( he's... rattled, yes, but with her confirmation his shoulders relax a fraction from how tightly pulled up they were around either side of his neck. his gaze lifts, slow and somewhat sheepish, beyond the adrenaline still carrying him and the exhaustion that arrives in its wake, thin and bittersweet and acrid on his tongue.

he accepts her hand, rising and offering a half smile, not quite devoting himself to fully masking. he's trying. he's not always managing, but taking her as he's claimed as a sister, in any sense, treating her as an equal and not one to be sacrificed for against her wishes, just as she had against his impossible ones, well. that's a dance for the two of them to continue learning.

so a half smile, and the averting of his gaze as he rubs at his lower back, discovering belatedly the bruising he'd given himself in the dungeon room evading the giant bone dog. )

Turns out there's one guarding the, ah, necromancer in there. I tried playing Chenqing, dead is dead, there's that, I thought there might be, but the dog was... very... pleased.

( A longer pause. He slowly lifts his eyes to hers. )

Either to eat me or to play with my bones, I don't know! Ahahaha... ha...

( When music backfires, and the ability to coax the dead makes loyal followers out of skeletal dogs. )