Toby coughs and gags as her mouth reflexively floods with saliva in an attempt to dilute lingering acid. Taxxon spittle eats into hard earth and certain kinds of stone and this remnant is quite a bit weaker than that, but it's still sour and acrid. Her eyes stream. She barely notices the handkerchief and ignores it - the gesture isn't one that's been offered to her in the past and she can't think through what it could mean now.

Humans often seem to her like a mid point between Taxxon and Hork-Bajir. Humans and Taxxons are both soft with sharp teeth, omnivorous, fragile, often oozing fluids, signalling each other with scent, tailless, short-limbed, high-voiced, a mix of yellow and brown and red. It had been easier to fix on this shape, but she can feel already that it's an active effort to be human. If she stops making it...

She rubs her tender, dirt-smutched hand and forearm across her face and heaves several almost clear breaths, trying to focus, before looking up at last. Her deep voice is strained. "...Myr?" He looks horrible, not that she can judge. "This isn't going to last long. I can't hold this shape."