He smells the sea before he glimpses it. Like a beacon, the sharp tang of salt in his nose steers Caneo true to home. Still, the concept weighs strangely on his narrow shoulders. He forces it through his mind now and then - home - as if testing the truth of the feeling, but it is never real. The Dragon't Throat lies at the end of this path he walks, yes, and he has chosen it out of necessity, but - home? He fears he will never understand the meaning of that word.

    None of this he tells the spotted mare wandering at his heels. For her, he makes himself a messenger, relying on lessons learned long ago and engraved violently upon some primitive nerve at the core of his spine. He is polite; he is as kind as Caneo can be. Every now and then he glances back to ensure she follows still, though every now and then he wonders why. None of this - weighs on Caneo's heart. He feels strangely empty, like a machine created long ago by a forgetful god, as he traverses Helovia. He does not dream; daylight presses hot fingers down over his pale skin. It demands attentiveness, and his ears swivel to catch the crying of seabirds and the hiss of the wind. His body travels at the ground-eating pace he grew up with, in the meantime. If distance wears on his bones, he shows no sign of it.

    He stops, at last, near the cliffs. Even if he meant to travel farther in he cannot, yet, as he lacks a key like the one Ampere gave to Essetia those days ago. For a long moment, he gazes in silence down at the drop, waves crashing white and foaming over the rocks hundreds of feet below. Briefly, he considers the terror of the fall before he takes a neat step back and turns once more to Dasmine. "Here," he tells her, and motions to the island rising in the distance. "The Throat is there, but we will wait here for the leaders. They will answer your questions." A brief grimace, a stranger to his features, pinches the stallion's nose before he throws back his head and lets go a long, silver cry, a call to anyone in range of hearing. He knows too few of his herd mates to demand their presence by name. But now it is done and he lets out a breath, realizing for the first time how tense anxiety renders his nerves.

    The wind combs through his mane as he returns his attention to Dasmine. He ought have been a little more forgiving, maybe. "What do you think?" he asks. It will pass the time until someone else arrives.