The guards immediately held up their hands, one put his free hand on the handle of his sword at his hip, as Basil approached them. “Stop! Go back!” Barked the other guard.

Basil stopped a few feet from them, but close enough to speak comfortably. “Hello! I was going to look over these ruins. I won't bother anyway.”

“This area is off-limits to civilians.” barked the guard with the sword. He waved his arm in a giant dramatic fashion to shoo the blond away. “It's not safe here.”

“Off-limits?” Basil raised a brow. “I saw no sign. And I can hear people inside! I just want to look around!”

Touya was watching from behind a bush, kneeling down. He'd repositioned himself so that if he were to stand up, it'd look like he'd come down the same path as Basil to approach the royal guards. He inhaled a shallow breath and fluffed up his hair.

“It's not safe!”

“Basil!” Touya called. He was walking down the path when the guards looked up, and then he stopped next to the blond. “I thought I said it was okay to go in without me? You didn't need to wait.”

Surprised at this somewhat lie, and Touya's calm way of talking, Basil pointed rudely at the royal guards. “I wasn't going to wait for you but these two won't let me in.”

“Why not?” Touya asked, looking up to the guards.

The pair looked like they were suddenly verious nervous, their posture growing stiff at the sight of Touya. “It... It isn't... safe.” said one.

“We cannot guarantee your safety.” said the other.

Touya scoffed with a smile. “Oh well we aren't needing that. We can take care of ourselves.”

“Yes, but.” The guard with the sword protested, looking from Touya's confident posture to Basil's rather ordinary stance. He obviously was second-guessing Basil's ability to keep himself safe. “It's a matter of safety.”

“Did my companion here say anything about wanting an escort, or somehow making you think that we want safety while exploring?” Touya asked, still with that casual tone. It was like he was ordering a coffee at a café. He looked to Basil with a smile, knowing what the answer would be.

“No.” Basil answered.

“No...” the guards echoed almost at the same time.

“Then I see no issue.” Touya looked back to the guards. “We are explorers. And we were on our way to explore these ruins. We haven't asked for safety, and you say you can't guarantee it. So we're all on the same page?”

“Yes but should you get hurt.” The guard without the sword made sure to protest once more, putting a stress on addressing Touya with his sentence.

“Then my companion will assist me.” Touya patted Basil's shoulder. “Would you let us in please?” As he widened his smile, the purple of his eye flickered in a way that was both reassuring and threatening to the guards, of his strength.

Hesitantly the two royal guards exchanged looks, but they nodded and parted to clear the path for the two young men.

“Fantastic!” Touya crowed as he strode past them. Basil followed quietly.

The two walked without speaking to the other, pretending to look up and around like tourists at the ruins. They spotted what they had heard – over fifteen researchers scattered around drawing the symbols carved on the stone walls of the open-air ruins courtyard, drawing a map of the area they were in, and a pair that looked like they were planning a descent down into one of the dark passages that was framed by a temple door, though it lay broken on the ground.

Touya elbowed Basil's arm lightly. “C'mon, let's get out of here.” He took a sharp left turn that to someone watching him suspected he had just spotted something the researchers had already gone over. The blond followed him in a natural step.

Touya led them two a set of pillars that were holding up a crumbling roof that looked sturdy enough unless another earthquake happened. He went underneath it, looking around at the walls while squatting, moving kind of like a penguin. “Here.” He grinned at Basil, then slipped feet-first into a small triangle shaped hole that was a piece of broken stone wall. He immediately vanished into darkness. Basil took a quick peek over his shoulders to see if anyone had noticed. When he was certain that everyone was all in their own investigative worlds, he slipped in after Touya into the glum, a blast of strikingly cold air hitting him as he passed into the shadows.