[He catches it, because how could he not? The irony is that it's elusive; he can't be sure what he's caught, just that it was there, and he could have touched it. Was he too slow, or was it a trick of the light (or its absence), after all?]

Hardly. It's a world where there are no shortage of gods or kings, I've found, so it takes more to stand out.

[A subtle little goading challenge, maybe. A certain type of person can't stand the idea of being ordinary; they would rather be disgusting, horrifying, or monstrous, before the cardinal sin of being boring, and he's curious to know if this man is one of those.]

When "starved for context" goes for almost everyone here... doesn't it lose some meaning? A king is still a king, whether he travels or dies. Why not here, if the title is what stands in the place of a subject?

[He waits. He wants something in return for his name before he commits to a "good to meet you, too."]