<div class="floatright">(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/049/b/8/cleric_copy_by_yamao-d5vddiv.jpg)</div><strong>Dale, Human Crusader</strong><br/><hr/>A mother of three? Dressed as she had been? Making those kinds of jokes? Risking others' children when she should identify with them? Dale didn't care for her words, not because they might be truth or lies, but because they were excuses. Despite that though, he nodded. "As long as you understand, I accept your apology. But care with your words, woman, and control your mouth," he says, about to sit back down, a little mollified. As her hand goes for his ear his eyes widen and he bats her hand away with the back of his metal gauntlet, not caring too much about whether it stung or not.<br/><br/>"I never said I was an example to others," he says calmly. "I am that I am. A man, like any other, trying to do what he can to get by and do the right things in life. We all choose our own roads, and some are more difficult than others. But in my journies, I have found that the more difficult ones, while often tougher and harder to forge, are at the end of them far more rewarding than the instant gratifications and simple pleasures others try to take at the drop of a hat." He looks down at his gauntleted hands for a moment, remembering the callouses and scars that lace them. "I have helped erect houses where there were once only clearings. I have stood between ogres and townsfolk. I have met the undead with sword, shield, and chain at the edge of a village. I have sweat and bled for people I had only ever met once," he explains, the words resounding with an almost holy power through the room, his voice steady and sure.<br/><br/>"And while I may not have enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh as often as others have, considering their form of dress before," he raises an eyebrow at her, "I have had the pleasure of a babe's laugh in his mother's arms when he was still protected and sheltered from the world, the sight of a family around the table having invited me to join them in their newly-built home, and the thanks of a man with his wife standing behind them when without me they would have been both eaten. It is a satisfying experience, and if you have not yet felt it, I hope you some day receive the opportunity. For all the times I've slept with a woman, not once did the pleasure outweigh that of the satisfaction I received from helping those people."<br/><br/>He looked straight at her once more, his gaze penetrating with its solemnity and power. He was no paladin, surely, but he was the closest thing to it, and even now the gods might look through his eyes. "And if you try to patronize me again, you and I will have words. And more, if necessary. Do you understand?" he asks, no intimidation or threat in his voice, simply a calm determination as he sits down again, almost as though he were a rock against the tide of her words, anchored and unyielding.