[Azura Rayume]

((If you want to join, PM me what pet. I'm just too lazy to make an ad in Advertise for this thing, but I will be filtering who all gets in.))

His head was spinning. His side ached, as did his chest. A clank nearby told him his sword had managed to make it to... well... wherever he was at the moment. He couldn't tell, really. He hadn't bothered to open his eyes yet.

Arthur sat up, blinking. His head spun more violently, so he decided that had been a mistake, though laying down again would make him look more the fool. He pressed his palm to his forehead as if that were enough to drive off the headache before it started. Glancing around, he saw no one, so he decided he could simply sit there a moment longer and regain his composure before attempting to stand.

This place was nothing like what he last remembered. He had been in a field with his men; now he sat upon a blanket of moss with the sounds of a strange forest to his back and the noises of a town to his front. He had no recollection of coming here and was baffled by his own sudden appearance in this place. Well, he seemed wholly there, even down to the dents in his armor. Quite peculiar indeed.

Footsteps sounded on the stone path that led to where he sat. He dropped his hand and watched for a moment as a small girl approached him. She hummed a lively tune as she skipped down the path, both of which stopped when she saw him. She stood there for a moment, then spied the sword. With a whimper, she backed up, her stuttering voice shouting, "Sp-Spirit!" before she turned tail and fled, dropping the coin she had brought with her in the process.

Arthur blinked in astonishment. Why had such a happy little lass called him a spirit? And why had she brought a coin with her to the woods? He turned to see if she had perhaps been yelling at something besides himself, and found only a small stone structure. Curious, he edged toward the construction until he heard the sound of water splashing against the sides of a hole.

A well. He could only assume it held some importance to the people here and had something to do with the girl's coming here with a coin. Perhaps the spirit she meant resided in the well... No matter. He stood, his armor clanking noisily in the process, retrieved his sword and the coin, and followed after the girl. If he had frightened her, he had to apologize and return to her what was hers. It was only right.

And maybe he could find out what he was doing here in the first place. Someone in that town over there just had to know something.

[Azura Rayume]

Clank. Clank. Clank.

He would really have to get all the dents out of this armor. It never clanked this much before now, and the noise was getting to be a bit annoying. Best to find a blacksmith capable of repairing it or an inn in which to leave it soon. The odd haughty looks he drew from passers-by at disturbing them were a bit unnerving. No one ever glared at a king like that, not in England. Maybe he had found his way to Scotland or Wales, neither of which he knew much about beyond their proximity to his England. Not that he had any recollection of anything after the start of the battle that would suggest such a journey, but he supposed it was a possibility.

He wondered where that little girl had run off to. He hated having scared her so and wished to return her coin so she could do whatever is was she wanted to do at that well. Unfortunately she seemed to have scurried off somewhere without leaving him any clues. He was beginning to think that it was him that she was scared of, not some spirit of a well, and that she was actually avoiding him.

He paused when he spied a few children playing in the streets. Maybe they would know where to find her.

"Excuse me," he said, clanking up to the small mass of kids. "Would anyone happen to know where I could find a little girl with blond hair in a ponytail?" They stopped in their game and stared up at him, making him feel all the more awkward for having asked. "She dropped this coin and I was hoping to return it to her."

Eventually one girl spoke up. "Where'd she drop it?" she asked in a sing-song tone.

"Over by that well outside of town."

Now a boy chimed in. "Sally was planning on visiting the Wishing Well today. Maybe it was her."

Arthur smiled. "Ah, good. Now, where does Sally live?"

A few shrugs and mutterings of "I don't know" greeted him before a look of realization graced another young face. "Sally's dad runs a bakery not to far from here. Dunno where they live, but you could give it to him. Just follow the smell of baking bread if you want to find 'em."

[Azura Rayume]

Arthur flashed the children a smile of appreciation before setting off again, just as intent at returning the lost coin as before. The sound of his armor no longer bothered him, though the stares were beginning to grate on his nerves a bit. He never did like people who stared at him even though he should be used to such a thing by now. He was a king after all, and people usually did a lot of staring when a king walked by.

After a few blocks of nothing but gawking commoners, he caught the scent of baking bread, something that would always be familiar no matter where he was. Bread was bread, and bakeries always had some wonderful smell drifting into the streets during the day. He shouldn't have much trouble finding this place now. He would just have to follow his nose.

He managed to find the place with no problems. With the morning hubbub having subsided, the shop looked relatively deserted with only the shopkeeper looking out of the doorway. The man behind the counter noticed the presence of such an odd visitor on his doorstep, blinked for a moment, then waved a bit awkwardly. Arthur waved in return, striding forward to meet this man and return his daughter's lost coin...

... And smacked face first into the plate glass door of the shop.

[Azura Rayume]

Arthur recoiled from the impact, quite unsure of what had just happened. There seemed to be some kind of shield preventing him from entering, which was quite upsetting for him. Why a baker would feel the need to keep people out by such a magic? Could he really be that paranoid of someone barging in? Or perhaps this town was not at lovely as it seemed.

"Excuse me," he said loudly, quite unsure of the makeup of said shield and as to whether the man could hear him through it or not. "Could you possibly lower your shield for a moment? I mean you no harm, I swear. I simply mean to return something of your daughter's." He produced the coin from his pocket, waving it in a childish manner as if to prove that he did indeed possess such an item.

The baker stared at him for a moment as if he had forgotten about his barrier, then realized that this stranger was babbling about the door. His confusion mounted as he approached the door and opened it. How someone could not know what a door was was beyond him.

"My many thanks to you, kind sir," Arthur said with a smile and a sweeping bow, certainly unable to contain his contentment at having returned the girl's prize at last. "Here, take this back to your daughter and apologize for me if you will. I am afraid that I startled her without meaning to, and she lost this because of that." He pressed the coin into the baker's hand, who simply stared at it with even more bewilderment than he had before. Arthur smiled again, then turned away to find a place to spend the night. And maybe find a blacksmith, too.

[Freezair]

Halvard had been watching most of Arthur's antics play out.

He'd stopped by the bakery for lunch, as he often did when Kane told him to go out for the day. He'd bought a round of thick bread, topped with vegetables and filled with a warm sauce--sort of an inside-out pizza. Halvard had found a nice bench to sit and eat his meal while he thought about things to himself. Tonight, he'd promised to see a comet with Zaza. But Fenrick wanted help on his homework. And he still owed Danica a new pair of boots... To say nothing of what his employer might need of him.

But he froze in mid-bite when he heard--and then saw--the armored man collide with the glass door. Oddly, the armor caught with him before the collision did--I haven't seen anyone dressed like that in years. ...Well, aboveground, anyway. Halvard himself wore chain mail, but for the big, burly man, that wasn't hardly anything.

Now, as the man wandered out of the bakery, looking a bit confused, Halvard decided he simply had to know. With his typical boldness, he stood, wrapped his lunch in its bag, stuck it in his pocket, and strode boldly up to the man. He reached out to tap him on the shoulder.

"Excuse me, sir," Halvard said, clearing his throat. "You seem a bit lost..."

[Azura Rayume]

Arthur almost jumped at the touch, and the voice that followed didn't help in that. He just hadn't expected someone to come right up to him like that, especially someone with the brash idea to touch him. He turned to see who had dared to do so and was pleasantly surprised to find seemingly friendly face. The owner of said face seemed to be as friendly as the expression and a bit concerned on the side. Why would he be worried for such a stranger wandering about the town.

"Lost?" He sounded almost as confused as he must have looked. "Why, yes, I do seem to be a bit lost. Would you mind telling me exactly where I am? Or perhaps you could give me directions back to England. Shouldn't leave a kingdom without its king for long, you know." Why was he babbling like this? He must sound like a loony, tottering around in armor while no one else wore it, looking for a child and a baker and directions home. Oh, Merlin! Why couldn't he have stayed in England instead of wandering so far?

[Freezair]

At first, Halvard was surprised at how tense the other person seemed to go under his touch. My, but wasn't he wound tight! Then again, Halvard had to smile. He doubted he'd be any different if he were lost like that. With armor like that, this person was probably a soldier, wasn't he? And soldiers were always tense. You always had to be on the lookout for trouble, after all!

Halvard cocked his head while he listened, and tried to look friendly. Even with his somewhat intimidating buzz cut and crooked, broken nose, people generally agreed that Halvard's smile did a lot for his face. "You're on Hampton Street," Halvard said. Because what else could this fellow mean beyond that? It never occured to Halvard that he might not know what city he was in... or even country, for that matter. "England...? I'm afraid I don't know that place. Is it a street, or a place like a store or a restaurant?"

[Azura Rayume]

Arthur blinked at this ever-so-kind stranger. How on earth could he have never heard of England? He knew that his kingdom was largest around... Well, not that he had ever been out surveying other kingdoms. He was just assuming that... Oh, never mind. England was a large place, far too large for anyone to have not heard of it. Sure, his knights didn't go around pillaging villages in other countries, nor did he set about to conquer any place he laid eyes on, but still!

"No, no, no," he said, shaking his head fervently. "England is not any of those things, though I suppose it might be easier to get back if it were. England is my country, my kingdom. I need to return as quickly as possible, for it is unwise to leave a kingdom without a king for very long." He failed to understand why he felt it necessary to spout all this to a perfect stranger, but he had said it nonetheless. Maybe what so many had said about him being too trusting was true after all... Then again, how was he supposed to get any help if he never talked to anyone?

((My apologies for thus being so late. When I got back to school, I had a presentation, game, and four exams to prepare for. I didn't mean to put it off, but school work comes first. Anyway, I'm on vacation at least until the end of the week, so I should be able to get quite a bit of RP time in between now and then.))

[Freezair]

"A... Kingdom?" Halvard screwed up his face, and looked deep into his mental atlas. He knew many of the places in this world, but the name "England" didn't match up with any kingdom he knew of.

Of course... he knew of many kingdoms that others didn't. Perhaps it was the same way for this man. He claimed to be royalty. And considering what Halvard knew of... those lands, well, maybe it was possible.

"You..." Halvard said slowly. "Are you from... underground?" Halvard pointed to his feet for emphasis. "From... from one of the cave kingdoms?" Halvard looked skyward, as if there was another land above them, too. "Because I know what it's like to go aboveground for the first time... if that's the case. I came here from a far-off kingdom myself at one point... Only not so far at all, in the grand scheme of things. I'm an underground dweller too..."

[Azura Rayume]

Well, this conversation had just taken a turn for the weird. Though it seemed entirely possible for this man to have come from some kind of underground city- since this wherever he was appeared to be just the kind of place to have locations like that- he was perfectly sure that England was above ground.

"No, my good sir," he said trying his best not to sound mocking of the young man's cavernous ideas, "I'm sorry to tell you that my England is certainly above the ground. And, oh, what I wouldn't give to see the sunlight from Camelot's hill again..." What a thing to lament, eh?

[Freezair]

This... was getting odd.

Halvard was still more than willing to help this man, but he was beginning to wonder about his sanity. The man's, that was--he was fairly certain his own head was screwed on right. Ah, but that wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing to do, and he didn't want to aggravate manners. He would keep on his friendliest, most polite face for this man, and do all he could. Even if "all he could" was direct him to the nearest hospital.

But making assumptions was unkind, too. He'd better be delicate about this; see what the man said first. He cleared his voice and then lowered it. "I--I'm sorry, my good man, but... I don't believe there's a country or kingdom named England anywhere in the world, let alone here in Evelon. How did you get here? Maybe you read an atlas wrong..."

[Azura Rayume]

Evelon? Arthur had never heard of such a place before, and it certainly could not be on the border of England. And he hadn't woken up in captivity, so he figured it was safe to assume he hadn't been captured at some point and brought here by force. Teleport? Possibly. There had been plenty of magical things going on near Camelot that he might have gotten caught up in some happening or another.

"You mean to tell me that this isn't Scotland?" he asked, just to confirm his suspicion. Who could really know though? He had rarely had contact with anyone Scottish, so he had no clue what they might call their home kingdom.

[Freezair]

"Scotland?" Another place he'd never heard of--was it a place where people often got off scot-free? "No," Halvard said, with a shake of his head. "You're in a town called Nabias, in a place called Barakka. No Scotland here. Although I'll have to look that up in the encyclopedia when I get home..."

Halvard stared into the man's confused face. "Please, if it's not too much to ask--how did you get here? Not only do you seem lost, you're mentioning places I've never heard of. I think you're far more lost than you let on. If we can figure out how you got here, we can probably figure out how to get you to where you want to go..."

[Azura Rayume]

Alright, he could believe he was in a town he had never heard of, and Nabias sounded like a perfectly fine name for a town. But he had a hard time thinking he had somehow made his way to an entirely different place. If this was neither Scotland nor Wales, then where could he possibly be?

The how was another good question. "I don't exactly know how I came to be here," he confessed, somewhat abashed by his lack of information. I was... was... Well, blast it, I don't remember what the last thing I was doing is. Before I found myself outside that well back there, that is. That's the first thing I remember clearly, actually."

And that concerned him even more. He didn't like the idea of not knowing about his life before this town, and he certainly didn't want to forget his England and Camelot.

[Freezair]

Well, this was getting... interesting.

Halvard had heard about people losing their memories. He'd heard about people ending up in Evelon in weird ways, as if they'd been transported there from far away. And he was willing to believe that yes, maybe that was what had transpired here. But being face-to-face to it, having to deal with it... That was the sort of thing that happened to other people, not him!

Well, when do the best shine brightest, except in adversity? Now to explain it to this man--gently, perhaps, if he really was simply crazy.

"Ah... Sir, forgive me if this sounds presumptuous, but... I'm beginning to think you were transported here from a different world. It happens now and again, here in Evelon. I don't know if you're familiar with a concept called 'magic,' are you?"