There were many ways to go about Wisteria. Evan wasn’t expecting to get a guided tour from roof to roof though. Claris had pushed them off the ground and unto a rooftop with magic. Evan was a little confused as to how he’d pulled that off so easily without the use of tools.

“I won’t let you get hurt, so just follow me!” Claris said excitedly and darted off jumping from the roof they were currently on to another a good amount of feet below. “C’mon Evan! It’ll be fine!”

Evan had run over roofs before, mostly as part of his military training. He’d been taught to land and minimize impact damage… he wasn’t expecting to see anyone nail a landing from such a big height without doing anything to lessen the damage. It was really weird.

Evan shrugged and jumped off the roof top, the closer to the next roof he got the slower he fell until he gently landed on his feet. Tool-less magic again. He definitely wasn’t used to seeing magic being used this way, Hikaru was the closest to a tool-less caster and she had invisible tattoos on her skin to help her out.

“I kinda figured you guys didn’t know how to use life energy.” Claris explained, flicking his finger and making a small tornado appear on the palm of his hand. Evan stared at it awed, he had no idea how Claris had done that.

“How are you doing that with no tools? Do you have tattoos? We've never gotten mana to work without a means to command it...” Evan asked poking at the tornado, the thing moved about Claris’ palm as if running away from him though.

“Tattoos? Wait, your ship runs on mana… and so do your boards… you guys use runes?” Claris was really surprised to hear that. “I mean, it makes sense, you guys don’t speak the Ancient Language. Runes are the easiest way to cast spells… boy, you guys have built amazing things based on those!”

“You mean to say… this magic,” Evan pointed at the small tornado, “is not the same as the magic we use, at all?”

“Yes. Yours comes from the world, mine comes from my own body.” Claris explained. He made the little tornado disappear by closing his fist. “I can tell you more later, let’s focus on our tour for now!”

“Lead the way, I can follow up. No need to worry or use magic on me.” Evan winked at him.

“Oh?” Claris replied crossing his arms momentarily. “Okay, follow closely!”

Claris sprinted away, he darted off the roof and unto the next one. Evan rushed after him, this time on his own terms and feeling a superb rush of adrenaline.

The blue haired man looked like a pixie, barely touching the roof tops before hopping unto the next one. Evan had a little more running to do in comparison, but had no issues keeping up.

“Just below this building is Wisteria’s most popular tavern! I highly recommend trying their home brew!” The prince would let out small details about the city as they continued jumping through it. “You can see the House of Law from here!”

At some point they were rushing through balconies as they went further north, people waved at Claris and let them through without questioning. Apparently, this was a frequent way Claris traveled across the city.

“Take a hard left!” Claris exclaimed as he immediately turned left and dropped off the roof they were currently on.

When it was Evan’s turn, the man ended up letting out a surprised “wow!” when he realized Claris had made a somersault off the roof and into something similar to a pit. The realization took longer than the time it would take for his brain to tell his feet to stop. The captain fell off the roof face down, all the while thinking he may have been too charmed by the blue haired beauty to even imagine said man may have wanted to kill him.

“I got you!” Evan heard as he entered the pit. Claris had appeared to hold him tight and start reducing their fall. “Sorry, I wanted an excuse to hug you.”

“You didn’t need one, but this is a pretty good excuse.” Evan chuckled as they continued reducing speed.

Finally, they reached the bottom of the pit. Claris let Evan set foot first as he was the tallest. The pair had arrived at an underground tunnel, the place looked nice, built with cream colored bricks and well-lit by magic lanterns. It wasn’t a sewer, but a passage way.

“This is the entrance to the black market. The Council of Wisteria keeps tight regulations above ground but acknowledges that markets like these are necessary and an unavoidable occurrence. Instead of downright outlawing them, they provided a safe zone of sorts. Everything but slaves can be found down here, just don’t let the law catch you with it above.” Claris explained starting to walk into the tunnel. “I have a good friend here who knows all about pirate ship routes. We could pin down the ship that’s been closest to where you found your friend, that’ll give us a start.”

“You have a lot of connections… and you know a lot of people.” Evan mentioned as they made their way deeper into the tunnel. “For being from the sea you spend a lot of time on land.”

“I love the sea, a lot… but, being home is inconvenient for me. A bigger part of my family doesn’t like humans and they… uh… they shunned me after I dated a human before.” Claris explained, his tone was nervous. Evan realized the man was trying to give him the information he wanted without detailing too much. Claris was walking ahead of him… but Evan didn’t have to see his expression to know the man felt hurt thinking about it. “That’s why I spend a lot of time here at Wisteria. I’ve got a second job as a pirate hunter. Lots of people know me because I go around town searching for leads, others know me after I’ve saved them or their kids from slave traders.”

“…you’re a box full of surprises. Head of Trade and International Relations PLUS pirate hunter on the side. Next you’ll tell me you’re a prince.” Evan laughed, which caused Claris to laugh. They both laughed for a while before Claris spoke up.

“Thirteenth Prince of Luna, Claris Azure at your service…” He sounded defeated. There wasn’t much else he could do to keep it a secret that didn’t involve lying. Not when Evan had obviously asked in such a direct manner.

“…Claris…” Evan stopped for a moment. The prince turned around, giving him a shrug as he saw the captain’s awed face. “Your Highness.”

“Oh c’mon, there’s no need for that. We’re on a date… I didn’t want to tell you because I thought you’d…”

“…scare at your title?” Evan finished for him, the prince nodded trapping a lock of hair behind his ear. “…I’m Ashura’s Captain and I’m also the Commander for Akakawa’s Naval Force. I’m her brother, I was adopted by the royals which technically makes me a noble too. That title scares anyone away in my country.”

Claris stared at him, he was caught off guard. The prince shook off the surprise and smiled at him.

“We’re the same.” Claris took a hand to his chin. “I was worried over nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Evan took a hand to his chin too, mirroring Claris. “We just wanted to like each other too much and feared our big titles would ruin that.”

“Ah, yes. True, it was just us being—”

“—pretty dumb.” They both said at the same time.

They gave each other sweet glimpses and thanked the goddesses they’d happened about each other. Claris couldn’t imagine a better man to get him out of his shell and neither could Evan. The couple continued their way down the tunnel side by side, in silence, their hands brushing every now and then. At the end of the tunnel, Claris was brave enough to hold onto Evan’s hand, the captain tightening his grip super excited to feel the other’s warmth.

The black market welcomed them, a large cavern like underground city beneath Wisteria. Large floating bright lights floated near the cavern’s ceiling, providing artificial daylight to the market below. Crowds swarmed the main street, stands were crammed side by side in front of the walls of the one-floor stores, large signs hung over the street advertising all sorts of things. Evan couldn’t read most of the signs, some of them were in a language he knew wasn’t the Common Tongue at all. The place was very lively, it felt like the market places above ground.

“Alright, busy town! Don’t want you getting lost!” Claris added pulling on Evan as he slipped into the crowds cramming the main street of the black market.

They didn’t spend too much time shoving and cutting through the crowd. Claris had them walking through a spacious, smaller street in no time. He mentioned that they had to hit his friend’s bar and that section was usually a lot less crowded during day hours. Evan noticed some of the people that they walked past to felt very familiar. He’d faced people like this in the battlefield. Assassins, hunters. The deeper they walked into this part of the black market, the more of these people Evan noticed hung around.

“Relax, they’re only here looking to get hired. No bloodshed is allowed in the black market, it’s an unspoken rule.” Claris tightened his grip on Evan’s hand, trying to reassure him physically as well as verbally. “No need to bust out the bloodthirsty aura.”

Evan remained wary of his surroundings but didn’t put out any menacing air about himself. Claris had guessed he would do that when feeling threatened, Evan imagined it was because they both had a somewhat similar way of thinking.

After a while, Claris stopped in front of a small wooden door. A sign on top of it had a bunch of squiggly lines and symbols that appeared to be runes like the ones Evan used on his ship. It was a language the captain was sure had nothing to do with the Common Tongue.

Claris could read it perfectly though.

Atlantis, read the sign in the Ancient Language.