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As if it wasn't embarrassing enough that Lucas had briefly found himself appraising the physical appearance of his comrade, whilst on the battlefield of all places, Cecilia made it ten times worse by calling him out.

[color=6ecff6]"!"[/color]

How on earth she'd noticed his inappropriacy in the darkened forest was beyond him, but if what before was a blush, then what was now was a face as red as a tomato.  It was a good job he was caked in drying blood, not that [i]that[/i] made the situation any less embarrassing for the young knight.  [color=6ecff6][i]Elite scouts indeed,[/i][/color] he thought exasperatedly.  He almost missed the information the bandit had spilled.

"...there's palisades set up around the camp, but it's not a complete wall... a watch tower, too... hehe... I've never seen anyone as beautiful as you, y'know..."

The pre-death flirtations along with Sir Gerard's quip at Dame Morianne just made things worse and Lucas couldn't have been more happy when Paladin Tyaethe ordered him to join in gathering the bodies.

[color=6ecff6]"Err, at once, Paladin Tyaethe,"[/color] was the response, and he quickly wiped his sword clean on the tattered threads of a bandit corpse, then sheathed it before getting to work.

Dead weight was ridiculously heavy, and Lucas found himself struggling with his orders.  The smell was back in the forefront of his mind too.  He tried and failed his first approach before finding some success by sitting the corpses up, before wrapping his arms around the torsos and dragging from there.  It was slightly disheartening to see a little girl making light work of it all, even if that little girl was in fact a centuries-old veteran warrior with likely double the strength of even [i]Sir Fionn MacKerracher.[/i]  As he hauled his second body onto the pile, he glanced at Sir Gerard, who was casually getting on with his job, as if piling up firewood on a quaint evening.  He took no note of his talking with Sir Renard, only wondering that this was the life of a hero knight.  It was all such a rude awakening.

He leaned over to get a good grip over another dead bandit, trying his best to ignore the corpse's stomach was falling out of it's bloody stomach.

And the night was young - there was plenty more to do.  Plenty more killing.  Plenty more corpses to pile up.  This was a short battle, he knew that much.  Not enough of a fight for such a large regiment of knights.  The bandit camp would likely be a much more taxing affair.  This was simply a warm up.  Lucas steeled himself, gritting his teeth and forcing a burst of willpower from within.  He [i]would[/i] do what was asked of him.  He [i]had[/i] to.  He had to live on, not just for himself but for his parents, for the rest of the people he once called family.  And here was an opportunity to be a hero of the people - a sword of justice for the crown.  Here, tonight, was the possibility of rescuing innocents from captivity - to be like Sir Gerard himself.  He just had to keep his chin up, his jaw clenched and kill the criminals who opposed honour and righteousness.  And of course...  Follow orders. And don't die.

And so he followed his orders, ever-wary of vomiting and embarrassing himself further.  He found his way over to Sir Fleuri and reached for a dead body near him.

[color=6ecff6]"Sir Fleuri, you have my apologies,"[/color] he started, wanting to be quiet enough that no one else would hear, but needing to be clear enough that the older knight would hear the sincerity of his words.  [color=6ecff6]"I don't know what came over me, rushing out from the flank like that, but I will do better in the future.  Thank you for pulling me out of that mess."[/color]