On the one hand the Captain always - well near always - liked to find what it was he was looking for when he was looking. It had a certain resolution to it that he appreciated, a sense of satisfaction and closure when whatever got itself lost had got found again.<br/><br/>That and he'd have whatever he wanted to find, which was the point.<br/><br/>Sometimes, though, you go looking for something and when you find it, turns out it's maybe not so much what you expected after all. This was turning out to be one of those times.<br/><br/>Wasn't so much that the man following River looked to make trouble. Girl had him by the hand like an old uncle or some such; hard to scare folk when a little girl's dragging you along. Still, even after she started talking sense in a way meant actual sense to people more than unsettling jabber, little River never seemed to judge character the same way as Mal, or even the rest of the crew. Saw people differently, and that was good some of the time, some of the time more an unsmoothness to be worked over. Having a man along with her coming back to the ship, for instance? Especially a man didn't look to mind he was bein' led or who by? That didn't sound what he'd think of as smooth so much as interesting in a way that had his hand resting closer to his hip than it might've otherwise. Just never know with some people.<br/><br/>"Shepherd? Well, isn't that something. Here I was looking for my crew wandered off all over the place and only when the last shows up does one of them appear. Y'know, if you planned to help herd my cattle back aboard I could've used it a mite earlier." He looked the other man over as he added, "You said potential. What's the potent about it?"