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OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY, DYSENTERY SHOULD NOT BE AFFECTING THEM THIS MUCH, THIS IS RIDICULOUS, HE THOUGHT. THIS IS AN IC POST.

Did he know that dropping food is a sign of early dysentery before this?

And so did she.

The rousing speech (or monologue, or runaway train of thought, whichever it may have been) captivated all of Mildred's attention. He seemed to have a passion for this in his tone, even when his voice fluctuated between quite loud and an irritable muttering; if this was important to him, it was only right that she respectfully listened. He had certainly earned that.

"But are they the plague?" she thoughtfully inquired, remembering how unsettled she'd felt at her obvious lack of belonging in the knighthood, truly incomparable to how easily she understood the darkness. "What if the world beyond is precisely as you say it is? What if our foe was not truly our for all along? We have been knowingly sent into the lands surrounding this kingdom, in spite of the unseen disease that we cannot seem to avoid, time and time again. We recover, and we are sent unprepared to face it once more. What is to say that we are not the pawns of the wrong kingdom? What if we are falling ill for serving the wrong King?"

She picked at Moon's reins and stared off into the distance, wondering about that blurry word outside of this realm. She couldn't remember it any more. What evidence was there that they had not been lied to? Tricked into believing what was most beneficial for the King and no one else?

She knew her own answer to that, of course. It was not the King who ever made her believe she belonged here. Not at all.

He managed to keep hold of Galaxy's reins, and the horse did a fine job of pulling him back to safety, with only one single roll escaping the satchel and rolling down into the cliffs below. He laid on the floor for a moment, contemplating how close he'd come to death, and then he lifted one finger to exclaim, in a surprisingly joyful manner;

"Still not dysentery!"

Then he got up onto his feet, mounted Galaxy once more, and merrily rode on his way. Anything was better than dysentery - even almost splattering on the bottom of a ravine.

Her thoughts had grown significantly darker as they rode on, as her mind followed a path that she had not yet considered. Many of the solutions to the problems that presented themselves - questions of allegiance, of honor, of choice - came easily. Some didn't seem worth the sacrifice.

As she questioned once more why she had ever possibly agreed to become a knight at all, Robert went flying off of Galaxy and into the ravine in front of them. Horrified, she abandoned these considerations for a priority that came easiest of all, and rushed to peer over the edge in search of him.

This was complicated by the sudden swoop of a large raven, whose nest she'd just disturbed. But ravens were so simple to kill, when their reckless attacking brought them consistently within range to capture. She didn't even have to draw her weapon, and the crunch of its bones beneath her fingers came with an efficiency that implied she might have done this before.

Impassively dropping it onto the ground beside her, she looked over the edge once more, where Robert announced his survival by victoriously avoiding dysentery.

She laughed, pleasant and cheerful, as she wiped her hands on her dress.

Though she welcomed riding alongside him (or directly in front of him, rather, their bodies pressed closely together, which she tried to ignore in an effort to approach this quest as professionally as possible), Moon was not quite so pleased at the invitation. Of their two horses, she was undeniably smaller, but she carried the burden nonetheless.

Robert's arms had snaked firmly around Mildred's waist, as they rode quietly together towards their next conquest. Or was that the snakes that they'd just triggered while walking over a booby trap?

No, it was his arms. The snakes couldn't reach up past the horse.

Still, they rode faster to get away from those biting, snapping faces, which just gave him even more excuse to tighten his grip around her so they wouldn't fall. Excuses, excuses.

Step Three reroll