Zèklè held his grin as the poor stranger jumped; if anything, it stretched wider across his unapologetic face. He'd grown accustomed to being inspected, good at letting eyes wash over him (yes, there's only one wing; yes, there's metal on the other side; yes, my lightning is awesome) and he chatted through the stallion's silence, offering his aid in an unknown quest. Still, the boy felt a weight slip off his chest as his offer was accepted without any questions, or judgment, or dismay. His crooked grin widened.

"Great! I'm Zero! What's your name?"

Zèklè followed the stranger into the water, shivering as the water licked his hocks, struggling to stay afloat despite the unsteady nature of the tides. "Whoa!" he gasped as his hoof struck a stray stone and he stumbled, wing flapping to keep his body balanced despite all the obstacles in his way. Determined not to look silly in front of this adult, he clamped his tongue between his teeth, full focus concentrated on not falling down- and, miraculously, he did not.

He did however nearly miss where the silver stranger had indicated their query to be. "Oh yeah?" the boy contributed unhelpfully, jerking his head up to peer toward the rocks before turning his gaze back on the stranger. Brightly colored but not fish? There were lots of things that lived in the water, Zèklè had found, including whales, but whales were awfully big and difficult to miss, so it probably wasn't them. Not fish? Auburn brow furrowed as the boy considered, trying to search his vast knowledge on the ocean for some sort of answer.

Nothing came.

He shook his head, a youthful seriousness on his face. "Nah, but Ma says more'n fish - like whales - but this isn' a whale I think - live in the ocean. Lotsa things. Even magic things." He nodded seriously to punctuate his words, confident in his knowledge, because it came from Ma. It wasn't particularly surprising that this stranger wouldn't know such things, though. Few knew more about anything than Ma- really, it was just too bad that the silver hybrid didn't have a Ma who taught him as much as Zèklè had learned. It was the lightning colt's duty to spread Ma's wisdom to the poor, uninformed masses of Helovia.

Still, he wanted to find the things, and his excitement couldn't be quelled by any severity for long. Maybe it would be something Ma hadn't even heard of, and he could tell her about it and she'd think it was so cool! Or he could bring Iso to meet 'em, that'd be cool too... "We oughta go look an' see. Mebbe you scared 'em, an' that's why they're hidin'," the boy suggested now, thoughtful yet enthused, his orange and silver eyes bright. "I'm smaller'n you, though- I could probsably find 'em without bein' too scary, 'cus I bet I'm more quiet. What if I snucked up on 'em from this side an' you went on the other side and we trapped 'em?"

His voice rose steadily as he spoke, robbing his attestations of quietness from any merit, and by the end he was nearly prancing with the brilliance of his plan. Impatiently he waited for the Grown-Up to weigh in, breathlessly hoping that the larger horse would find the boy as clever as he found himself, instead of dashing his dreams like so many waves upon the shore.

[ sorry it took so long <3 ]