even old new york was once new amsterdam

[ringwizard]

Date & Time: February~March, 1204 CE
Location: Constantinople Istanbul Constantinople
Characters: Doughnuts (ringwizard) & Mayonnaise (ringbeast)
Summary: brb buddying up with nerds and stealing books from the imperial library
Warnings: there's a war on, man! (the normans are partying outside and by partying i mean laying siege.)


It's been cold and a little wet since they arrived in Constantinople. It makes sense--it's still the tail end of winter here, after all--but Haruto had been hoping for something just a little bit less like the weather they'd left behind in Exsilium.

But they're not in Exsilium, they're in Constantinople, and Haruto pulls his coat closer, sloughing off a shiver.

"We're going shopping," he says, voice flat. The holograms keep them from looking out of place, but they're going to be here for weeks. He needs at least a cloak with some lining in it, if he can find one. His boots, he thinks, will serve, as long as the tech holds up, and even if it doesn't he doesn't intend on giving them up in favor of the leather slippers half the men in this city were wearing. This whole tunics thing he's okay with. Wet feet, not so much.

Comments

[ringbeast]

Nitoh is emphatically and excitedly not paying attention to anything Haruto is saying, instead looking around the city like the worst Tokyo tourist. It all looks so new, the brickwork and mosaics shining like the sun, despite the crappy weather.

He grabs onto Haruto's sleeve to keep him from falling over on a weak part of the road, looking up at the not-terrifically-high spires. Still, it's beautiful and there's a tiny little ache in his chest because he knows that it's all going to disappear in the next few years. He tries really hard not to, but tears fill his eyes at the wonder and the knowledge of how ephemeral it is.

[ringwizard]

Haruto turns his head to look at Nitoh when he gets grabby, and when he sees Nitoh's face, a smile quirks his mouth. He turns his eyes away in some semblance of giving him some privacy, or something, looking at the scenery himself. It is amazing, and certainly moreso than any of their other missions have been so far.

He slows, and pulls at Nitoh's grip on his sleeve, in order to get them out of the flow of foot traffic. "Hey," he says, quietly, "hey. Kousuke." They need a plan, before they do anything else. He puts the temperature out of his mind. Nitoh knows about this place, or at least he seems to. He'll be of more use here than Haruto will.

[ringbeast]

"What, huh? Oh, sorry. Sorry." He rubs his face and looks at Haruto. "Isn't it amazing, though? Look at all this stuff we get to see!" He takes a deep breath.

"So what's up? We probably should get to know the town a little bit. Find a place to stay, uh... Oh! A cover story. I was thinking I could be a monk and you could be..." he waves his hand. "I dunno, a local warrior the monastery hired to keep me safe. Things are dangerous around here."

[ringwizard]

"Yeah," Haruto says. "It is," he continues, more firmly. "Amazing."

He frowns, considering this cover story, and nods, once. "Sounds good to me," he says, "means I get to make you do the talking." Not that Nitoh didn't always try to do all the talking. Haruto is half worried. But if he's a guard then he can loom at people--much easier than having to worry about history. "I'm thinking we find a place to stay, where we're not going to be worrying so much about someone getting into our stuff," he says, "and then we case the city. The PlaMonsters'll have to be careful..."

He's not used to doing much detective work without his familiars. They'd grown used to being careful, though.

[ringbeast]

Nitoh nods, still a little dazzled by the true medieval town around him. "Okay, yeah, that works. Uh, there are inns around. I mean, we could stay at a church maybe but that's not exactly as private."

He tries to remember the maps and so on he'd studied... "Uh, well, I think the kind of inn we're looking for would be further into town... We've got enough money to stay in one the whole time, and that usually covers at least some of the meals. If you don't mind that they're probably going to be gross."

Nitoh's not tired at all, the trip wasn't much of a trip, really. It'd be good to have a base to go home to, to get their stuff put away... Although all the important stuff had to be kept with them. "Let's find a place and then go shopping for clothes. It might save us a little energy not to have a hologram changing our clothes, too."

[ringwizard]

"Let's go for an inn," he agrees, "at least for now, if our nerds know the city they might have tips." He frowns as he thinks about the food, but--"I think we can survive a couple of weeks."

He rolls his shoulders, trying to look casual. "I like how you think," he says, easy, and begins to walk once more, humming a little. If they get into a district that's too nice, he's pretty sure Nitoh will notice.

It's not that it's weird thinking of Nitoh as capable, because he hasn't thought Nitoh a hindrance for months in either this world or their own. Nitoh's knowledge base being what he was relying on to back him up was, though.

"Do they let monks beat people up in this time?" he asks, teasing.

[ringbeast]

He nods, a little sad that he doesn't have the depth of information that it would take to know exactly what the signs on the inns mean. Usually they had some sort of significance, if only advertising what kind of meat was usually in the continually bubbling stews on the fire. "If nothing else, they usually have bread around here."

He really wants to see the Hagia Sophia, but they probably should get some clothes... "Can we go see the big churches after we get clothes? Most of them are still standing... Or at least they are in our time."

At the question, he tilts his head. "Uh, well they don't let them, but I mean, I'm pretty sure some of them do it anyway. They didn't let buddhist priests run brothels, but some of them did anyway."

[ringwizard]

"It's not doughnuts, but it'll do," Haruto muses. The lack of sugar might be weird to get used to, but he doesn't foresee being able to use his magic like he does back in Exilium, anyway. "We can go sight-seeing after we settle our stuff somewhere," he says, "that way we're not hauling too much stuff around."

He chokes down laughter at the answer. "Are you sure we can't change stories?" he asks, with a snicker, before he regains his composure, getting back to his original point. "Whether they let them or not, you should try keeping it under wraps," he says, "if they hired you a guard, he should have a purpose, right? So act like a nerd." An extremely good-looking nerd.

[ringbeast]

"I mean, we could probably find baklava, and we're not too far from an early distribution center for sugar, so you won't go without." He muses. "I guess so, but we better use one of our tablets to disguise it, cos it's not like I can tell which inn's gonna have the owner who steals all your stuff." Even if he could read the inn symbols, he doubts they'd put that on there.

"Oh sure, cos you spent the last week and a half poring through all the books in the library about this era, did you? What'd you think all those books were for, man?" He sighs. "But yeah I'm not gonna pick a fight. It'll be nice just to be arm candy for a little while, y'think?" He winks. "By the way, they didn't like homos back in this time, but mostly they didn't say a lot about it either. So I think we'll be okay, even if you ogle me like usual."

[ringwizard]

"True," Haruto agrees. He likes baklava. "We should probably hide anything that'll be hard to explain." Somehow, even with all this stuff to worry about, this mission is preferable in every respect to his last mission. Spain had been a comparable technology level to his own, but--he cuts off that line of thinking in order to shoot Nitoh a look.

"You're the one who can't keep your hands off of me," he points out, sounding mildly irritated. "And it's not like I didn't do any reading." Not as much as Nitoh, but a little.

[ringbeast]

"Yeah, I mean, we don't need to screw up the timeline, cos then they just have to send someone else back to fix it." He smirks.

He throws his arm over Haruto's shoulder, grinning. "All right, you got me there, but its not like I'm always feelin' you up! Some of us are just more touchy-feely than others, that's all. Anyhow, I just had to make sure I'd know enough to get in with these guys, that's all. Besides, I got a better base of knowledge anyway." Not that this was his field of study, but the world was surprisingly interconnected even back in this day, despite the distance.

[ringwizard]

Haruto grunts when Nitoh puts an arm around him, otherwise not reacting. "I didn't say your study session was a bad thing," he points out. He was--fascinating, when he was fascinated. "You seeing any inns that look like they're not going to fleece a monk?" He's about ready to spin in a circle and pick the one he landed on.

[ringbeast]

He looks around and points to one with a shepherd's crook attached to the hanging sign. "Stuff like that usually means monks are welcome, I guess. Let's try that place. We can always hide our stuff so good no one will see it."

He tugs Haruto along towards the inn. "And then we can go sight-seeing!!!" he shouts, gleeful.

[ringwizard]

"Stop pulling," he says, sounding ruffled. "Nitoh." He tugs his arm free, and catches Nitoh's arm after he does. "If we're gonna be living there, we should at least make a good first impression," he says, "you can do the talking, but let me go in first." Acting like Nitoh is some kind of newbie who can't case a room is going to be weird, but better that than being suspicious.

He quirks a smile. "Then we can go sight-seeing."

[ringbeast]

He rolls his eyes but tries to rein it in a little bit. "All right, sure. I'll try to look properly mild and scholarly." He crosses his arms and puts on a face of concentration.

[ringwizard]

"That just makes you look constipated," Haruto says, throwing it over his shoulder with a smirk as he walks past to push the door carefully open.

The place is busy, but not overly so. He looks around for the guy who looks to be in charge, and when he spots him, he looks at Nitoh, and speaks, low. "You're up, Brother Nitoh."

[ringbeast]

He bares his teeth and waves Haruto away, waiting on the street with bright eyes while Haruto scopes the place out.

Nitoh walks in, smiling and with his hands in a prayer position. He swallows, nerves in the pit of his stomach as he talks to the innkeeper. He watches the surrounding patrons' eyebrows rise at the price he's quoted, and deftly negotiates it down.

He makes a lot of being a weary man of the cloth... It's not like the innkeeper buys it so much as haggling is just how things work. In the end, with a promise to stay for several weeks, he gets a good deal. He turns to Haruto for the money, whispering, "I think it'd be best to do a week up front, cos then he's sure to be in a good mood."

[ringwizard]

Haruto reaches inside his jacket for the currency they'd been given, and counts out the agreed-on price for a week quickly, holding his hands close to his body. No reason to telegraph where he was keeping what in a room full of strangers. He looks up, over Nitoh's shoulder, to curve his mouth pleasantly at the owner, and hands off the coinage. This was Nitoh's deal.

"Better mood means a less lumpy bed, I hope," Haruto says, very quietly.

[ringbeast]

Nitoh laughs loudly as he takes the keys, thanks the innkeeper for his generosity and introduces Haruto as his protector. "He's a man of few words, but that makes for a good companion on a journey of silent reflection."

"Come, my friend," he says, shuffling Haruto and their bags upstairs. "I think all the beds are gonna be lumpy, dude." He grins. "But oh well. Can't be worse than campin' out in the Cretaceous period, right? At least they'll feed us here."

[ringwizard]

Haruto bows his head hello, shifting to follow Nitoh without a word.

"I dunno, the Cretaceous period had its high points," he drawls, leaning on the wall as Nitoh unlocks the door. He resists the urge to wiggle his eyebrows, but just barely. "All else fails, I'm using your sleeping bag and sleeping in front of the door."