He chuckles a chuckle that rocks his whole body. "I'm not sure I have prizes to distribute; I left them all back home. I apologise for my lack of foresight."

"'Sfine. This also works." She squeezes him a little. "And I'm not even crazy." She blurbles a little half-giggle, half-sob. "I think."

"I can testify to that. You look and sound one hundred percent non-crazy, and I would know, I have fought a lot of crazy before."

There is the little giggle-sob again.

"Lucky you," she informs him.

"Oh, no, I guarantee you that to find this much crazy to fight it takes more than luck; it takes skill."

Well now she's just helplessly giggle-sobbing into his shoulder. Look at what he's done.

That's alright, they can hug for a while and he can very carefully run his hand down her back slowly in soothing motions.

"Were you in the middle of something?" she wonders, after the sobs have sort of... calmed down for a little while.

"In a manner of speaking. I was... investigating this place."

'This place' being the barely described cave, which now that she can pay attention to it seems rather... expansive. The ceiling is very high—some twenty or thirty meters high—and there are red crystals everywhere, emanating an eerie red glow that's the main source of light in the cave. There are floating stones, boulders—in fact, there's one piece of floating rock large enough to support what looks to be a small stone arena or temple of sorts. There are trails of orange and blue light flowing in the air from place to place, but they don't seem to do... anything. Just exist, and be pretty.

She hums a confirmation.

"Well, if you're in any kind of rush, just, you know. Pick me up and carry me with you to where you need to go, because I'm not unhugging right now, sorry."

He laughs again. "I am afraid my investigation might involve some more physical altercations so I will perhaps wait until the hugging is done."

"Ugh. How very reasonable of you."

"I cannot claim to always be reasonable, but I do try to at least sometimes be."

Giggle.

"That's the spirit." Leaaaan. He's very warm and comfy. Very quietly, she wonders, "... Now what?"

"...to be quite honest I am not certain. I cannot exactly, ah, take you anywhere safe right now. This was not the best place for you to come out of the Mists to, I have to say."

"Figures," she snorts. "Okay. What's the—horrible flaming disaster I have landed on this time? I expect there is one."

"There is indeed one. If you come from Orr you do not I expect know about the White Mantle?"

"I do not, no. I might have seen glimpses of them in echoes in the Mists, but I didn't always get names for the things I saw."

"Each of the three human kingdoms responded differently to the Flame Legion's attacks. Ascalon fled, Orr sunk, Kryta was usurped by the White Mantle. They sacrificed people to their gods on magical stones called Bloodstones." He gestures with his head towards a crystal. "One here exploded. The explosion was big enough to wipe out half of Tyria, except it mysteriously collapsed in on itself and only destroyed this small area."

"... So where did all of that stored power go instead." Yes, she is starting to see why this is worth investigation.

"Exactly. Not that I'm not grateful, but yes, it does require some closer investigation."

"Yes, agreed. Um." A little regretfully, she pulls away so she can look at him properly. "Look, if there's no way to take me to a safe place, then don't. This sounds important. Instead, I can aspire to be a duckling, and follow you around. It's not exactly like I'm a helpless waif, here."

"I did notice that, yes, you put on quite a show. What was that?"

"What," she wonders lightly, "do you not have mesmers anymore? Pissing people off is absolutely standard mesmer fare where I come from."

"—huh. Mesmer would make sense. Nowadays they focus more on illusions and clones and environment manipulation, it would be strange to see a mesmer who did not summon a single phantasm during a fight."