It was both.
“Why?” he asked.
“I find myself with a lack of conversational partners.”
“Oh, uh…” The poor thing looked utterly confused.
“I come here often, but the workers are either too intimidated by me to approach, or too rehearsed with silly common facts about things I know much more about than they do.”
“Oh,” he said after a moment. “I mean… I guess that makes sense. They do kind of have to stick to, like, scripts out there. I mean, I’m supposed to…”
“Yes,” I said dismissively. “But I don’t want that. I would prefer to hear about something else. Something not designed for public consumption. I would like to hear about your own thoughts on subjects that you’re clearly passionate about.”
“I mean…” he started slowly, sounding tempted. “There are a lot of really cool species that don’t get talked about much. Like—um—there’s this one kind of octopus that—”
He stopped as interest gave way to hesitation, his shoulders drawing in again as something else reasserted itself in his mind.
“I was told by one of my superiors not to bother you,” he said, quieter this time, like he didn’t quite want to say it but felt like he had to.
“I will take care of that.”
He frowned slightly, looking up at me. “You may say that, but I don’t—”
“It does not concern you,” I interrupted smoothly. “You are not responsible for managing other people’s… misunderstandings.” I paused before adding, “And we do not need to speak constantly. I am not asking you to disregard your responsibilities.”
Cove shifted his weight, caught between what he’d been told and what was being presented to him now.
“I just don’t want to get in trouble,” he admitted.
“You won’t,” I said simply.
He didn’t look convinced, gaze flicking toward the door again, anxiety threading back in as reality reasserted itself.
“At the very least,” he said, a bit more firmly now, “you shouldn’t be back here. If someone sees you, I’m definitely going to get in trouble.”
I watched him for a moment, then inclined my head. “Very well.”
I stepped back, easing the pressure of proximity, allowing him space—not as a retreat, but as a calculated concession.
I turned toward the door, then paused to glance back at him. “You may escort me.”
Not a question.
A solution.
His shoulders relaxed—just a bit—at the compromise.
“Yeah,” he said, a bit more sure now that there was something actionable to do. “Okay. Yeah, that’s… better.”
He moved quickly to the door, pushing it open and stepping into the corridor, glancing both ways before gesturing for me to follow.
He stayed close as we walked—closer than necessary, likely without realizing it—as though proximity itself might mitigate the risk.
“You were saying,” I prompted, “about the octopus.”
He glanced at me, startled slightly, as though he hadn’t expected me to return to it so quickly.
“I—oh. Um. They’re called mimic octopuses,” he said, a little shyer than before, as if testing the space between us. “They can impersonate over fifteen different animals to avoid predators and catch prey. It’s not just camouflage—they actually change how they move depending on what they’re copying. Like, sometimes they’ll mimic a crab’s mate in order to get close enough to strike. When they’re pretending to be a lionfish, they’ll…”
