The first sign that he's not alone isn't a twig snapping behind him, or a small body coming up beside him—it's an even smaller body, a little squid, swimming through the air like it's water, coming up beside Verso and wrapping an iridescent black tentacle around his wrist. Its suckers stick and suck at his skin, leaving smears of chroma-ink as the thing investigates—

"Nessaros," comes a high voice from behind him, chiding, and the tentacle slips away as quickly as it had appeared, leaving a blotchy ink stain behind.

"Sorry," Ness says, chagrinned, as she steps up beside Verso. Her chroma companion curls around her bare forearm. "It does what it wants when I'm not actively guiding it."

Only partially true—but true enough that it shouldn't invite questions, unless Verso is far more familiar with the workings of chroma than the rest of the expedition.

"I brought you dinner," she says, holding out a plate in the hand not currently hosting a cephalopod, "if you eat that sort of thing."