Elias took the ice gratefully, and had only just held it to himself when she also passed him a tonic of some kind. He squinted briefly at the bottle, but the lingering dizziness was not especially conducive to making out words, so he looked back up at her instead.

“Well I suppose I’ll have to trust you, won’t I?” Elias said good-naturedly, because if he didn’t take the tonic he would probably regret it later. Besides, she seemed eminently knowledgeable and quite resourceful - he glanced at the plant from which she was peeling leaves - and there was something bright and honest and open in her face that meant he’d probably have trusted her anyway, the previous reasons besides.

“But I couldn’t possibly,” he said, after knocking back the tonic and adjusting the ice he was holding. Elias peered down at the pumpkin plant and back at her again to grin, sure she was joking. “You can’t be sending all your garden-gatecrashing visitors off with gifts.” Metaphorically gatecrashing, in this case, but still - the fact remained, she was being far too kind.

---