Many Too Many
Lady Lora, that priestess girl with the halo calls her. She runs with her knees and her elbows more than either her calves and her forearms or her thighs and her biceps, to say nothing of ankles and wrists. She is a mercenary, and she hates to consort with authority, so she has her Blade do it for her.
Why Brighid notices this...well, she's not quite sure. But, considering her own mincing steps and ways, she starts to think that maybe she can take a cue - certainly, she's not going to follow after whatever that horrible, uncouth Mythra is doing. It would seem Addam has done naught to apprise her of the manners that would befit the Blade of a prince.
Ah, but anyway. Lora. Not Mythra, nor Addam, nor even Haze or Jin. Merely Lora.
She's...pretty enough. In a rough sort of way, where the light catches on her cheekbones and jawline even though they're not quite square, nor quite chiseled. Her voice is low and lilting, very nearly the most pleasing sound Brighid's ever heard.
Yes, definitely pretty enough. If Brighid's shut-eyes attention has been caught enough to make all these observations as she's watched Lora run, run, run, and stop to gather moss, and smile nervously at Hugo's open gaze, and smile shakily thereafter at Jin (he's very closed, meanwhile), and start in running again, with the wind she's generated in all her motion rustling the gorgeous layers in her hair just so, the precious lavender ribbon cresting endless dimensions of auburn and ruby and garnet and soil...
Oh, well. Then certainly, there's something there to look at. As they pass by the distant sight of the crater where the viridian-jade Dispare Ropl had presided, Brighid conducts herself swiftly to Lora's side, taking advantage of Haze's distraction (a Plambus, perambulating overhead, has got her spooked, it appears), and gently takes hold of her arm.
At least, she thinks it's gently. Lora jumps, and Brighid hears the shimmer of her hair settling back into place as she does it. "Ah-! Oh, it's just you, Brighid."
Just Brighid. Only Brighid. No one the Ardainian troops all tremble before. Not Lady Brighid. Just Brighid. A common rhinestone, not a perfect jewel.
This Lady Lora has some gall. That's what the Jewel would say, anyway. But Brighid, just Brighid, thinks that Lora's honesty, even bluntness, is refreshing. She scoops Lora's arm fully into the crook of hers and keeps walking.
Aegaeon glances at her. She makes the approximate facial mold of a hiss to shoo him away.
"How are you finding Gormott, Lora?" Just Lora, not Lady Lora. Maybe Brighid will consider epithets later.
"Oh, w-well..." The tell of putting hand to back of head is not Lora's, merely Addam's, but since her right arm is trapped, she twitches for it anyway. Brighid pretends not to notice - and if there's second-guessing to be done about her choice of approach, well...that'll be for later as well.
"It's very nice, really, only it's terrible what's happened to Torigoth, even if it wasn't Malos. And Mother..."
Oh, Mother...surely, such a nice lady too, no matter the...questionable caliber of the company she kept. Hm. Indeed. "I am sorry to hear about your loss," remarks Brighid, lightly yet with all gravity. "Do let me know if there's anything I can do to help."
Any comforts I can provide, any shoulders to lean on or hands to hold, as fragile ladies are wont to want.
Lora isn't fragile, though, and Brighid knows it. She is organic and willow-whip strong, so unlike the precise facets of Brighid's own rigid tensile strength.
Lora smiles, says, "Thank you, Brighid." The sheer unbridled golden sincerity of the acknowledgement smacks her companion in the face.
She mustn't take advantage of the poor, unpolished, grieving girl, and she isn't, surely, just entertaining a lady as is deserved for guests of the Empire's sovereignty. Well, Gormott isn't an imperial holding yet, but one day it might be - much more likely to be bound as an Ardainian province than a Tornan one, if such a goofarall as Addam does eventually end up on the throne.
As they walk, however, Brighid learns much about hidden nobility, and the borderlands' broadest ideals, and the concept that one might stick one's nose in the air not to be above those who don't but to smell all the beautiful flowers there are proliferant in the wild.