"Come now, you know chocobos were built by the gods to be the perfect mount." He's half teasing, half not. Mostly he just means they're very sturdy birds and of course they can handle him and his armor.

"Oh? She'd love this place, then," he chuckled. "There's a group that skulks around in the shadows and calls themselves Assassins." If he wasn't friends with a few of them, their existence might alarm him. They'd earned his (slightly reserved) trust though. With just a pat on the neck as warning, the older warrior stepped into the stirrup and swung himself up the bird who was indeed quite sturdy and barely swayed under his shifting weight.