Sett thanked Alice for boosting him on to the horse, rather pleased with how events had turned out as she mounted it again herself. And it was nice to be sitting in close proximity to a reasonably attractive woman, mind you. It just happened that he would be far more focused on the contents of her Elven sack...

Or so he'd thought at the time. As it happened, many factors prevented him from even making a pass toward the damn thing: Alice's continuing proximity to the Dwarf Geradin, the fact that good heaving Gods these horses were just [i]awful[/i] on the hindquarters at a gallop, and the realisation maybe a quarter way through the journey that, yes, if the Elves were keeping an eye on their creatures, they'd sure as anything espy him if he made so much as an attempt to filch something from his trusting ally.

In the end, he simply kept his hands on her shoulders and held on for dear life until the creatures slowed to a halt. The initial dramatic slowdown simply had him fall forward into Alice's back, preventing him from falling forward. And on the other hand, the subsequent rising of their steed to a frankly obnoxious angle was more than enough to throw the inexperienced priest off, and only just avoiding pulling Alice off with him. Sett landed hard on his back, the wind being knocked out of him for a rather substantial time period, and by the time he'd managed to get his breathing under control and rise back up, the horses were gone once more. And what a pity, for how useful they'd be over the less dense woodland before them...

Oh look, somebody new. This woman was... well, young, for a hermit, as opposed to Ursaren's great age. And the inexperience showed, for she was thinner than Settionne himself, without the lean muscle to back it up nor the clothing to protect her from harm or indecent scrutiny. But, judging by the circle of displaced rocks and twigs surrounding her, she definitely had [i]something[/i] for that purpose. Magic, mayhaps? Who could say? Her, most likely, and it seemed the Scalie... wait, no, the [i]Skaylay[/i] was going to talk to her first. That was fine, really. Let him interrogate her, make himself out to be the bad guard at first light, and he could swoop in after the half-Giant was done to be the good guard who gently encouraged her to spill her guts, rather than threatening to spill her actual guts.

In the meantime, he espied some smoke over the treeline. Oh, [i]good.[/i] Another unavoidable fight, most likely. Sett took a step, stumbled over his aching legs, then hobbled the rest of the way towards Alice, patting her on the shoulder and pointing at the smoke once her attention was garnered. 'Now, Madame, you are a highly educated woman, if you don't mind my saying so,' he said to her quite jovially, subtly downplaying his own reasonable teaching - he was a priest, after all, and he was fairly certain he'd been informed more thoroughly than the average peasant. 'By your estimate, would you say that that smoke beyond yonder horizon is of the right quality to have been generated by, say... dragonfire?'

[@POOHEAD189][@The Fated Fallen][@Banana][@Fetzen][@Sypherkhode822]