[@jdh97][@VitaVitaAR]

He took it in silently. The Knight-Captain, numb to the world for a moment, had not responded to anyone save Aria Larette's almost mercifully direct query regarding what was obviously dominating her mind. He looked downward to the bisected man, regarding him with a solemn neutrality.

[color=goldenrod][i]Sir Rickart...[/i][/color]

He hadn't known him well. Perhaps they had traded a few passing blows on the training grounds, or greeted eachother amiably when their paths through the many halls of the Iron Roses compound crossed, but for all of Gerard's contemplation, he could not truly speak of the man knowingly.

It was a shame. An uncomfortable inevitability in the theatre of war that each man who made it their trade was forced to accept, but all the while a shame. Men he would never know lost their lives on the same field as he. Men he would never get the chance to properly remember. It was the reality of being a mercenary, and it was a reality that he had known would extend to knighthood. Hardening one's heart to the guilt of not knowing was a skill he had to learn quickly. Without it, anyone would break.

His eyes flitted to the Captain for a moment, before settling back upon Rickart's body.

[color=goldenrod][i]If I can spare a thought for hardened criminals, however, I can surely offer the same to a comrade, known or not.

May the Goddesses bring your soul a peaceful rest, Sir Rickart.

I'm sure you've earned it.[/i][/color]

With orders to carry out and nothing left to merit his idling, he then pushed off the branch, and set himself to work.

[hr]

The ride back was, all told, a slow and quiet one. Luckily enough, his earlier assessment had proven largely correct— no lives lost within the number of knights assigned to him, and comparatively few injuries atop that— the most major of which being Sir Jerel's shoulder. Beyond that, nothing of real note— everyone was able to fight, to say nothing of ride or march. Including, he noted with some amusement, the girl he'd found and armed. He owed the aforementioned older knight an apology for her nearly taking his head off, but was glad that he'd all the same ensured her safety as things drew to a close.

Finding Sir Jarde a horse had been mercifully easy once that was all said and done— a simple matter of convincing one of the bandits' to carry the young man. Thankfully the blonde didn't wear much in the way of armor, so his weight wouldn't prove too unfamiliar to this undoubtedly less trained animal. Once they were satisfied with how that had played out, Jarde more or less managing to strike up a kind of understanding between himself and his new horse, it was time to depart.

...He had been very fortunate indeed that it all went so smoothly, he realized in review as the first glimmers of dawn peeked above the horizon. Both in that none in his command had been grievously wounded in spite of his singular determination to fight, and that he himself had not suffered any harm in the face of that recklessness— even the bruise he'd suspected to be upon his shoulder had faded from his senses as the hours had passed. All that was left then were his thoughts. His singular understanding that he had much to learn from this mission.

He turned his eyes upwards towards alabaster towers as they passed through the mighty oak and steel gates of Aimlenn. The Capital city was still a somewhat awe-inspiring sight for him, a man hailing from much further north, close to the border with Velt. To think human hands could build structures so massively high, and yet at the same time so elegant... It boggled his bumpkin mind to this day. He knew of cities, of fortified, high walls of stone. He's seen plenty with his ragtag band of sellswords, and was no stranger to the concept itself— but nothing could match the capital's scale. Aimlenn absolutely [i]dwarfed[/i] anything else he'd ever known.

Yet more proof that the world was still far bigger than him.

[color=goldenrod][i]Not to mention, this Order as well.[/i][/color] He thought, offering a wave to awestruck children that watched their passing. [color=goldenrod][i]It's strange how being the one gawking at knights feels so simultaneously a short and long while ago.

That used to be me down there. I wonder if they would follow my path, should it mean a chance to ride with us?[/i][/color]

He hoped not.

He wouldn't trade the opportunity nor the honor for the world, nor even the much larger weight of time that he had experienced in an unscrupulous trade to lead him to them, but he hoped not.

He hoped that any prospective Knights would be far better prepared than he for many facets of this. That they would be stronger in body and mind than he. That they wouldn't make so many mistakes, whether he had escaped consequences this time or no. He had much more work left to his name before he could truly become the knight he decided was his goal, seven years ago. Far from mastering himself to the degree it required, half the time he wondered if he had truly earned the right to step foot into that hallowed compound.

The Knights entered the Candaeln, their home base, and the tiny Captain stiffly ordered them to disperse towards either healing, or some rest. That they'd earned it.

That much was true. They, collectively, had earned more than their share of a good morning's sleep. A surgical night raid that had resulted in a dominating victory, vanquishing a scourge upon the land's people as well as a fairly powerful enemy fighter at its head. Good work by any metric, regardless of how disdainfully they had all entered the mission. She, as much as anyone, had done enough to merit such. Looked for all the world to be ready to follow her own advice.

But Gerard, inexorably, found himself drifting towards the Training Wing rather than his quarters.

His mind had not yet settled. He intended, in the simplest terms, to hone himself until fatigue would do it for him.