THE MOMENT
"PROFESSOR!!!!" Elton brushed quicker and more gently to clear the dust off the shape. He was ecstatic, and untrained. But, he made a concerted effort to not grab the item off the ground and wave it around in victory. It was obviously a weapon, a small dagger of some sort.
"No way!" The other students began to gather around Elton's spot and watched with fascination as he continued clearing the loose dirt.
"My oh my!" Professor Thompson broke through the crowd and knelt next to Elton. "You've made quite a find," he chuckled. The old professor derived a great deal of joy from watching his students get excited about archeology. From time to time he was known to plant ancient, inconsequential knick-knacks for some of his more withdrawn students to find. But, he hadn't planted this one, and Elton definitely did not fall into the 'withdrawn' category. It was genuine excitement for everyone involved.
He waited patiently while Elton cleared more and more dust off the old blade until it was as clean and visible as it was going to get right then and there. There were procedures in place to take care of the long-forgotten items.
"Is that blood?" Elton asked. The metal looked somewhat brittle, and there was a notable dark red concentration near the tip.
"It may be!" Professor Thompson nodded. He liked to share at least a little wonder with the kids when he could. Although, he was always quick to temper it with reality. "I suspect it's likely to be oxidation, but we shouldn't discount any possibility until we know for sure."
"UGH, Geeze!" Elton huffed with overdramatic flair as he crossed his arms. The rest of the students had been chatting, but they stopped instantly at Elton's outburst. "Some Archeology professor you are, you can't even identify a relic on sight!" he said. The crowd laughed, everyone knew he wasn't serious.
"You'll forgive me, Elton. Unlike yourself, I don't actually know everything," he replied.
"Oh, that's your excuse for everything," he chuckled and the professor grinned. "... but, seriously. What happens now?"
"It will be carefully moved to a lab and studied. If it has any historical value, you will of course be recognized as the person that found it."
"What about the blood?" Elton asked. The professor stood, because his knees were as old as he was, and Elton stood up too. They were done digging in the dirt, and it was almost time to go back to school anyway.
"The stains that might be rust, or something else, will of course be studied as well. Within a few months, we should know everything about it."
"MONTHS!?" Elton asked. He was the only one outraged at the timeframe, the rest of the students had returned to their own digs to collect their tools.
"If we're lucky," the professor smiled. "Unfortunately, a high school's lucky find isn't quite as important as actual archeological research and there are so few labs that specialize in this kind of thing," he said.
"Fiiiiiine...," Elton sighed and knelt to get his tools as well.
---[Two months later.]---
"Oh wow," Kathy giggled as she ran tests on an ancient dagger.
"What's that?" Dennis, her lab partner asked idly. He was working through his own list of items.
"This knife is totally covered in unicorn blood," she said. She glanced over at the file to double-check its origin. "Huh, some high school kid found it," she laughed some more.
"Do they know about unicorns?" Dennis asked.
"No...," Kathy answered as she read the headers on the file. "... they don't know about Fae and, apparently Chroma Corp. says we can't tell them either," she shrugged. The file had its originating Earth, as well as their knowledge status regarding the multiverse.
"Aww, bummer. Poor kid," Dennis shrugged as well.
"Yeah, it would've been exciting...," Kathy nodded as she began filling in the report to send back to the school. "...it's significantly more boring that it's just regular human blood not worth looking into."