Barrow Fields And under mountains in the moon

Maybe had things gone differently, he might have had an okay conversation with Verx.  Or not.  It was kind of hard to tell, and the youth wasn't exactly great with words.  At least what he said definitely appealed to the conspiracies that Mal saw in basically everything, and he grunted something in vague affirmation.  In the end, it seemed like this whole giant meet 'n' greet was going to be too much for basically everyone involved.

Apathy was not a thing perplexing to Mal.  That had been most of his existence -- being nice was far more suspicious just for its oddity.  And her change in attitude only confirmed what he didn't need Verx to tell him -- she wanted something from him, and when he didn't run over and sing her praises, suddenly he was useless. Par for the course.  Wow, you're so wise, he said blandly, thoroughly unimpressed by whatever it was she was supposed to be selling.  Mal was plenty old enough to be out on his own, even if his skills weren't up to par, and as it were at this instant, that would be hard to tell.  He wouldn't be trading one set of witches for another.

But since the first guy was well on his way out and the woman seemed to be following, that left him only with the dude still up on the hill who was also doing the whole trying to lure him in by being nice thing.  Let's be real, nobody wanted Mal.  Nobody ever had.  If they knew who they were dealing with, then certainly they wouldn't have even tried.  Mal wasn't exactly keen on calling back, though he did sort of watch him as he started to move away, planning on circling around the mountains and seeing what was beyond unless he was stopped.