"Cyborg...?" he rolled the word around in his noggin. "There a lot of you guys living around here?" he asked. The man might be more metal than an artillery barrage could put out and have an odd crackly what-might-have-been-a-laugh, but he seemed an all right sort. "How many, cause that would be a thing to see-"

Then he stopped short as the girl stepped up lightly and touched him. The kettle clattered out of his grasp in surprise and rolled slightly away on the grassy floor. He held still. He held very still, blank faced. A slight rustling, perceptible perhaps only in contrast to the boys sudden freeze, rolled underneath the boy shawl and a sickly sweet scent seemed to waft in on an errant wind. He held himself stiff like that until he felt her fingers leave his skin. He let the breath he had been holding in go as she planted herself on the log next to him. The scent faded away in the morning breeze.

"Ariel." He said nervously, reaching over to the fallen kettle in a way that oh so coincidentally let him scoot a little farther away from her. He poured himself another mug and drained the whole thing in a single sitting. "Call me Ariel. And, uh, yours?"

[@Serious Face][@SilentWriter83]