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Strange. Is it you who gets to tell me what to do today?

[Another question, just to be difficult.]

Come along now, don't get lost in the crowd.

[And so he waves her along.

And this is how it will go: Ardyn will not give her a bag of anything, but rather he will try to make her carry an armload. But it is not an armload of particularly heavy things (for what is the point if she can't make it back to his home?), but manageable items. Clothes (dark colors, inlaid with odd patterns within its folds), a neat little pile of scarves. A light, wooden crate of fanciful empty glass vials. A few books, stacked on top of that.

Manageable, yes, but practically stacked up to just under her chin. And he... is carrying nothing.]

[There are worse things than to be carrying a load of things. It isn't a particular humiliating task; she's been seen doing the precise same thing time and again, though never with so many boxes. But though she's done this, it's different here and now. She's never had to do it on someone else's orders; she's never done it with someone so smug, gleeful in forcing her to carry this around.

She is difficult throughout, as she promised she'd be. Each purchase is a battle of wills, with her demanding he carry it and him refusing. It's a pointless battle, but god forbid she make this easy. And when they reach his house, she's fully determined to let all the packages drop, shattering those glass vials, simply because he hadn't told her not to.

No snide remarks, only obedience. A doting, dutiful wife, that had been their bet. She's obeying, anyway, though she can't say as she's doting. But perhaps that will come easier in private.]

More? Or are we done for the day?

[He is gleeful in each object he hands her, though really, she shouldn't be complaining. He could be far crueler and hand her things that were too heavy to possibly carry, and still expect her to tote them around -- that would truly be an exercise in humiliation and futility.

He's unlocking his door to where he lives, a rather nicer apartment in a quaint part of the residential district, though it certainly isn't anything ostentatious. But given that he has been employed almost since his arrival planetside, it wasn't difficult to secure a living space that was a bit more impressive than what they were first assigned to.]

What? Did you want to continue our little shopping excursion together? Your arms aren't hurting enough yet?

It was a question, not a desire for more. You'd think you'd learn to hear the difference after two thousand years.

[But once the door is closed behind them, Rosalind exhales softly, relieved it's over with. Meeting his gaze, she offers him a little smile and, without a single hesitation, releases her grip on the packages. They fall from her arms, and that might have been fine, if she'd bothered to wander over to the table first.

As it is, they fall in a heap on the floor, and those vials make such a lovely noise as they shatter. It's likely some of the packages will be all right, but Rosalind isn't bothering to find out. Stepping over the mess, she intends to sweep past him, heading deeper into his house. Why not? What's his is hers, right? That's how marriage works.]

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