19 Chapter Five - 2 || Darren

She placed the silvern pynce back into her bag and saw that she had five of them. She also saw four smaller silver coins, and two even smaller copper ones. Since the pynce was silver colored, she figured it might be an eythe pynce. So, she took it out and placed it on the man's open palm. The man gave a suppressed snort when he saw the coin.

"This is hathe pynce, princess."

Essairyn's eyes widened in embarrassment, and she snatched the coin back from his palm. She returned it to the bag and retrieved the copper coin.

"There you go, princess."

She snapped her head toward the man and glared at him as she handed the coin over to the shopkeeper. She then turned to the stunned shopkeeper, curtly thanked him, spun on her heel and left the stall.

It was a good thing that the money system here followed the value of metals from Earth; otherwise, she would've felt very foolish if the copper coin was yet another missed guess.

The hooded man easily jogged after her.

"As a newcomer, you should be careful with these vendors, princess. They'll spin all sorts of stories to sell something," he friendly advised.

Essairyn flicked her eyes up at the man for a second and continued speed walking.

"Thanks, I will," she replied curtly.

"You're welcome, princess."

"I'm not—" Essairyn began to retort but then cut short when she saw that the man had disappeared from her side. He had left just as suddenly and mysteriously as he had came.

She felt an odd ambivalence rising up from her chest. On one hand, she wanted to swiftly flee the embarrassing scene, but on the other, she wanted to properly thank the man and make his acquaintance.

Even though their meeting was fleeting, he felt uncannily familiar. The more she tried to grasp the impression, the more enticingly it danced away. She stood still for a moment in the middle of the street and then slowly turned and left the market.

The stalls and vendors gave way to quaint stone houses and buildings, and the dirt streets became lined with cobblestone sidewalks. Essairyn treaded attentively along the cobblestone on the left and searched for the Knight Mage Academy regional school.

After a couple minutes, she reached an intersection. She peered down each street, and on the left, she noticed lettering above a door on the right side of the street. It was a few buildings down, and it read, "The Academy, Reisparte Regional School."

Just as she began turning the corner, she heard a loud commotion from behind her on the right.

"A man just fell from the sky!" a passerby proclaimed to the surrounding people as he stomped past Essairyn.

She swiveled in the direction he was going and saw the people amass in the middle of the street.

"Is it another traveler? They sure have been appearing frequently," a woman commented to her friend as they hustled over.

At the mention of traveler, Essairyn rushed over to the growing crowd and nudged her way inside.

"He landed in the middle of town no less!"

"It's a wonder he didn't injure his back falling. Perhaps because he's a traveller?"

"Aww, the poor boy looks so confused. He's rather cute, don't you think?"

At the center, a young man, who looked to be around her age, was sitting on his behind on the dirt street. He was rubbing his lower back and holding his head in shock. He wore a powder blue button-down, dark navy jeans, and yellow ocher boots.

Essairyn strode over to him past the gaggle of onlookers and stretched her hand out in a greeting. He had sandy brown hair that messily yet handsomely framed his angular face, vivid chestnut eyes that shone up at her in surprise, and a light honey complexion that complemented his ruggedly boyish looks.

He blankly stared at her hand for a moment before extending his own. She grasped his hand as soon as it was within reach and quickly tugged him up.

"Come on!" she exclaimed as he stumbled onto his feet.

"H-Huh?" he stammered bewilderedly as she held his hand and dragged him away from the crowd.

"I'm a traveler too! The name's Essairyn." She grinned back at the boy as they raced away. "What's yours?"

"Darren," he shouted as they ran around the corner. "Um, where are we going? And why're we running so fast?"

Essairyn slowed down as they neared the school.

"To get away of course. And we're here!" she announced.

She dropped his hand and looked up at the school. It was a old-fashioned stone building barely three stories high with an indigo roof that served as an attic floor. The wooden door matched the roof, and the inscriptions etched above it were painted in gold. A window laid on either side of the door.

"The Academy, Reisparte Regional School?" Darren read.

"Yes, I arrived in this world two days ago and learned that this was the best place to learn about it," she cheerfully explained.

"This world?" Darren uttered perplexedly, "What do you mean—?" He stopped as he took in the sights around him. "Where the hell is this?" he blurted with wide eyes.

"Sol'h'meyr," responded Essairyn calmly.

"Soul-hey what?" he replied loudly.

Darren gripped his head in confusion and closed his eyes to deliberate this bizarre turn of events. He couldn't believe what was happening. He had just been walking downtown with his friends after university classes when suddenly he found himself plummeting through nothingness.

When he landed, his surroundings were completely different. He was in a rustic town with strange people all around him, and a random girl who casually dragged him off to a school. Apparently he was a 'traveler,' and so was she.

"It's a lot to take in, I know," she expressed gently with concerned eyes.

"It's just—" Darren began. "I was just with my buddies in the city. We had just left the campus dorms, and we passed by this store that had this beautiful painting in the window, so I stopped to look at it, but they had gone ahead, so I went to catch up to them but then suddenly I was—"

He shook his head in disbelief and stared blankly into space. "It's like that painting teleported me to another world…" His eyes suddenly lit up. "You don't think—?!" Essairyn shook her head, knowing what he was going to suggest.

"I arrived in a forest actually. It's located on top of this huge cliff several miles away from this town. I wasn't near any painting before I found myself here. I'm not yet sure how or why we traveled to this world, but apparently it's not uncommon for people from Earth to appear here."

Darren wrinkled his brows. "Then.." he trailed off and looked into space again.

"Hey." Essairyn patted his arm. "It took me some time to believe that this wasn't a dream. And there's probably some part of me that still doubts this world is real." She looked directly into his eyes and smiled softly. "But it really is real. This isn't some dream."