Open Eastern Brisshal Another star falling down

[Hyakin Heliodoros]

Mentally, Hyakin patted himself on the shoulder for good work. The way the elvette reacted to his very, very sincere compliment was very satisfying. That gentle blush dusting her cheeks, that small quirk of her lips that was barely a shadow of smile but softened her features even more, the way her eyes slightly shone like high-quality polished turquoise, the way her ears twitched a little

It was all so charming and lovely. Truly, Miss Solaria crafted her avatar exceptionally well.

Hyakin could probably spend few hours marvelling over the details and the beauty; the artist in him salivated at the thought of the future and seeing many other well-crafted Player avatars as well as the lucky, or Quest-line important, NPCs.

"Ah! Yes, water. I, hm, I actually am thirsty. But is the water safe for consumption? Ah, my apologies I did not mean to doubt your knowledge Miss Solaria, I was merely pondering if the game developers also took it into account when creating such realistic world." He nodded seriously and then glanced at her fair hands – yes, running water would be much better to clean.

Hyakin, as a knight, bowed slightly and extended his own hand, trying to get hers. "Yes please! May I have the honour to accompany you miss Solaria? I may be an inexperienced knight, but I will work hard!" Here he gave a sincere smile; he clearly was not distressed about the dirt itself, but rather about it staining her hands. Hands that looked to not be fit to such mundane actions like digging in the soil for mob graves. Truly it was his own negligence that led to this tragedy; he had a lot to learn. Later he will look up more about the code of chivalry, knights and their examples to become even better.

 

[Solaria]

When he said he was thirsty, she held out her waterskin to him. "I wouldn't drink from the river most likely, just to be safe. My drinking water is from town right now, though. Here, have some." Solaria tended not to go too far away from town without getting some water in a flask or waterskin. She preferred the waterskin, but that was just personal preference all in all.

"The honor?" She was a little confused by his demand to be so knightly, but gave in and accepted the extended hand as she stood up straight and tall. No matter how tall she stood, though, she'd never beat him. It was kind of funny how big he felt compared to her- even his hands were much larger.

"Thank you for escorting me, sir knight." She curtsied with her free hand, then giggled a bit. "Sorry, calling you that just doesn't feel like me. Is sir Hyakin okay? I don't mind calling you sir, but calling people so formally as to use titles outside prefixes has never been my thing."

 

[Hyakin Heliodoros]

Hyakin’s face did a small spasm as she simply offered him her water-skin. But he graciously accepted it and poured himself bit of water… All while not touching his lips to the waterskin in the first place. Her action answered his question on its own. He made a mental note to get himself a waterskin.

Miss Solaria allowed him to escort her; her small hand laid gently upon his. It was small, warm hand that somehow did not have the calluses one expected from a warrior that she was. Probably because this was an avatar.

Next, Hyakin puffed up as she called him Sir Knight and then Sir Hyakin. Oh yes, he could definitely get used to that. Sir Hyakin sounded great.

“Of course! Feel free to call me that Miss!” Was he very obviously glad about being called that? Yes. But that was fine, surely.

And so they walked, the trees being more sparse, allowing them to actually go side by side. Hyakin almost had a spring in his steps as they walked, as he escorted a lady, like a knight. Her smaller hand felt so nice ontop of his, warm. Soon, the sounds of running water became louder and louder. Soon, they could see the first glimmer of water; or rather the reflection of sun rays.

Few more steps and they could see the source of the sound: it was a stream rather than a river, so loud only because of the elevation in terrain and a small waterfall caused by it.

“And thus we have reached one of our destinations… We can wash our hands and clean our clothes a little. Miss Solaria.” Hyakin of course assisted her to the stream and waited for her to retrieve her hand. He had plans: to take off his shirt and sort of wash it. Because the drying blood felt not nice.

 

[Solaria]

She found herself blushing slightly as she realized for herself how soft hands were in this world. "It feels funny. I can't keep my hands moisturized enough in our world, but here, I don't even seem to need it... I still try to use it though. Or an equivalent."

In the real world, her hands were rough as sandpaper. What with her housework and cleaning frenzies, let alone her sword practice, she was almost always calloused and coarse. Her feet were generally the same- often cracked and textured from walking on recently cleaned floors without socks.

When they arrived at the stream, he helped her get close enough to it to wash up. She retracted her hand and crouched down without kneeling like she automatically wanted to. Dipping her hands into the running water and rubbing them together, she began to think out loud. "I should try to get some soap next time I'm in town... That'd make this feel more fruitful." A laugh escaped her lips.

"I think I'll buy some leather gloves while I'm in town next time too. This way you won't have to worry about my hands getting dirty next time." A grin took over her face again, big and toothy. "Is there anything you want to buy? Honeyhome isn't far from here, I don't think. It shouldn't be, anyway."

 

[Hyakin Heliodoros]

"But that is why we are here, to leave the worries there for a moment and enjoy something else." Hyakin said, while trying to not think of the state of his own body in real life. Not now, not here where he was tall, strong, healthy.

He then took off the shirt the game gave him; a basic thing that made him look shabby next to her. He washed it; or well, sort of washed it. He just rubbed the material between his hands, letting the blood slowly get wet and start to peel away. The cool water was good; cool water was better to get rid of blood. He was not getting tired from this, not how outside where he would have to take a short break by now. Vigorously rubbing his hands and the material, more and more red seeped from the shirt.

"I will definitely buy new outfit. And weapon. And armour. This… Basic outfit, is really basic after all." For moment he forgot that he was now shirtless and he faced Miss Solaria with his chiselled upper body fully on display; marred only by some of the dried blood on his side and arm. Places where he was wounded before those were healed. "Water-skin, some rations… And of course sell what we got from those bandits. And whatever will strike my fancy once I visit the shopkeepers in that… Hanihome?" Hyakin tried the name of the place she mentioned.

And then he sighed.

"I really wish that there was minimap function in this game…"

 

[Solaria]

"You'd think that, right?" Solaria replied, laughing. "I do come here as an escape, but... I still treat it like my real life. When I'm here, I'm Solaria. I live by the sword and help heal people like it's natural. In the other world... I do pretty much the same thing, honestly. I'm a future nurse that takes kendo, after all."

There were worries she had in the other world that she didn't have in Terrasphere, of course. No overworked father, no babysitting her baby brother. Here, she didn't have to study for exams or anything of the sort, either. She was simply able to be herself, without the main concerns of societal norms- because to the people of this world, she was never going to be normal. And that was fine with her, unlike reality.

"Honeyhome," She corrected, giggling slightly over how he'd said it himself. It was somehow cute, his speaking style and pronunciation. She smiled softly looking up at him. "We can buy you a map at least. It's not the same, but it's still something."

Seeing the dried blood on his side and arm, she stood up and moved to try to rub it off, trusting she could heal it without a scar if it started to bleed again- though she doubted it would, since she'd healed it with magic just a while earlier. She frowned. "I still don't like seeing people get hurt," she admitted, "But I'm glad I was able to heal it as quickly as I did. It makes me glad I chose to learn healing magic and not just alchemy alone."

 

[Hyakin Heliodoros]

Hyakin nodded to show that he listened but other than that he avoided adding anything to it, trying to gloss over that life outside here. Because already he fell in love with this world, with its realistic yet fantasy-like design. It made him feel far happier and hopeful than the mess that the life outside was.

So he tried not to think about it.

"It truly is a life." He merely said, and then continued… Only to hear that he spoke the town name wrong. He was not really paying attention to it, but it felt bit embarrassing that he made this mistake when in real life his work was related to other languages. "Ah, yes, Honeyhome. Honeyhome. Sounds rather homely, no? I wonder if they are famous because of honey?" Then Hyakin stilled as he felt her presence next to him… Nothing to say about the gentle, soft touch on his arm.

The touch rubbed at his arm, flakes of blood leaving. There was no scar, it was merely dried out blood. Blood that was now chased away.

It was soft.
It was warm.
It made his heart beat and his ears redden.
Because there was a beautiful woman touching his arm and he was not an ugly thin stick, but handsome, healthy man. It made him feel overly sensitive to that contact, even as he shyly glanced at her, seeing from above her hair and ears and – he quickly looked away trying to gather himself. He was a knight, a knight.

This felt so very, very real.

"It really is amazing how magic can just… Handwave away wounds like the ones we got." He said, his voice bit lower than it was before, trying to act as if it was not a big deal when it was.

"Yes, the pain and wounds disappeared immediately! Only blood was left. Which kinda dried. I'm really fine, there is no wound, my HP bar is full!" He was not moving much because there was a small hand on his arm and well, he did not want it to be gone immediately… And he felt guilty.

But it was nice.

"..Oh, so I need to learn to use maps too?" He held onto a topic to change his thoughts and attention from that gentle, gentle hand.

 

[Solaria]

"I haven't noticed much about their honey, but... I do know they have one of the best bakeries I've ever eaten from!" Solaria grinned like a child, remembering the first time she'd gone to that bakery with Toko around the time she spawned for the first time. She was still eternally grateful that the first person she'd met in this game was Toko- but she also secretly hoped Hyakin would think the same of her.

When she saw his ears redden, she frowned ever so slightly. "Is something wrong? You're red... Did you get a fever somehow?" Could anything they'd done that day cause a fever? Solaria hadn't heard much about getting ill in this world, but she wouldn't be surprised if it were possible.

Solaria could be a bit of a worrywart, and it showed in her actions as she moved to put her other hand's back on his forehead. "You don't feel warm... Well, no warmer than expected. From my experience, men are often on the warmer side than women. But it doesn't feel feverish. What a relief!"

It was then that she realized she was incredibly close to him. It was then that the fact he was wearing no shirt surfaced in her mind. It was then that she turned red herself, pulling back the hand checking his forehead with a nervous laugh. "Sorry, I sometimes forget about personal space." She still had clearly forgotten, since her other hand was still on his arm.

"I'm glad it doesn't hurt anymore," she mused, smiling up at him more broadly again. When he asked about the map reading, she nodded. "Yeah, it's really like reality, minus the smartphone usage for things like this. It takes some getting used to, but paper maps aren't so bad."

 

[Hyakin Heliodoros]

Another soft hand touched his forehead. Sure, it was the back of the hand, but it was just softer in a different way. He tried to focus on something else, like the words he said, but he just felt more hyper-aware of the touch and the closeness to him. It felt like his mind was combusting and it was a miracle that his face did not turn fully red.

"Yes. A relief." He repeated her words, sounding a bit absent-minded. Because she was so small and close and he could in fact smell a scent that was not the scent of the air before so it might be her scent and-

And she pulled away. It was such a shame, but at least the contact was not completely broken. Her small, gentle hand was still in his. It was delicate, warm; it looked fragile but he knew how looks could be deceiving in this game that felt so real.

This game was great, better than life. In it, he could forget reality.

"It's okay Miss Solaria." He gave another bright grin to her, trying to not show how very affected he was by that closeness before focusing on the talk they had. And walk. He was walking with a beautiful woman, with her hand in his – it was like a dream.

"That is a shame. It and other devices make life easier… Though at least the maps should be not that different.. Aside being on paper. Or leather. Oh, actually, Miss Solaria, do you know what the currency is and what can be bought for how much? Will it be fine to send questions to you miss Solaria? Is there a teleport system?" The rapid questions were his attempt on thinking about something else than the most intimate he was with someone.