He didn't have to wait long to find out where she was. The sound of her steps rang through the cavern, the blazing warmth from the crystal panel washing over him, a sickening contrast to the cold air outside; and then, as he was just starting to think that the world had regained some stability, his attacker fell down by his feet. Just like that. Totally out of the blue.

This close, her rotting stench was overpowering, and he could see every gruesome detail of her deformed body. Odds and ends, bits and pieces, stuck to her soft flesh, covered in dirt and grime and black blood and heavens know what else; and from that dark, slimy mess, an eye stared up at him. At his own nearest, blue eye. It was pale, clear, like a star shining from the depths of a midwinter sky, all alone in her broken face. That eye staring into his was pleading, pained, as if beginning him for something—it wasn't an eye of madness, of the harsh voice who had declared him deserving of death.

Then, it closed. She lay still by his feet, underneath his towering frame.

The room had stopped spinning. His head pounded abominably, and his right ear was still inventing noises, but he found that he could crane his head to the side without falling over. He let out a breath, and drew himself together. Pulled his head up to its normal height, instead of just skimming the rocky ground. How long did he have? Before the pony heaved herself up again, and came after him? He ground his teeth together, but the pressure by his eyes threatened to make his skull explode the moment he did, so he let his jaws fall open instead. A bit of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth, where some sharp rock, or something, had struck him in his fall.

Where to go? One eye darted down to the mare again, but it looked like she was content to stay put there. Well, all the better for him. Still, for safety's sake, he forced himself a step or two sideways, before looking at the walls. Two tunnels led away from the churning magma; one left, one right. To the right was that glowing, soft, mossy-mushroom-fluorescent place, full of innocent horses, his owl, and their egg. It seemed a bad place to start. To the left.. he turned to peer down that dark tunnel. Frankly, he had no idea where the left led, but it seemed better to go there than barge straight into the main "living" room with a shadow-creature in tow. He was pretty sure they wouldn't like his company after that.

"Get up," he snapped, the command crackling through the air like a whip. He'd expected to have to run and dodge his way to every spring, and then dunk them in and hope it was the right one; he'd expected to take a battering like the one the wolf-child had given him. He'd expected a monster, ready to kill, willing, able, full of supernatural strength—not a soft, decomposing pony that fell at his feet and seemed to think it was fine to lie there like a dead carpet.