[center][h1][color=bf7300][u]L a n d o n[/u][/color][/h1][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]  • Tʜᴇ Dᴜɴɢᴇᴏɴ • [/center][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][indent][hr][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent][/indent]

Landon gave a gamely grin from his position nearer the middle of the group as he replied, "Believe me, Elly, I don't [i]want[/i] to have to be bandaged up any more than you have to, either!"  Then he winked after he raised his goggles off of his eyes onto his forehead.  "Though you're welcome to lay hands on me anytime!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mirage smirking at his remark as she finished rearranging her gear.  [i]Good, she thinks it's funny and not scuzzy,[/i] thought Landon to himself with just a touch of guilt.  [i]At least she has a good sense of humor...and excellent aim.[/i]  It had been thanks to Mirage's fast reaction to the goblin archers that had saved Landon from getting more hurt than he might otherwise have been; she had nailed one of the archers with a shot just as it loosed an arrow at him, and it threw off the arrow enough so that it only grazed his ear instead of piercing his head.  That had been [i]close![/i]  Far too close for comfort, and Landon had angrily snapped off an explosive bolt from his wrist-mounted crossbow that knocked a few of the archers off their feet and threw them off-balance long enough for the party to regroup and protect themselves more readily from the ranged attackers.

Landon remembered the brief but intense sensation of friction as the arrow had skidded past his ear, and the pain had brought tears to his eyes as well as caused him to drop the cigarette from his lips in surprise.  That [i]hurt![/i]  He'd been in some groups that hadn't been as good, and gotten damaged plenty from all kinds of attacks, but this was the first time in Pariah that he could remember the pain feeling so utterly real.  He actually contemplated whether or not he'd wake up in the real world with an actual skid mark on his ear.

Mirage had been the only one close enough to notice the startled jump he had made when he had been grazed, but she hadn't remarked yet.  She had been awfully quiet, in fact, since the earlier incident with Graves; Landon guessed that the archer was still feeling self-conscious from what had happened.  But he liked that she was handling it gracefully, not letting it interfere with her work in the dungeon, even though she had been badly shaken by the extreme overreaction from Graves.

In a low voice, he said in a more serious tone to Mirage, "Thanks for th' save earlier."  And he smiled at her, and she smiled back, and that sent a little shiver of delight up his spine.  [i]Nice smile,[/i] he thought as he turned to his own gear, where he rearranged which bolts he had at hand in his quiver.  He'd have to be smarter for the next round, and he couldn't rely on pretty women to save his backside forever - no matter how motivating his rear could be!