The red plastic cup slips from Rutile's hand, its pungent contents spilling across the sand and trickling toward the water before being absorbed into the earth. Rutile barely notices as they snap their head up, their eyes wide as they search for the source of the voice.

"Who could possibly...?"

No dice; the shadows are either too dark to see through or simply unoccupied, and while Phos always claimed they could talk to fish, the soft roar of water remains undisturbed. A survey of the crowd reveals that the scientists continue to be uninterested in them. There is no one trying to get Rutile's attention.

Old habits die hard, though, and even as Rutile reassures themselves that there is no danger (and even if there were, why would it greet them so politely?), they cannot relax.

(The thought that the voice is in their head does not occur to them.)