#{ you cannot escape your soft heart forever yUri lOwell }

[altosk]

　　　Raven couldn't help shaking his head at the way Yuri described the Schwann Brigade. Not that he was wrong and maybe Leblanc did go a bit over-the-top when attempting to chase down the criminal Yuri Lowell. Schwann may have made sure to keep the kids in check but his unit had... a way of doing it. They were also simply loyal to a fault. The three of them single handedly dug him out from his certain doom once, he had no doubt they'd do it again.

❝ hey now. bringing up the past at a time like this? aren't you thankful for ol' raven helpin' ya out back then? ❞

Joking aside, he was pretty thankful at how level headed Yuri could be when times turned tough. Both of them heavily considered their options but clearly Yuri was the one doing the most thinking out of the two of them or maybe it was just to hide up any internal panic. Yuri was never the easiest guy to read most days.

Raven was at a mental standstill with the lads last question. Weighing the options of staying versus exploring and splitting up or not. The guild had come here for a reason as a team and he was a little worried that something might be lurking deeper in the ruins, not that they'd probably stray too far, like Yuri had suggested. Any sort of monsters could have made such an abandoned place their nest, however nothing had seemed to react to the collapse besides them.

❝ hm... well, we'll certainly have time before helps comin' so it shouldn't hurt if we look around. We better stick t'gether, though. I don't want to get in trouble if you don't come back! ❞

As dramatic as his tone may be, he knew that he'd get one heck of a lecture about letting the young man wander off on his own and have him not come back. It wasn't that Raven didn't have faith in him, he just wasn't going to stretch their luck any further. Worst comes to worst they could wander back and start digging themselves out. Raven was perfectly okay with putting off the hard labor for a little while longer.

"Isn't up to the elderly to have wise advice for the youth? What am I gonna do without it with all my youthful ignorance?" When Raven merely kicked at a rock, Yuri half expected the damn pile to crash down on them. At this point it would be his luck. As long as they didn't crushed though, they could probably make it a week or more with the provisions on hand rationed well enough. It was really a matter of how much they could do before they ran too low on energy to handle any strenuous physical activity.

"We could look for another way out, but I'm not sure we should stray too far either... Getting lost is just as bad as being stuck - especially if help shows up and we're nowhere to be found." Plus, the knights and whatever guild(s) they might be able to hire to help would have to start at the entrance and work their way inward. The less resistance in front of them the better, and the sooner they'd get through if the other half on the other side had been chipped away at.

It didn't help that... this place all looked the same from the inside. If they weren't too worried about the stability of the ruins, Raven could just shoot at it bit by bit until the remaining rumble was easily moved aside, but one wrong debris landing large enough could just make it even worse and leave them with a bigger pile than they started with. At least Rita hadn't attempted to blow anything up to get them out...

"There's a sure way out here in front of us, so I guess we could check the mostly immediate area... but we shouldn't wander far. Pretty sure your Tweedles and my personal fanclub leader Leblanc will come running as soon as they hear about you being trapped with me. But then again, it's your fault I was able to make that jailbreak that got me out of Zaphias to begin with... so maybe I should tell them I'm off the hook by honor of their esteemed captain seeing fit to conspire with me... You're more helpful than I thought."

He was word tossing, but his eyes were already checking for a potential other exit. He paused though as he considered how well moving the debris would go on their end. Eventuality he would need a break, and for as much as he knew now, he still didn't know how much activity Raven could actually handle. It left an uncomfortable knot in his stomach that Raven genuinely might not be able to overwork himself out of potential danger.

Whether or not Raven knew the limits of his heart wasn't knowledge Yuri himself had, but if all these "old" and "tired bones" jokes were relative to how much he was capable of without the pushing the limits of his blastia, then labor of this sort might actually be too much for him for long periods. All those jokes could be just that, but Yuri wasn't going to fuck with the possibility that they weren't. Not when Schwann might have been a "do nothing captain" for a reason. Jokes were harmless. The other possibility, not so much. "Would you rather split up to look around or check together?"