“Careful, I might take you up on that offer,” Ike warned jokingly, though at this point, he might very well do that if the Cat was willing. He could always use Titania or Soren as a sounding board, but Ranulf might have a better idea of how to word things for this sort of a…speech.
Ugh, he didn’t even want to think about it, it made his stomach knot…
“No problem there. I mean…there isn’t really anything to compare with, I haven’t even attempted yet…,” he pointed out, shrugging his shoulders. “So…if Cats are hardheaded, what does that make the Dragons? They live…really long, don’t they?” Off topic, but the young mercenary might be stalling just a little.
“Go ahead. I was being perfectly serious.” Ranulf shrugged, as if to indicate he didn’t mind the idea at all. “Never hurts to get some constructive criticism... or I can just be quiet and listen. Whatever does the trick.”
He wasn’t joking about being older than Ike by a decent amount either. Appearances were deceiving -- Ranulf had to remind himself sometimes that beorc were always a lot younger than he expected, and he could only assume the opposite was true of how beorc saw laguz like himself.
“Well... how old are you? Twenty?” he guessed, squinting a little at Ike as if that would help. “I’ve probably been working for Caineghis for about that long. I wasn’t in the general army for too many years, since--” he gave a winning smile, “--the king thought I was a pretty clever cat.”
Said cat had to let out a snort at Ike’s comment about dragons. “Yeah, you know, you’re really not wrong. Dragons are as stubborn as they come. Granted, I’ve only spoken to a few of them myself, but...” He looked contemplative for a moment.
“Hey, anyways, don’t you have something to be practicing? Or were you going to just wing it instead?”