The words of Haemar would have angered the Ranger beyond reason. You don't just pull your weapon on a member of your party like you pull one on a monster. You don't need to prepare for the worst when a long time friend of yours walks before you. Not even then if you might have... a thing for her, but this would not have been publicly shared. Some of Katia's speech was unintelligible, but he would have realised from her body language that she wasn't too happy about something. But there was a reason these were all hypothetical: Theodore's mind was not exactly on this plane of existence and he wasn't quite the mystic that could handle telepathy over those distances.

All that came from there was the resounding 'what on earth did just happen?'. And somebody had that set on a loop. So, as anyone who did not have access to his mind would only see the Ranger freeze in place, a slight red colour rising to his cheeks as he did his best to process this turn of events. "Thea... you... I... what...", he stammered, probably making next to zero sense to anyone. In a few moments his mind found something to focus on, which was to get his mask back.

He tried reaching for it first, but Thea held it away from his reach. This reminded him of something... had Katia talked her into this without him noticing? It was a possibility for certain, he couldn't discard it. His attempts were punctuated by cute high-pitched grunts, though they were very much unintentional, but as they yielded no fruit, he simply placed his hands onto the Paladin's shoulders and repeated something he had explained to her last many years prior: "The mask is important and you know that. Says in the doctrine to keep it on at moments like this, out in the open and not in a fight, eating or things like that. Could you hand it back?" His voice next dropped heaps in volume as Thea did indeed hand the mask back to him, making a remark on why she had kept it. "Well if it is just that, maybe later when the doctrine allows..."

Theodore covered his progressively reddening face with the mask once more and lingered for just a second next to the woman he admittedly was interested in, but finally began taking small steps towards the rest of the group, ready to continue on on their journey. He shook his head and placed one of his hands on the front of his mask, pressing it against his face, the material cooling his heated face just a little before heating up to the same temperature.

[hider=Mechanics&Rolls]
Theodore's Initiative in the case of a fight is [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/2687]21[/url].
The roll was made with advantage provided by Natural Explorer feature, the lower being a [url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/rolls/2686]13[/url].
[/hider]
[@Zverda][@The Harbinger of Ferocity]