Shadows linger under the jagged trees, laughing as a distant sun struggles in vain to spear them. Caneo wanders a path of his own through the early twilight of the branches, blue eyes calm despite their rapid movement – left to right, right to left – ever watchful. He no longer despises the close touch of the forest with such a visceral discomfort, but he moves cautiously on the tips of his cloven feet, a graceful being glad to find this day a respite from the biting promise of inevitable frost. He does not understand that promise yet. He thinks the world is shifting back to normal, and he feels glad.

        He knows this place. His long, quiet stride bears the sawhorse body closer to the glass rotunda, that witness of so many strange meetings, and he allows the course to waver there because he has no other place, really, to go. An odd sort of smell lingers on the air; he might call it the scent of the forest, but strong. As he wanders on the scent grows stronger, and the sound of hooves and muted voices draws his long ears forward. Caneo hesitates; he senses many others up ahead, smells their skins and tastes their nearness, and for an instant fear moves in his eyes and in the silver muscles underneath his skin – like water, rippling. Poised, he listens for a moment longer before he begins his approach. They sound thoughtful, and not violent. He thinks of the winged mare with the spear, of the child with the double horns... he places those thoughts delicately just behind the forefront of his mind.

        What he finds when he arrives at the the rotunda is something else altogether. Many others have gathered. He takes them in silently, recognition twitching in his ears but gone from the cautious void of those hollow blue eyes. Rei; the winged mare from the Sun God’s meeting; a double-horned man from the Aurora Basin. Caneo blinks, and the tip of his threadbare tail swings unhappily against his hocks, but inevitably his attention threads past them all, through the crowd, to the massive creature inspecting the work of glass and stone.

        It is another lord.

        He is not certain how he knows, except an ancient power trembles in the weight of its stride, in the deep wisdom of its eyes. It bears horns and wings and yet it wears them well, as if they were all meant to fit together, and suddenly before it he feels smaller and weaker than he does most times. Caneo blinks; his body shrinks as if he means simply to reverse direction and escape. Then he hesitates, and by force of will stands straight again. He does not fear this god; he vows not to fear so long as it means no harm, and his mind turns instead, keening, yearning to understand. Why has it come here? What does it want?

        He looks at the others again, at Rei and the unicorn and the winged mare, uncertainty lingering in the pale light of his gaze. And quietly Caneo sighs, still unsure really how to act in the presence of a god; should he throw himself down, or cry out, or say nothing at all? He wishes to make up for the past transgression, even if that lord was different. He wonders if he has any business, at all, even daring to catch this man’s attention.

        But something about the deity reminds him – just a little – of an era now past.

        “Hello, Sir Lord,” he murmurs at last. Head up now, he does his best to meet the creature’s gaze – should it deign to look. It seems somehow kinder than the other one, though, and he feels at least as if he understands a little of this game, and what he wants from it. Perhaps, at least, if the god should look at him... it may offer answers. Caneo waits.

but it's all our hearts can take.