Of this soldier, she is unafraid. He, with his bitch and his battle eyes and his hide woven with tatters and blood, is more of what it was that she reveres, that she so craves than she would ever be, for of their differences there is only one that Liriope could never cherish so thoroughly as he. No matter the elaboration of the metal with which she adorns herself or the permanence of her wounds, the skulls of which she has punctured and sliced or the bitterness of her words for they are but a ruse, a hollow facade if without that which runs through a true gladiator's veins, and she is indeed without, only half, and so, yes, she bowed, and, yes, she is silent, now, draws her lips into a smile befitting and does not call to him as her brother, for she is still not worthy, still tainted, still a woman, and how she despises herself for being so, as if she once had a choice and chose the color that looked the prettiest.

She revels in the warmth and brazen edge of his gaze, hoping that it finds her pleasing, praying that it does not think her a vile, fragile thing but an able and willing warrior, a hunter and her weapon polished, and she listens gratefully to the baritone that slips so artfully from his throat until he mentions soldiers, and female, and a Queen, and a frown cuts into her face and spreads like wildfire. "Your soldiers are led by a mare?" Her voice is broken, and she immediately wishes to rid the taste of sourness that spills over her lips as she speaks such filth. She can barely hide her disbelief, and has no room left between her raging thoughts to regret the quickness of her tongue, for he, this creature so handsome and so powerful that she has bowed to had been bowing to one even subordinate to herself, for in all her lowliness Liriope would never soil a throne by sitting upon it, and she felt a flutter of rage settle behind her breast at the thought of another lesser so shamelessly breaching such boundary.

It takes a few precarious moments for her to realize what had been offered to her, and with a hot swallow she breathes a hesitant "Yes," before she is returned to solemnness, reconciled. "I will accompany you to your Basin to serve amongst your men." For there is nothing more sating than to witness a woman-king's fall.