Phantom Hollow Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

On the bright side, he didn't get closer.  But he wasn't just disappearing into a puff of smoke so that was bad.  The nonchalance of it all only matched Mal's expectations of what conversations with the undead must be like. They pretend nothing is wrong and convince you to let them close, then that's when they probably try to kill you.  Think about it -- all the weirdos at the sea totally acted like everything was ok, then as Mal didn't cooperate they converged on each other.  It was basically what he was thinking.  It's not like the situation made any sense to him otherwise.  Like why would anyone alive and reasonable be joking like it was nothing?!

Though he was still growling quietly, Mal did speak, his words sharp but sort of striking wildly, I'm not falling for it.  Didn't before.  Not gonna now.  You should just -- go back over the mountains.  Or something.  You could practically hear the frustrated, not really knowing what to say aspect of it.  The fact he was making the assumption that this dude knew exactly what he was talking about (and that it wouldn't be misinterpreted as something more mundane).  But if it wasn't obvious by now that Mal's perspective of the whole thing was based on some questionable logical leaps, it probably would be soon enough.