He senses something in this winged mare: a brilliance long forgotten, suffocated under days of wandering alone. Such a thing had grown within him once, when he was storm cloud dark and so frail, but it has left, burned out, replaced by silver emptiness and the miles under his feet. He cannot go back to it, but quietly he soaks up her voice. “You don’t talk too much.” Canoe smiles at her, more softly perhaps than he smiles at most. Keep talking, he thinks. So long as he listens, that hollow place inside him closes down.

        Rei goes on to tell them of her own childhood, and this information he drinks with interest. They were hardly like, as children; he recalls his own self wandering the desert, his voice chiming out to strangers, his nimble hooves darting quickly away. Of course, that was after... After Grandfather. He peers at the tundra behind the mares, the empty sky curving over their heads.

        When the nameless girl speaks, Caneo listens, but with a detached sort of interest. He studies her again, the youthful lines of her limbs and her face, and thinks – she cannot be so much older than himself. Maybe they share a birth year. That would be something.

        She seems embarrassed by the thought of singing. Caneo’s head tilts slowly, one ear cocked in curiosity. He has heard the singing of sharp teeth through the night, and the singing of wind, but has never used his own throat for creating such a sound. He ponders this until Rei speaks to him again. What would he sing about? What songs are meant for unicorns?

        And why was the orange girl embarrassed?

        A name. Rei wants his name. He waits to speak as the kitsune leaps from the hornless girl’s back. Though the sudden movement startles, he remains still, his lean figure tense as brittle glass. They’ll know you’re afraid, he thinks, annoyed with his own instinct. Natraj, the red girl names her friend, and for herself – Tandavi. Caneo blinks at her, fitting the name to the shape. “He is kitsune,” quietly. It is a question, but he makes it sound like the mere truth. “He’s very nice.” And now it comes to Caneo’s turn.

        “I’m Caneo,” he tells them. There is nothing else to say; he might also add from the Aurora Basin, but he has lingered there so little time he forgets that part. He is not one of them; he would much rather be among these brighter creatures, even if they are not unicorns. They seem much better than his own kind, anyway.

        Except perhaps for Lena. And for Roland.

        He feels a little guilty when Rei speaks up again, admitting she overheard his temper earlier. And something like embarrassment creeps up inside him, something warm and unpleasant, and he turns to look at her with wide eyes, regretting the words immensely, regretting that he ever spoke aloud to himself, at all. “Eh... I don’t think so.” Caneo simpers, his long tail twitching as he struggles desperately to find a suitable lie. He thinks of the Basin, of the desert, of the stars shining bright overhead.

        He thinks, for the space of a heart beat, about taking these mares to the Basin with him, but he remembers seeing unicorns there, only. And he remembers the smell of that northern home on the skin of those he met down south, those who spoke with cold tongues and looked with cruel eyes.

        He will not bring anyone to that place.

        “My home is far away,” Caneo says instead, as if he has lost interest in it now. “I was exploring, actually. But I didn’t want to go in this cave by myself.” He turns to gesture at the glittering rock behind him, its cold breath rolling over his skin as he moves just a breath nearer. “I don’t like caves.” More brightly, he turns to them again, a little too aware that his sudden cheer sounds false; his manner is childish still, and strained. “Do you live around here? I bet your homes are nicer than mine.”