[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Sagramore[/color][/h3][/center]

[@VitaVitaAR][@vietmyke]

Three blades clattered to the ground, the percussion kick of surrender echoing off the walls on either side of the melee. In time with the hastily rising hands, the blur of black and white that had suddenly accosted them from the rear restrained himself, fading back into Rudolf's low-hunched form, his wings mere inches away from the next throat that would have stained them yet redder. In the gloom between Brightlam's domiciles, that crimson essence had of course looked closer to spilt ink than anything else. 

[color=c0392b]"Lucky you saw sense."[/color]

Fitting that they invoked Himstus the way they did— blood was red because it carried his fire through the body. That was why you went cold when you had lost too much, so the legends went. Why when blood was spilled, fight too left the heart.

[i]They weren't smart enough to leave the three of you alone to begin with. They couldn't recognize Galahad as a dragoon until he kicked one of them through a wall. They argue among themselves like they're not on the wrong end of swordpoint from every angle. Do you think they're smart enough to honor their surrender, once our two friends here take them at their word? Smart enough to remember this happened, the next time they've swords in their hands and somebody takes a wrong turn?[/i]

Red stained black... unfortunately familiar idea. The fight had nearly left him more than once— and the last time, it hadn't even needed a drop of his blood to start seeing itself out. His brow furrowed as he sheathed one blade, and kept the other interposed between him and the throats of their would-be muggers.

[i]There's one way to be sure, kid. They considered your life forfeit. The only thing that saved you was that you're stronger than they are. Suppose they're even half as good as the 'boy in the stupid uniform' that they fight like. How many people are still on the wrong end of the equation? Most of the same ones your questing to save, I'd wager.[/i]

He held his gaze, drawing closer, closer...

And without taking his eyes off them, plucked the first of the three swords from the ground in his free hand, pinching the ricasso between his first two fingers. 

[i]You know how easy swords are to buy.[/i]

[color=c0392b]"'Captain', huh? This sure as hell didn't seem like such an organized setup as needing a chain of command."[/color] he mentioned, cutting into their squabbling and taking the second sword between his middle and ring finger. He moved quickly between them, always keeping that bloodied sword at the ready, and in short order the third had joined its peers between ring and pinky, all three held in that odd, reversed grip and pulled well out of reach. 

[color=c0392b]"'Left Edren behind', too."[/color] he noted, as though spying a worm crawling at the bottom of his barrel of apples. [color=c0392b]"What's the story here? You conscripts that deserted during the war or something? You fight too much like duelists for that to be the start and end of it."[/color]

He knew Robin wasn't going to let [i]that[/i] lie unaddressed, and he admittedly had his own curiosity regarding the elephant in the room of how their 'Captain' and her adoptive old man might have been related— but if her previous tendency not to think things through told him anything, the thought that dear old dad may have had a more checkered past than she knew could well have thrown her off course and compromised her ability to ask the right questions. 

Hell, if she immediately assumed this school of swordsmanship was strictly limited to her father's tutelage, then it wasn't at all hard to imagine where a hasty mind could take this setup. She could have the lion's share of the interrogation once they'd established these key points, but he didn't have the inherent biases that'd color how they broke the ice.