"Just Silversmoke if fine. Or Silver, if you're in a rush." Silversmoke mewed, though not unkindly. He made his intentions clear, no 'sirs'. Twolegs had infested their home enough, he did not feel comfortable with their idiosyncrasies to find further footing within SkyClan's vocabulary. The Lead Warrior swore he could hear the ground beneath him quake with each eclectic bounce of the chimera's heels, his expression neutral even as he deduced the other's excitement was down to an exploration (no, he wasn't sure quite how erroneous that was). 'StarClan... am I going to die?' Silversmoke breathed in the fresh forest air, picking up the scent of pine needles past SkyClan presence. No, he had to trust his clan's judgment on this one. He did not look at Johnny as he spoke, but his tufted ears twitched after every pause in a sentence, absorbing each comment like moss. He'd never expected a Twoleg garden to sound so... vibrant. Memories of his own were dim and dark, hard stone lining the floors and twisted statues curling up to the very fence posts. Any flowers there lacked smell, and there was no life past the scuttle of ants who were pleased to feast on the remnants of twoleg food often tossed onto the ground.
A tension prickled within his limbs as the conversation continued, though his monotonous words quickly revealed why. "It is insulting to think that I don't know what a coyote is." He remarked flatly, suppressing an eye roll for the sake of keeping the peace. Daylight warriors left, right and centre seemed to think that he wanted to pick fights, Silversmoke didn't think it could be helped when the majority of them possessed a dangerous naivety that they thought simple charity would amend. With an apprentice named Coyotepaw, it was difficult not to enquire about the nature of the very creature such a traitor had been named after. The calico before him spun a different tale, of fighting all sorts of beasties in his backyard. Again, Johnny would be the one teaching him, a fact that left him quietly reeling. "But it's still an interesting tale. Let's hope you are not just trying to impress us." A final warning, should Johnny's words be full of exaggeration: he could still turn around and claim cluelessness before jumping into a literal snake's pit. It'd be miles easier if Silversmoke was the experienced snake wrangler instead, if he was, any inconsistencies could be snuffed out quickly. Alas, he was putting his faith in the clan on this one.
Steadily, he mewed, "I suppose it would be hard to know which ones will kill you without getting bitten first. Best be careful then. If SkyClan's dealt with these things before then I wouldn't know." Not due to an absence from the group, just because gossip had escaped the spotted feline until now. So much of it seemed inconsequential, it was difficult to care about who was dating who or what two-leg items had or hadn't been seen, but the Lead Warrior cursed missing out on the tidbits of relevant news between their words. His lower jaw pressed into the mane of fur around his neck as he looked over his shoulder to assess Johnny, his expression partially covered by the silver strands. "I would like to know what I am supposed to do before we meet a snake, if you wouldn't mind." He slowed his pace, preparing to stop if Johnny wished to for his presentation. As much as he advocated for kinesthetic learning, as his clanmate had mentioned, trial-and-error wasn't exactly possible with serpents - you ever did well, or you died. "It'll save both of us a lot of trouble."
