Testing the Waters (Open)

It was completely dark when Zyv woke up. She yawned as she sat up. As she stretched, her hand bumped into something above her and suddenly, something hard hit her on her head. She felt around in the darkness around her and found the culprit. It was an empty, wooden cup. Now more awake, Zyv remembered that she had spent the night in the pantry, curled up on bags of flour. She fumbled around, feeling for the door. She found it and opened it, quickly stumbling out of the cramped pantry. Now with more space, she properly stretched and cracked a few joints. She glanced out the window. The sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. This place would be brimming with busy workers, cooking and cleaning and other stuff you do in the palace. She would have to hurry if she wanted to avoid that.

Zyv walked as quickly and quietly as she could to her room. While the pantry wasn't exactly the most comfortable and the room she inherited was quite luxurious, it was also very big and spacious. It was about the size of her old home and all the extra space made her feel uncomfortable. She wasn't able to sleep at night in it, so she started finding smaller places to sleep, which turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Everything in this palace was spacious and big. And she had to sneak around, or else people would fuss over her and try to convince her to sleep in her own room. It was all a pain.

When she reached her room, she quickly changed clothes, brushed her teeth, and grabbed a jacket and bag. She carefully left the palace, as to avoid waking anybody. As she walked through the courtyard, she threw her hoodie up and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets, absentmindedly rolling a metal orb in her fingers.

The sun was shining in the cold morning when Zyv reached the mountains. She managed to avoid running into anybody in town, keeping her head down low and covered. She found a small cliff off of the moutain and cleared some snow off of it. She perched herself upon it and stared out towards the direction from which she came. The town looked so small from there. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. She never asked to be the Empress of this stupid world.

Zyv lost track of time as she sat there, just thinking about things. However, she found she couldn't feel her toes or fingers.

"Better head back soon," she mumbled to herself.

Krystal never really got out much, but when she did, she made sure to look around all these places that existed within the universe. Admittedly half of them were found on sheer accident, but hey, it was her luck. Speaking of her luck, why the heck was it so cold up here?

Apparently Krystal had wandered into some snowy mountains. She noticed a town in the distance but didn't go right away, mostly out of curiosity and the fact that she was feeling explorative. And you really couldn't be explorative if most towns functioned the same way! Well, she thought so, at least. Krystal was one who thought of exploring as visiting things that weren't quite familiar, and towns...well, nuff said. Krystal wasn't even sure where she was going with this. Silly thoughts.

But now it was really cold. She didn't exactly expect this and didn't bring the right kind of clothes with her, so she was just going around in her skirt instead of something like winter pants...heck, did she even have winter pants? She just knew she had to handle the cold somehow. Heck, maybe that town didn't sound like a bad idea after all...and she would've gone there too, if she didn't trip over a rock or something and fell forward, banging her head against the side of the mountain, before stumbling a bit down the mountain, landing near a small cliff.

"Owee," Krystal moaned, rubbing her head as she sat on the snow.

Commotion could be heard a short distance away from Zyv. Were there perhaps other people present here, on this mountain? Zyv stood up and stretched out her legs, deciding to investigate. She looked around and saw two figures further down the mountain, though not very far. She quickly made her way to them and as she neared, she saw that it seemed like a girl had fallen down the mountain and had landed at the feet of a slender man. From the way the girl dressed, Zyv could tell that she wasn't from around here. The man also was not dressed for the weather and probably the same as the girl. Strangers. People like her.

"Are you alright?" Zyv asked as she approached them.

Krystal blinked when she recovered from her sudden fall and looked around.  Some other people were concerned about her, but one was really questionable about whether or not it was a person.  But that would be rather rude so she would refrain from it.  But more importantly, she needed to stop looking like she was in trouble!  Well, she didn't think she was in trouble.  She didn't feel too injured and didn't really notice anything on her.  So yeah, that actually went better than she expected.  Who would've thunk it?

Taking off her look of surprise, she quickly responded.  "I'm fine.  Somehow.  Not really a problem-" Krystal had started before getting some snow from the hill above to fall on her hat, distracting her momentarily before finishing, "-Nothing wrong here.  Sorry if I was being a bother."  She took some time to quickly get standing again, taking her hat off and brushing the snow off of it as she did so before perching it back atop her head just the way she liked it.

Zyv couldn't help but chortle at the girl, having to cover her mouth up to seem less rude. She seemed like a person with her head in the clouds. It would certainly explain the way she had dressed, though she didn't seem cold at all. Perhaps she was resistant? Or maybe she just didn't care. But, regardless, it seemed like she was okay despite the fall, which Zyv was appreciative of. It would have been more complicated and unfortunate if she had been seriously hurt.

The guy talked in a way that Zyv found...odd. He spoke in a dignified fashion. The guy certainly cared about being poised. His movements and manner of speaking was suave. A charmer. Zyv figured that he was one of those guys who spent much of their time chasing skirts. Not that Zyv particularly minded. She didn't care much for flattery, or even people in general. Plus, there was something about this guy that bothered her. He seemed...different. And not just in a "from another world" kind of way.

"I'm Zyv, by the way," she said, introducing herself. She turned towards the girl. "I'm glad you're not harmed."

Krystal stared at the two and ended up grinning softly. She liked these people, really. She could call them different but at the same time they felt familiar. Maybe Krystal just felt odd herself. After all, what was normal, exactly? Considering everything that she knew of, she really couldn't be the judge on what normal was. Actually, she couldn't really be the judge of a lot of things probably.

With a cheerful grin, the girl simply responded, "Ah, it's no problem, I fall down all the time! I'm Krystal!" She held her hand up as a friendly gesture and took a step forwards with her right leg...only to have her foot sink deep into the snow up to her knee. Having bent forwards a bit, the girl processed the situation before simply going, "Oopsies."

Huh, who knew snow could be so troublesome to one person? Krystal never expected it, and yet here it was. She blamed the humidity.

Zyv gave Krystal a look of confusion and concern. She was certainly a klutz. Zyv wondered how she managed to climb up a mountain and survive, though clearly that didn't go well for her considering she had fallen down. "Um, Krystal, would you want to go somewhere warmer possibly safer?" Zyv asked. They could go into town and find a nice shop to stay at and get warm. At least, somewhere safer for her. She gave the guy a weird look after he offered to carry her on his back. A bit shady.