They're noisy footsteps—his new boots are very sturdy, and the snow coating the valley floor is crunchy where the uppermost layer melts under direct sunlight and freezes again every evening, and he stumbles a little over a block of ice and only stays upright with some arm-flailing effort. He's also eating the leg of some large bird or another. With his hands. Dashingly.

"It was a terribly long way and very inconvenient," he says, which is not even slightly true, "but you're welcome." He comes close to taking a bite, meat hovering near his mouth while he considers Beleth, then decides against it. Manners! He winds up with one arm crossed and the other elbow resting on top of it like a meat-delivery lever, and he lowers that lever forward to ask, "What's up?"