Welcome to Gaia! ::

She hadn't expected any fanfare or outbursts of gratitude - reflecting upon the first two carvings she'd given away had brought her to the realization that there was a significant chance that neither of them really meant what they'd said to her about them. While this at least partially absolved her of some guilt over the luck and immortality troubles, it had been nice to feel that she was contributing, and any ambiguity about the validity of their kind words lent ambiguity to her usefulness as well.

She hadn't expected anything, but she watched him nonetheless, her eyes following the charm all the way to his heart.

No, his chest.

No--wait, which was less incriminating?

In her flustered confusion, she continued staring vacantly in his direction, even as she rode directly into a nest of bees.

The gasp of fright from Mildred when she felt her body collide with Robert's waiting arm nearly sucked in a bee, which was only deterred by the flowering wisteria adorning her hair. Though everything had gone dark, presumably because he'd covered her with something, she could hear the buzzing continue, even as he dismounted and moved aside, until it all finally faded away.

When the daylight met her eyes again, she blinked away the blur as best she could, until she returned to her standard level of unfocused clarity.

"Are you?" she asked, fingertips brushing one of the swelling sites. "Immune to what, precisely? It certainly does not appear that you are immune to an insect's stings."

As she caught the sight just past him of Moon and Galaxy pressing onward together, she wore a pained little smile - they made a very suitable team, it seemed. A team that was carrying off the majority of the rations she'd brought to sustain all of them on this journey.

He would rather they stung him? He cared about his physical appearance, and put a tremendous amount of value into external attractiveness, but prioritized his appearance below someone who didn't pay any mind to her own? Mildred's brow furrowed as she squinted up at him, trying to discern at a glance if he might be somehow ill or feverish.

"Yes. They have all retreated." That was a lie: she could still see one entangled in his hair, its secret exposed when the darkness within it that didn't match his light. With a motion that could easily be mistaken for a simple brush of her fingers through his hair, she plucked it out and slipped it into the pouch at her side. It nearly resulted in getting herself stung - she hadn't accounted for the possibility that he would continue to carry her, and she jerked her hand out of the small satchel and awkwardly pressed her body against him, heart racing at her narrow brush with what would have been a telltale injury.

"You want to be my steed," she reiterated, more a vaguely incredulous statement than a question. "Then I should hope that you are willing to make up for my lack of ability."

She was teasing, but still meant this all in the most earnest possible sense, without once considering that there could be a duality to what she was saying to him, even as she began to elaborate.

"I am nowhere near an adequate level of mastery for riding a horse, let alone a fellow knight. My coordination is severely lacking." An idea sprung to the front of her mind, and there was a physical lurch of activity from the slender frame in his arms as she perked up to relate it to him. "Perhaps I could be your riding partner! Would that be feasible? Do you think that is allowed? I could be seated in the location most comfortable and unhindered for you, of course..."

The words had been on her tongue since he last spoke, but she held them there until he had managed to bring both of them to safer grounds again.

"For a man with such strong convictions about the particulars of safety in dangerous endeavors, that does not seem especially safe." With a thoughtful frown, she paused, then tilted her head up to look at him. "Not for you, at least."

Her hand absently clutched at the cloth of the artifact they'd come to retrieve, and she briefly fell silent in thought again.

"Are you certain that you want such an impediment?" Because she was. No matter how she framed it, she was, unless their numbers charged into a battle of wits. "You seek to permanently hinder yourself in all facets of your being, to lessen your capabilities, solely for the sake of holding onto me?"