It smelled of sulfur, mixed in with that peculiar tang of minerals, becoming a strange blend of familiar things, yet so unfamiliar in itself. His eyes were half-lidded against the earth's hot exhalations, uninterested in their strange tastes, only in the depth of its darkness. The pace of the world seemed to slow, the trembling pulse echoing up his legs pausing, until eons had passed in a single moment—a single heartbeat. Time froze, even as life ran away from him, head high and panic choking back the scream in its throat. I've been here before, but here wasn't a geographical location: it was a point in life. One and a half year ago, in a time and space far, far from Helovia, he'd come face to face with a mirror, a gateway, and had, briefly, prayed for it to be his salvation, his release, his one-way ticket out of limbo and down to hell. But what it had been, had been his way back, into a life where he didn't belong anymore.

And now he stood face to face with something that felt very much the same. If he stepped through, would he fall into the blessed slumber of darkness, away from his apathy and tangled thoughts?

Irma, riding the night winds, cursed him quietly, and raced against time to reach him. How many times did she need to tell him that dying was not an option? Would solve no problems? That he would regret it, forever, if he did? Her wings beat fast, her heart faster, and if it would've done any good, she would've howled in his mind. As it was, she was silent. And he, too, was silent, even as a stranger came to stand beside him. Normally, it would've bothered him to have someone he did not know not only "sneak" up on him, but also stand next to him. He could smell her through the sharp fumes, even feel the heat radiating off her skin though her heart was cold. She was silent, too. The entire world was silent. Mauja kept staring into the living, breathing darkness.

"It is fascinating beneath the surface." He couldn't place her voice, had never met her before, but the words broke his spell. Mauja's regal head hitched up a bit higher, blue eyes finding her face as her gaze flickered down again. She was tall, but slim, and for a moment he had the overwhelming urge to give her a shove down, just to see how far she fell, but the moment passed, like every other moment had.

He didn't answer.

"Accompany me?" She was a creature of the night, something birthed from the loins of darkness, surely—a starless sky stretched across mortal, fragile bones, a weapon as deadly as any other rising in a backwards arc. Every element she was composed of screamed danger in his head, Darwin doing his best to assure Mauja's survival, but folly goes hand in hand with apathy. She slipped down into what proved to be not a simple dead-drop, but some path, and with bitter humor he figured this was the end, and she was the valkyrie for the pathetic failures of the world, come to claim his soul so he could taint the living world no longer. With no heart, and no mind, he began to follow. The moment his frosted hoof touched the downwards path Irma struck from the sky, a lightning flash of white, and in a moment reminiscent of his dream-fall, they descended into the darkness.

In the humid blackness sight was useless. The noise of their footfalls ricocheted off the walls. Irma's talons grabbed his shoulder firmly, her head rotating, seeing dim outlines; the swaying steps of his midnight guide, the fangs of the cave itself, and together they walked into the belly of the earth.. towards a heart pulsing heat and fire. A glow like an underworld sunrise slowly spread the further they went, and Mauja's head was blessedly silent, overcome by the simple tasks of seeing, smelling, hearing. The further they went, the hotter it became, and round a bend the churning fire opened up: it slid like thick, molten blood through glass veins, a primordial heartbeat. Mauja's breath was quiet in the vast caverns, his existence nothing in the great scheme of everything, less than a breath in the book of time—everything he had ever been, done and dreamed, would be forgotten when his body collapsed and his bloodlines failed. Every black drop of bitterness would dry up.

There would be no glory for the resentful and damned, and his one urge was to ram his horn through the crystal panels and drown the three of them.

But as always—he didn't.