He pulls back from her words, but it isn't an escape. He's surprised, and she's confused. Isn't this the game? He calls her a firefly, she calls him the moon, and the compliments are quiet, reflections of beauty in a natural world. Now more than ever, her words ring true: he is the moon, so distant and lovely, so fragile and lonely in the starry black sky. She can't truly see him, not all of him, not yet, and she fears that in time he might vanish again, might flicker and fade as his rare smile wanes. Her own bright eyes falter, hopefully unsure. Then he laughs, and the doubt is dispelled from her mind.

She does not think she has heard him laugh; she knows he hasn't laughed like this, high and warm in the evening air. She finds it scintillating, captivating, a reassurance that she has not done ill, and even as the silence falls her smile remains. She is growing relaxed, though the terror remains- but now it is an underlay, a constant disease she can live with, survive. The girl has shrouded herself in light, but it does not give comfort as much as his laugh, the red, warm sensation of not being alone. A part of her wishes he would laugh on forever; another is glad he has stopped, for it gives her a chance to coax mirth out again. There is vivid satisfaction in making somebody grin, and it renders her heady, and she simply wants more.

She follows his gaze as it seeks out the sky, hearing his words and filing them away. She is learning, she thinks, that he likes to observe, but distantly, cautiously, when things don't look back. They are different, yet the same: she too watches quietly, but the close and the tactile, not the far-flung and cold. Does he look for answers laced between the stars, the way she seeks her mother in the craters of the moon? Or are answers not his quarry, is he happy to study without subject in mind? Her tail lashes casually, braids dancing in the flickering light; she glances back at the silver boy and a shiver catches her by surprise, shadows shifting as her body moves, the light from her first chest shuddering, then still.

Her mother once told her that the stars could tell story, that the night sky was full of pictures if you knew how to look. Tandavi gazes back toward the heavens, unconvinced by the wisdom of her elders and his. Her soft murmur breaks into the space left by his words, and her voice is bitter, brittle and cold. "I have been alone in the night." Onyx eyes stare at the ground by his feet, focusing now on the cleft of his hooves, the grass by his hocks. She does not like the way she feels, the chill which fills spaces warm moments before. Memories of midnight with no hope for a dawn, of loneliness and loss and fear and flight; at her feet Natraj growls, reassuring and low, a promise and reminder that those times have now passed, but the damage is done and the dark closes in, vice grip of terror tightening on her heart.

She has never spoken of her time in the dark. Only Natraj knows the depth of her fear, the trials and terror and the scars which remain. Now, all at once, she wants to release, to tell to this boy the things she has seen.. but she must remain brave, must quiet her tears. Lungs inhale deeply, brow clears and neck moves; she looks back at him with the whisper of a smile, but he is looking away, his eyes on Natraj, and the moment when she may have spoken is gone, swallowed like so many others before.

The kitsune shifts at Caneo's question, displeased to be treated as though he can't hear. He makes this clear through mental whispers and a fervid gaze, startling a chuckle from his sister's tight throat. Natraj has grown cocky since the Earth gave him speech and laid his bronze mark on the sooty black brow. "He says he's right here," the girl says, dry. "And that..." just because we're together doesn't mean we're not alone. But those are her thoughts, not his, and she clears her throat gently. "He says that he is stuck with me, whether he likes it or not." Humor dances back into her voice. She chooses not to comment on his mention of the Basin, though she tastes dislike at the back of her throat. Instead she looks back at him, in time to see him recoil away.

"No." She thinks he sounds accusatory, though his face remains mild. She thinks she must have done something wrong. A million regrets fly through her mind, thoughts on the words she should not have said. Mentioning the dark. Speaking for Natraj. She wanted only to draw him out, and instead fell into her own dark pit, spiraled down into memory and despair. Her voice is cautious, and the night threatens to close upon her once again. She wants to say something which will make him warm again, wants to close the space and bask him in light. The boy is so lonely, and she wishes she could tell him he need not stay alone.

She does not move. "Why don't you gain a bond?" she asks softly, watching his eyes, hoping perhaps they will glitter again. It does not occur to her that he won't know he can. To her, it is breathing, it is the way of the world. The girl is learning, but her gaze is still thin.