After the forest, it was going to be Torenstein – that had been the plan after their conversation with Mikoto. However, Grudge had decided to change their destination when they ran into a caravan. It was an awkward meeting – it always was – and an only slightly less awkward conversation, but the travellers eventually loosened up enough to tell him that they were going from Torenstein, the city of adventurers, to Provo, the city of merchants, and to admit that no, they had not seen a talking dog, or at the very least they did not hear a dog talking.

Grudge had nodded in calm understanding to that, for Torenstein was a city of adventurers and Provo was a city of merchants, and where there were merchants there was wealth, and where there was wealth there was food. Grudge remembered what the dog told them when they were discussing what normally drove their lives. If a place has all of the excitement and glory anyone could ever ask for while the other has din-dins, he told them, I will gladly head din-dinsward. If Grudge's own line of thinking was correct, then their former comrade-in-arms was more likely to be in Provo than in Torenstein. Assuming, of course, that he ever got to the same world as they did to begin with. Thus, Grudge decided to head din-dinsward themselves, escorting the very same caravan that pointed them there.

Convincing the guards that Grudge was not going to kill them or anybody else in the city took significant effort and goodwill from the merchants that Grudge had accompanied, as well as two hours of waiting at the gates (this time for Grudge alone) so that whoever was in charge of such affairs could be appropriately informed and made to reach a deliberation. Provo's authorities eventually yielded, but only on the condition that they wore a mask and kept their knife away from sight. Originally they wanted Grudge to leave it with them at the entrance, which they refused categorically. An agreement was reached half a dozen spears and two swords cleaved in two, but with no guard harmed, later.

Provo was a rich city, and apparently a festival had been taking place, which made even more people than usual teem in streets both wide and narrow. However, they had to recognise soon, that might have made more harm than good, as it was impossible to keep track of the creatures that came and went, of those who brushed against them as they walked past and of those whom they saw out of the corner of their eyes as they turned around the corner.

Soon, it was clear that there was no easy way to find somebody who already had a proclivity for sneaking around and staying as under the radar as possible. Not in that crowd, not without method. Soon enough, they figured, that festival would be over. And if any of the people they had been looking for were there, then all they had to do was to wait the throng out, and place themselves where anybody would have noticed them. Somebody would have spread the word, surely.

Grudge had to get out of the city and reach the countryside. Eventually they reached an area with hay as far as the eye could see, most of it in bales – some cylindrical and some rectangular parallelepipeds where people would sit, like benches – some covering the streets in small sheafs or lone spikes. Some, they saw, had been placed on a horse-drawn cart. A human man sat on a bundle of it. He had long black hair, and looked fairly young. He did not seem to be particularly busy.

“Good morning,” Grudge said to him as they hopped onto the cart. They removed their mask and slipped it inside a sleeve. “Can this take me to the countryside?”

It took Grudge a few moments to notice that the cart was drawn not by horses but by chocobos, their feathers a healthy bright yellow; then they realised that they had only assumed it was horses before a quick look proved them otherwise. It was curious, how their mind would betray them in the most curious of fashions and at the most unexpected of times, for no reason they could discern – a flaw in their design that made them question the perfection of their designer. It was something that the people they met – humans, dwarves, goblins, dogs, all people – called a flatulence from one's brain.
Maybe that was inevitable, their companions had told them, as the grudge from which the World had created them came from creatures just as imperfect as every creature that had ever lived was; it was one of the great premises of being.
They were not brown horses. They were yellow chocobos.
“I am looking to get to the outskirts of this city. It is very crowded here. Have you seen a young woman, a dwarf, or a dog?” They asked. People streamed back and forth in front of them; few people who registered their presence; Grudge overheard a young father mistaking them for a doll, but he was too far for them to correct, so they just added: “One is green-skinned, and a goblin. The other is a skeleton. The last one is small and elderly, and his fur is white.”
If they positioned themselves outside of the city gates where people could see them and they could see people, then sooner or later they would meet each other again, assuming the others were there to begin with, which still felt like the most likely scenario to Grudge. If they were not there, they would soon arrive.
“You don't sound certain. Are you going to walk a path without knowing where it leads?”

Grudge nodded. It was not as if they were expecting a different answer. Or rather, it was not as if they believed the likelihood of a positive answer to exceed that of the opposite scenario, and the possibility of a third option was negligible. Or at the very least they estimated it to be negligible: their question could logically be answered either by yes, or something adjacent to that such as ‘I may have’, or no, or something adjacent to that such as ‘I can't remember’, but there had been times when their assumptions did not measure up to the reality of people.

“I found them once where I come from. I have yet to find them here,” they said, feet dangling from the edge of the cart. A moment later they turned to the man with a glint of belated realisation in their eyes, though perhaps it might have just been a hint of mere conjecture instead. Whoever he was, that man made the assumption that Grudge did not get separated from the other three recently while in the city. His first guess was that they were looking to reunite with them instead after either a long time or for the first time there. If their interpretation was correct, then that meant that the human had already guessed that they came from elsewhere entirely before Grudge even told them, which in turn implied that their experience was a very common phenomenon, or that the man must have been just like them. Or perhaps he had simply been exposed to a certain number of creatures like Grudge and Mikoto by sheer coincidence, or circumstances.

“You came from elsewhere, too.” At this point, their hunch was growing into a certainty. “You are human, from the way you look. You can ask the people more easily than I do, and learn.”

Grudge glanced forward at the crowd, and then back at the cart. And sighed.

“Although I am learning that, here, knowing where you are does not mean you will know where you have to go next. Do you also have companions you are looking for and have yet to find?”

It was without hesitation that Grudge nodded once more, for the comment did not surprise them, as it only stood to reason that if there was a higher plan behind an entire world spiriting somebody or something away, that did not necessarily mean that other people or things related to that somebody or something were part of that plan. At the same time, their very existence had been part of a higher plan, and the World had made that plan known to them from even before they drew their first breath, and for them to Be was the direct consequence of the World wanting to Keep Being, and thus they were the only creature born not of something of the World, but of the World itself, and they were One with the World as much as they were its Envoy.

Yet, there they were standing – or sitting – now, purposeless and foreign. However, that was not a natural condition for them, which meant that to make such an assessment to begin with was, by inference, inherently erroneous, for nothing could exist against its own nature. If Grudge could only act with a purpose, and if what they had been doing so far was to look for their old comrades in arms, then to look for their old comrades in arms was indeed their purpose. And if it was their purpose to find them, then it meant that they, too, had been pulled into that world. Somewhere else, most likely. Somewhen else too, possibly.

“Somehow, I will find them.” If they were indeed not there, they added to themselves in a moment of additional realisation, then there must have been a way out of that world instead that was within their reach. “Arduous as it might be. But I have to. This is my purpose now.”

It was final. Grudge raised their head to the sky and then turned to the human as they finished that sentence.

“We are,” they replied simply. “Nevertheless, there is a difference between ability and willingness. I have noticed that the humans in this world do not behave very differently from those that live in mine. I should not think it will be any different for Tonberries. However, this is mere conjecture.”

For all things considered, all that changed between that world and theirs was the shape. The landscapes were a different shape, the cities were a different shape, and even the languages were a different shape, if one were to treat shape and sound as one and the same. What remained the same was that, like in their world, people there travelled, people there traded, people there fought and loved. Finally, two men could have two different shapes – most of the time they did, however subtle the differences – but that did not mean they were not both men. But those were platitudes at that point, even for the likes of them.

“I see. What is it, then, that you chose to be actively doing?”