[color=goldenrod][i][h2][center]Gerard Segremors[/center][/h2][/i][/color]

[@Psyker Landshark][@VitaVitaAR]

[color=goldenrod]"As ever, I'll go where I'm needed best, if that's how we proceed."[/color] Gerard said evenly enough as he and Fleuri ambled back down the slope, gilded eyes trailing the mass of crimson, a bloodied mountainside upon the skies. [color=goldenrod]"I can surely strike the wings with authority, but would echo Renar's direction for similar reasons. I trained under Cyrus, I'm familiar with the duress of being faced with overwhelming force."[/color]

His hands rested upon the pommel of his longsword, unused in this leg of the challenge but still a comforting presence— one that it took a little effort not to clutch instead within a white-knuckled grip. As one of the three that had summited the hill, just before it had been enshrouded by a ring of flame, it had taken him a moment to register that the heat hadn't been at the Hundi's behest, perhaps to illustrate her point regarding reckless elementalism and the dangers it posed to their approach. So noted, regardless. He hadn't minded flame much in battles past—

The roar from afar hit his ears like distant thunder, and set his blood at a boil, stood his every hair on end, locked his gaze onto the glittering ruby at Erion's side. The same he had seen up close, when Gisela had cast her beacon and he had filled the sky overhead.

—But long before all this, before he ever dared believe facing flames down his lot in life, he had heard the songs of triumph and valor, countless stories from days long past that captured a boyhood imagination like a spider did a fly. Strength of arms and spirit versus the flames, scales, and fangs of a beast that was said to approach the celestial, the divine. The final flame of this crucible they'd been placed within. The final leg of their journey, through which they'd proven their will to persevere... even to the bitter end. Knighthood's highest calling.

A [i]Dragon Hunt[/i].

He cleared his throat, a crooked grin worming its way onto his face as he glanced between the Captain and Gisela's departing form. [color=goldenrod]"Thanks to our second proctor and her magic, I'm already nice and warmed up for keeping myself out of the fire."[/color]

He would allow no more of a release for his excitement than that small moment, not while they had this challenge at the fore. There would be plenty of time to revel in this opportunity, much of it better than spending it all now. Part of the reason he'd stopped appending the 'Sir' to Cyrus's name were the times the big man had pasted him until he'd learned his lesson in dealing with living legends, in holding your awe under lock and key. Furor and festivity wore the same faces, if you got carried away. A breath saw it leave, and his mask of focus return.

[color=goldenrod]"Additionally, we're familiar with working as a unit already. Above all else, the bait team is going to need to coordinate at a moment's notice— Safe distance, Thrinax's position, who has attention, all of that needs careful management, especially if we mean to pull the wool over his eyes. Easiest done with guys you know well."[/color]

They, Fleuri, and Fionn had already demonstrated that much against the Prince's cohort of bannermen. Pickings among the Knights that had made it this far felt a touch slimmed down— rote though it may have been, unless a radically different playbook was chosen? Rerunning that cell, at least in part, felt to him the most reliable option available.