[quote=@WiseDragonGirl]"Let's see if we can get to the university without any more deaths," he said with an almost cheerful sound in his voice and he looked at the others. "Anyone want to take bets on that?"
[/quote]

Luca thought of a pithy rejoinder while he was standing up, but his proximity to Donny forced him to keep it mostly internal. There was a soft, mumbled beginning of a word, then a look of suddenly-dawned awareness and abject terror, and the words died in his throat with an awkward squeak. "Ixnay on the okesjay," he muttered, white-faced. 

[@Holmishire]

He needed a distraction, and a metaphorical security blanket between himself and Donny, the newly-arrived-but-equally-violent knights.... all of it. He found all of that in Ariett. Things had slowed down enough that now for the first time her injury was really registering in his mind. Now he also remembered how she'd tried to slow him down during his bullish rush towards suicide-by-redhead, and looking at the metallic scar-pattern on her back, he realized why she'd cried out in pain. [i]It was MY fault,[/i] he thought, and then he followed that up with a few self-depreciating internal comments about what an idiot he was. He offered her a hand to get up. "Are you okay?" he asked.