Most of them carried the half-human, half-serpent physical form that was the dominant presentation of the snake race, the upper body human in proportion and the lower body the long scaled tail that moved across the ground with a smooth and efficient motion.
Cynthia was fully human in her shape, which was apparently a relatively rare variation rather than the standard, and it was visible in the way people they passed registered her presence, the particular combination of recognition and respect that came from seeing their queen walking through a public street without any of her usual formal framing around her.
She walked with him like it was a natural thing to do, which for her it clearly was in this context, and the hand she kept around his arm was the easy and unstudied version of the gesture rather than something performed for an audience.
Neil looked at everything around him with genuine interest.
