What was an employer to a knight?

This wasn't a high and lofty matter of philosophy that needed to be dissected word by word, as you stand over a cliff looking into the sunset, one hand on your pommel and the other on your heart.  Ingrid had been put into the position of sellsword, in her chivalric mind, for a while now.  She just wanted to understand how the knightly mindset of a Mechwarrior interfaced with that of a mercenary.  Knights do not take pay on a per-mission basis.  In the best case, a Mechwarrior fights solely out of a self-placed sense of worth and duty.  In most cases because of the titles, land and goverment stipends...but Ingrid imagined herself as being more the former than the latter.  Trying to dissect this woman's words in as materialistic of a light as possible was difficult.

[s](All the same, it was difficult because of what she had eaten earlier in the morning.  She was someone with an iron stomach and she wouldn't bend the knee to the fiesta pail, but perhaps she should've tried something less rich for her first "real" food in weeks.)[/s]

Across from the Colonel and Cassandra's discussion, her eyes cold and her arms folded as she hunched herself over the crate she sat on, she sat by the crew of the Von Luckner and heard their quiet chitter as they spoke - she did not rebuke them as she should, but the [i]possibility[/i] of acting for the people should be its own reward, even if it's not always a realistic outcome.

Though, something did get her a bit less steely, for a moment - [color=ed145b]You want to get your people out of Fort Tie Shan?[/color]  That brief offer, unlike the rest, made her show a rare bit of wide-eyed surprise that she took a moment to conceal beneath her usual look.  Getting off this planet or finding allies in the world didn't make her blink, but this one proposition did.

Someone was left there that she couldn't leave behind.  In a few words, Cassandra had quickly turned her from one suspicious on principle to a woman desperate.

She left when ordered, with the same punctual movement and quick 'Sir' as she got up, but her eyes lingered on the Espian woman for a while longer.

The only thing she said during all of this was a quick [color=SteelBlue]"She does not,"[/color] upon Reya's question.  Jon's existence didn't concern her very much, sadly.