[Eridanus' smile doesn't dim with her words and, affectionately, he lifts a finger to tip her chin up to him. He basks in the nervous glow of her smile, taking it for now, considering she's still likely shaken up with everything that's happened. He had days to mend those shattered thoughts, his mind broken, where as she has had mere hours.]

I will take care of you, Sunshine. [He pulls his talon from her chin, instead cupping her cheek in the gentle palm of his opaline hand,] from the moment you were born, until the very last star in the galaxy burns out, I will watch over and protect you — that, I promise.

[In that moment, his attention is wholly on Riley, until he feels the gentle brush of Maple at his ankle. Eridanus lowers himself from his tip-toed height, then crouches down to his haunches to run gentle claws along the kitten's spine.]

He's much bigger than when I last saw him.

[At Hestia's. Not... in that other world.]