"...to be quite honest I am not certain. I cannot exactly, ah, take you anywhere safe right now. This was not the best place for you to come out of the Mists to, I have to say."

"Figures," she snorts. "Okay. What's the—horrible flaming disaster I have landed on this time? I expect there is one."

"There is indeed one. If you come from Orr you do not I expect know about the White Mantle?"

"I do not, no. I might have seen glimpses of them in echoes in the Mists, but I didn't always get names for the things I saw."

"Each of the three human kingdoms responded differently to the Flame Legion's attacks. Ascalon fled, Orr sunk, Kryta was usurped by the White Mantle. They sacrificed people to their gods on magical stones called Bloodstones." He gestures with his head towards a crystal. "One here exploded. The explosion was big enough to wipe out half of Tyria, except it mysteriously collapsed in on itself and only destroyed this small area."

"... So where did all of that stored power go instead." Yes, she is starting to see why this is worth investigation.

"Exactly. Not that I'm not grateful, but yes, it does require some closer investigation."

"Yes, agreed. Um." A little regretfully, she pulls away so she can look at him properly. "Look, if there's no way to take me to a safe place, then don't. This sounds important. Instead, I can aspire to be a duckling, and follow you around. It's not exactly like I'm a helpless waif, here."

"I did notice that, yes, you put on quite a show. What was that?"

"What," she wonders lightly, "do you not have mesmers anymore? Pissing people off is absolutely standard mesmer fare where I come from."

"—huh. Mesmer would make sense. Nowadays they focus more on illusions and clones and environment manipulation, it would be strange to see a mesmer who did not summon a single phantasm during a fight."

"Really? That's... interesting. I'll want to look into the theory of that later, if they've managed proper clones. I focus less on illusions and more on, ah. Direct meddling. Therefore it's my job to piss people off."

He grins. "I tend to make a habit of having pissed off people coming after me so I believe you are in good company." Pause. "And I just realised I do not know your name."

"Oh, yes, I apologize." She takes a careful step back so she can sketch a curtsy that would look very out of place at court for its antiquity. "Vetareh, pleasure to meet you."

"—the Lost Princess of Orr, of course." He sketches a bow that's mostly Krytan except for the foot placement that's more Orrian and a little flourish of the hand behind his back that's distinctly Ascalonian. "I am James Orland, Commander of the Pact and now leader of Dragon's Watch. It is an honour to meet you."

This statement startles a laugh out of her.

"The lost what of Orr?" she repeats, archly. "I'm not a princess. I was in no way in line for any thrones. I'd be closer to inheriting Ascalon's throne, my parents immigrated to Orr to get away from most of the fighting of the Third Guild War."

"Well, yes, but that usually gets elided over in the bards' stories."

"There are stories about me? In which I am declared a lost princess?"

"It was said that your beauty was such that Grenth and Balthazar fought for your favour, and when their contest could not be decided they brought you to their realm so that you could decide. Some variants of the story include you picking Lyssa instead." Pause. "The stories got one thing right, at least."

There are several things she could say to that, such as, 'Picking Lyssa instead of the two boys fighting over me sounds very in character,' or, 'I see the bards were so enchanted by the idea of a lost beauty that they exaggerated extravagantly,' or, 'That sounds like much more fun than what I actually got.' But none of them come to her lips, because the whole premise is absurd, and moreover, she hasn't been flirted with since she was in Orr. The latter turns out to be more relevant than the former. He is distinctly not unattractive, and he's the first person who's touched her in what feels like centuries, and if he thinks she's beautiful then he can just keep touching her—

She turns a delicate shade of pink, more from that particular line of thought than the flirting. Not that she minds the flirting.

"Um," she says, instead of all of those other, much more clever things she could be saying.

He laughs. "Anyway, princess, I believe I should continue my investigation. Will you accompany me?"

... Right, they are still in a cave, and there are still important things besides her touch starvation, loneliness, and his pretty smile. Right. She doesn't particularly want to tackle the poor man for casually flirting with her. Well, not intellectually, and not necessarily immediately, anyway. Focusing back on important business while she acclimatizes to not being in the Mists sounds like a wise course of action.

"Oh, no, I was planning to sit in a cave forever and count the floating rocks." For some reason her wit is the first thing to come online. Possibly from its frequent use as a coping mechanism in the Mists. ... That might perhaps cause her problems down the road, but she can't bring herself to care very much. At least she's saying something instead of another 'um.'

"Put your clothes back on," she informs him imperiously, "you might offend my delicate princessly sensibilities."

"As Her Royal Highness wills it," he says, with a perfunctory but respectful bow. He reattaches the shoulderguards and wristguards and then puts his mask back on, then he looks around and hmms. "Gliders had not been invented back when you are from, had they?"

She smirks at him. Oh, this is going to be trouble, isn't it. She's in trouble. Or maybe he is, or they both are. They'll probably find out at some point.

But not tackling him to have her way with him is much easier when he's covered in spikes, fire, and his pretty face is safely hidden away, which makes things much easier.

"No, I'm afraid not. They do what they sound like, though?"

"They do. If it would please the princess, I would offer to carry you up. I had been meaning to go explore that temple when I was ambushed by that anomaly."