Qebhet only smiled, a gentle amusement tickling the corners of her mouth. We're more afraid of you than you are of us, she could have said. But for many humans, the fear was so deeply ingrained. An evolutionary trait, so she'd read; something in the primate brain that sparked at the sight of creatures long and sinuous. And of course, it was hard to avoid media that presented serpents as dangerous, sinister, evil.
"His name is Amenti," she said. "He's a gentle little creature. Nonvenomous," she added, because so many people worried about that. "I had to cover the terrarium to give him some peace. The poor thing still hadn't come out from hiding this morning. But Pepi, that's the cat, he has plenty of other distractions, so hopefully he'll lose interest soon."