I'll find myself, anon

Luckily for Rhea's self-confidence, before she was even she was preparing to take the step that would send her flailing for her balance Cassiel had his head down, sniffing at a potential patch of goldenseal, bruising the remaining greenery to bring out the smell of it more strongly to allow satisfy him that yes, this was the particular plant he'd been looking for, and had begun digging in a wide circle around where the root would be, so when he heard the clatter of stones and jerked upright to see what was approaching he had to first shake the dirt out of his eyes before he could focus. Thusly, when he first saw the yearling, it was as she stood poised frozen like a young rabbit hoping to avoid the notice of a predator. He eyed her narrowly for a moment, then harrumphed. "Don't just stand there like a ninny, pup, no one's going to eat you," he barked gruffly, then added with an irritation that might have belied his previous words, "And stop mucking about with those rocks, I've got work and I don't need a load of noise distracting me."

He quite abruptly went back to digging around his roots, though he kept an eye on her as he did. Not because he was concerned, mind you, or because he cared at all about a gangly legged child, or because he felt bad for potentially frightening the scrawny little thing. Perish the thought. Absolutely not. He was watching her because if you didn't watch children, they would inevitably get into some trouble or other and then he'd be obligated to rescue them, and he wasn't in the mood to play nursemaid for someone's lost brat. He was a healer, not a nanny.