For as unnerved as the small estate made Rene, and it was small compared to what she had seen owned by Dukes, Earls, Counts, Viscounts, and the like, it helped to calm the quell inside Solae. Admittedly it was not as sprawling as the towering structure that her parents had purchased on New Concordia, but it [i]felt the same[/i]. Outside these walls everything was foreign, terrifying, and threatening. Inside were the tattered remains of a life she had known all her life and that now condemned her future as surely as it had guaranteed its accomplishments. Her fingers ran along a crack on the edge of the screen thoughtfully. Even Mia, artificial and with her 'brain' locked far below ground, had not escaped the assault unharmed. Technology was innocent of malevolent intentions but no less punished.

Solae had flushed pink from the apples of her cheeks to her hairline, her features a baffled mixture of flattered and fearful. Tempted as she was to retreat physically she was too shocked to move. A tiny exhalation escaped when he clarified 'not together.' Rene was handsome and tragedy had made him twice as heroic, charming, and alluring as he might ordinarily be, but she had been apprehensive that there was a price of intimacy he expected for his daring rescue. Not everyone was selfless and Solae had only her body to give had he demanded it of her.

"Keep watch... of the door, not the shower?" she clarified with a light laugh as she visibly relaxed. She glided over to where he stood, standing on her toes to reach one of the top shelves with cups fashioned of synthetic opaque material, and pulled down two- one for him and one for herself. She poured a full glass of fruit juice as her stomach growled in protest at the suggestion bathing take precedence over eating.

"There's more than one shower and I don't know that I could return the favor of keeping watch," she confessed lightly. The now deceased Marquise Falia would have insisted on dainty, measured sips from a crystalline glass worth no less than one farmer's salary in value when in the presence of a gentleman. Solae was certain that this instruction would be unaltered even if she knew her daughter was quite literally in the midst of a war. With blatant irreverence for societal expectations and proper conduct she drank the entire cup in one continuous gulp.

"After we eat and each shower, it might be safe to sleep here," she said as she thought aloud. "It could be easier to move at night when it's harder for them to find us. After that... I don't know. They'll be waiting for me if I try to go home," she murmured this time to herself as she covered her face in thought. The tip of her left digits brushed past where she had been veritably concussed the day prior in the embassy and she flinched reflexively. Medical attention with be difficult if not impossible to come by. Letting her palms slip down she was reminded of the wounds she had seen on Rene.

"Mia, can you please retrieve Lord Armon's emergency medical kit from storage?" she asked the electronic sentience.

"Yes, Lady Solae," it purred obediently. There was a quiet hum of machinery behind the wall. Many nobility had extra rooms built underneath their mansions not in case of apocalyptic disaster or rebellion (they were too arrogant to admit these possibilities) but for storage that lifeless servants, such as Mia, could deposit and withdraw items from with instruction.