Neverwinter Forest I guess I'll just go home.

He'd been scrutinizing the stranger, and had opened his mouth to say something when he was preemptively interrupted.  Ibis's dismissive attitude sent a ripple down the fur of Mal's spine as he refocused onto her with quite a bit of intensity.  No.  They'd done that to him his whole life, that part was over, and he was going to get the respect that was owed to him.  If they didn't like it, they could piss off and go back to that hellscape they came from.  Ibis, it was said sternly, coolly.  Like for a brief moment he might actually be a responsible leader -- or at least an actual adult.  He took a couple of steps to sort-of intercept and paused, frowning.  This is not Elysium -- that isn't how a pack works. People don't get to come in unless they're gonna join, and they don't get to join unless they talk to me.  It's not like she's a kid.  In his eyes, Ibis had zero grounds to try and do anything around his totally reasonable orders, mostly because he believed she'd be far more likely to get walked over and bring in someone bad because of whatever starry-eyed daydreams she believed in that differed the cold hard reality Mal was so familiar with.  Sure, she could verbally challenge him, but he was sure she'd fold in a heartbeat if he made it about teeth.  This was his pack, he'd protect it, duh.

He lingered and watched her a moment longer before shifting his gaze snappily to Ereshkigal, We need people who can do stuff.  What do you do?  See, Ibis? This was what you were supposed to do!  Also if it wasn't obvious, he was totally oblivious as to why she might be wanting to ditch Mal in the first place.  He is not a smart boy, double plus that when it comes to feelings.  Also he wasn't sure he necessarily liked being watched so intently on Ereshkigal's part either -- but he was totally gonna prove to be better by toughing it out.  Or something.  But if she wanted to help (which he was pretty sure she'd said before he got mega distracted by Ibis), then she needed to say how.