It's easy to understand this creatures feelings. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised; after all, if there was anything Ulysses knew, it was that being in the woods made you feel strange — all full up on someone else's emotions. Still, there was a twilight eeriness to it, the juxtaposition of something so human and familiar as embarrassment with the alien expression on the boy's face, and it enhances the dream-like feeling of the whole encounter.

Then, he speaks, and Ulysses' smile, which had grown bright (if a little uncertain) to match the boy's, drops away.

"I–I'm not," he replies, eyes darting left. "I was never–" This is not his most eloquent defence, but he's caught off-guard as his own mess is unexpectedly spotlighted by those preternatural black eyes. "I'm fine," he says, and there's a half-beat before he remembers how to be a gentleman. "Thank you for asking."