Them was quiet. It wasn't odd, given his nature as a schemer and an observer, but he seemed more contemplative than usual. Sitting under gentle moonlight, he watched it reflect on Fort Lake's mostly still surface between sharpening his belt knife. If he was to be a wherhandler one day, he'd need to readjust to a wherhandler's schedule. Being twenty-six in autumn, there wasn't much time left for him to Impress a dragon, but after his efforts in assisting to free that old wild brown, he had come to Fort again changed. Let others take up a dragonrider's mantle; he'd walk by night and bond a wher. It felt...right, somehow. Listening to stone scrape along metal, feeling his every move reverberate through his fingers, it was...soothing; some of those vines had been woodier than he'd thought, dulling his blade to an extreme degree. Catching part of his own reflection in his belt knife, he paused a moment, a frown narrowing his green eyes, those eyes that stared at him as intently as he studied them.
There were still countless questions Them wanted answered, most of which were locked in his mind, inaccessible. It frustrated him to no end, much like certain wherhandlers. A huff left him as he made a particularly harsh swipe of his whetsone across his blade. How such a brief engagement in an otherwise much more important situation could irritate him so was beyond him. It grated on his nerves, bruised his pride, but most of all, it had granted her a victory. Them wasn't happy about that, stewing as he was here, in addition to his other wayward musings. But footsteps would draw him from his thoughts, causing him to look up to see who it was, to whom he offered a wrinkled nose and pursed lips. "It's you," he greeted curtly, looking down to his belt knife again in utter disinterest for Ronica. "Come to spoil my glorious solitude, mouthing your pointless words at me again?"