Patience and practice

Never, in his wildest fantasies, did Perry think he'd ever be roaming the halls of a Palace, looking for a library. 

He wasn't, admittedly, the life of any party. He also wasn't, by anyone's measure, a model student. He'd barely scraped by in school and his grades were nowhere good enough for him to go to a 'good' university. Even if they were, he had no way of affording the cost of higher education. 

So he'd begged off any more celebrating after the mid-morning feast, the floating dancers and underwater acrobats - even if seeing those people contort their bodies in impossible ways while floating in giant bubbles of water was more than entertaining -, then the midday feast, even more floating dancers accompanied by singers, and, finally, the end-of-day feast. 

That morning, Perry's stomach had been practically glued to the back of his spine he was so hungry. Now, as the sun was setting, he felt like he'd be faster if he lay on the ground and rolled down the hall. 

And, because being constantly watched by the Clan Leader - who he could no longer call Long Beard -, the Queen, and his bodyguard's intense green eyes made him very uncomfortable, he'd slipped away the first opportunity he got. He'd even managed to get away from his bodyguard. Or so he thought. 

"My plan was to watch from a distance," a smooth voice called from behind him. Perry stopped in the middle of the hall and squeezed his eyes shut. "But you have walked down this same hallway three times now."

Perry cracked one eyelid open and glanced at the painting hanging on the wall to his right. It did look familiar. Annoyed at himself, Perry grumbled out a curse.

"How are you so quiet?" He asked his bodyguard without turning around. "You're way too big to move without making a single sound."

Perry refused to point out that the fault for not noticing the other man was probably his, since he lacked any sort of skill when it came to being stealthy or detecting it. But he was allowed to be angry at this man who kept following him around and didn't give him a chance to stop and think if he really could be Perry's ally or just another person using him to get what they wanted. 

"Practice. And patience." That time, Perry did hear his footsteps as the man moved closer to him. 

"You know, leaving you behind was a hint. I want some privacy." Perry kept walking without looking back. When he reached the end of the hall, he glanced first to the left, then to the right. Which way had he gone last time? Right? He was pretty sure he'd gone down the corridor to his right. So he chose to go down the left one. 

"Privacy in this place is dangerous. Even with your short time here, have you not learned that already?" 

"The world is dangerous," Perry answered as he kept on walking. He glanced at a statue of a bird with its wings spread open and long tail up in the air that glowed softly. It looked familiar. Perry paused in his examination of the bird, running over the other man's words in his head. He turned and found his bodyguard five steps behind him, both hands clasped behind his back. "What do you mean 'my short time here'?" There was no way this man knew Perry wasn't the real prince. Was there? "I was born in this Palace."

Or, at least, that's what the Queen and the Clan Leader had told him. His bodyguard tilted his head to the side and studied him with those unnerving eyes. They were unnaturally green. It made Perry uneasy. 

"That seems to be true, but you are not convinced it is not a lie," the other man said. 

"What… What does that even mean?" He asked before he could stop himself. Then he huffed out a breath. "Never mind."

He straightened his spine and started walking down the corridor again. He needed time to think. Some space to breathe. And he needed a decent night's sleep. None of which looked to be in his immediate future. 

When he reached the end of that corridor, Perry chose to go left again. His neck prickled with the awareness of the man following silently behind him. Perry's annoyance grew steadily with each step he took. 

Still, he couldn't help but appreciate the irony. In the real world, Perry was a loner - no friends, no family, and co-workers who barely tolerated him. And here, in this bizarre alternate reality, he couldn't find a moment to himself. 

His annoyance bubbled over into anger when he walked past the same painting for, apparently, the fourth time. He turned around to glare at his supposed bodyguard. 

"You knew I was going in a circle again, didn't you?" Perry asked. 

The other man shrugged one shoulder. "I am not yet familiar with the layout of this Palace, but I suspected."

Perry sighed and scratched the back of his head. "I don't suppose you'd know where a library would be hiding, would you?"

"Library?"

"I need information on…" Perry couldn't say 'this world' without giving away his identity to someone who probably already suspected he wasn't the real prince. "The Golden Light Temple. The… impersonator… well, I don't suppose you know about that, but it's not important. Anyway, this person came from The Golden Light Temple and I want to know more about one of the techniques he used."

"Which technique did he use?" 

It occurred to Perry that even though he hadn't seen his so-called bodyguard use magic, that didn't mean he couldn't. "Hold on, do you also do magic?"

The other man blinked at him. "Do magic?"

"Yes, like wave your fingers in the air and force people to follow you around, or shoot sparkly lights out of your fingers that set carts on fire? Do you do any of that?" Perry would rather find out now if that was the case. 

The other man opened and closed his mouth. Paused, looked to the side, and seemed to consider his words before finally answering, "I would have to know more about these… sparkly lights, but the previous magic you described sounds similar to the Puppet Technique."

"Do you do that?" Perry hoped he didn't sound as panicked as he felt. He couldn't let a man who could control his body with the flick of a finger follow him around everywhere. Just the thought…

Perry swallowed and tried to bite back on the memories of feeling completely powerless. 

"I know of the technique, but I find it rather pointless." Another one-shouldered shrug.

Perry frowned. "Why?"

The other man's smile was slight and, in Perry's opinion, a bit deranged. "I find that getting people to do exactly what you want is a matter of patience. And practice."

Perry swallowed again. Why did that somehow sound worse?