Howard jerks awake immediately from his little lump of clothing and stuffed animals in the corner. He's flipped the folding knife in his hand open even before he gets to his feet. Muscles tense, his breath quickens. Every cell in his body is on alert. His eyes fall on the intruder at the base of the cave, not twenty feet from him.

Too close. Much too close for comfort. He forces his face into a serious, deadly expression, instead of one of just fear. His face is already intimidating enough due to the gore of it - there's still a solitary bandage covering the hole straight through his cheek to his mouth, but the slit down his throat makes it appear that he's drooling blood, and the parantheses-shaped chunks out of the rest of his face are still black, red, purple, though they no longer weep.

But that's where the intimidation ends. He's short, and the baggy clothing only makes it more evident that his frame is slight at the best. He keeps his weight on one leg to keep it off an injury on the other. One hand presses against the wall behind him; the other points the knife in Stephanie's direction.

She looks fresh into the Arena, toned rather than skinny and underfed, without pieces taken out of her. And she was good enough to get past the bridge without instruction. He's honestly scared of her, and it manifests in a little tremble that rings from his wrist to the tip of the blade.

"What are you going to do to me?"

Well, probably not the best way to sound like someone in total control of the situation.