In the absence of anything to hide behind and lacking the ability to sink down into his seat without being noticed, Alek continued to sip at his water, peering over the edge of his mug as the other prentice pondered and muttered. He himself didn't much like people either, but he would choose spending time with them over death or injury. He was even beginning to tire of this place, in fact, with its bustling taproom and endless trickle of thirsty patrons. He didn't know anything definitive about animals, weapons, or Oban, and he'd had enough rest. He just wanted to go home.
Spine straightening abruptly, Alek gingerly set his mug in the table in front of him as if it had done something embarrassing and he was trying to distance himself from it before anyone noticed.
"As would I," he replied.
"But sometimes we must do things we do not like in order to remain alive." It was the first remotely snippy thing he had said to Myrsky, and he immediately regretted it. Alek did try to sink in his seat then, but only a hair.
"I... um... should go. I have to get home to tell my family about the battle." He hesitated to call the people who made up his community "family," but it was easier than trying to explain his actual relationship to them.
