[center][color=#008b8b][h2]Fionn MacKerracher[/h2][/color][/center]
[hr][@VitaVitaAR][@HereComesTheSnow][@Conscripts]
[hr]

[color=#008b8b]"Well, now it's turning into a party, isn't it?"[/color]

The phrase was muttered under his breath even as he faced the approaching Steffen with another grin and a raised hand. When for once he'd been making an effort to avoid most of his fellow knights for at least a little while longer, taking the chance to talk to the captain had opened him up to being surrounded. A basic tactical mistake; and unfortunately, not one he could trust in his allies to help ameliorate, or his skill in arms to break him out of.

With an inward resoluteness that he managed not to display to the others around him, he turned back to Fanilly. He couldn't avoid them all forever, certainly not when he lived with them; and beyond that, the captain needed someone who could keep an eye on the big picture, not think too much, not get bogged down with the small details.

[color=#008b8b]"Interrogating the Mage's College ought to help with that too, I'd think, if they already found one shard as it is."[/color] He waved off the secondary concern, unbothered by it where the others might have thought it even more open-ended than the first. [color=#008b8b]"They're bound to already know which old rumors bore fruit, which were just rumors, all of that. Things like this have a habit of coming out in the wash, you know? Just don't get so focused on the spot you're trying to clean out that you miss the one on the other side."[/color]

Just to punctuate the point, he reached across where Fanilly stood between himself and Gerard, clapping a hand down on the shoulder to Gerard's uninjured arm, one finger conveniently pointing right at a very faded, almost unnoticeable stain.

[color=#008b8b]"Besides, it's not like we really even have the opportunity to fail, right? This is just making it all easier in the end if we pull it off, sure, but none of the powers that be will really let us slip and fall with this."[/color]