[The change in tone helps. It feels less like an interrogation than her previous questions had, and the camera is still away. He relents slightly, though he remains at a distance for the moment.]

Have you seen the mushrooms? They've been all over lately. If you stand on them...

[He hesitates before he flicks his tail out of the water to show it off, briefly enough he's pretty confident she shouldn't be able to get any more pictures of it even if she wanted to.]

I don't know if there's a reason behind what people turn into, but it seems like it could be almost anything.