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After saving him from plunging to his doom for the seventh time in three minutes, Elika sighs. "Could you at least pretend to care about your well-being?"
"Princess, pretending is dishonest. And I would never be--did you just snort at me?" He cranes his neck around to eye her from where he's half-perched on a railing.
"No," she says, primly.
His face suggests a sense of skepticism on his part, but he turns back to his task nonetheless. On their way out of the Machinery Ground, he'd caught sight of two light seeds high up on suspended platforms and decided to get them. Getting onto the platforms, however, proved to be more trouble than he'd anticipated.
She'd flinched the first few times he'd fallen. It was ridiculous; he fell more often than he quipped. But Elika, heavy with too-recent memories of his skin oozing black and eyes hazy with pain, found watching him gamble with his life had become inexplicably harder. Fortunately he seems determined to numb her through repetition.
He balances on the railing, shifting his feet for maximum leverage, and springs into the air toward the platform.
And passes several feet below it, cursing imaginatively. Swelling with light, she reaches out and catches his wrist, tossing him back to their landing.
"We should move onto the next fertile ground. We haven't much time."
"Right! In just a minute."
"Ahriman--"
"Is still mostly trapped. Sort of. Mostly. These light things make you feel better?"
"Well, yes--"
"Which makes you less likely to swoon every time you heal something--"
"I do not swoon--"
"--which is good enough reason to take an extra minute to grab them!" He flings himself at a dangling column, skidding under a roof to try and angle himself better. Lips pursed, she sweeps out to catch him when he's rejected by a ceiling ring.
"I might not need as many light seeds if I wasn't constantly having to catch you."
"Nah, that can't be it." He eyes the platforms critically, pacing the railing in a way that has her gathering light in preparation. "You can't just, I don't know, float me where I need to go?"
"It doesn't work like that."
"Of course it doesn't. Why make life easy?"
"I'm sorry; I'll be sure to ask Ormazd for more helpful abilities next time," she says, voice dry.
He laughs. "Finally you say something sensible." After a thorough study of his destination, he drops his weight to his heels and gives her a hopeful smile. "Any more wisdom, Princess?"
"You're not close enough."
"... Thank you. Your input is invaluable."
She rolls her eyes and waves a hand toward a lower section of the wall. "See those rings? Try from down there."
He perks and shoots off with renewed energy. She braces herself for the heavy crack of his skull against something.
He launches up the wall rings, forcing another step or two higher before diving backwards with complete abandon. With an added push from her power, he catches his gauntlet on the edge and manages to scramble on top with a crow of delight that she's sure rouses Ahriman from back in the Temple.
He lands in a crouch before her on his triumphant return, a light seed in each hand. He holds them out with a deeply satisfied grin, gaze catching and holding her own. "For you, Elika."
The seeds fill her with a liquid warmth that tightens her throat and causes pleased tingles deep in her belly. Yes. The seeds.
"Thank you," she says. "... Let's hurry."
"Of course," he murmurs, and does nothing of the sort.