Dreamer. Was that all he did? Caneo peers back at his old self with a cold eye. What a sad, foolish, vulnerable little boy. The child in his memory stares back at him with sorrowful eyes. Caneo must remind himself to breathe. He forces his mind to the present, to this mare he knows and does not know. Now words flow between them too quickly, and he wants to be clever but his mind is still far away. Sometimes it seems Caneo was born in such a way.

        "Sorry," he says without feeling. What good are gods, anyway? "I don't remember him." Staring at the trees, Caneo wonders how much of the Helovia in memory is a dream. It feels too strange now for his waking mind to grasp. Most of the past is that way. Perhaps everything is imagined.

        Whether or not the mare is real - whether or not she even matters - Caneo listens to her story. Maybe his younger self was right in sensing kinship when they met. That little warmth, like a newborn flame, burns softly inside him. Not alone. Not right now. But her story turns sad, sadder than his recent tales, and with nothing to say, Caneo remains silent. He wonders if invasion means death. Does she know loss, as well? Does she look out at the world and see emptiness, as he does?

        In the moment of her silence, one of Caneo's ears moves gently back. He lifts up his face to bring the velvet nose nearer to her, a tentative motion. Just a brief touch on the neck, unless she moves away. He doesn't know why, but he anticipates a warmth in her skin, and so the act is not entirely altruistic. He doesn't move, though, and should the barest flinch bring her beyond his range, he will not pursue.

        Essetia begins to speak again. It sounds like a good story, but maybe too raw to press. Such things are best after aging, maybe even through generations, so the voices telling them feel only wonder instead of pain. "It is a lot," Caneo agrees. Privately, he thinks these gods are probably more trouble than they're worth. What good do they ever do? But then his eye catches the hook of the moon at his back and he regrets it. Didn't she lead him here, once?

        Was that kindness?

        When Essetia speaks of the Dragon's Throat, Caneo nods. "Sounds hot." He is still thinking of the Hidden Falls, but maybe the place doesn't matter as much as the person showing him. "Do you like it there?" Caneo wonders. She had spoken of the Falls with joy, as if it were a treasure to be shared. This new land... the name reminds him of white sand, the cruel scent of an omnipresent sun. Perhaps the desert calls him once more, this time cloaked beneath a new face. Better or worse?

        Caneo decides not to answer the invitation yet; wariness threads through his bones as certainly as blood. He must know more before he decides anything, and still the north calls to him from a long time ago, and a red stallion there, and somewhere... a girl with sunlight in her eyes. He dares not disregard even those old dreams when he has nothing else.

(yet)