Old Vallo was decidedly different from the Vallo that Enola had become used to. The buildings were about as tall as what she’d seen at home and the streets of the city nearly as dirty as what she had been used to as well. She wondered if disease ran as rampant there, what the bathing rituals were like in this time period that they had stumbled into and a ton of other questions that she was currently trying to get answered. The architecture wasn’t quite what she was used to either, though some of it seemed similar to bits and pieces that she’d seen in the Vallo museums.
Getting clothes from the time period had helped tremendously with blending in. She’d learned long ago that if someone looked the part then they were generally ignored, no suspicions raised, and law enforcement tended to walk right on by. It was when one stood out that issues could arise.
Thankfully Richie had been able to earn them some money as well. Which helped get them a room and was going to also help them with their current goal: try out what food they could. They still hadn’t located Max, but she was certain they would once they actually knew what the markers were that all of them were able to write about in the journals that were now their method of communication.
“I think we should start at the bazaar,” Enola suggested as she finished plaiting her hair.
This was fucking wild, it really was - and to think Richie had seen it, thanks to trying out that cool new trick called psychography (graciously taught by the Prigany coven). He’d seen the palace in the center of what was apparently Civitas, he’d even located (matched up) the exact cottage and wagon that Elain sketched out - because they’d kept the pages, and Richie studied them extensively. Committed her sketches to memory and the words he’d scribbled when he was caught in the midst of a vision. All of it made him feel a lot better about being a fucking psychic, and less like a failure.
He hadn’t pinpointed this situation exactly but maybe he wasn’t meant to - and what he saw, he felt it was better than nothing.
That was to say, he wasn’t thrilled about being a thousand years in the past or whatever - there weren’t any hot showers and cookie fries wouldn’t be invented for another bajillion years. But he had Enola with him and Max was here too, somewhere - so they’d be okay. And speaking of feeling less like a failure, he’d also been able to earn some money by telling fortunes, going to and fro between the villages scattered about. Wasn’t stand-up comedy but it would do. Felt good to actually not suck at it as well.
“Bazaar,” he agreed, pushing his glasses up on his nose - these spectacles didn’t blend in the way he did with his clothes, wool pants that itched like fuck and a tunic thrown over that, but it was either stick out a little or walk around with everything fuzzy as shit and he wasn’t about to go down that road. “There should be something near the temple. I - smelled it. In my vision.” Not the temple, the bazaar - something cooking over a fire, anyway, so it seemed like a decent place to start in order to try some old-as-fuck recipes and also try to locate Max.
Traveling wasn’t as easy here - no cars, no buses, barely any waypoints. Vallo just had to go and make things tricky, didn’t it.
As much as Enola enjoyed having access to the various types of transportation in their usual Vallo, it was sort of thrilling to actually need to walk places. She did it a lot back in their time, but it was handy to go to and fro with a waypoint. This was an actual adventure. Something she hadn’t really done since arriving in Vallo. She wasn’t really wanting to stop any assisination attempts or plots to overthrow a government this time around, but getting to explore a new city the nitty and gritty way was fairly thrilling.
Even if a good majority of it stunk.
They should probably get some flowers to start wearing in order to head off the smell until they could pay for a hot bath at their current establishment. She’d look for some good ones when they were at the bazaar. Thankfully it wasn’t too far from where they had settled in, the setup reminding her a little of a street she’d wandered down once in London, various booths set up against the buildings that lined the area. It was a mess of people and Enola watched them carefully, knowing little pickpockets would be wandering around, ready to make off with whatever they could.
“I wonder if they ice cream yet here.” Probably not. Which was a shame.
Oh shit, ice cream. Richie almost started drooling. “Maybe? I mean, it was originally invented in like...BC times,” he mused thoughtfully. Ancient China, right? They’d pack rice and milk in snow - see, sometimes he knew things. It wasn’t cold enough to do it themselves right now but maybe they could find a little bit of ice cream someplace. Either way, he was pretty eager to see what else was out there. “Get whatever you want, I got coins burning a hole in my - “ Well, not pockets, since these pants didn’t actually have those. Fuckin’ inconvenient, that’s what that was. “...coin purse.”
He even jangled it for effect, where it was attached to his belt - and where he could keep an eye on it, thanks. Because he’d jack up some hapless mugger trying to pickpocket him. One stroke of luck meant he had the fire totem on him; ever since his vision he’d been wearing it more often in case Vallo decided to do a Snowglobe repeat and yeet them all away again. Lo and behold.
Smelling what was available was pretty easy to do - plus, as they approached, Richie caught sight of a lot of things like maybe some weapons, maybe some mead, maybe something tasty baked in stone ovens. Buns with cranberries on top - sold. That might be their first stop. “I already miss soap - and shampoo,” he groaned once he caught a whiff of cattle, however.
“We’ll want to pick up some flowers,” Enola told him. “They work well for staving off the smell.” She was certain she saw a booth up ahead that had the dried kind that they would want to use for it. But first, food, because at least those smells were delicious and welcoming.
She definitely wanted the buns with the cranberries on top and oh--meat on a stick! It looked like it was cooked completely and didn’t have flies hovering around it so even better. Roasted corn as well. They were going to have the makings of a real feast soon enough. Which was good because she was starving.
“I hope Max is fairing well with food and things.” Though, he was from a place that was more similar to this than either of them had experienced before so he might have been even better off than they were. “And that someone is looking after Crumpet.” Because she wasn’t sure that cat could look after itself any longer.
“Yeah, he should be alright - he’s like, from medieval times,” Richie said, though where they currently were seemed to be even further back on the timeline - this was some ancient Greece or ancient Viking shit, maybe a combination of all the ‘ancient’ aesthetics and whatnot. Granted, it didn’t seem to be too different than what Max was used to anyway - he’d survive.
That didn’t mean Richie would just let his boyfriend wander because he wouldn’t - nope, he’d basically tear apart the world with bare hands to get to Max, so. He was a romantic at heart, what could he say.
Fishing for coins, he got himself and Enola each a bun with cranberries on top - and meat on a stick, because he saw the way she was eying those. That meant he had both hands full now - so he’d just start on the bun and chomp away, letting the meat cool off a little (meat on a stick just inspired so many dick jokes - in his head). “Maybe we can write in the journal thing and ask someone to go check in on Crumpet?” he suggested. “There should be people at Skyhold who like, aren’t here.” Kitchen or tavern employees - something like that.
The cat would probably eat mice and bugs and things if push came to shove, but canned cat food had become the go-to. It would probably be heard to switch to hunting for food instead of meowing piteously at the food dish. She made a mental note to write in the journal about that later though. Someone would be able to look out for the little monster.
And thankfully none of her experiments would need tending to for several days. So there was little chance of anything blowing up.
Though maybe she should ask someone to check in on her lab too.
“How long do you think we’ll be here for?”
Well, that was a good question. Richie honestly had no idea - he’d seen it in a vision but, as usual, the vision didn’t tell him anything about the duration. They never were that helpful, or clear cut - big fucking surprise, right?
“Vallo shenanigans usually doesn’t last more than a week, but...” He trailed off, because he had this stomach-twisting feeling that they weren’t going to be following the usual patterns here. “We should plan for being here longer than a week,” Richie finally decided, sinking teeth into the meat and ripping off a piece. “We’ll find Max and cram ourselves into the room, I’ll keep telling fortunes, it’ll be fine.”
Somehow. Probably. They weren’t going to starve, at any rate. Maybe they’d get buried by lava erupting from an ancient volcano, but they’d die with a full tummy.
If there was a volcano in ancient Vallo, Enola was pretty sure they would have heard about it by then. Either from the locals, the beginning sounds of such a thing happening in the days preceding it or in history books in the future. They never exactly erupted without warning from what she knew. People just ignored or didn’t know the signs of one coming. Earthquakes were another matter entirely though.
He was probably right about the length of time and what they should do though. Considering his vision quests or whatever they were called, Enola knew Richie could see the future--or past in this case. So she trusted his insight there.
“Well. At least it’ll give us a chance to try out the various foods here.” Hopefully there were more that were as delicious as the cranberry buns.
“That’s the spirit - I like your optimism,” Richie chuckled. Not that Enola was the type to complain about much (no, she was English, stiff upper lip and all of that) - and besides, they couldn’t do much about this predicament anyway. It was decidedly out of their hands and within the hands of probably others who knew more about actual time travel.
He followed up the visit to the cranberry bun mecca with a visit to roasted corn, subsequently following his nose - it usually didn’t lead him astray. “You know humans can’t digest corn? Well, not the outer shell part of the kernels - the inner part can be broken down. It’s weird,” he shared as he got them two ears of the good stuff, one for him and one for Enola. Maybe he shouldn’t get into undigested corn and actual shit though - that wasn’t the type of conversation one had with the kid they were guardianshipping. Probably would just elicit a “that’s so gross” or something.
“Alright, now pick out some flowers? Let’s get smelling fresh and floral.” Because yeah. They didn’t have a ton of options when it came to changing clothes, and no machine with detergent - they’d have to find a river and beat their laundry on some rocks which sounded less than appealing.
“It does end up filling you up for a significant amount of time though. Which is why its added to quite a few meals now I think.” And it wasn’t too difficult to grow. Though she preferred potatoes for more filling foods. At least when they were cooked correctly with actual seasoning and butter. A lot could be made to taste better with butter.
“We’ll survive this just fine,” Enola agreed though as she directed Richie toward where the flower stand she’d seen was located. They had enough wits between them to do so and between his ability to earn them money and her ability to easily hide among groups of people Enola wasn’t too worried about them getting by. She was a little more worried about Max, but Richie was right. He was probably a little more used to this time period.
He was busy nomming on that ear of corn - because Richie had been hungrier than he thought. Before heading to the bazaar, they hadn’t really stopped to have a meal - it was basically just being yeeted into the past, figuring out what the fuck (though admittedly they didn’t have a ton of answers for that yet), and scrambling to find a safe place to hunker down in. Some preferred to stay in the more ‘bustling’ city, others took to the forest - same as at home in modern Vallo, really.
Everything felt a lot more precarious and not so cushy though - that may be due to the fact that they weren’t given a free apartment right away, or a thousand bucks to recklessly spend in a ‘so you’ve been kidnapped to another world’ depression.
The journals were fine though. Richie was glad for those - wasn’t much, but it was something. “Okay, ‘Nola - are these cool?” he asked, bending to sniff what looked like windflowers. They came in a variety of colors - blue and pink and red, same with the other type of flowers near them which looked like daisies; they were star-shaped, some kind of wildflower. “Not as good as deodorant, but we’ll make do.”
Enola nodded her approval, pointing out to the merchant which ones she wanted as well. Pins or strings would work well to secure them to their clothes and she had already procured several of those for any mishaps with clothing. They should probably hold off on buying too much more though. Attracting attention to having a good bit of money wouldn’t work well in their favor. People would be watching who to try and follow home to relieve them of their coin. And while she was skilled in hand to hand and he had his ring, Enola really didn’t feel like tangling with any locals if they didn’t need to.
“Are you ready to go?”
It was a smart move, to not draw attention to themselves - they didn’t look like they were rolling in dough, however, throwing coins around said otherwise. But now they had eaten and weren’t going to risk being all hangry, Richie was good to go.
“All set,” he nodded, taking some of those flowers and practically burying his nose in the petals to get a whiff. Ahh. Smelled so fresh and clean, like the grass and springtime. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
Maybe it didn’t matter, and Max would still want to touch him even if he smelled like cow poop and a state of general unwashing (more than touching wasn’t an option, not if they were all sharing a room - maybe they could steal a moment behind a thatched-roofed cottage or something) but regardless. Richie still wanted to be prepared. Just call him Trashmouth Tozier, Always Prepared.