[ It's good she isn't paying much attention to it, because his face just hardened a little. It was almost entirely due to what she said, but her grip did hurt, and he didn't quite hide it entirely - he's a little better off than she is, but he still rushed what he was doing. ] Advance warning: I'm going to be mad about you and that little argument once you're back in the state of mind to give me a good argument over it. Right now I feel like it would be lacking in satisfaction. [ He throws aw much of his own shields around her as he can, looping them around and around right up next to her own, shoring them up, even, if hers are in too much danger of falling. If she doesn't want to show him, fine, he's never cared about that except once or twice. But he'll be damned if he's not going to do whatever he can to help speed this process up a little. ]

I'm fine. [ Which is more or less (my god i use this phrase a lot suddenly) the truth. He is fine, right now, he's got everything at the very least within upper-but-manageable levels. He won't be fine in a little while, but that's not something he needs to divulge. That'll probably become obvious when it happens. ]