They make it across the bridge without any other snakes trying to turn them into lunch. Bella trips with noticeable frequency, although she does land on soft Enchanted Forest moss and kip up uninjured every time.

"Should I be carrying you the rest of the way?" says Tony, grinning a little.

"Do you wanna?"

She giggles. "Do you?"

"Wouldn't say no. You're not a broomstick, far as I know."

"I don't remember ever being compared to one before," she says, laughing.

"If you were one, I wouldn't let you carry me," Bella says.

"Well, aren't I glad I'm not a broomstick, then," she snorts.

"That makes it sound like you want to carry me," observes Bella.

Innocently: "Oh, does it?"

"It does. Of all the reasons you could be glad to be a non-broomstick, that one seemed decisive in causing you to mention this gladness aloud."

"Broomsticks also probably can't flirt with you," she said. "Or if they did, it would be really uncomfortable for everyone involved. So that's another big win."

"I'm trying and failing to imagine a broomstick flirting with me, and I have a pretty good imagination," giggles Bella.

"They'd have so much opportunity, though! I mean, think about it! What do you do with a broomstick?"

Bella laughs. "Me? Nothing at all."

"Well, maybe that's why they can't flirt with you," snickers Tony.

"That's probably the only reason they don't. I'm such a catch, everyone wants to flirt with introverted magicians who find their own toes impediments to walking," snickers Bella. "Especially broomsticks."

"Damn right!" says Tony.

Bella starts to say something, and then is sent to the moss again by a tree root, picks herself up, and says, "Is this all an elaborate leadup to actually picking me up?"

"If you actually want me to carry you all or part of the way to the castle," says Tony, "then I absolutely will."

"I would like that." Bella declines to specify what fraction of this liking is merely because the alternative is falling down a lot and what fraction is getting carried by a pretty princess who makes artful armor.

So Tony steps up to her and scoops her up gently.

Bella settles in to this arrangement quite comfortably. "Thanks!"

"No problem," Tony says cheerfully.

Bella doesn't have to look where they're going anymore! She produces a book and looks up at the scenery once a page, and also at princesses if addressed.