Is it a mistake, if he means it?

        The power to douse flame was never his, and yet from his words she recoils as one recoils from a blow. Is it satisfaction he feels? His face lets nothing go; his eyes are empty, cold as they would be if they held a stranger in their depths. But that's an old trick; Caneo's heart thumps crookedly into his ribs, as if it means to do something after all, or as if it is shearing in two. She's never looked at him that way. The boy, the past him, dead with wandering and dying still, aches that she should look at him that way. (weren't we friends?)

        Weren't they supposed to protect each other?

        It's too late, he thinks, as Tandavi breaks in front of him and he cannot move to apologize. "You ran away first," she says, and his tail twitches. His head tilts; something like laughter, or like a warning, spasms through the fine lines of his face. And she is coming closer, and they're both electric, snarling knots of pain and loneliness drawn tighter by each other (wouldn't the world be easier if he was someone else's fault?). When she keeps talking, when she stands near enough to cut or to caress, he smells the tension of her skin but he can't bring himself to reach out either way. He's watching, watching as if he's someone else miles away and the body is nothing — the body is the fabrication. What is it even meant to say? What can the jaws work out that means anything, at all? "Maybe you are," he says quietly (coward). It's unnecessary but he cannot stop, as if the violence in him chooses now to overflow and she is the sole available target.

        He might do something else, but before his body can move, before he can conjure anything to match the wild dance of light around her sun-kissed body, they — the both of them — notice the snake. Or maybe it's Tandavi who sees the snake, and Caneo who sees it for an instant through her eyes, this foreign thing between them which has replaced loneliness, has taken her place (nearest his heart) and squeezed her out. And if it's surprise on his face, surprise and not malice, that is true.

        Now, Tandavi dims.

        Again she dims, and it's his fault. Caneo's mouth opens, shuts again. On his brow, softening a bit, the tiny serpent wends down and tilts one black eye in the girl's direction. She feels addressed, more directly than she's ever been, before. Curiosity replaces animosity as Caneo's heart churns in his breast, an ugly and confusing thing. The snake doesn't understand it. She doesn't understand the Fire Dancer, either, but she doesn't need to. She draws slowly forward, anyway, as the girl draws back. And Caneo turns away.

        He doesn't know what he wants.

        To be someone else is impossible, now. He doesn't look at Tandavi when she offers to leave. Because he's never wanted her to leave and yet he cannot keep from being angry with her, angry now she's here, afraid she will leave again or he will and —

        It may not be worth it. Any of it.

        "Her name is Ophiria," he says, his voice a stranger's and not his own at all. It's quiet, dry, and just this side of unsteady. Does it matter if that's a secret? Does it matter if he's told no one yet, decided on it never until this moment, this thing — Ophiria. Her tongue flickers out at the sound of her name, something danced around and dreamt of but never really acknowledged until here, his heart beating an unsteady cadence and his thoughts all fluttering like frightened doves. No, do not leave, he thinks — he will not say. He feels tired, suddenly.

        "I found her. I was looking for you." Now he does draw up enough to stare at her, still hard around the eyes, still unable to soften from whatever the desert built him into, but no longer attempting to push her away.