[ShoppingCartEngineer]

Clay couldn't help but smile at the leader's juvenile confidence. It would probably the only thing that would let these little guys succeed on their escapade. Still grinning, the engineer puts his hand over the boy's head and ruffles his .

"É bom ouvir, garoto. Boa Sorte Vá com Deus."

The engineer was satisfied that the dazed little boy responded lucidly to his pats of encouragement. From his prior behavior, it seemed like he was suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress. In the hectic moments in getting off the ship, the kid managed to muse about his desire to reach home. Clay really doubted that he was going home anytime soon. Where had the slavers even found this kid? Moony had mentioned mirrors, but the engineer thought that those must've been some kind of hallucination. These slaving ships drove many into insanity. Perhaps from the wreckage of an English ship? The direction that this ship had came from was the exact opposite direction of where the English and Spanish Armadas would duke it out. He would've pondered the thought further, but was interrupted by yet another child. Although, it seemed that these two girls were a little taller than the rest. Most definitely older. They wanted to be lifted to the deck, claiming that they would be able to steer. This would require another tool of sorts. Repeating what he had done before, the engineer lifted a single finger and asked the party to wait.

"请稍等一下。"

Clay bounded towards the only opening and vaulted himself through. It only took about half a minute before a primitive wooden ladder was slid down into the compartment. It was apparent that this ladder was made specifically for the purpose of getting in and out of the space.

"不要再拖延了。来吧！You too, kid."

[zapdragon555]

Dozens of collective gazes all looked up at the ladder as it came down, several eyes going wide. They all began to chatter amongst themselves loudly, shifting around to try to get to it, before the seemingly-leader of the bunch yelled over them to get their attention.

"Eu posso cortar seus laços! Por favor, se comportem. Uma vez que eles são cortados, suba a escada," he said, once all was relatively quiet. Moony could feel the hope beginning to emanate around the room, his posture seeming to rise slightly as he looked up the ladder. The Portuguese was lost on him, but he knew what a ladder was. Moony gripped the rungs and began to climb, followed by a few children whose bonds had already been cut.

However, the bright light and new environment of the upper deck was something else. Moony covered his eyes for a few moments, trying to get used to the sensations that he'd begun to forget. It didn't take long. He looked back to see the two fisherman's daughters climb up the ladder, their sharp eyes looking about for signs of the ship's wheel. The younger of the two seemed to spot it first, and ran for it. The older one seemed wary, but after seeing the lack of captors on the ship, followed her.

Moony blinked around at the fairly deserted ship, then up at Clay, curious. "None of the bad men are here anymore. Did you chase them off?" he asked. Their sunnier situation seemed to be making his manner of speech a bit smoother, though still as halting and quiet as ever.

[ShoppingCartEngineer]

Clay jumped up from the ladder and fluidly landed onto the ships deck. With keen eyes, the engineer observed the surrounding area for any potential threats. None. Only the two fisherman girls that had been discussed earlier. As they walked by, Clay gave a small nod to acknowledge their presence. It was an unspoken thanks. Down below, the murmurs and voices of the one chained children could begun to be heard. Some of them started to spill out onto the deck, inhabiting the area that was once barred from them. Clay decided it would be a good time to leave.

Moony had asked about the Portuguese slavers that'd oversaw the slave children. Clay was about to say something until the man hit his boot on an unseen fleshy mass. On queue, it seemed, was the one body of the sailor he had electrocuted. The inflating and deflating of his chest showed that he was still alive, but unconscious. Clay let out an exasperated sigh, and with much effort was able to lug the heavy man over his shoulders.

"We won't be dealing with them for a while. I've just gotta get this guy off the boat before he wakes up."

It was a slow trip down the wooden ramp, just to make sure Clay didn't lose his balance and break both his spine and the sailor's. Eventually they did get down, letting Clay throw the unconscious oaf onto a crate of some sort and escape. He grabbed the younger boy's hand and pulled him along. The engineer's eyes darted from right to left. This was close to ending terribly.

"Kid- Don't stray away from me. We've got to get out of this city. I promise an explanation, but only in safety. My skin is too dark for the liking of the Portuguese populace, and they'll apprehend me without warning. Now stay close, got it?"

[zapdragon555]

Moony noticed the man now as well--he jumped slightly with surprise, as if seeing someone unconscious confused him, and eyed Clay curiously as he hefted the sailor over his shoulder. So he was sleeping... that's what Moony inferred. Even so, he could sense pain locked somewhere deep in the man--maybe that was alright, he tried to reason, shying away from Clay for a few moments. He watched with silent curiosity, ears perking at the sound of the two fisherman's daughters discussing back and forth excitedly. Moony couldn't understand them, but the waves of hope and determination sparking off of them made him smile.

His smile ripped into a gasp as his wrist was grabbed and pulled, his legs locking up but reacting quickly enough to keep him from falling. He jerked against Clay's hold, then froze as Clay spoke to him, blinking slowly with a hollow look in his eyes. Not much of what the man said made sense to Moony--but the urgency in his voice agitated Moony's heart to a frantic, anxious beat. His nails dug into Clay's arm, not responding, but at least it seemed like Moony wasn't going to run off.

[ShoppingCartEngineer]

Clay didn't waste any time dragging Moony through the city in an effort to escape. The streets were quite dirty, and one could smell the inefficient methods of cleaning and disposing of waste. The famed metropolitan cities of the Old World were ages away. Glares from passerby could be seen in Clay's peripheral vision. Some stopped and pointed, gossiping with those who accompanied them.

The engineer could hear some people discussing getting the local guards to investigate. This made Clay's heart drop. He tried to stay stoic, as to not worry the child he had with him. But Clay was awful at this. His breathing was irregular, along with his movements become more jerky and less fluid. He pulled at Moony's arm to subtly speed him up.

The gates out of the city weren't too far off. Only a three minute walk, perhaps. Clay began to think that the potential threat of law enforcement and gossiping bystanders was gone. He thought wrong.  A group of three guards dressed in clunky iron armor held lances in their hands. They were scouting around the streets in search of something. Most likely a suspicious dark skinned man and a boy. Clay's worst fears had suddenly been realized. Out of the corner of his eye he could see them approaching. Closer and closer they drew, their threat looming over the time traveler's head.

"Selvagem! Você está lá! Manta o garoto."

It was time to go. Clay tugged at Moony's arm in a frantic manner and began to bolt down the cobble street. The guards were shocked for a moment, before shouting and scrambling to apprehend the suspects.

[zapdragon555]

Even if Clay had managed to outwardly control his emotional response to the stressful situation, Moony could read him like a book--and not intentionally so. The boy's face was white as a sheet, legs running on instinct and fingernails clinging hard to Clay's arm as he tried to keep up. He was malnourished and exhausted, but neither of those things seemed to matter in the slightest to him in that moment. He ran, without consciously hearing anything around him.

He wouldn't have understood what Clay said, anyhow. Moony cried out a ragged gasp of surprise as Clay yanked on his arm and bolted. "S-stop," he breathed, clawing at Clay's grip furiously despite his quiet voice. "Stop, stop, s-stop! Th-they're--" Moony stopped and looked over his shoulder at the guards chasing them, then decided to cooperate as a flicker of consciousness moved back into his eyes. Right. Running. He could keep doing that.

[ShoppingCartEngineer]

This wasn't the situation Clay had imagined himself in this morning. Running with a poor boy who looks like he's at risk of passing out and dying, along with himself at risk of dying if caught by the guards. The adrenaline would have to keep pumping. Only a few more short blocks until he could lose the guards in the wide open fields.

"C'mon, kid. Just a little longer."

The arch that let citizens exit and enter the walls of the city was only about 50 feet away. The home stretch
The boy was holding up well, despite him looking weak. The stiff leather of his boots wasn't the best to run in. Why the hell didn't he make rocket running shoes? The hard cobble under his feet eventually made way to a slightly softer padded dirt. Clay continued to run down the road. The guards wouldn't chase them into the wilderness, right? They had better things to do.

The surrounding area of the city was conveniently hilly, which offered good cover from the watchtowers that were littered throughout the city walls. Clay made sure that the kid wasn't lagging behind before diving behind the side of a hill. The engineer had to sprawl out and pant for a little bit.

"T- T- The guards aren't g- going to chase us outside the c- c- city."

[zapdragon555]

Moony had no such shoes to speak of, but he seemed used to running on uneven path--or perhaps he just wasn't feeling the pain anymore, or at the very least, not reacting to it. Moony didn't stop running, staying at Clay's side despite his exhaustion. It would catch up with him soon.

As Clay flopped down, Moony staggered aside and dropped to his knees in the grass. His feet were bloodied after all, from the sharp cobblestone rocks, and his eyes looked blank with an unintelligible emotion, his breathing high and thin.

Moony's mirrorlike eyes locked on Clay's downed form, and in a sudden snarl of overwhelm Moony leapt for him, grabbing at the man's hair and trying to pin him down--stress was catching up with him faster than exhaustion, it seemed, as the boy had a startling amount of strength--but could probably fairly easily be overpowered, even in his semi-conscious state of activity.

[ShoppingCartEngineer]

Clay lay splayed out on the grass for a few seconds before rolling over and compacting himself. The engineer sat up and exhaled, turning his head to look at the boy. He frowned for a bit. How long has this kid been in chains? What had the sailors done with him? Anyone would be traumatized from an experience like that. Especially a little boy. Moony, as he called himself, was on the ground in a fetal position, face buried between his knees.

"You alright, kid?"

The answer was no. He remained in the position for a small bit before opening up and lunging at Clay. He could only let out a small gasp before being enveloped in a child-sized grapple. The engineer flailed for a small bit before trying to pry Moony off of his back. As much as he hated to admit it, this child was quite tough for his size. After considerable effort, the man was able to tear him off and push him against the grass. Clay stumbled up, making sure that he wasn't touching the disturbed child. The panting returned.

"What the fuck are you doing? I'm not your enemy. I know you're hurting like hell right about now, but slavery would be infinitely worse."

[zapdragon555]

Moony struggled against Clay's hands as he was forced into the grass, clawing and biting like some feral animal. The moment Clay moved away, he thrashed until he was on his hands and knees again, breathing hard and staring up at something past Clay. Moony stared for a long moment, something behind his eyes completely closed off, before the curtain behind his eyes seemed to open and he blinked back into awareness. All at once he seemed to collapse and draw into himself, his limbs tangling in a protective ball at his chest. "S--sorry... sorry," Moony wheezed out, his voice thin as death. "I didn't mean... I'm sorry..."

It seemed, at least, that Clay had made enough of an impression in Moony's mind as a savior and not an enemy that Moony's remorse was quite real. Even if not a single bit of it registered on his face, which remained slack and neutral even as he cradled his hands close to it. "Didn't mean to..." he added, after a long quiet, then hissed in pain as his feet throbbed. He touched the underside of them and saw the red on his fingertips, his eyes widening with the same glassy fear they'd had when he'd been attacking Clay. "H-hurt--"

[ShoppingCartEngineer]

Clay was panting, and was in the "fight-or-fight" mindset for a split second. He wasn't going to beat up a fucking kid. He wasn't that low. Actually, false. He was sure that there were occasions where he was forced into hitting someone much weaker than him. That aside, it seemed that the child was focusing on something not entirely there. He had that look in his eyes. He wasn't entirely there, in really vague terms. Either he was acting on his own basic instincts, or there was more than meets the eye to this child. The latter would make much more sense. His own intuitions told him that there was something special. What else could disrupt the continuum so much as to pull him out from his own vortex? The emptiness in his pupils seemed to fade, as if he was snapping back into control of his own body. He slumped onto the ground, and seemed to be repentant.

"Nah, d-don't sweat it. I've had more than my fair share of people wanting to rip out my throat."

Clay was still panting. Moony, as he called himself, was concerned with something else. It seemed that the gravely roads didn't take a good toll on the soles of his feet. He forgot that he had no shoes. Fuck. There were plenty of wounds that needed to be treated. He needed to clean them, lest he get an infection. Renaissance streets weren't known for being sanitary, after all. The only thing he had on his as of now was tequila and a couple of bandages. He remembered to bring electric smoke and tasers but nothing pertaining to the advanced medical care that was available in his time. Fucking idiot. Clay pulled out the rudimentary cloth bandages and tore some out. He crumpled it up and put it in the boy's hands.

"Bite on this. This is going to hurt like hell, but I'm only trying to clean the wounds."

Hopefully he wouldn't go out and try to gouge out his eyes again. One could only hope. Clay held one of Moony's feet with a gloved hand, and took his unscrewed flask and started to pour the amber liquid over the red wounds. Poor kid.

[zapdragon555]

Moony's eyes flashed with fear at Clay's words, his fingers lightly touching his throat with a nervous swallow. Little bloodied fingerprints stayed there. "R-rip out..." he started to echo, then eyed Clay very closely as the man crouched down in front of him and handed him a balled up wad of gauze. Moony stared at it, wiped a thumb on its white cotton surface and watched as it bloomed with red.

After a moment, he obeyed the simple command, biting down hard on the wad of gauze and looking up to Clay's face for further direction. When it didn't come, and instead pain came, Moony's entire body tensed. But he kept his teeth bitten down on the cloth as he'd been told, his eyes shimmering with startled tears. Strangely, though, he didn't cry out, despite the whites of his knuckles and grit of his jaw that showed an obvious pain response.

He tore at the grass beside him, his nails stained with green as a result. Better than tearing at Clay.