[ Ned's eyebrows don't seem to know what to do with the first response, first pinching then raising then smoothing down to vaguely neutral, or thereabouts. He does not mean to stare, does not mean to many things in his life it seems -- a sore lack of conviction, some deeper buried part of him is plenty aware -- but he does stare. The speech fits the image, is his first thought and he can't put his finger on where he even gets off assuming he knows what those puzzle pieces look like to begin with. He watches the trail of smoke, lets his otherwise rudely overlong gaze follow it the way one stares up at a jetstream painting its way out of view. How strange to feel so apart and so addressed all at once. Eyes circling back to the pipe itself and the slender clutch about it, he wonders -- irrelevantly -- exactly what this stranger is smoking.

If he does it for nerves -- Ned is rife with doubt on that one -- or if it is a habit -- perhaps -- or if it is simply something he can do and to do. It doesn't matter but errant thoughts are errant thoughts. Ned stuffs them back behind his eyes; he has a lot of practice in trying, at least. ]

I'm glad it's not offensive. [ He says because it's true, a second quirk of that half-smile reemerging. Something apologetic rests around the pie maker's very posture, like he's sorry for being there, sorry for intruding except that everywhere here is an intrusion because he does not belong. This, he is at least aware now, is no special circumstance. Most seem drawn in from various elsewheres and yet.

Well he thinks this fellow looks more fitted to the setting than he himself. But then again, What does Ned know?

Not much.

He continues, ] M...Maedhros, right? Ah, I'm Ned.

[ Just Ned. He touches the back of his head, that absent, need-something-to-do, semi-anxious tic that follows him around in such similar gestures as that. ]

I'm not much for parties.

[ Assuming that's what all those celebratory goings-on happen to be. Peering through the wreathing smoke, he asks before he thinks better of it, ] What about you?

[ He didn't see any No Smoking signs in the hall, but Maedhros seems particularly...what's the word...stern? No. Severe? Maybe. Aloof. That might do it. Ned has only just met him but is downright struck by the realization he can't imagine him laughing. Not a laugh anyway.

And stupidly, his mind goes to Chuck. How sad that would make someone like her. How he loves that, though he never wants her to be sad.

Reeling it back, he blinks. Still neutrally pleasant. Still Ned. Still fine with the comparative quiet. Smoke and all. ]