When the civilians didn’t immediately out the Dustsmith as the cause of their caravan’s destruction, Aurelia quickly realized the people weren’t going to respond well to the barrage of questions. However, by the time she realized, it was too late to stop, else she risked undermining Cerulean’s and Siu’s authority. The only thing she could do was listen as the elder ranted and grieved over his lost family and friends, doing her best to read between the lines of what was said.
Fortunately, the man, in his grief, wasn’t hiding anything. In his tirade, he revealed two important details. First, the Dustsmith did visit them, but it doesn’t seem like he was directly responsible for the Grimm attack. Second, the Dustsmith is actively attempting to recruit more people to his cause. It’s not exactly revolutionary information, but it’s probably all they were going to get out of this group for now.
Unfortunately, Aurelia was too busy compiling her thoughts to notice Siu marching back towards the civilians, and by the time she saw and half-made her mind up to stop the huntress, she had already launched into her own counter rant. Pointless. Utterly Pointless the horse faunus thought to herself when Siu finished and came back to the vehicle.
It’s not that Siu was wrong. Quite the opposite, her assessments were correct. For whatever reason, this caravan had been caught unprepared for this attack and paid a heavy price for it. If the team hadn’t arrived when they did, who knows how many more would have perished? But telling that to a bunch of grieving victims does little for their predicament, and ultimately solves nothing, as evidenced by the people’s reactions.
And, as the group leaves the caravan and the citizens are no longer in ear-shot, Aurelia speaks up, ”With all due respect, Cerulean and Siu, but the next time we encounter a caravan and need to probe for information, would you allow me to take the lead? While I make no claim to be a politician, I do have some degree of experience regarding public relations.” That was about the politest way she could think of to say “Let me handle this”, but, given the disastrous results of their first attempt, the knight felt it was necessary to propose a different approach at the very least.
Regarding the prospect of splitting up, Aurelia gestures to the back of her horse and says, ”Well, one of you is welcome to sit behind me, but I can assure you that it will be very uncomfortable.” Noble Steed is indeed long enough to carry one more person, however, the (purely decorative) barding and lack of saddle would indeed make the ride very bumpy, to say the least. If a passenger lacks horseback riding experience, one can just imagine how painful riding on (simulated) metal will be, especially at full gallop for an extended period of time.
”I understand your reluctance to let me travel on my own, but unless you have a strong distaste for your posterior or some other method of travelling at speed, I don’t see any other alternatives, unless you wish to abandon either our objective or the people in danger,” Aurelia concludes.