A noise; more noise. Caneo's slender ears twitch to cup the sound, and under his skin a thousand string draw slowly taut. Practice makes the tension subtle, almost insignificant, though the sharpness of his eyes betrays everything else. And he is brutally aware of the walls closing him in, the rustle of leaves and the scarcity of light. He can't run properly; the shadow coiling upon his brow echoes fear, echoes confusion, dreams of hunger already - a void yawning wide somewhere between his ribs. "Hello," says Caneo, loud for him, before the dark head pushes through and into sight. Behind it are wings, black and blue, and the screws in him begin to loosen.

"Ampere." Surprise makes it almost a question. As if self conscious, the serpent retreats behind his ears, her wet scales churning the thin hairs of his forelock. And his chancellor speaks, and Caneo's blue eyes turn up as if to regard the thing again. A worm, he'd called it, and that's all it is to him now, except the sight of someone else makes Caneo inexplicably possessive, and the machinery of his body hasn't quite let go, entirely, of run. His ears twitch; confusion plays in the blue of his eyes - confusion and something else without a name. You've bonded. She may as well be speaking another language for all the purchase these words gain in the slick mire of his thinking mind. "Yes?" he agrees, because he does not wish to provoke. But she is speaking still, a waterfall of words, and inside Caneo is shrinking, shrinking, around the darkness in his chest. He thinks of water -

Something else moves behind her.

Now the silver creature shudders, every muscle snapping, and for a brief instant his hooves leave the ground as he leaps back, not a sound leaving him other than the soft hiss of breath, the impact of his hooves into the soil below. He lands again and steps back, head up, genuine surprise boiling in the blank, blank fathoms of his eyes. Yes, there is something behind Ampere, maybe two somethings - Caneo snorts.

The newest thing starts talking - a lot. Caneo stares down at it with furrowed brow, his courtesy robbed of him. "....Name?" Caneo repeats blandly. The blunt snout of the creature pushes around his ear, and a pair of button-black eyes regard young Zero in the keen way snakes regard all things. Her tongue is a flickering light, pale pink, tasting the wetness of the air. Metal, it relays, and Caneo knows this though he isn't sure how. He's beginning to reach his breaking point, and fears it's obvious - the twitching of his tail, the shuddering of his thought, all plainly visible, laid out here for the world to see. "No -" he protests, and his tail thrashes again, "It's private." Which is probably the weirdest thing he's said yet, but there it is, Caneo stalling for time. His gaze flashes back to Ampere, almost accusatory. What is she doing here, haunting him so far from the Throat, surrounded by these kids?

He steps back again, something sharp in his gaze, in his movements. He becomes brittle, his whole body threatening to break and bite back if it's touched. Caneo wants to disappear - into the forest. Into himself. "She's afraid of you," he says a little sharply, a little accusatorily, and it's a quick lie and it might be easy to see through it if anyone know snakes and bothers to pay even the slightest attention to the way this one regards them. But it's all he has; he wants to go away. His thoughts are a hornet's nest. So he retreats. Retreats. Retreats.

Hopes they will not give chase.

just to watch them falling