Oh, she's boring. Caneo's expectations wilt in the light of her words. Fearful and literal — how old is she, anyway? He allows his eyes to skate her figure with limited interest, pausing again on that twitchy, torn up ear. The girl stands smaller than he does, but a handful of Helovians do. She isn't flimsy like a baby; her wings bristle with a full compliment of feathers. Sad then, she eyes him with such obvious mistrust. Has she never met a unicorn? Does she, like those idiots in the Threshold, think him a ghost and recoil because of his color, because of the snake? He wonders how he might most easily end the conversation, should it carry on this way. Surely there are better things to do....

One ear cocks lazily in her direction as the girl continues to babble, taking him much too seriously in the process. She moves just as he turns back, and it's a mistake, a mistake, one noticed too late. Caneo freezes, rigid, as she up and invades his personal space without so much as a warning. Her nose presses warm and soft as a baby's into his chest and his eyes lock to the place where they touch as his body all but vibrates with the sudden pressure to run, or to stab her. "Does your heart beat?"

Oh, it's beating now.

He doesn't move; he fills completely with the compulsion to move and yet he freezes, stares at her, missing the right moment to answer with a quip. On his back the serpent is unwinding, her tongue flickering and flickering, and were she larger, were she on his head where she ought to be, the gesture would read threat. But she isn't, she isn't, and slowly Caneo's neck stretches down to bring his face face nearer the girl's, to bring their eyes of a level. "Careful," he murmurs, half smiling, quick and bright in the way Caneo is when he lies most ardently. He's careful to speak into her undamaged ear. Slowly, so slowly it's exaggerated, he evens his weight and rocks back onto his haunches, and then gracefully he leaps away from her — a single long, slow stride. He'll breathe easier that way.

And he does. And he looks at her with amusement, his thoughts scrambling to recalculate. Standing on tiptoe now, ready to dodge if she dares touch him again, he adds, "Someone's gonna get the wrong idea if you keep doing things like that." His tail twitches, and it's the only indication of unease, and it might only be a reaction to the insects drawn out by the heat of Tallsun now crowding the air around them both. "Didn't your Momma teach you not to cuddle up with strangers?"

Caneo...