The World Revolved

"Tyrlars vit Opyrheimr, Arcanist and Magician at your service. Well...not really at your service but I'm here anyway in this land of...Japan I think." Tyrlars said as he looked towards his familiar who shifted their glow in response. 

"Japan yes. Now, as an Astromancer, I couldn't help but feel interested in the worldshift to come. It's always so interesting when the worldspirit takes another planet from another reality..." He said, sighing dreamily before having to sidestep a thrown baseball at his face, his body blurring as he made himself scarce. 

"Now that was pretty rude you know." He wagged his finger. 

"You...what nonsense are you talking?" Yuriko shouted, about ready to see if that baseball bat could find use against the Elf while Akane sheathed her sword and gingerly placed it back on the mount.  It was probably a fake, but still, didn't want it to get damaged. 

"That is way too intricate to be cosplay." Aratani mused, looking Tyrlars up and down and feeling a bit of a blush when he looked back at her. Something that got the briefest, smallest sensation of being miffed from Akane...she liked being the centre of Tyrlars' attention. A little at least. 

"I know right?" Akane said, trying to swallow her feelings and resuming a smile to Aratani who gave an approving nod.  

"Nonsense? Look, I didn't get the Imperial commendation for excellence in the esoteric and mystic arts and sciences for people like you to go ahead and call what I say nonse-" He started before the starry-eyed Shiki opened his mouth and sent a chilly cringe down Akane's spine.

"Oh, are you a perverted playboy wizard who's come to deflower Akane-San?" Shiki asked, all thoughts and words in the room dying right away to leave a profoundly awkward silence.  

Even the Elf was left without anything to say, just staring blankly at the high schooler the way one would at a dog that just peed all over the floor while making unbroken eye contact with them. 

Aratani's face was nothing short of horrified, the gasp and keen of protest coming from her throat virtually inhuman. Yuriko's expression was one of disbelief at the sheer audacity of the remark, and Akane just looked at him with the purest expression of confusion she could manage.  

"...Arcanor's grace the stars didn't lie about you people being obsessed with something you barely have..." Tyrlars finally said before clearing out his throat.  

"Ah, so you are here for perverted antics you foul sorcerer!" He shouted, pointing an accusing finger towards the Arcanist whose constellations on his cloak made a frown while he sighed, shook his head, and looked back at him.

"My boy, my child, my young man..." He said, though to Akane's eyes he didn't really seem any older than herself, sure Shiki was only fourteen and also very stupid, but she wouldn't peg him for much over eighteen himself.  

"There are people like me, who are brilliant beyond compare, and there are people like you, who are very, very stupid. Ideally, people in the latter category should form a complete thought before opening their mouths."  He said with a patronising pat on the head before, leaning in a bit closer, the colours of his eyes swirling around the pupils of his eyes like the accretion disc of a pair of black holes, scleras starting to glow more intensely while his voice dropped an octave. 

"And if you ever call me a "sorcerer" again like I didn't spend years of study getting my certification as an Arcanist and just coasted by on bloodline alone, I will personally make sure that the rags you clearly spend too much time reading are the closest you ever get to having a girlfriend." He whispered with a bit of an angry tone into the boy's ear with a bit of starry energy coalescing at the tips of his gloved fingers while Shiki gulped audibly. 

"You aren't going to do that." Akane made clear, harrumphing to get the Arcanist to straighten himself and back away from the child who could barely control the shiver in his legs. One last glare was exchanged between the two before he gave a piteous look to Aratani and then swivelled on his legs towards Akane. 

"Okay, what does this all have to do with me? I do backend code for predatory mobile games, not magic." She said, preparing to go back to her computer and see if she still had a job...or if fate would at least grace her with a day off due to the world going upside down.  

On the other hand...he was more interesting than whatever nonsense Goya would be saying so there was that. Truly a hard dilemma for the modern youth.  

"Well, I was heading to the Sundered Lands and I need an entourage to set me apart from the riffraff. I was thinking that, since your society seems obsessed with the idea of going into "fantasy" worlds for an escape from your dull lives, people like you would be just perfect." He said, smiling earnestly and leaning down to her level as she made a rather...interesting expression, stifling a laugh and choking back a witty barb.  

"'Sundered Lands', that sounds like a death trap." She snorted, almost contemptuously as she studied Tyrlars' reaction, waiting to see if that upset him, though that annoying catlike smirk on his face remained. 

Okay, time to fire the second salvo.

"Anyway, go find some hero of destiny or something to go play warlord." She said, brushing him off and starting to walk to her TV in the hopes that there might be something of interest on.   

"I could just force you to come." He huffed. 

"You won't. You're too nice for something like that. ." She replied while she turned on the TV and flicked through her Netflix catalogue on the hooked up computer.   

"How do you know that?!" Yuriko protested, looking back at the Astromancer and then back at her friend.  

"He carries himself like someone who just wants validation, and if he would just snatch us away for his schemes, we wouldn't be here right now. You senT me right back after I complained the first time." She replied, sighing at the increasingly sparse list of items on the inventory. Truly the mighty had fallen.  

"Well yes I suppose that's accu-" He started before his eyes shot open, pulsars forming in his irises and rotating angrily. 

"I AM NOT JUST LOOKING FOR VALIDATION!" He shouted, finally losing his cool for once in a way that got Akane to smirk with the coy expression of someone who had just gotten a riposte in on a world-class fencer.   

"I'm just...looking for people that my star charts say would make for good companions when I go there...that's all. I'm not in a rush really." He said, trying to recover his composure and whistling slightly with his lips. She didn't quite understand the facial expression, but she could sense a bit of disappointment from him.  

"If you aren't in a rush and you want me to agree to your crazy plan, then stay a bit and get to know me." She said, sighing in defeat when she realised that the News channels were still in the "panic about what the hell just happened" stage of reacting to the event.  

"Well doesn't seem like anything will be open for a while." She plaintively sighed and pulled at the ties holding her hair in her distinctive style to her red locks down. Well if she didn't have to maintain appearances she may as well make herself comfortable. And if Shiki weren't here she'd probably ditch the bra too.  

"...Oh right..." Aratani murmured as she looked at her outfit and then at Tyrlars', squinting a bit at the powered armour and then at her own outlandish get up, envy starting to fill her mind. 

"Well, that should hardly be a problem. I do have some friends waiting in my manor who'd be quite content with just having a look at your home for now." He said, smiling and folding his arms once more.  

"Wait...friends? Manor? What sort of friends?" Akane blurted as she squinted at the young lad and hardened her expression at the elvish twink. 

"-Of course he's a rich boy. How else would he afford gear that nice.-" She thought to herself, thinking about it a little more...his name was "vit Opyrheimr" right? If she knew Indo-European languages well, and she liked to think she did with fluency in five of them, that was a nobility particle. 

"So what are you the Count or Baron of?" She asked, pointedly, expecting an answer straight away. Akane never liked to be made to wait for responses.  

Tyrlars stammered briefly and conjured up a glass of water with a brief starry sparkle of mystic energies, gulped it down, and then dismissed the cup as he cleared his throat.  

"Thirteenth Prince of the Thirteenth Vassal-King of the Thirteenth Emperor of the Ystrelian League of Thirteen Empires. Wouldn't really call myself the heir to much with all my brothers and sisters ahead of me though." He said, somewhat sheepishly. His ears were held flat against his head, like a western elf rather than the more donkey-like ears of anime elves, but they still could twitch rather impressively to indicate a somewhat crestfallen demeanour shift.  

"So if you're a prince, why are you travelling?" Yuriko asked while she went to help herself to some of Akane's Ferrero-Rochers despite Akane's whined out protests.  

"Ah that, my parents always had a special regard for my talents, enough so that they said I needed to grow them beyond the confines of the Kingdom." 

Wait...he said he needed to give advanced warning before arriving in a country, and he could casually teleport her to his observatory. Even an idiot would have put two and two together, and Akane liked to think she was a very clever young girl. 

"That sounds like you were kicked out for being dangerous." She said, a croaking sound emerging from Tyrlars' throat while his expression shattered into one utterly aghast at the accusation.  

"I! I was...look they didn't say it like that but..." He stammered before drawing his cloak around himself and sighing. 

"Yes, I'm not to return to the League's territories." He finally admitted, sighing as he fidgeted with his hat slightly, only to feel someone tugging at the back rim, prompting him to look back at Aratani who's hand was seemingly bent on determining the exact feel and makeup of his pointed hat, thumb going across the shifting constellation patterns.  

"Please don't play with my hat." He murmured under his breath, eyes briefly glancing at Aratani before looking back to Akane.  

"So...who are your friends?" She asked, lazily flopping her head at the edge of her couch.  

"Well...they're not exactly my crew because I haven't really hired them, but I like to call them that. We do quite a bit of odd jobs together, wander around, meet new people, find new friends, explore new places. Adventurer things." He said, waving his hand around in a circle in a "round and round" gesture as he explained.  

"But who are they?" She asked, getting a brief cough out of Tyrlars in response.  

"Well we haven't got a name yet because everyone keeps on shooting down my suggestions. But we're a pretty well-rounded group." He said, placing his hands on his hips and then briefly eyeing Shiki as he seemed to glow.  

"...I'm not babysitting the kid though." He said, gesturing to the now crestfallen boy who let out a bitterly disappointed huff.  

"So does the government know you're here?" Akane asked, throwing her legs onto the other side of the couch and standing up, looking straight up at the Elvish lad and stretching.  

"Well no, I took advantage of the worldshift so that nobody would notice my arrival. I hate having to write the letter of notice honestly, so inconvenient..." He started to mumble something about how you accidentally explode one...okay three...four...five mountain ranges and everyone wants to know your location at all times. 

She slid off of her couch and grabbed one of the rochers and unwrapped it before popping it into Tyrlars' open mouth as he started to ramble, interrupting his train of thought while he chewed on the chocolate.  

He paused a bit, feeling the nuts crunch under his teeth and the chocolate gushing in his mouth before he seemed to light up...rather literally, the starry fields of his eyes seeming to almost literally supernova...or quasar? She'd need to look up the exact astronomic term for a black hole's accretion disc suddenly spiking in brightness.  

"Oh by the Yntanaer that is quite the chocolate." 

He snapped his fingers, discharging built up energy in a sight beyond sight that made wisps of strange, octarine colours at the corner of her eyes. And those threads of magic weaved together into a whole handful of them. The glass of water was one thing, Akane had assumed he just teleported it in but this...he just created it from nothing. 

She gasped, while Yuriko rubbed her eyes and Aratani was already typing in notes furiously into her smartphone, Shiki babbling excited referential nonsense that the Elvish mage pointedly ignored.  

So casually just...making something from nothing. And yet he came here...to her? Why? What could a teenager on the post-graduation grind have to possibly interest someone who could conjure food with a gesture? 

...Though it definitely was flattering to think he came for her specifically. She made a smirk to herself. Finally, all her years of shoujo manga would pay off. Though certainly, he was a bit more...eccentric than the prince she dreamed of...hrm...

"You can just...will that to appear?" Yuriko asked, vocalising what was on Akane's mind. 

"Food creation magic's quite simple. Might be easier if I used divine or aetheric magic...but arcane casting can manage it just fine." He said as he popped in another one of the chocolates into his mouth and crunched happily.  

"So you really are a wizard?" Shiki asked, getting a choking sound out of Tyrlars in response.  

"Wizards simply learn how to manipulate magic, anyone can do it. I am an Arcanist, I had the potential right in the soul." He huffed, trying to be less angry than the last time his craft was misidentified. 

"Well everything's probably closed for now, and I'm not going anywhere with you until I actually get to know you. So...start being more than just interesting." She said, tilting her head just a little to the left. 

"Oh, so magic isn't enough for you then?" He seemed genuinely confused, a little hurt.  

"It's a start, but I want to know what you want me to get into first." She said, a more confident expression creeping its way onto her face. He may have had the power, but she felt a bit more in control here, and that pleased her. 

"You want to come with me?" He asked, surprised at how willing she was to be whisked away by someone she met a few minutes ago. 

"Not until I get to know you. Not just a little, but well. I have a job and family here, friends too!" She said, drawing the line in the proverbial sand here. 

"You could bring your friends and relatives with you. Space is hardly an issue for someone like me. Especially when we have such a grandiose goal ahead of us." He said, his eyes making stars rather more literally than that expression usually was. Eager for any approval then...hrm, how many had turned his offer down?  

"Akane-Chan, are you already asking this strange boy to date you?" Yuriko said, getting stares from across the room.  

"Hrm...it's more of a preliminary thing. He is cute, but I do want to know if he's more than a pretty face and a set of powers." She replied, shrugging a bit while Tyrlars seemed to be almost taken aback.  

"Huh, I thought the starsigns indicated that your countryfolk were shyer about this sort of thing." He said, noting that Aratani seemed to be on the verge of choking at the forwardness of her two other friends. 

"Like her." He said, thumbing towards her as she stammered. 

"You're the one who said that if he were interested in sex he would just ask." Akane countered with a knowing smirk.  

Tyrlars however, seemed truly unflappable on this matter in particular. "Well yes, that's the ideal way to do it where I was raised." He said without skipping a beat, Akane finding her cheeks reddening despite herself... 

Damn it, he's good. 

"Hey what do you think of this manga?" Shiki said, determined to get on Tyrlars' good side no matter how often he was snide towards him, pulling out an...oh no. 

Oh no. 

Akane knew that volume. It's not even Japanese. "How my friends and I repopulated the Elven Kingdom in another world".  Trash made by weirdos in the boonies of Idaho. A cover full of buxom blonde elven women surrounding entirely too pleased with themselves high-schoolers. 

She just about screamed at the idea of him getting his impression of Japanese culture from an Ecchi manga made by an American weeaboo.

He was going to kill them, she knew it. How else was he supposed to respond to that?

"-Aratani I will strangle your brother for real this time, I swear.-" She snarled internally through a gulp. She just hoped that he would show some kindness and vaporise her instantly and without pain, resignation pushing the sick feeling in her stomach out as she closed her eyes.  

"...Full-Elven women don't have breasts that big." Was all Tyrlars said as he flipped through the pages.  

"And why does it just tease all the time instead of just showing the act?" Opyrheimr continued, completely and utterly unmoved by the book as he read through it at impossible speed before handing it back to Shiki.  

"You really should get better smut, but I guess if you want me to familiarise myself with your country it's a start." He said, shrugging while Akane felt an elephant leap off of her chest, relief flooding through her as she breathed easy again while Shiki gave the look of someone who felt insulted but didn't quite comprehend the insult. 

"Well...maybe I know some things I can show you since you showed me some of your things." She said, wiping some stress-induced sweat off of her brow.