Entertain my jealousy

Archer looked confused at him for a long moment after he had finished speaking. "Did you just say... magic?" He asked just to make sure, even though he knew what he had heard. "Are you sure you haven't hit your head?" Just like his supposedly existing country, his supposedly existing magic was something non had ever stumbled upon. But Archer eventually decided to just roll with it.

"You should probably be careful with whom you're speaking to about the magic stuff. The church has had a history of burning supposedly wizards and witches. All they need is a small piece of faked evidence or a fake witness, and after that there won't even be a fair trial before a head rolls." He warned. No one had truly been proven guilty of witch craft, but no one had been proven not guilty either. Archer didn't believe that any of those people that had burnt on the stake was people with magical powers, and of course he didn't think for even a second that Adrian had powers.
 
"Did I mumble?" Adrian gave Archer a perplexed look, surely magic should be a common thing in this country right? Apparently not. His expression turned distinctly horrified as Archer continued to speak, not quite believing his ears. So now he was in a country where they tried to kill his kind? Obviously they hadn't caught in real ones because a real magician would have put them all to sleep and escaped or something but still… that was bad. It meant he couldn't use his powers to get money either. His situation was looking worse and worse. "What a wonderful country you have here." He growled sarcastically. He needed to recover quickly and get the heck out of here. Not before showing Archer real magic, because he obviously did not believe in it, but he was definitely getting out of here.

"Well with that cheerful start to my morning, where were we?" He strode towards the door. "I don't know about you but all this talk of burning and heads rolling has made me starving." He couldn't seem to quite turn off the sarcasm now that the spout had turned on. His mood had turned terrible.
 
The kid seemed quite serious about being a magician. Did he truly believe it? It was probably a bad time to mention that most countries on that side of the world had some kind of law against witch craft, even though the worst years of killing was over. Now a days it was rare for people to even be accused, though it could still happen here and there.

"Geez, someones moody. Be glad I'm not one of those fundamentalists that reports people as fast as they're so much as mixes herbs." Archer said as he opened the door for them to get out. "You should be fine mister magic, it's mainly old hags that are dragged to the stake either way." Usually because children spread false rumors about people that looked like witches. It was such a faulty system, and not even that, it was just plain murder on the church's part. But it wasn't like they could do anything about it, and the witch burning was slowly dying out either way. Some more years and no one would even remember it had ever existed, except for those whose families were affected.
 
"You try traveling to who knows where, where your kind are apparently prosecuted and you have almost nothing to provide for yourself and I would like to see what kind of mood you would be in." He did stop and take a moment to pull himself together though, he was far too well trained to be acting out like this, regardless of how monumentally bad of a situation he had gotten himself into. "I must apologize again, the situation is getting to me a bit and you have been nothing but helpful." He smiled weakly at the other man. "I shall attempt to not take out my frustration on you from now on."
 
While Archer had expected to be yelled at he had certainly not expected an apology. "Don't worry about it." He said, not sure how to respond. "Though it's your people in name only." Archer corrected, even though he still didn't believe the boy to be a wizard. "Those who dies have always been normal people, even though the church doesn't confesses that. After all, if they had magic powers, why couldn't they just escape before they were killed?" He had started walking and once he heard the people downstairs speaking, he lowered his voice slightly just in case. Even though the chance was slim of someone actually reporting him when they were in such a rural part of the town, it was still better to not take any chances.
 
Adrian was sort of happy to hear that Archer followed the same train of thought as him, though still very displeased to hear about the people that had died for such ridiculous reasons. "You would think." He sighed softly. "It does not matter particularly for the moment anyway, I am warned now and by the time it matters I will be recovered enough to leave." Hopefully. He still had no idea how he was actually going to manage it but there had to be some way.

"Either way." He now smiled very warmly at Archer, feeling a bit more revitalized with his determination. "Thank you very much for your help so far. I would probably be in quite a sorry state without you." There was more than one way to pay things back if it came to it, and he doubted either of them would mind it if that came up.
 
The kid seemed dead set on being a magician. One small part of Archer actually wanted to see his supposedly magic, but his more rational side refused to even acknowledge that thought. Magic was complete humbug, those who was doing it always had some kind of trick behind their performance. And since it was such a dangerous job, they stayed well hidden from those whom might harm them.

"As I said, don't mention it." Archer repeated himself. It wasn't often he heard someone thank him. Maybe because he usually pushed swords into their backs eventually. A job was a job after all. He ordered their food as they got downstairs and sat down at an empty table that were as far away from other people as possible, just in case topics about magic would arise again. Sure, most people living and eating at that inn was people whom wouldn't care what others said, and certainly wouldn't go to the church just to report a magician. But it was for the better to not take any chances.

Archer pulled out a scroll from an inner pocket in his shirt, and laid out a map on the table. If the country simply had been under another name in their country, then the boy should at least recognize his country if he saw it on a map. "This is a map over every known land, try seeing if you can find your home. It might go under a different name, so don't focus on that." He said, and leaned back. A whole country couldn't just disappear, he had to come from somewhere.
 
Adrian was initially very interested in his breakfast/lunch but as soon as he saw what Archer was pulling out he had Adrian's full, if wary, attention. He absently finished another bite before he pushed the plate aside so he could pull the map closer. His eyes followed the lines of the map to where he knew his country should be, but as he had feared it was not there. Something was bothering him though, the map did look familiar. It was not the map that he knew but he had definitely seen it before.

"Wait…" He murmured under his breath incredulously. Surely such a thing was not possible. The longer he stared at the map the more disbelieving yet convinced he became. The numbers, of course. He closed his eyes and let out a barely muffled hysterical chuckle. "Of course…the numbers!" He put a hand over his face and was practically crying from mirth. And terror and a shock but who was counting right? "Only the combination of the two could perform such a feat…" He mused to himself, still barely holding himself back from freaking out and bolting.
 
Archer waited patiently, but the teen seemed to be in shock, and quite frankly, Archer wasn't sure how long it would take before Adrian would start to break down in one way or another. He rather not see that happen, it sounded bothersome. And he weren't good at handling emotional people.

"Want to fill me in on what's going on?" He asked, sounding rather concerned. What he had mumbled and his reaction felt contradicting to one another. His words said he had found something, but his actions said he hadn't found his country. So what could he have figured out?
 
Adrian made an effort to control himself, if only for the person across from him who he owed a very great deal already. He forced himself to take several deep breaths and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I am fairly sure I have figured out what happened now." He set an elbow on the table, hearing his manners tutor screaming at him in the back of his head and set his head upon his hand, staring down at the map with that same expression of awe and horror/terror, though he was nearing a state of relative calm. "The problem is you won't believe me." He laughed softly at the thought. "Well it's not like you've believed much of anything I've said so far, so why not."

He traced the outline of the country they were in, then passed his fingers over the 3 countries bordering it. "In some 200 years my many times great grandfather will carve Laesin onto the map. Just a small thing at the time, sure to be swallowed up, but with the powerful magic our bloodline possessed he managed to hold it and expand…" He sighed softly. "Perhaps longer than that…this map was used for a good 500 hundred years of relative peace, or at least not much in the way of border changes." He was lost in his own academic world now. "It's hardly the best method to use to determine specific time periods."
 
A story had to be good if someone said they wouldn't believe them. Adrian's words just made Archer more willing to believe whatever he was going to say. But as he spoke that side of him wavered, how could anyone believe such a story? But the boy seemed so sincere, Archer couldn't feel any lies coming from him. But even though a person sincerely believed something to be true, didn't mean it was. It wasn't impossible to have false memories, or believe ones own lies.

"That is a hard story to believe indeed. What you're saying is that you have time traveled here from almost a thousand years into the future, and magic is normal there." Archer sighed at the end, not sure how he should continue. He had asked for something interesting to come, and this was certainly interesting. But it was too good to be true, he just didn't know how to believe in all of it.

"Okay.." He started as he still was trying to figure out how to put thoughts into words. "Let's say this is real and all of this is true. Do you have any idea how you got here and if so, can you recreate the process and get back?"
 
Adrian was not disappointed by Archers lack of belief, he had to admit it was a pretty fantastical story. He had lived it and he still found it hard to believe. It would be helpful in a day or two when he had recovered enough to use some of his magic again. But at this point he had nothing more than the strange machine he had arrived in to back up his story.

"I am fairly sure the machine I arrived in had a lot to do with it. I was hardly trying to travel thousands of years into the past. The coincidence that I set the numbers in the machine to lower and then arrived in what I recognize to be the past is too much to discount. I am not quite sure how it drained my magic but as it is an unpredictable force I am not entirely surprised that it may have added its power to the machine." There were still many unanswered questions, like how the machine had gotten into his forest anyway and what had happened to the one who built it.

"That being said, I should be able to do that again and get back…" His face fell a bit. "Though I do not remember what sequence of buttons I pushed to activate the machine." That was one of the biggest concerns, who knew what would happen if he pushed the wrong buttons? There were so many there had to be more functions, else it would just be the time set device and an activate switch. And worse, if he did something different, would the power drain kill him this time? "Cursed techno!" He muttered under his breath. He was cursing himself and his curiosity too, but for the moment he would settle for whoever made the machine.
 
While Archer didn't have any better explanation for what that machine might be, it was still a hard story to swallow. Time travelling. How was that even possible? It shouldn't be. That sounded more crazy than the people who believed that humans one day would be able to fly. Ridiculous. And still, there were parts of him which wanted to believe in what the boy was telling him. Well, he didn't have to decide to neither believe nor disbelieve right away, he could just hang around him for a while and see what happened. He was the one asking for anything to happen after all. Time to take responsibility.

Responsibility? As if that hadn't happened even if he hadn't asked for it. But his mind had decided to use that as an excuse to take care of the guy for the time being. Plus, he had a lot of boredom to kill.

"Well then, we'll just have to figure out a way to get you back to your own time." He said nonchalantly. As if it would be that easy. Though he preferred that it wasn't, easy was boring 99% of the time. On top of that, he would love to have the time to see what supposedly magic powers Adrian possessed, just to prove that it all was humbug.
 
Adrian blinked, surprised to hear Archer being so supportive of his situation. Not just supportive but actually making it sound like it was a possibility after Adrian's head filled with visions of doom. To his slightly frayed emotions it was both a balm and something that made him want to kiss the man. And so, without thinking too much, he did.

Adrian leaned across the table and captured the other man's lips in a most enthusiastic kiss, only realizing what he'd done after what seemed like a whole minute of bliss. At which point he quickly pulled back and flushed. "Er, my apologies I got a little..uhm over excited." He quickly sat back down, looking both bemused and flustered at his sudden lack of control.
 
Well that was definitely a surprise, and Archer wasn't sure if it was lucky that they were in a public place or not. Because if they hadn't been he might just have done something they both would regret, or enjoy. Though it was hard for him to remind himself that there actually were people around them when Adrian sat there completely confused, which made him look awfully cute and totally bed worthy.

But Archer pulled himself together, and started to roll together the map again just to get something to do with his hands, before they started to travel somewhere improper. "It's okay." He ensured, trying not to sound so excited about it. "But you should probably be careful in the future. A wolf doesn't let a sheep run away twice." He didn't particularly care if Adrian got what he was trying to say, as he had reacted it seemed like a second kiss was out of the question either way. "Try not to play with fire kid, it will burn eventually." He warned with a slight laugh.

Archer were under the impression that Adrian was younger than him, he was certain that the boy wasn't more than fourteen.
 
Adrian's eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline at Archer's words. He had a feeling the other boy was severely misunderstanding or misinterpreting Adrian's reasons for pulling away. And for some reason called Adrian kid. He was pretty sure that he and Archer were near the same age so that was almost as offensive as his previous statement. He may seem a bit younger because of his minor distress over what was an extremely distressing situation but Archer was going to have a surprise coming to him soon.

Already Adrian was imaging his course of attack later that night. Archer would be quite surprised indeed and he would be damned if the other boy came out of it thinking Adrian was anything less than his equal at worst. For the moment though, he decided not to do anything to rock Archer's boat. So he purposefully put on just a touch of a sulky expression and crossed his arms. "I know what I'm doing." He picked up his food and quickly finished it, putting his plate down and standing up. "Let's go see these jewelers of yours." He let a slight tone of imperiousness sneak into his words, something that came quite easily to a prince.
 
"Sure you do." Archer said, obviously not believing him. Once Adrian was done eating it was time to get to business. Archer rose from his seat and motioned towards the door, thinking Adrian would just follow him. He had thought about getting a carriage, as he didn't know how much strength the boy had, but in the end he had figured it should be close enough.

"It's just a thirty minutes walk from here." He mentioned so that Adrian could know that they would be walking for a while.
 
Adrian was having a bit too much fun playing a more immature part than he normally would and plotting how he wanted later to go. He was naturally a bit of a plotter and he enjoyed the process as much as the results. "Thirty minutes? I think you calling this place a town was definitely an inaccuracy." He muttered a bit petulantly under his breath. He was fairly sure he could make it. While magical energy was not quite the same as physical energy they were obviously intertwined and he would probably need to rest up for the next part of his plan once they got back. Or just get it started and let Archer do all the work. He couldn't deny that that sounded appealing as well.

Once again he noticed the odd stares he was getting from his odd (and now rumpled) manner of dress. "Perhaps we should find a clothing shop on the way back..." He was really banking on the jewelers taking his coin, he was going to be in a very bad place if they did not.
 
"Or you could just ignore them. Those mindless idiots stares at everything." Archer replied after having noticed why Adrian suddenly wanted to change his clothes. The half hour walk went by rather fast in Archer's opinion, even though he walked slower than he usually did as he didn't want to put Adrian back to bed for another fifteen hours. It was better not to push it.

"And here we are." He said as they arrived and he opened the door for them both.

"Ark." A woman's voice exclaimed happily and she strolled over to them. She must have been in her thirties at least, but she was the kind to always say she was no older than twenty five. Funnily enough Archer had met her for the first time two years earlier with his master, and at that time she was also twenty five.

The woman seemed slightly confused over Archer's companion for a moment, but after a short period of thinking she seemed to decide to not ask. Archer was fairly certain she had wanted to ask where his master were, as he never went anywhere without him. But they had been separated for almost a month now. "What can I do for you?" She asked him, suddenly becoming a bit more on the professional side than the friendly side.

"My friend has some items he would want to sell if they're worth something." Archer explained, and gave Adrian a look as to say 'go ahead'.
 
"I still only have this one piece of clothing." He was used to being stared at as a prince, but he did not like being rumpled looking either. He left that line of thought there though, getting lost in his own thoughts again. This time he was thinking less pleasant thoughts about home and if he would ever get back. It made him quite grateful to see the shop and have something to distract himself.

He gave Archer a slight smile as he held the door open and quickly stepped to the side to let the other two greet each other. He was trying not to show his nervousness that this would not work out. He didn't miss the name she called Archer either and decided to ask about it later. With the attention suddenly on him he straightened a bit and pulled out a few silver coins from his country. They had a mix of faces on them from the current and 2 previous kings. He would now see if he should be grateful that his people had insisted on using precious metals for their currency. "I know they look a bit unusual but they are pure silver." Sometimes that was not always true but as prince he rarely encountered counterfeit coins. He also had the magic to determine their purity, so that helped.
 
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