….here… I think we can cross on this sand bar.”

Ryuku gestured some hundred feet out to where the river narrowed and the water was only ankle deep for at least most the way across, ankle deep for him at least.

Alekhi walked along with Ryuku. Barefoot, she was already prepared to wade through the water. Actually, she really wanted to go in! Go for a swim and whatnot! Ryuku motioned in a direction for them to go, a place where the water wasn't so rough, and she continued to follow along. Was it a place they could swim? Because that would be very nice!

"What will you do?" she asked as she looked up to him again, "When you've seen everything?"

She hadn't an idea how deep of a question that was. Truth be told, the girl was merely curious.

The water, however, was only ankle deep. Was it only that deep for the whole time? Maybe! Well, no matter. It felt really nice on her feet.

Ryuku didn’t think it was very likely he would see ‘everything’ but the thought was an inspiring one. It was funny how the mind of a child worked he told himself as he looked down at the young girl appreciatively. He walked until they got to the sand bar before answering her question.

“Then I will teach others what I have learned. I rather enjoy it, teaching that is.”

“Now, from what I can see it doesn’t like the water gets very deep.” Ryuku spoke and gestured across the rivers. “So…” Ryuku took a couple steps up stream so that he was nearly waist deep in water. “…if the current takes us anywhere it will be right back to the sandbar.” Ryuku was still going to swim even if the current wasn’t nearly as strong down river. The simple act of swimming was a pleasant one and the cool water was always a refreshing respite from the hot sun.

A teacher? That sounded very exciting, actually! And was actually quite intriguing to Alekhi, who didn't know much about where she was. There was much to learn--therefore much that could be taught!

"Oh. Really?" she tilted her head and asked, "What can you teach? I would like to learn something."

The girl waded into the water behind Ryuku. Everything might have seemed fine at first, but one look back would show Ryuku a bit of error on his judgment: Alekhi was almost a foot and a half shorter than Ryuku. If the water came up to his waist, then it came up the middle of her chest. Her kimono was now sufficiently soaked, though she didn't seem to notice. Instead, she stood there, staring up at Ryuku as if to inquire where they were going next. Forward, of course, but she was following him and wasn't about to just start making ground on her own. For some reason, that struck her as something that might have been just a little bit uncouth.

The water felt very nice, just as she expected. Alekhi smiled brightly despite her current mostly submerged state. The water was cool and the air was warm and the sun was beating on her face. She took in a deep breath and sighed contently. It took only a second for her to realize, though, that her kimono felt awfully weird in the water, like it was barely subject to whatever it was that pulled things down towards the ground. In fact, as she took a step, she realized her whole body seemed to be subject to that very same oddity!

“Martial Arts mainly,” Ryuku explained as he waded forward, enjoying the feel of the current washing over him, it was relaxing. “Though I suppose a school of sorts would be my ultimate goal, to teach my own views and ..”

Ryuku looked over his right shoulder, expecting to see Alekhi closer to the sandbar, not directly behind him. However, he had made a mistake in his judgement, the girl came out to his depth rather than simply walking to where her waist line was. “…oh. I….uhh..” She seemed rather oblivious to some things Ryuku noted, not dumb though, more like she simply wasn't bothered by the small details, or didn't notice them. Ryuku wasn't sure which yet.

He gave her an odd look, raising an eyebrow and chuckling out loud at the silliness of it all. “Can you swim? It’s something mandatory you have to learn if your going to cross a river, ya know. Almost like a law.” Of course, this wasn’t exactly true, it was just something useful to know.

“If you can’t swim, I’ll start by teaching you that.” Ryuku smiled broadly, turning to face her as he continued to walk, backwards.

Martial arts? The girl thought on it for a moment. She wanted to ask about that. It, like many things today, was a new concept to her, and she found herself very curious to the nature of it. Was it something like this? Like being in the water? Before she could ask, though, Ryuku turned to face her and ultimately mentioned something about swimming being an important thing to learn if one planned to cross a river.

Alekhi smiled brightly. Swimming sounded like a wonderful thing to learn! Ryuku had said something about it earlier, too -- something about planning to swim the width of the river, just because he felt the urge to. Maybe if she knew how to swim she could swim the river with him? Or she could swim the river by herself, too, if he didn't want to swim it with her. Either way, it sounded like fun to her.

"I would like to learn that," she replied.

Though, she didn't even know the first motions that were necessary. As far as she knew, crossing a river merely meant walking through the water until you were at the other side.