Chapter 2: Introductions

Astra cast a startled look at Aleron, only to find him smiling at her. Apparently, there were more than a few things he hadn’t shared. Looking at his smug face now made her feel somewhat irritated.

“You could have given me a heads up,” she complained, a little exasperated, but his smile didn’t diminish. Suppressing her sigh, Astra turned her gaze to the imposing man behind the desk and bowed. “Yes, your royal highness, I am from another world. It looks like Aleron has already filled you in.”

“On the contrary,” the prince replied, “beyond that one fact, he has told me little. Please, sit, both of you.”

He gestured to the sofas to one side as he rose from his desk and went to settle in the largest armchair himself. His cold, stiff demeanour from the throne room seemed much more toned down within the privacy of his own office, replaced with lofty elegance.

Aleron guided Astra to sit before settling himself beside her. There was tea on the end table, and three cups already prepared, one of which he took and handed to the still confused noirette. The slight pout to the edge of her mouth made him suppress a smile. “I apologize for not informing you beforehand,” he told her, not at all apologetically given that he was chuckling while he spoke. “My errand from the Crown Prince was a matter of top secrecy, so I could not tell you much.” 

Astra sighed as she took the teacup from him. “I was wondering why you lied about retrieving the relic from Lyndra.”

The Crown Prince’s eyes gleamed as he took a sip from his tea. “You have it, then?”

Aleron reached into the folds of his uniform and pulled something out, which he then set gently on the tabletop. The prince, and his guard who had shifted to stand beside the sofa, both leaned forwards slightly to get a better look at it.

It was a round, dulled stone with a perfectly smooth surface. It did not appear valuable or even remotely mystical, even though Aleron had gone to great pains to retrieve it. It was not quite white, more like a very light grey, with its only unique feature being the lack of any kind of texture or grainy sediment that a normal rock might have.

Astra had put two and two together when she had seen the emblem above the castle gates. “This is the crystal from Ateolan history, isn’t it?” she asked Aleron, seeing him smile proudly and nod. “It doesn't look like much, if I'm being honest. But why was it in Lyndra, if it's a legacy of Ateole's history?”

“I am afraid I do not know,” the Crown Prince replied to her as he stared down at the object in question. "But you are correct, calling it a 'crystal' seems to have been an exaggeration." It was a stone, plain and simple, and with its lacking appearance Astra would liken it to nothing more than a particularly smooth river rock. 

The prince shook himself and looked up from his study of the stone with a cordial smile. “Introductions are late – forgive my manners. I am Crown Prince Corrin Ronne Ateole. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Astraea. I hope that this world of Onaria has treated you hospitably since your arrival.”

It was a courteous greeting. Astra went to respond in kind, but for some reason the words did not come right away.

If she was being perfectly honest, Onaria had not been hospitable. Being suddenly thrown headlong into a fantasy world, while exciting, had not been easy. The journey to the capital alone had taken several months, and all of it had been a far cry different from the sorts of adventures she liked reading about in books or watching in shows.

Still, it probably wasn’t a good idea to say as much in front of this prince. “I’m honoured to be here, your highness.” Better to keep it short and sweet.

“Your display in the throne room was well done,” the prince went on, raising his brows at her. “I was under the impression that you and the Captain had not prepared a story beforehand.”

“We hadn't.” Aleron patted Astra’s shoulder with a proud look. “Astra is a quick thinker.”

“Your Lyndran accent was a little forced, though.”

Astra could not help but smile at that brutally honest assessment. “Was it really that bad? I apologize.”

“I suppose it was only obvious to me, who hears the real thing on the daily.” The prince threw a look at his guard, who continued to stand still without saying anything. Shrugging his shoulders, he sat forwards again. “May I ask you some questions?”

Astra glanced at Aleron to find him nodding at her, and straightened her posture a bit. She had not expected to reveal her identity so soon after arriving, but if Aleron trusted the Crown Prince with this information, then so did she. “Ask away, your highness.”

“Who are you, exactly? And the world you hail from - I would like to know more about it.”

The young woman did not respond right away, instead picking up her teacup to take a sip. Seeing that she was collecting her thoughts, none of the men pressed her. 

She pondered his question. Who was Astraea Luan? There were so many ways she could answer.

After settling herself, she began to talk.

Astraea Luan was a university student majouring in fine arts, with a minour in international business. She wrote fantasy novels as a hobby and had dreams of publishing her own book someday in the future. She had a single roommate, her childhood friend Lexi, who was a geology student. She lived a normal, quiet, ordinary life.

She told them of Earth, where swordfights were a thing of the past and mystical Thunderbirds and ancient Heroes were just made up stories. “It’s… it’s very different,” she said, not knowing exactly how to put into words just how different. "The culture, the politics, the lifestyle; everything is completely different from here."

It was dizzying to consider explaining everything about modern society to this fantasy-world prince. She already felt like she’d been rambling too much.

Luckily, the Crown Prince was evidently more prepared than she. He asked about how she had met Aleron and their time together from that point.

At least it was an easy question to answer. Astra recounted an afternoon when she had gone out the back door of her shared apartment, intending to go for a run, and had happened upon two men in the middle of climbing up Lexi’s persimmon tree with the intent to steal the literal fruits of her friend’s labour.

Aleron was carrying Ladron on his shoulders, as the tree was too thin to scale, and both were dressed like some sort of live-action roleplayers, with swords and daggers. The taller of the two men (she wondered why he was the one being carried, given his height) had long purple hair and near-golden eyes. When they made eye contact, all three people had frozen on the spot.

Crown Prince Corrin’s eyes were sparkling. “And then?”

A snicker slipped from Astra’s lips as she turned to the side and gave Aleron a mischievous, knowing look.

The knight had the grace to look embarrassed, passing a hand over his face as he sighed and confessed, “I dropped Ladron on the spot to draw my sword.”

Astra laughed.

Despite Aleron’s threatening action, Astra had not been fazed so much as utterly confused. After asking several times if they were cosplayers, leaving Aleron and Ladron equally befuddled, Lexi had come outside with lowered brows asking what was the matter.

“It took the better part of an hour to get everything straight,” Aleron sighed, brushing back his hair. “Both parties were completely lost.”

“Once we understood one another, though, things were quite simple from there,” Astra pointed out. And it was true; once Lexi and Astra had finally managed to come to terms with the dizzying truth that Aleron and Ladron were not from their world, things had progressed much more smoothly. Lexi had suggested allowing the two men to stay in their small home for a few days – provided they didn’t try anything funny – and as it became increasingly clear that the men had no idea how to return to their homeland, those few days had somehow stretched into months, and then years.

"So the relic is what sent you and your companion to Miss Astraea's world?" the Crown Prince glanced at Aleron for confirmation, and the knight nodded. “How did you return?”

Astra’s eyes also shifted to Aleron, who looked apologetic. “I’m afraid we don’t know much, your highness,” she said after a moment or two, “Only that this," she gestured with an open palm to the whitish-grey stone still sitting on the table between them, "was involved.”

Now that all eyes were on him, Aleron coughed awkwardly into his fist and said, “We tried to use the stone to return many times, with no success. However, after two years, it suddenly transported all of us back to Onaria, Astra and her friend included. It dropped us at the same location we left from, in the Lyndran mountains.”

As he spoke, he felt guilt twisting in his gut. Through their involvement with him, Astra and Lexi had gone from ordinary students to being dumped, in their modern day clothes, into the harsh snowy environment of northern Lyndra. Forget the shock of being in a new world, they had all nearly frozen to death within the first hour.

And what had followed, even after escaping the cold, was far from pleasant.

The Crown Prince, a look of interest on his face, questioned them closely on the experience of inter-world travel and the appearance of the Hero's relic at that time.

“When it was active,” Aleron recalled at the prince’s prompting, “it took on a wholly different appearance. The surface of the stone became lustrous, like a pearl, and it reflected light in multiple colours. It truly resembled a holy relic of ages past, for all that it looks like a plain river rock now.” 

“I remember it activated after I picked it up,” Astra added, “but I doubt I had anything to do with it.” To demonstrate, she reached forwards to touch the stone, but nothing happened. “Our theory was that something must have happened on the Onarian side to make it react.”

“During our journey back to the capital, we studied the stone further, but were unable to determine how to use it.” Aleron gestured to both Astra and himself. “I thought it only appropriate that we take responsibility for the girls, so I brought Astra to the palace with me.”

The prince appeared to be deep in thought, but he agreed with Aleron's decision. “I apologize for getting you involved in our country’s affairs, Miss Astraea,” he said, politely lowering his head. Astra hurried to say that it was alright, and the prince smiled. “You said you had a friend who was also brought here? Are they in need of any assistance from the crown?”

Astra shook her head. “She’s in the care of our other travelling companion, highness,” she explained, thinking of Lexi and the ever-cheerful Ladron, whom she already missed. "He is planning to take her to travel with him." 

“I see. Well, for as long as you are staying here, we shall make your experience as comfortable as we can.” Seeing that dazzling smile directed her way, Astra could only return it hesitantly. If nothing else, this prince had excellent manners.

Their conversation dragged on for quite some time. Crown Prince Corrin, after spreading a map on the table, had Aleron document the route he had taken both to Lyndra and to return to his home country of Ateole. Astra had drained her tea while answering more of the prince’s questions about Earth, which were mainly focused around questions of culture and the fascinating fact that her country had no monarchy.

“You truly abolished the caste system?” he had asked, astonished. “How do your people function without a definition of status?”

It took a half hour to explain, as best she could, what a democracy was. When he brought up the question of public safety, she had to figure out how to describe the concept of the police. She thanked her lucky stars that she had Aleron there to back her up – the knight, after two years in her world, was familiar with concepts of both Earth and Onaria, and was able to clarify Astra’s halting explanations.

It was not until the office had been dyed in reddish-golden light through the thin curtains that the Crown Prince looked up and suddenly clapped his hands, a rueful expression on his face. “The afternoon has come and gone. I’ve kept you both for too long. You must be exhausted, having only just made it back. Captain, you haven’t even visited the barracks yet, have you?”

“I have not, your highness,” Aleron replied, and the prince laughed as he pocketed the Hero's relic, rose to his feet, and ushered them towards the door.

“Then I won’t keep you any longer. Miss Astraea, I am still curious about your world – may I invite you for tea soon, that we might discuss it at length?”

“It would be my pleasure, your highness,” Astra replied, and the prince seemed satisfied by her response.

He saw them out at the door with a cheerful smile, seemingly in a much better mood now that he had gotten so much new information, as well as the legendary stone he had sent Aleron to find.