[i][color=f7941d]That had thrown her off balance,[/color][/i] Ozragad thought to himself with a sense of small satisfaction as he dismounted his horse and handed the reins over to one of his guards. He had seen her hesitation then, the glance for reassurance to her guards. She had regained her composure soon enough, but when they were alone, would she act so brave before him?

[color=f7941d][b]"Go ahead, I will have no further need of your services."[/b][/color] He dismissed his herald and the two guards with a wave of his gauntlet covered hand, took one final look over the edge of the bridge into the rushing depths below, and casually walked over to the opened carriage door. As he climbed inside he fixed his eyes of molten gold on the older guard with the scarred face, the one the Princess had glanced to so conspicuously before. [i][color=f7941d]Try anything, and I will open her throat before she can scream.[/color][/i] He did not want the game he was playing interrupted by an ill advised assassination attempt.

As he took his seat opposite the Princess the door swung shut behind them, the driver lashed the reins, the carriage began to roll forward over the chasm. To sit comfortably Ozragad had to unbuckle his sword belt, he did so slowly, deliberately. When he had removed it he lay it carelessly his lap in full view of Elise. His hand sat resting near the top of the scabbard, his fingers drumming against the leather coated wood, the hilt easily within his grasp. Waiting.

Her hands were busy also, fidgeting with the edge of her dress. [i][color=f7941d]She is nervous now we are alone.[/color][/i] Perhaps he should be the one to speak first. Perhaps it would be better to let her sweat and suffer his silence. She turned towards him, frowned in thought or concentration. [i][color=f7941d]She is considering her words carefully, she thinks before she acts.[/color][/i] Finally her lips parted and she asked him a question. What was his Kingdom like? A neutral question, not quite a banality, but not searching for personal secrets or intimate knowledge. A useful question for a foreigner like herself, but perhaps a thorny one for him.

He turned away from her and looked out of the carriage window, considering his own response. They had past the towers that held the Morganyth side of the bridge and were travelling up a rocky windswept valley to mountain pass that would eventually take them to his capital. Scree slopes of shale tumbled down from the peaks to either side, clumps of hardy twisted birch trees grew in the shelter of the larger boulders, budding for the arrival of spring. The base of valley was taken up by stream that trickled down to meet the Kazadun and open areas of brown grassland and bracken. On a hillside, a lone figure stood by a flock of small dark fleeced sheep, they watched the procession below with interest. When he finally spoke his voice was deep, sonorous. 

[color=f7941d][b]"Much of it is as you see before you, mountain and moorland. On the southern coasts it turns to salt marsh and if you go too far north the mountains grow higher and are crowned with ice. Beyond Cirith Anyr are the Ashlands and mountains of fire, they are... difficult... to comprehend if you have not seen them with your own eyes. As for my city... you will see it soon enough."[/b][/color] 

Ozragad's lip curled with a faint smile at that. There wasn't much beauty in the harshness of his land, but he was proud of what the Formori had built at Cirith Anyr, in spite of the bitter memories he associated with it. The he felt the flicker of his rage when his mind retraced those old wounds from his past, carelessly resurrected by an idle thought and a woman's presence. How different his life might have been if Morganyth had been green, if they had just a sliver of what the Eorzian's squandered. [color=f7941d][i]Is she mocking me? Making me spell out the meanness of my Kingdom to make light of our inferiority.[/i][/color] His face set into stone.

[color=f7941d][b]"I understand from my time in Eorzia that it does not compare favourably."[/b][/color] He looked at her directly then, would she agree him with, or try to play false modesty? He decided to press her further, provoke her.

[b][color=f7941d]"The countryside around the capital is especially pleasant I recall, but you must have grown up in the palace correct? How does it look now? I haven't lain eyes on the interior since it burned. Did they remodel? I always found the frescoes in the royal bedchamber too gaudy for my preference."[/color][/b]