Milan offers her a hand.

... She takes it a little shly, but she's clearly delighted.

"Thank you," she murmurs, when she's safely on land.

"No problem. So: village?"

"Yes, village." She hums thoughtfully, trying not to dwell on whether or not she should keep hold of his hand or not. She releases it, anyway, because she does not need distractions right now, she needs to figure out the best way to get him (and herself) breakfast without getting detained.

"Perhaps if I were my sister I could come up with some kind of cover story that would make any sense at all, but for the life of me I can't think of anything that would be remotely plausible. I suppose I could just walk in completely unashamed and offer zero explanation and just be the most inexplicable person they've ever seen. If you confuse people enough sometimes they'll just helpfully go along with whatever you're doing, because they don't know what else to do with you."

"Yes, I've found that principle useful a time or two myself."

"Well then! Shall we just be the most confusing and inexplicable people the unsuspecting village has ever seen?" she asks lightly.

"Sounds like fun!"

She smiles, then hooks her arm through his to head off to the village.

They reach the village; it's pretty early, and it's not a very large village. Someone's over there taking down laundry that they neglected to retrieve before going to bed the night before. The someone glances up from folding and promptly stares. Aliveth waves, cheerily.

Milan smiles a bright and friendly smile. He's very good at that.

The woman folding up laundry is really too surprised by them to wave, smile, or call any sort of greeting. She just stares.

"Hello!" calls Aliveth. "Do you happen to know anyone here that would be able to sell us a map?" Aliveth might not have known how to disguise her presence in the town, but she does know how to get what she wants, at least when it comes to trading earrings for food and a map. What she wants is to convert her earrings into coin, but if she were to just wander up to a merchant to peddle them, they'd almost certainly try to swindle her. Well, a good merchant will probably try to swindle her regardless, but they'll have slightly less bargaining room if she forced them to attempt to convince her to part with them.

"Uh? Um. Kaliam's got a shop and might have one there?" says the bewildered woman. "Where did you come fr-"

"Oh, excellent, thank you," says Aliveth, pretending not to hear the question. "Which way is that, and when will it be open?"

"It's, it shouldn't be long now, he likes to keep early hours. At the green building a ways down and to your, your left. Um. Were you attacked by bandits, should I call the elder-?"

"No, no, it's quite all right," assures the princess airily. "We just thought we'd take a nice walk and see your town."

"It's a lovely town," adds Milan.

The woman seems taken aback. "I- I um, well thank you."

"Thank you for your help!" adds Aliveth, smiling prettily. "Do you have many visitors to your lovely town?"

"Uh, not really?"

"Oh, pity, the scenery's so very verdant, especially with the river."

"People, don't really see much reason to come by, um. Why are you here?"

"Well to buy a map of course. Speaking of, I'm sorry, we really must be off, pleasure speaking with you!"

"Wh- but -"

And Aliveth cheerily waves and starts looking for a green building to buy a map at.

Milan cheerily follows. They are so cheery, the two of them. They are filled with cheer.

They are! It's not even entirely fake. Aliveth giggles a little, clearly having fun.

There are a few more people out and about, and they also stare.

"Excuse me, is Kaliam's shop open yet?" asks Aliveth, of one of them.

"Um. Yes?"

"Excellent, thank you very much."

And the green building is located and entered, Aliveth resisting the urge to hum a cheery tune.

Milan has a sunny smile for everyone they pass, and another one for Kaliam.

Kaliam is bewildered, but recovers reasonably quickly. "H-hello, come in, come in," he says, eyeing the mud covered hem of Aliveth's expensive dress, and the scars that crisscross Milan's face, "you look like you've been through a, a misadventure or two. Welcome to our humble village and my even more humble shop. What can I do for you?"

"Do you have a map that you'd be willing to sell us? A cheap one, preferably, we're a bit short on coin."

"Certainly, certainly, what would you like a map of, I'm afraid I don't have much of a selection, but I do have one or two around - but only the best, of course!"

"Of course," agrees Aliveth, easily.

The merchant fetches a map and unrolls it in front of the two of them. Aliveth inspects it with a thoughtful hum.

"Sorry," she says, "I'm just terrible at reading these, I can't seem to find the town's name on it."

"Oh, it's not on here, this is just a humble fishing village. This is a map for seeing countries - we're about..." he trails his finger down a squiggly line labelled the Milardes, and then points triumphantly at a completely unassuming spot on it. "Here, we're about here."

"Oh, goodness," says Aliveth, drawing a hand to her mouth. "I didn't know we'd travelled that far from Graypoint." Which is of course not the nearest labelled city on the map, but one a bit further away. Unlike the closer city, she's actually been to Graypoint. Once. For a terrible, terrible party. "Do you think we could get to Wealdmere in two days...?" Wealdmere of course being a town that is in the direction to Graypoint, and consequently nowhere near Kivenne. Because Aliveth would rather come off as a lost, vapid noble than a lost, kidnapped princess trying to get back to her country.

She's moved from holding Milan's arm to holding his hand, and gently squeezes it when she says two days. She hopes he gets the message about how long it'll take them to get to Kivenne, but if he doesn't, she'll let him know later.

"Travelling by foot? ... Maybe. If the weather's nice and you don't mind a lot of walking."

"And if we don't get lost again," 'muses' Aliveth, looking 'longingly' at the map.

"Getting lost is no fun," Milan agrees. "Well. Very little fun."

Oh, he's fleshing out her silly vapid noble story with why they are lost in the woods. Excellent. She is entirely justified in being completely in love with this man. Even if she's trying not to have visuals of trying to persuade him to actually have that brand of fun with her while lost in the wilderness.

She giggles a not entirely affected giggle. "I think we made the most of it."

"Right," says the merchant loudly. "Well, I'll part with the map for four hundred dinars -"

"Four hundred?!" cries Aliveth, at this entirely reasonable sum from a merchant selling a fragile uncommon commodity in an isolated community, acting like she has never actually had to deal with the realities of not having enough money for something in her life. Instead of being the princess that knows a startling amount about economics. "In the city I could buy a map for half that!"

"Well, this isn't the city. If you'd like to buy one there at that price you can feel free. If you can find it."

Aliveth huffs, affronted. "We are perfectly capable of finding it if we have a map. Just. How treacherous is the road?" Fidgeting is already a bad habit of hers, she finds it perfectly natural to turn this habit towards fidgeting with her earrings.

"It can sometimes be rather hard to place," says Kaliam, noticing the earrings and giving them an assessing look. For his part, he sees a chance to play on a vapid noble's fears and earn himself a prize. "There are a few hunting trails that cross through it, I've known some people to get them mixed up and find themselves lost in the wilderness for a while."

"Oh dear," mutters Aliveth. She glances at Milan, acting nervous, "Do you think we could afford it if we sold some of our supplies and still have enough to get there?"

"We could probably manage it... then again, look what happened the last time I said that," he says ruefully.

"It's not your fault," assures Aliveth, because that's what a lovestruck noble would say. She knows because that's what the love potion wants her to say.

"Still," she muses, fidgeting with the earrings a second time. "I'd like to have a better safety net up if we get lost again..."

"Might I offer an alternative?"

"Yes?"

"You could, perhaps, use something else valuable as collateral."

Aliveth stares at him, blankly, then pretends to have understanding dawn on her. She pulls her hand away from her ear, as if insulted. "These were a gift from my mother!" They even were, but Aliveth doesn't think for a second that either of her mothers would hesitate to put her life over petty jewelry. Still, it'll get her a better deal if she has to be talked into trading them away. Getting what the earrings are actually worth isn't happening, not in a village so small it isn't even on the map, but she can squeeze some fraction of their actual value from this merchant.

"I'm not speaking of selling them," says the merchant, backtracking quickly. "You can come back with the money to pay for the map and whatever supplies you might like later, and then I'll return them."

She makes a show of thinking about it and hesitating, looking at Milan again. Partly because it's in character, partly because really, he's such a fantastic partner for this and she adores him.

Milan looks hesitant, on the verge of mildly suspicious.

"I don't know... will we even be able to find this place again? It's not on the map!"

Aliveth is completely aware that she's under the effects of a love potion. She knows that at a minimum, at least 60% of what she's feeling is fake, and should be ignored or set aside in favor of the current set of tasks. For example: she should not do anything about how she now desperately wants to marry this brilliant, brilliant man. Nothing at all. Even if they'd be fantastic together. And they would be, because look at him, he's just so amazing.

"I travel to Wealdmere during the spring. If you can't find the village you could find me there."

"That's not very specific. And you could have sold them by time we find you!"

"Would you rather get lost in the woods without a map as your supplies dwindle away, or lose a pair of earrings?"

Aliveth makes a face, but pretends to crack. She demands an outrageous sum to go along with the map, to be paid back for the earrings, then the merchant offers a counter solution, and the haggling begins.

Milan and Aliveth walk out of the shop with enough food supplies for a week, two canteens, two bedrolls, a map, two hundred dinars, and a pack to carry them all in. She waves cheerily at confused villagers, arm in arm with Milan.

Milan beams at everyone as they leave the village.

She loves him so very much, but she's not going to do a thing about it until they're out of the village and by their hidden boat.

"That was," she says, smiling, "amazing."

"It was fun! I, um, apologize about the - implications I threw at him, but I thought it would help sell the story."