Ravensblood Forest hush, lay down your troubled mind

And in the end, here they were. If he could keep Hua on one side and Simmik on the other, that was the way Mal preferred things. He wanted them both to be safe, even if he knew that Simmik was probably far better at fighting than him at this point, but hey, nobody else had to know that. He might not be as physically intimidating as this apparently stripey guy they were going to meet here, but the spotted man would make sure he cut a dashing silhouette between the women. Let the guy wonder about what Mal had boxed inside him, because this was a time for his best poker face. His own issues would have to wait for him to come back to them a few miles away on the side of the road.

But in the end, he didn't know what to expect from them. They could totally just buzz off when they saw they'd pretty much pissed off everyone in a reasonable radius, or they could try to attack or... Who the hell knew. Mal had mapped out about five different scenarios that required various degrees of selflessness on his part and he was hoping for the "they just leave" option the most, it sounded the best, and thus most unlikely, let's be real.