[ he coughs a few more times as lottie works on freeing him - mostly from the dust and dirt that wafts up the further she digs - but with his arm covering his face it is certainly not as bad as earlier. even if he is still sniffling a little and there's big tears standing out in his eyes, vash looks slightly less pathetic as he finally heaves himself free of the mound he was trapped in, slithering onto the ground in a mess of lanky limbs and red coat caked in so much dirt that it's hard to see what colour it's originally been. ]

Ah, sorry, [ he is going to try to scooch away, to avoid getting lottie even more dirty than she is now (which, at this point, won't make much of a difference), and start to shake the earth out from his hair and dig out handfuls of it from his pockets and crevices of his clothing. ] What a mess ... I wonder if it'll wash off ...

[ this takes some little time, but luckily enough he isn't distracted enough about his personal appearance that he doesn't catch when lottie starts to talk. ]

I'm -- [ for a moment, his expression flickers, stuttering between genuine surprise and something else, before the smile switches on again - or maybe it simply brightens, because he has not actually stopped smiling this whole time, has he? ] --I'm fine!

I mean, it's pretty confusing. I don't really know where I am, and this whole place ...