Round 2: Blazing Ravine
Blazing Ravine -- After successfully escaping into the wilds, you are now in the middle of the blaze. You need to find someplace a bit safer to navigate through. A ravine with ankle-high water is just the spot. You know this ravine well and hope that its path will lead you out of the blaze and not further into it.
Havasu used to talk to him about the patch that covered over his damaged eye, tell him that it didn't matter because he was strong and a fighter. But strong fighters could read their surroundings, not crash into tree branches. But that is what had happened, and he had to stop short as the tree hits near his bad eye, panicking him for just a moment. He's a -warhorse-, he is MORE than capable of being able to move, eye missing or otherwise!! Stamping into the deader debris, Deadeye moves quickly but more carefully past the pasture fence line, keeping his good eye moving and alert. This time, though, he realized that the blaze has moved too quickly behind him, and following the tree line is no longer a safe enough way to navigate getting away from this blaze: It has pulled himself back into the heat and the smoke, the bright orange yellows and browns and blacks the only colors he could now, truly see. There were glints of...something in the distance. Trusting his feet to be a -little- more cautious, he moved towards where he saw the glints, away from the blaze, and closer to--
Water. His eye widened. There is water! He almost forgot about this particular ravine, this particular pathway!! The ground goes further and further from dry to more damp, more packed, and at one point he hits the water and it splashes up his leg. Okay. Ankle-deep water. But he remembers Rumor and Skilli and Havasu talking about this particular waterway, and how it wound its way around the lands. He supposed with all the smoke and the blazes he didn't recognize the location clear enough. It was one of the only times he cursed having his damaged eye, and having to wear the patch. Moving in these types of conditions....he knew the space there wasn't recoverable, but he continues pressing forwards anyway, looking down into the clear, cooler liquid burbling past his ankles. Cool water...he leans his face in after stopping, the water brushing against his nose. Down at that angle he could see the way the river moved and flowed. Trees downed further ahead....he lifts his head and turns, briefly catching a rock in the water and snorting in his surprise and slight annoyance. Rumor said that this could be tricky to travel, but he wasn't afraid. He had worked on trails like this before, and he could work on this again. Before he'd come to the Nexus, he was capable of these trails.
The blaze wasn't going to keep him from being successful. His thoughts drifted back to his eye, and how fuzzy that thought was. Shaking his head, he follows the river, away from the blaze. The others were hardy stock, and resourceful. Even the little two foot tall Zalatar Donkey...what was his name...Theodore? Theodore was a teddy bear of a beast, but even he was leaving with his Zala girl the last he thought of it. He only hoped that his home herd...and the others...were okay, pressing on.