The second the words left her mouth, Persephone knew she had said the wrong thing. Not through Iason or any other reaction but through her own ears. They sounded like an accusation. A refute or rejection of his feelings. When the words themselves had slipped from her lips innocently; as a form of disbelief, not dislike. Iason's expression only cemented her own realisation at the mistake and her features instantly regressed into a confusing amalgamation of shock and contrition.

When he asked her "why not" her mouth worked but no sound came out. She wasn't sure how to answer that without descending them into a conversation about how she had nothing to offer him and he was foolish to still want to marry her. A sentiment her head still firmly believed but her heart didn't want to try to convince him of.

When the next question left his mouth and floated in the air between them like some tainted cloud of doubt, Persephone's features were far clearer in expressing her inner thoughts: shock, hurt and horror, each flickered into place beyond her control, in a vulnerable display of affection she wouldn't normally offer. But after what had just passed between them, Persephone was hardly able to pull on her princess mask now.

"No!" She denied immediately, only to then realise that while her words were accurate, he had spoken in the negative and they could then be misconstrued. "I mean yes, I do!" She corrected, taking a shuddering breath as she felt she was losing all her decorum, not to mention her simple ability to speak.

Not seeming to know what to do with her hands or even if her touch would be accepted by him now, Persephone's hands hovered before his shirt, wavered before seeming to seek his face or hair – again failing to make contact - and then she retreated entirely and placed her hands over her face, covering her features from view. Her words came slightly muffled from behind her hands.

"I'm so sorry. I've done this all wrong." She seemed to take a calming, shuddering breath from behind her hands. "I care for you so much. I just..." She lowered her hands, allowing them to fall into their now shared lap. "You just surprised me." She told him with a valiant attempt at a normal and bright smile, before she moved to tuck a strand of her hair nervously behind her ear once more.

"That's all I ask."

The words were sweet and endearing and Persephone trusted that Iason meant them, but also couldn't help but suspect she had ruined the moment by blurting the wrong thing. How ironic. The princess and queen trained and tutored to always consider every word and action for every possible consequence and eventuality and then assess the exact response that was best suited for the situation… And here she was, straddling a man's hips, having allowed him to touch her as he had and blurting out the wrong things for both atmosphere and moment. If anything was an indication that she was far outside of her comfort zone and experience level, this was it. Persephone the princess was nowhere to be seen in this meadow. All there was, was Persephone the woman. Who, it turned out, was shy and awkward and prone to allowing shock to overrule her logic. Just her luck.

He smiled and took her hands in his but Persephone had her skills in perception back enough now to recognise that he was uncomfortable. Her expression became a little blank as she watched for his, trying to assess how she should react to his offer. Would returning back to the manor indicate that she was uncomfortable with him (which she wasn't)? Or would continuing their ride make things more awkward, pretending this moment (with all its highs and lows) hadn't happened? Should she - if she were brave enough - kiss him and offer to return the sensations he had given to her? Somehow, that seemed the fair thing to do and yet now the atmosphere between them didn't feel so intimate or appropriate and she didn’t want to now make the situation worse. The hazy veil of perceived privacy seemed to have lifted from around them and exposed them to the real world once more.

Persephone's mind was eased and quietened a little when Iason reached out to touch at her hair, tugging a moment at her ear lobe in a way that was both intimate and softly affectionate. It made her smile a little, her nerves dissipating just for a moment. His hands on her thighs were then warm, comforting. A touch that she wouldn't allow others to make but also not something that demanded or indicated, necessarily, a repeat of what they had just experienced.

Licking her lips, swallowing and offering a slight and delicate clearing of her throat, Persephone glanced down as she rested her hands over Iason's and then looked back up with a calm and open expression that she hoped indicated some sort of restart to the conversation that had gone on such a poor tangent because of her foolishness.

"What if..." She suggested, leaning forwards in order to lift herself and swing her leg over the top of Iason's knee, removing herself from his lap entirely. Spinning herself around as she did so, Persephone sat down beside Iason on the rock, leaning against the same outcropping as he. They now sat side-by-side, looking out at the meadow. Reaching out, she took his left hand in her right and interlaced their fingers. "…we just sit like this a little?"

Reaching over, Persephone placed her left hand over the back of Iason's, pinning his palm between her own, and holding it there between them, her thumb stroking back and forth over the side of his hand. She leaned into his shoulder.

She wanted to say something. To start some form of conversation. She wanted to reach out and connect with him in some way - as he had with her physically - without making a mockery of it, as she had just then.

"We can talk, if you'd like?" She offered, unable to come up with some form of conversation for herself just yet. There was soft and self-deprecating smile in her tone. "I promise I can actually say the right thing at the right moment, most of the time." She swallowed a little as she turned to try and look at him, her cheek against his shoulder.

Instead of allowing logical and experience in social decorum to come up with some innocuous subject of conversation, Persephone tried to remain as open with Iason as he had clearly been being with her. So, she said the first thing that came to mind… Something she wanted to know regarding him and his perception of the world and of life in general. Ever since she had arrived in Meganea she had feared that she had been keeping Iason from doing and living as he so wished. So, her question, when based on purest instinct and most apparent thoughts in her head, was a natural leap…

”Tell me what it is you want from your life.” She asked him, the timbre of her voice soft and inquisitive. ”If I have never come in and disembarked it, I mean.” Again that soft humour of chagrin tinged her words. ”What were your hopes for your future?”

It was so strange to hear a man speak of simple pleasures. Persephone had grown up in a world of nobles and politicians who were out for gain. Either to lend credence, power and success to their own name, or to that of their House. They were always scheming, always planning, always seeking something greater than they had before. Not that these were necessarily negative attributes. Her father had had similar ambitions of strength and durability. Persephone had never thought of such ambitions and traits as something shallow or materialistic. They were just part of the world and part of one's loyalty to one's House.

By hearing Iason speak of simplicity: of a life as a simpler nobleman, with a wife and children, made something in the vicinity of her heart tighten and warm. She didn't think of him as low achieving or dull or boring for such aspirations. It was more a sense of awe and surprise that a man could be mature enough to remove himself from the usual aspirations of man. As if Iason were able to avoid all forms of temptation to seek and claim that which he did not deserve but wanted still. Iason - and the rest of the Dimitrous, in fact - appeared to enjoy life for everything it held for them, rather than seek to attribute what they possessed as meagre, by scheming to take more.

As a woman who had been pushed and pulled and taught to always seek a stronger base, a more powerful position or a greater vision or ambition... a man who was able to walk away from all of that, without a backward glance and value the life that he truly wanted - not that which he was told to desire? - it was an inner strength Persephone could only begin to fathom and was entirely impressed by.

"I think you'd make an honourable father." Persephone found herself murmuring in response to his thoughts and feelings for the future. Regardless of whether she was the wife to give them to him, Iason was a man who would raise his children with the same balance of mind that he held. He would be protective and defensive of his young, whilst also able to encourage a strength in each of them. She thoughts drew the words "each of them" for, to Persephone, it seemed logical that he would have several children. His family didn't seem the sort to live without many young ones running around. Doted on by their aunts and grandfather. She smiled softly to herself, as she imagined perhaps a few boys and a little girl running over the Dimitrou lands, their hair dark and curling and their eyes brightest blue. She stopped her train of thought when her mind started to fill in a darker skin tone and her own softer features on the face of the littlest girl and she closed her eyes. Why she shied away from the vision she didn't know, but it triggered a deep and unrelenting ache in her hips to witness it in her mind's eye.

The vision, however, came back in full force - hers and Iason's children visions in my mind - when Iason spoke of his feeling regarding her; of her interruption to his life. He spoke with such determined language and a firm tone that thoroughly forbid her from reading his words any other way. He saw her appearance in his life as a benefit, an addition to his world, not something limiting or diminishing. He truly didn't care that she had nothing to offer him in money or rank, because he truly didn't care to possess such things himself. He wanted only a family - with someone he could love and respect. And, apparently, that had become her.

"You see me entirely differently to how I view myself." Persephone said, her tone not at all harsh upon her own person but a simple statement of fact. "It makes such praise hard to believe even as it makes it no less pleasant to hear." She swallowed. "I think I understand better now. I am unused to men without ambitions beyond their own life of contentment." She frowned. ”I feel like… I have been distrusting your earnestness through my own ignorance. I’m truly sorry, Iason.” She leaned back into his shoulder, just for a moment, after having had to sit up a little when he shrugged. ”You are a better man than I was giving you credit for.”

Sitting back up and tightening her grip on their interlaced fingers, Persephone looked out across the meadows. She felt the breeze on her face, the warmth of Iason’s hand that hadn’t let go, nor shifted away from her touch and the stroke of her thumb. She thought of how he had made her feel just a few moments ago, of how she felt when he held her close…

”Iason…” She said, looking around at him from where she sat at his side. ”Let’s go back to the manor.” She swallowed and her fingers seemed to curl in his hold. ”Perhaps we could be alone…?” She glanced around them. ”And indoors.” She added with an amused lightness to her tone.