Something like unease cuts through the boy’s excitement. In answer to his question, Tandavi utters little more than a low syllable. He blinks at her, confusion written in the bright lights of his eyes. Does she mistrust the island? Or whoever she came with last time? A needling concern interrupts his cheerful thoughts and Caneo, too, draws inward. He paces alongside the sunshine girl with measured stride, his gaze a little more wary, his features a little dim. He pauses when Tandavi pauses, his eyes on her but a little distant, now.

        When she speaks, the boy’s eyes slant from her bright figure toward the shadows. Is it his imagination, or does the world grow darker? Instinctively, he sidles a little nearer to his friend. Caneo does not speak; her words seem like enough, and anyway, whatever sentiment he might throw out now crawls back down his throat. The night around them thickens, no longer natural but something else, some other darkness overtaking the distant gleam of the stars.

        When it has finished, when the shadows had mingle together and give purpose to their advance, a single lady stands before them. She is dark. Caneo had expected brighter, maybe; his ears twitch, but his pale eyes rove hungrily over her form, studying, watching, waiting. She is the moon – he sees it in her eyes, in the grace of her stance. His tail twitches, and suddenly he isn’t sure what he ought to do. She regards them with a sort of failing interest, and he wonders if he is very foolish, very wrong to think of calling a goddess at all.

        He bides his time while she speaks, something in the back of his mind wondering about Tandavi’s mother – but he knows next to nothing about mothers, and now seems hardly the time to ask. It is only when the moon falls silent, her last question lingering on the air, that Caneo steps forward one tiny stride, his tail twitching, his head up and blue eyes wide enough to roll right out of his skull. “Moon....” his voice sings gently, silver and attentive. Something like a shiver rushes down his spine.

        He knows nothing of speaking to gods, but he recalls from years ago hard lessons on courtesy, and he dredges them all up now, ill-preserved and corrupted by time. “May I serve you, also? May I.... earn something, from you?” He glances away for a moment, unsure of himself. Perhaps that heavy feeling in his gut is sorrow; he regrets he has nothing more to offer. She is the closest thing to a god he was ever taught to revere. “My name is Caneo,” he adds when his attention returns to her face. “I wasn’t born here, but in my old home, you were the only beautiful thing.” For a moment he is a child again, anxious and so terribly sincere.