Ice and night, marble and onyx—sapphire and amethyst, but beneath the superficial layers of appearance their experiences aligned in strange ways. Frigid of heart, and no strangers to the bite of fire. Mauja had been burned, too, scorched by countless dragons and somehow stitched up again every time.

But the scars on his mind remained.

Fire had been the sole reason Torasin lay dead now. Mauja knew what it was like to burn, to burn all over, flame seated in every portion of his flesh, skin drying and peeling back like burning parchment, how the hot air had rubbed his throat raw when he screamed—none of it had been real, but his mind remembered. His mind knew, his memories far too intimate with such a dangerous beast. He could relate to the dim fantasy of burning within the lava blood. He hated it, loathed the pain and the agony and the weak trembling of his knees. Fire flicked the switches in his brain and bam, Torasin was dead.

If only his damned dragon hadn't loved him so much.

The heat trapped behind glassy panels leaked out through the seams, stretched out its hungry talons towards their mortal shells. Mauja's blood was running hotter than it had in a long time, sweat dampening his coat to an unattractive blend of gray and yellow, bathed orange by the lava's fiery glow. It reflected in his eyes, bit his retinas and turned his blue gaze almost colorless, pale irises large around contracted pupils.

The stranger by his side looked upon Irma. The purple of her gaze, and of her horn, was painted red in their faux-light, the blue leeched away as all other blue was. Stoic, Irma returned her gaze, level and heavy where Mauja was dreamy and fleeting. If he was snow, she was the glacier ice, immovable and stone-cold. "Mmh," he hummed in mindless agreement, mind struggling through years to recall where the name had come from. A slight frown creased his damp forehead, 'brows drawing together over distant eyes. He was the only one knowing the whole truth, that it was but a shorthand for Irmiut, a name he had probably never uttered—some just didn't fit with what they had been born with, but truly, who had named the owl? Was it him? Or was it herself? She was unhelpful in this, silent, mysterious, smug in her own way. Admitting defeat he let the subject drop, and memories returned to where they belonged, on the shelves at the back of his mind.

"Circuta." Mauja's eyes remained upon the wall. Time seemed to have slowed, or at least lost its meaning. Everything he did, every thought and reaction, was somehow delayed with a second or two as his mind struggled. Blinking slowly at the fiery wall he rolled the syllables around in his head and mouth. It was not a word he knew, nor did it sound like she'd said something in a different language—a name, then? It was what his logic told him, anyway, and after a moment's quiet Mauja inclined his large head, mane stirring against his neck. White veiled his view of the world for a moment. "Mauja." Washed-out blue slid up towards her face again. It was dark, like the sky somewhere above their heads, but fire painted white lines yellow. He hadn't really noticed it before, had barely looked at her with something more than a fool's lack of interest. It was likely that if he hadn't followed her down, or turned back before they came here, he wouldn't even have recalled their meeting in an hour or two. As it was, she was starting to leave some kind of impact on him, to tease something back to life with her wild voice.

"What is this place?" he asked of her, gentle of voice, and his mind drifted across the cavern and its pulsing wall. Somehow, he expected her to know—to explain this wondrous mystery to a poor mortal fool. If she'd come out then and there and said she was the Moon's little sister, he wouldn't have doubted her.