Caneo thrums with the sensation of standing upon a precipice - not the cliff - but something shattering and monumental. Maybe he feels only Essetia's joy bleeding through him; the mare shines like a newborn star in her anticipation. It makes her radiant, so much so that Caneo wonders, briefly, how he ever thought her quiet. And yet they are parallel in this regard: shining, dull, shining again, adaptive creatures testing the boundaries of this world they inhabit. He advances toward her side with curiosity filling his head, numbing his body to fear. He would not be so glad to do it if she were anyone else, but familiarity like a chain ensnares him.

        So he goes.

        Light, dainty steps bring the wraithlike stallion up to her side, neck arched, ears tilted forward to regard with interest (and a little suspicion) the softly glowing thing given by Ampere. "Get ready," Essetia tells him, and Caneo nods. Under the stillness of his skin, his body is a tight-wound thing, a complex mechanism waiting to explode. Not yet, he breathes in silence to the wildest parts of himself. Not now. Maybe not ever. He stands upon the cliff, allows his gaze to briefly catch the ocean, thinks this is a good metaphor for what is about to happen.

        And happen it does - something outside of Caneo's body rings a dissonant note to the thrumming in his breast. His sharp, silver self rebels against it; the darkness of panic surges and dies somewhere privately in the back of his mind. And he rises.

        Flying is the wrong word. Flying belongs to birds and angels and pegasi, and Caneo stares in mute, fascinated horror at the receding ground. A rushing fills his ears, hissing even above the thunder of his heart beat - a thousand wings bearing them from mainland to island, from past to future, over the crawling blue skin of the sea.

        He would cry out, if ever he allowed his feelings voice.

        Instead he travels silently, and discomfort betrays him only in the sharp flare of his nostrils, the downward flick of those narrow ears. It lasts too long, and yet it ends before he really gets a taste of it: hooves now on foreign soil, sand rough between cloven toes. Slowly the burn of magic fades, dripping from his soul like liquid flame, and though inwardly he recoils, Caneo is still, still, still. At last he inhales, sharp and abrupt, and forces the air out more slowly. His long, sparsely-haired tail twists like a blind snake at his back as he takes his first tentative steps into his new home, and blue eyes slowly shift from emptiness to vague, consuming hunger at the sight of the unknown. He will learn it all, given enough time. He will swallow the secrets of this place and keep them in his heart like gems, stories to be twisted and rewoven and stored until his dying breath.

        Hearing Essetia's voice, Caneo cocks one ear back. Her words mean very little, but they are kind. He eyes her and nods once, shallowly. He forgets his manners now as exertion wears him thin and he finds he wants to be alone again, with this new place, listening to the stars here and finding out what they have to say. He will be patient as he wasn't in the Basin, or anywhere else. He has all winter to sleep, and to dream, and make sense of what drew him back. "Yes," Caneo agrees. A pause then, hesitation born of weariness or confusion or uncertainty. "Thank you," he adds, a little more warmly. "I will see you again."

        As if the promise makes it true.