The sound of another’s approach was not enough to break Moniz’s idle reverie. Her own dull voice had prodded her mind into uneasy motion, and she began to contemplate whether she could shatter the crystal sheet that held back the flood of liquefied fire. She imagined the glass clattering to the floor, the last noise they would hear before the river of magma surged and consumed them all. The cold air would harden the flow quickly, fossilizing their corpses in molten rock to be discovered by unsuspecting scientists millennia from now.
At least they’d be warm.
Finally, the deep vibrations of the stallion’s voice reached her. The noise seemed distant to her, but it held an unfamiliar note of kindness that perked her curiosity. Bored? She thought emptily, lifting her head to meet the dark stallion’s gaze. Bored barely began to cover what she felt. She was so far beyond bored, she was forgetting what it had felt like to be engaged and amused. She studied his dark baroque form with a small flicker of interest, noticing that he had found a way to maintain his physique in this rough-and-tumble underworld. The feathered tufts that sat where wings should caught her eye, and she stared unabashedly. In happier times, Moniz would have cracked a joke at his destroyed wings’ expense. Instead, she just scoffed.
Her tongue felt heavy with unfamiliar disuse as she answered slowly, “I doubt that.” She paused to swallow thickly, urging saliva to her mouth to lubricate her speech. The sound of her own voice seemed to revitalize her mind, as though the simple act of putting thoughts into words were enough to rouse her from her monotonous daze and permit life to be interesting once more. She continued talking, a characteristic small smile creeping its way back across her face. “Unless you’re here to tell me we can leave. That would help.”
The stallion introduced himself politely as Windwalker, but his manners did little to curry favor from the diminutive mare. “You don’t look like you do much wind-walking…” She gestured unkindly to what was left of his wings, but her grin broadened as she relished the opportunity to hurt another’s feelings – to have been found by someone who might have feelings left to hurt. She continued, “I’m Moniz. So, how are you passing the time not wind-walking down here in hell?”
Maybe he could lighten her day after all.
@[Windwalker]
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