Mal turns his head away for and suddenly he's hearing voices or the two of them ain't so very alone as he'd been assuming. He don't even hesitate - might be plenty easy in such a state of gloom to appear and come right of nowhere but the voice sounds plenty familiar with the two of them meaning whoever it is must have been stalking about unseen and, well, in Mal's opinion that kind of sneaking makes a man untrutworthy least until he can prove others - drawing his pistol and twisting around in one fluid motion, aiming at his best approximation of where he'd heard the fellow peak, expecting to find himself face to face wit a full grown man.
See, that all comes pretty natural once you've lived the sort of life Mal has for the last all too many years. He's damn used to firefights and tight spots and in certain parts of the 'verse you either learn to react immediately without much time to think on it or else wind up with no time left to think or do much anything at all depending on how good a shot the other man is and how long it takes you to bleed out. Point is well before Mal's had any any time to mull it over or digest what's been said he's already staring down the barrel of his gun at the stranger, or by all rights were the stranger should be.
After the adrenaline passes and Mal's head's actually had time to catch up with his muscles he appears to be aiming at not much more than the thick forest air. Shàngdì de yězhǒng de mǔqīn is he going mad, then? Maybe whatever the little girl has is contagious or maybe it's something about this planet's atmo? You hear of terraforming causing all sorts of unexplainable side effects,wouldn't be tso difficult to imagine the air here's got something fundamentally wrong with it and the longer he's grounded drinking it in the worse the effects will get. Actually might offer up an explanation for all these endless wood lands if they're trying their damndest to clean out the air system, as well as why there's something so unsettling 'bout this whole place even when you're just standing there.
All just wild-ass guessing bá chū pìgu, but he ain't exactly working off of a lot to go on when it comes to being able and explain what precisely in the fluffy Lord's name is going on down here. Mean, his mind is pretty well filled with possibilities flying all over the place, most of which are straight up absurd, and taking under consideration his two prevailing theories that's saying a whole lot.
Makes him wish all the more there HAD been some kind of villain sneaking around listening in on private conversations before slinking out of the darkness. Would give Mal a good excuse to at the very least knock a few teeth out of the man's head might be just the sort of solid, straight froward confrontation he needs right now. Help sort his head out and get his mind put straight or at least let him just go on reacting without all this annoysome careful amounts of deliberating he's got to be bothered with.
The whole situation clearly throws Mal off his game for a few moments there. He'd been so expecting some full sized person to be standing right there when he'd turned around that the shock of seeing no one at all had - well, it's not exactly like he's been rattled up, just been so sure that he'd heard someone. Takes his brain a second to reboot is what he's getting at, which is when he first noticed the giant sheep life dog sitting next to Melanie right where his stranger should be. He looks something like a newfie from what Mal remembers of dogs back home on Shadow, certainly recalls those being plenty huge and this one seems to all but dwarf the child he's resting beside.
Now where in all the heavens did she go and pull THAT from? A squirrel and bird were easy enough to hide away, but a beast that big certainly couldn't have fit up in that tree with her and Mal hadn't seen so much as a whisker the whole time he'd been standing here.
"And," There is that voice again and Mal would swear it.. Not that anyone would believe him. Hell, he don't even believe it himself and he's standing right there. "Why haven't you said anything?" Don't even matter what the gorramn hell the dog meant by that and, yes, he said the dog as if it had been he one speaking because, well, that sure a hell is what it came off looking like to Mal. He blinks a few times, slowly at first, then shakes his head almost like a man sober up though he's fairly certain he's not drunk. Is he?
It's as good a theory as any of his others and would explain plenty of what he's seeing right now. Actually, there ain't much that would truly explain what he's seeing if in fact he's seeing it all. Hasn't completely ruled out the possibility that he's just going out of his gorramn mind.
"I'm sorry," Mal says in a way that clearly ain't so much an apology as a polite way to demand someone explain just what he ruttin' hell is going on here. "But did you just hear that dog talk?" Melanie might not be the best person to check his sanity against but Mal's not being left with very many choices. One of the few he does have is keeping his gun drawn and aimed in the general vicinity of the voice - human or otherwise - because regardless of whose doing the speaking right now Mal figures he's well within reason to find this whole situation just a tad threatening.
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See, that all comes pretty natural once you've lived the sort of life Mal has for the last all too many years. He's damn used to firefights and tight spots and in certain parts of the 'verse you either learn to react immediately without much time to think on it or else wind up with no time left to think or do much anything at all depending on how good a shot the other man is and how long it takes you to bleed out. Point is well before Mal's had any any time to mull it over or digest what's been said he's already staring down the barrel of his gun at the stranger, or by all rights were the stranger should be.
After the adrenaline passes and Mal's head's actually had time to catch up with his muscles he appears to be aiming at not much more than the thick forest air. Shàngdì de yězhǒng de mǔqīn is he going mad, then? Maybe whatever the little girl has is contagious or maybe it's something about this planet's atmo? You hear of terraforming causing all sorts of unexplainable side effects,wouldn't be tso difficult to imagine the air here's got something fundamentally wrong with it and the longer he's grounded drinking it in the worse the effects will get. Actually might offer up an explanation for all these endless wood lands if they're trying their damndest to clean out the air system, as well as why there's something so unsettling 'bout this whole place even when you're just standing there.
All just wild-ass guessing bá chū pìgu, but he ain't exactly working off of a lot to go on when it comes to being able and explain what precisely in the fluffy Lord's name is going on down here. Mean, his mind is pretty well filled with possibilities flying all over the place, most of which are straight up absurd, and taking under consideration his two prevailing theories that's saying a whole lot.
Makes him wish all the more there HAD been some kind of villain sneaking around listening in on private conversations before slinking out of the darkness. Would give Mal a good excuse to at the very least knock a few teeth out of the man's head might be just the sort of solid, straight froward confrontation he needs right now. Help sort his head out and get his mind put straight or at least let him just go on reacting without all this annoysome careful amounts of deliberating he's got to be bothered with.
The whole situation clearly throws Mal off his game for a few moments there. He'd been so expecting some full sized person to be standing right there when he'd turned around that the shock of seeing no one at all had - well, it's not exactly like he's been rattled up, just been so sure that he'd heard someone. Takes his brain a second to reboot is what he's getting at, which is when he first noticed the giant sheep life dog sitting next to Melanie right where his stranger should be. He looks something like a newfie from what Mal remembers of dogs back home on Shadow, certainly recalls those being plenty huge and this one seems to all but dwarf the child he's resting beside.
Now where in all the heavens did she go and pull THAT from? A squirrel and bird were easy enough to hide away, but a beast that big certainly couldn't have fit up in that tree with her and Mal hadn't seen so much as a whisker the whole time he'd been standing here.
"And," There is that voice again and Mal would swear it.. Not that anyone would believe him. Hell, he don't even believe it himself and he's standing right there. "Why haven't you said anything?" Don't even matter what the gorramn hell the dog meant by that and, yes, he said the dog as if it had been he one speaking because, well, that sure a hell is what it came off looking like to Mal. He blinks a few times, slowly at first, then shakes his head almost like a man sober up though he's fairly certain he's not drunk. Is he?
It's as good a theory as any of his others and would explain plenty of what he's seeing right now. Actually, there ain't much that would truly explain what he's seeing if in fact he's seeing it all. Hasn't completely ruled out the possibility that he's just going out of his gorramn mind.
"I'm sorry," Mal says in a way that clearly ain't so much an apology as a polite way to demand someone explain just what he ruttin' hell is going on here. "But did you just hear that dog talk?" Melanie might not be the best person to check his sanity against but Mal's not being left with very many choices. One of the few he does have is keeping his gun drawn and aimed in the general vicinity of the voice - human or otherwise - because regardless of whose doing the speaking right now Mal figures he's well within reason to find this whole situation just a tad threatening.