Kysis was making graceful strides, carried so smoothly by his muscled but not bulky frame, tuned from one too many battles. He slowed next to her, though, his usual long, airy gait clipped just enough so her own pace could be matched with none of the fluidity sacrificed. His eyes were focused ahead, even though one was truly not focused, just facing that direction, until she mentioned how her shoes were not great for this, drawing his gaze towards them. Because of the long skirts, he couldn’t exactly see them, though he could imagine, considering the not perfectly even cobbles.
Romans made much better roads than that.
He made sure not to comment, as surely the Romans had made it that far north, just as the roads in Kreos further south and east were smooth, Roman fare. The Romans made great roads. Despite his pride as a Greek, that was where his family really came from, the far northern reaches of the Roman Empire, moved down to take control of those provinces captured in Northern Greece. Kysis mused on this for a little bit, focusing on the road again as the apology came and—
It was absolutely reflex, battle hardened nerves responding instantly to the change of sound, both of voice and feet, and he spun just enough that when she fell in to him, she wouldn’t just slide off and hit the ground. If he had been paying better attention, he would have caught her entirely. “It’s no problem…” He murmured under his breath, as her apologizing about falling on him. Kysis wished he was quicker, had seen it, but that brought a whole flood of other regrets and resentments he did not want to deal with right now, had not dealt with yet but was putting of yet again.
Now was definitely not the time for that heap to come crashing down.
Shutting down the part of his mind threatening with that, Kysis concentrated instead on the sound of the Captain’s voice, on what she was saying, and on perhaps making their conversation a little less awkward. The formalities of a lord would do him no good here, sadly, so it took some scrounging about his brain to make anything come out.
“You’ve done lovely in heels until now. I think it’s the surface.” It was a start. A feeble start. But a start.