With the sun glaring overhead, the pair is now making their way down a long stretch of empty dirt road that parts the woods. Yuan scowls grievously, sweat beading down his face as he adjusts the straps of the pack over his shoulders. Kansi sides a glance at him wordlessly, expression unchanging as Yuan draws his sleeve over his own brow. “How's that pack?”

     “Fine! It's fine! How's yours?”

     “Just fine.”

     “Good! I'm glad!”

     Turning his eyes ahead, his companion stifles a snicker in his throat. The prince looks aside in a furiously embarrassed blush. “I thought you had a pretty strict routine of refining the mind, body, and soul up in the celestial realm...”

     “That only applies to some,” the haughty royal waves off. “I was born naturally gifted.”

     Kansi scoffs, eyes rolling, “Then clearly gifts are wasted on you.”

     The boy whips around in flushed, mortified indignance, crying out, “H-hey—!!”

     After descending the mountain, at some point, their path converges from a fork; Kansi notices grooves on the formerly deserted path. “Hey, wheel tracks. That's a good sign, we're actually on a path that sees regular travel now.”

     “So do we follow it?”

     “Might as well. It should at least take us somewhere people are.”

     As they continue on, the trees grow sparser.

     “Once we're approaching actual towns, you ought to be a bit less... conspicuous.”

     “Oh, don't worry about that,” Yuan waves off. “I'll just disguise myself.”

     His companion cocks a brow at him dubiously. “With your powers?”

     He shrugs carelessly. “What else?”

     Kansi narrows his pointed gaze in suspicious silence until the prince takes notice.

     “What? Do you have a better idea?”

     Grumbling a “whatever,” Kansi relents as he faces ahead again. “But I better not catch you using any other magic, got it?”

     “I got it, I got it!”

     For a while, Kansi scrutinizes the tracks with a peculiar look. His focus is only broken by a pitiful groan from the young prince, his companion suddenly realizing just how far he's fallen behind. He glances back to see the boy adjust the straps of the pack once more while dragging his feet in a slump. Kansi pauses, taking a moment in stoic thought. He turns his head, playing it off aloofly.

     “We ought to take a break to eat something.”

     Immediately Yuan drops to the grass, whining, “Oh, thank you, my fortune must have spared me some pity today...”

     Kansi walks over nonchalantly, lifts Yuan by the pack, and drags him off the road like a cat. “Don't thank fortune, thank me.”

     They sit aside in the shade against some trees with their luggage unloaded, each chewing on a skewer of the leftover meat that was cured and a couple of small fruits. Halfway through his skewer, Yuan holds his jaw with a whine. “Aaah, dried meats are so tough, it's hurting my jaw to get through it...”

     A twinge of irritation sets in Kansi's brow, refusing to look at him. “If you're gonna complain about my food, don't eat it.”

     Yuan looks at him pitifully. “I'll eat, I'll eat.”

     “Then shut up.”

     The royal youth does his best to gnaw at the tough jerky again, but not without a woeful moan. Annoyed, his companion turns away with his eyes closed, grumbling. “You can always start cooking for yourself, you know. I don't have to make you food.”

     Having exhausted his jaw, the prince decides to switch to a soft fruit. “I dunno how...”

     “Well, that's too bad then, isn't it?”

     The prince exhales hopelessly before biting into a wild loquat. “I'm totally going to do charitable service and all... but I don't think I can make it another eighteen years without any money.”

     Kansi pays him no heed as he continues eating his own food. “I'm shocked you've held out like this thus far, honestly.”

     “Not for lack of trying!” Yuan whines. He’s finished off his fruit already, slumping against the tree. He's shot a dubious side glance.

     “You tried once.”

     “And I gave it my all!”

     Kansi sighs as he sits back as well, taking a drink from a travel flask. “You can count it as either an attempt at charitable service, or an attempt at making money—not both.”

     The prince glances over, chewing at his remaining jerky once more. “What if I really tried to do both?”

     “Then you're a moron.”

     “Kansiiii...”

     The royal companion folds his arms, eyes closed in the shade. “We can try to pick up some work here or there, but we've got to do at least one charitable service first. Alright?”

     “Work for free first to get to work for money...” Yuan pouts, “not much of a deal.”

     “Or you could sell some of your fancy little trinkets. You've got enough of them.”

     The boy gasps, insulted. “You would honestly insinuate I should get rid of any of my jewelry?? This is all I brought down! Treasures crafted by the finest artisans of the heavens, more valuable than any wares you could find in the mortal world!! I'm appalled you would even suggest it!”

     A tired face quirks a brow at him. “Look, you want money in an honest way down here, your options are sell some of your fancy shit, or work for it.”

     “Fine, fine, fine.” Still pouting, the princes waves it off, resigning to the initial proposal over the unthinkable alternative. “After charity, we'll work for pay. At least I can actually look forward to going to a real town again.” He seems to pick himself back up rather swiftly, already moving on to whatever he's imagining. “I want to go to a market! I bet there's lots of interesting little trinkets and fun things to see. I might find something really useful for us!”

     “You've already shifted focus and we haven't even spotted a town yet...” his weary companion laments.

     Once they're back on the trail, the youthful prince seems to have completely recovered with this new idea, now full of sudden energy as he rambles on endlessly.

     “Maybe we could find a real tent. Or some nicer mats to sleep on. Do we need more tools for hunting? That bow is pretty raggedy, after all. Maybe I should make a list... ah! That's right! Ink and parchment! I almost forgot. I could really use that for writing a list—”

     Kansi drops his head with a groaning sigh, now the one looking drained of all vitality. “Can we just walk for a single moment without talking?”

     His eyes drop to the tracks again, furrowing his brow as the young royal prattles on like background noise. At set distances, on the right side of the track, there's a small indent nestled in the dirt, almost imperceptible. As the boy keeps rambling to himself, Kansi drops to a kneel without warning, Yuan walking right past cluelessly. Leaning closer, Kansi analyzes that strange divot. Perfectly hexagonal, cleanly cut, no more than a centimeter wide. ‘I've seen this indent the entire way, only on one side. Something must be stuck to the wheel... What's been bothering me is the shape of it.’ Then it hits him. A hex screw head.

     ‘Hex screws won't be developed for another few centuries—unless the person who owns this wagon is some prodigy way ahead of their time, there's likely an anomaly on their hands.’

     “Kansi?”

     Their eyes cross, equally surprised by one another with the sudden stop.

     “What are you doing?” asks the boy, perplexed.

     Swiftly his companion is on his feet, conducting himself as usual as he walks past. “Just analyzing the trail to make sure we're headed the right way. Let's keep moving.” Yuan comes along, though still a little puzzled by the strange behavior.

     “Uh, isn't that the point of following the tracks...?”

     Although the prince doesn't see it, Kansi looks ahead with a sharpened gaze of focus given this revelation. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

     “Huh??” The boy is bamboozled. “What... what do you mean by that? Do you know something??” He is thoroughly ignored no matter how much Yuan pulls on his sleeve or whines. “Kansi! Tell me! I'm fully grown!”

     “That's a shame, you could use a few more centimeters.” He nonchalantly hovers his palm over Yuan's head, the boy's face immediately flushing with indignation.

     “Don't make fun of me!” he squawks. “I'm a majestic wonder of the heavens!!”

     By night, they make their camp again, Yuan talking his companion's ear off while he sits by exhaustedly—and come morning, they're back at it. Soon enough, the royal youth leaps up with visible excitement as he points far into the distance.

     “Ah! There, there!! We're almost there!”

     After a day and half of trekking on foot through the mountainous wilderness, they finally come upon the sight of a little town amidst farmlands ahead. Unable to contain himself, Yuan bounces around with a sudden gleeful zest. “Only a little further! We really did wander pretty far from civilization, huh?”

     “We didn't ‘wander’,” his companion corrects, “we went into hiding so soldiers would stop chasing us...”

     “And now they're not! So no problem!”

     With the sun high overhead, they finally come upon the outskirts of the town, directly within their sights as the prince darts ahead excitedly.

     ‘I don't know what to expect here, but if I manage to find that anomaly... I have a feeling it won't be the last.’