Hubris allowed himself to be the object of the boy's attention for as long as a distraction was needed. The dragon even offered a many-toothed grin, his cheeks bunching up into tight circles. If he could, Hubris would have swept down and carried Zero away, up into the clouds where he could think, and laugh, and look down on all of his pain and see how small it really was. But of course it was Hubris who was the small one, and down here, the problems of the boy's world seemed very big indeed.

Then again, some of them definitely were.

I think he's lying to me us, was Isopia's first thought, as Zero finally slumped his shoulders, peeled his eyes off of Hubris and began to speak. Zero was the most inquisitive mind she knew of, apart from her own. Even in the midst of being attacked by ... by whatever it was, she very much doubted Zero would have been so paralyzed by fear that his inquisitive nature wouldn't have gotten the best of him. It was a wolf! A ma, I think, cause there was some fluff an' maybe it was her cub? Really 's my fault for poking 'round where I shouldn't have been! I'm fine, she was just warning me to stay away, tha's all, she might have expected him to say. But what she heard was fear, and covering that fear, she thought was a delicate veil of non-truth.

Then as he continued, she knew he was lying.

'Cept then he died. I'm fine, though.

Isopia, like Sjal, knew only a little of the relationship that Zero had with his parents. And, like Sjal, Iso knew that Ampere had been vacant from the boy's life, at least lately. Yet to hear that they were all back together, seemingly one big (albeit fighty family, or so Isopia thought of them as), just to hear that his father had died, and that Zero was okay with it?

No. Either she had to believe that she didn't know the boy quite as well as she thought she did, or he was lying to her.

And she did think she knew Zero.

So why then would he lie?

With a scrutinizing gaze, Isopia watched as Sjal moved forward, offering an I'm sorry to the lightning-marked stallion. The Mountain's face appeared hard beneath her death-mask markings, as she tried to think. He was obviously lying for a reason - was it because he didn't want Sjal to know? She couldn't believe that her best-friend would deceive her unnecessarily, and she couldn't fathom a scenario that she couldn't handle.

Unless..?

All the things she might have said died on her lips, as the question of why he was lying, and more importantly, to whom the lie was directed, bubbled in her brain. So she merely stood, golden gaze fixated upon Zero, lines of silent scrutiny lining the deathly mask that she wore.