"My name is Ayda," She called out as the voice responded, frowning as she turned in a circle and continued to look for the source of the voice, "Who are you?" Ayda only spotted the owner of the voice after a minute of looking around, or at least who she thought the voice belonged to. It looked like a elf, though they were a little ways off, too far for her to tell if her guess was right. She squinted at them once more before heading closer, venturing off the path and wading into the soft calf length grass.
"I'm Axis… would you mind telling me where I am?" Axis asked, adjusting his grip on his fabrics as he looked around uneasily. "I found a ring on the ground and picked it up, and now I'm here… I've got no clue where the ring went or where I am. Who are you?"
"You're in the realm of the elves, where are you from?" She stated as she walked closer, stopping when she could make out that the person looked male and clearly wasn't an elf himself. "I don't know how you get here, and you clearly aren't an elf," Ayda continued, frowning and brushing a strand of hair to the side so he could see her pointed ears, "I'm one of the guardians of the city." As curious as she was, she didn't dare walk any closer to the unidentified male.
"I'm not from around here… I can tell you that much." Axis sighed softly as he looked around, still holding the fabrics tightly to his chest. "And obviously I'm not an Elf. I'm a human, and I'm from a city that I'm guessing you've never heard of, and I don't know why I'm here."
Ayda nodded, pausing for a second to think before tipping her head to the side slightly and asking, "Maybe someone back in the city knows how and why you're here. I can bring you there and we can figure it out." She wasn't sure if this human would take up her offer, but it seemed like the easiest way to find out why Axis was here.
"Alright…" Axis hesitated before approaching Ayda, hoping that she wasn't a threat. He hadn't done anything to threaten her, so he figured he had a decent enough chance of not getting killed. "How far away is your city, miss?" He asked, adjusting his grip on his fabrics.
"Not far, maybe a few miles walk," She guessed, shrugging and turning to point back the way she came, "Just through this field to the edge of the woods up there. That's where the city begins." Ayda wracked her brain for any reason Axis would be here, but she came up blank, only one thought in the back of her mind that she couldn't quite place. She would have to figure out what it was when they got back to the city.
"Alright, then…" Axis sighed softly and followed along beside Ayda, trying his best to keep up with her. He glanced around to see if anything looked familiar, but nothing did. Not to mention he was walking with an elf, which definitely didn't exist in his own world. He could only conclude he'd been transported to another world of some kind, or he was dreaming. Either way, he didn't know why he was here or how he got here.
Ayda was silent as they walked, turning over her various questions in her mind but not asking any of them. The human seemed to be close to in shock anyway, and she didn't want to make the situation worse. Not until they figured out how he got here at least.
Axis swallowed nervously as he looked around, his heart pounding and his face pale. He tried to not let himself get too freaked out, but that was difficult given the circumstances. He kept quiet as he walked, adjusting his grip on his fabrics every once in a while.
"Did anyone come here with you?" Ayda asked as they neared the city and the walls were visible. It was quite a sight, as the walls were made of trees and their intertwined branches. The branches overlapped, leaves visible and making the wall blend in extremely well with the surrounding trees.
Axis glanced up at Ayda when he was addressed and shook his head a bit. "No, I'm… I'm here alone. I just found the ring and picked it up and now I'm here…" He sighed shakily as he continued on with Ayda.
She nodded, then motioned to a barely visible set of doors in the tree wall, "Well, we'll try our best to get you back home, but in the mean time, I promise you'll be treated nicely. I give you my word as a protector of the city." Ayda walked towards the gates, watching as they swung open and she and Axis walked in.
Axis nodded a bit as he followed Ayda into the city, his heart pounding hard in his chest. "Is there an easy way for me to get back?" He asked. "Like… a reverse ring of sorts? Like the counterpart to the one I found."
"There probably is," She replied, glancing over at Axis, "If there's a way here, there has to be a way back." Ayda had never heard of something like what he was thinking of, but she didn't want to bring down his hopes, or put any possibility to the side. After all, anything could happen.
Axis nodded a bit and looked around at the townspeople as he passed by them. Most of them didn't pay him much mind, figuring that he was simply an elf. They couldn't see his ears well enough to make any other assumption, after all. "Where are you taking me, miss?"
Ayda nodded in greeting to the elves that passed them, making sure Axis stayed close to her side as she explained, "Well, I'm going to take you to the Queen. She'll know what to do. She always does." She pointed back to a large wooden palace barely visible between the trees and the rest of the growing tree houses.
"Ah, alright, um… is this important enough to take to the queen…?" He asked. "I mean, there's not a queen where I'm from, but there's Queens in other countries and usually people aren't allowed to just go talk to her whenever they so please."
"She'll know what to do better than whoever else I ask, and yes, it's urgent enough. You said you wanted to go home as quickly as possible, right?" She replied, looking over at him, "Queen Nalla will understand the situation and why we're going straight to her." Ayda was almost relieved to hear that they shared a similarity in worlds. At least they had queens over there, that was something that she understood.
"R-Right… I definitely need to get back. I kind of own a business and don't really have employees, so… I don't exactly have anyone running it for me in my absence. Not to mention, I have no idea how time flows here compared to my own world." Axis sighed softly. "And my world is… corrupt, to say the least. We're not usually allowed to see our leaders without lots of guards because of assassination attempts and such."
Ayda watched him, motioning to the fabrics he carried, "I suppose you work as a tailor? I suppose you do need to get home quickly then, it's an important job." They neared the castle within a few more minutes of walking, the building looking almost like the gates did. It seemed to be built from trees again, though now there was also a fair amount of large windows and other plants covering the building, even the large front gates seemed to be built from trees, though they were disconnected so they could open as the pair neared the gate.
"Yes, I'm a tailor… it's a pretty small business, but I do well enough I suppose." Axis sighed softly, sticking close to Ayda. He really didn't want to get lost in this unfamiliar place, after all. "We've got big corporations that make clothes where I'm from. I just do custom things and adjustments and the like…"
(I'm very sorry it took so long to respond..I thought I already did)
"So you're an apprentice tailor?" She asked curiously, leading him through twisting hallways towards somewhere she seemed to know by heart, "You're working your way to one of these 'corporations' to make your own clothes?" That seemed like the only real option to her, but she could've been wrong. Ayda stopped at another set of closed doors, leaning close to them and listening for a second before nodding, "We'll wait here for a minute. The queen is busy right now."
"No, I'm not an apprentice… I own my own business, it's just separate from any big corporations." Axis shrugged a bit. "Corporations sell generic clothes in bulk, and I can make custom clothes for people if they want. Or, if the clothes they got from the big corporations don't fit them quite right, I can fix them to make them fit." He explained, nodding a bit in understanding when he was told the queen was busy.
"Ah alright, that's an interesting concept but it makes sense." She nodded, leaning against the wall calmly and not yet checking the door again. It would be clear when the Queen wasn't busy, mostly from the door that would open up. Araya studied Axis as she finished talking, surprised that she only noted a few changes between him and an Elf. Most noticably though, he didn't have the pointed ears, as well as he just in general seemed less…something. She couldn't put her finger on it. "Before we meet the Queen, do you have any questions?"
