“Hot… little redheads?” The mage’s brows furrowed at that, the feeling that he was very much missing something whispering in the back of his head. Geo’s tone indicated a joke of some type, so perhaps it wasn’t terribly important - at the very least, some of the tension from before had disbursed, allowing both master and servant to relax a little. Unlike his previous masters, unrelenting and merciless men as they’d been, Geo seemed to be rather laid back. It was both a strange and welcome change, though Khalid would need to grow accustomed to it.
Much like everything else, truthfully. At least this was a more pleasant addition to his list of learning experiences. Perhaps he’d get lucky this time…
Don’t get too comfortable though, his mind whispered, for there was no telling if his current master’s personality had some different colours hiding beneath the surface.
He straightened a little at the question, giving a small nod before replying, “Yes. It is… a very long story, but I was… essentially taken, as a boy. Trained. Towards the end, I was told that if I performed one final task, I would gain my freedom, but… as you can probably tell, that was untrue.”
His eyes fell then, to the ice pack in his hands, though his gaze wasn’t truly focused upon it. Instead, his mind hand wandered back to days from his boyhood, before his illness, and when he’d still been in Mana’s care. Gods, how he longed to return to those days even now, despite the impossibility of it all. He wanted to see her again.
“I could not tell you how long its been since then, but until you woke me, I… went between servitude and sleep. I can only assume that my last slumber was my longest. I… likely would have remained forgotten, had you not woken me.” Lifting his head now, Khalid’s gaze met with the taller man again, strands of black hair tumbling past his shoulders with the movement, “And I will remain as such, until you should choose to seal me once more.”
“Then of course, breaking it would kill you. Hm.”
He leaned back against the counter, crossing one arm over his broad chest to support his elbow, as he cradled the mug in his hand. His mind flicked quickly through a number of options, though none of them seemed truly feasible - he didn’t understand enough about whatever bound this poor boy’s soul to really know his options.
“We can carbon date your tablet. That tells us which year it was when it was made... more or less. Some other tests might even tell us how long it’s been since someone last handled it, which’d tell us when you last woke up, if you care about that sort of thing... Miki’s working on the first one, now. It’d tell us what era we were looking at, the kind of spells and enchantments they would have used...” He rubbed his thumb against the glass, absently, as he explained himself. “We thought, maybe, we could... untie you, or something. But I suspected that wouldn’t be the case. I hoped I wasn’t right, but... well.”
He took a long drink from the mug, moving around the counter to seat himself near Khalid. He sighed as he did, easing himself down. For having just woken, he felt... tired.
He could only imagine how Khalid himself felt.
“Point is, I don’t want to seal you again. Or command you, or... any of that. Breaking curses is what we do. It’s why I was in that tomb, and you got unsealed. This is... probably one of the most complex curses I’ve ever seen, thanks to it’s age, but... with your help. maybe it won’t matter. Maybe we could get you out of that tablet... for good. They promised you freedom, right?”
He glanced at him, smiling softly again.
“What do you say about trying to get it, finally?”