When Ranna said<em>"I think it's been pretty apparent we aren't much on order and discipline here."</em>Lei almost cracked a smile. If anyone had been paying attention to her, they might have seen it in her eyes, like her face was contemplating what a smile would be like. It wasn't that the young woman never smiled, it was just that little ever effected her enough to crack her composure, even when she found something as delightfully droll as Ranna's words just now. To someone raised in the ascetic style of a Liao Warrior House, like a mechwarrior monk, undisciplined was the understatement of the year to what Lei had just witnessed.<br/><br/>Of course, it also wasn't much of a surprise no one had really noticed her or paid Lei any mind. She was there as she had been almost every moment since she 'joined' the Ol' Bones a few months ago, like Erich's other, (much) smaller shadow. Lei stood a little further down the bar, where she nursed a beer, and just watched quietly. She suspected that many people in the unit thought she disapproved of them, perhaps was even disgusted by them, but Lei mostly just found the mercenaries endlessly fascinating. Of course, she'd learned all about them, mercenaries in general, but that was so she could be prepared for the possibility of infiltrating a mercenary unit, and the reality was always so much<em>more</em>than what was taught in the classroom.<br/><br/>Lei always kept a careful eye on things in these public settings. Outreach was pretty safe, but no mercenary unit survived without making enemies, and Lei suspected the Ol' Bones welcoming of Clanners might still be found offensive to some. Erich wasn't in much need of protection, in or out of his mech, Lei was well aware. As big, strong and experienced as he was, Erich was still one man, one man like any other without eyes in the back of his head, so Lei watched his back for him. The debt she owed him wasn't one that could ever truly be repaid, but she was honour bound to try and keep trying. It had also become apparent to Lei that despite all the training drilled into her through a lifetime of Warrior House discipline, she could still learn a lot from Erich, and from the other experienced mechwarriors of the unit.<br/><br/>Lei raised her drink and cheered with the rest of them at Walter's toast to the fallen. This was one thing Lei was not fascinated by, this honouring of those killed in battle especially; it was only right, as it was the most honourable death. In the value they placed on this, no matter the rest of the differences between them, Lei had found a certain kinship with these "undisciplined" mercenaries.