He wound through the prismatic maze, a feverish ghost with restless feet and a pounding head. The sound of his hooves rang through empty, light tunnels, a shockwave of noise ricocheting through his mind, and foretelling his coming—anyone's coming, for the matter. He was hardly alone in the winding labyrinth, and even if he stopped, the sound rang all around him, distant and faint like an echo but lingering much longer than it should've if he'd been alone. It only helped to heighten his sense of detachment, as he stood at a turn, shoulder against the wall, catching his breath and listening to the noise of the caves. It was a world of its own hidden down here, vast and majestic and different, a dream castle trapped in his skull, with disembodied voices and steps. He didn't see them through the crystal walls, but he heard them, smelled them, felt them reverberating through the bones of the earth.

But the monotony of their dwelling place, the constant arrhythmia of dancers out of tune, was broken by a much nearer sound, just a few bends away; like brook water, bubbling and joyous, laughter so pure and pleasant and utterly delighted that it shook him from his mindless reverie. For the briefest moment he envied whoever it was, envied them their simple joy—but that black notion faded quickly, and left him merely curious. So he hauled himself from his resting spot and drifted forward, a wraith in the pallid light, pale and still covered in a few, fading wounds. Curiosity had brought a sharpness to his otherwise dull gaze, breathed new life into his hot, aching bones.

His steps added their own drum-beat chorus to the din, echoes to travel up and down the tunnels and mingle with the sound-dust of other footfalls, another ripple of noise through time's clear surface. The laughter had died into silence, and perhaps it had belonged to no one at all, simply a will-o-the-wisp stuck in this dry tunnel, trying to lure him somewhere to drown, but there was nothing to drown in—

The morbid, although detached, reverie was broken as he rounded another turn of a corridor, and came face to face with a black yearling. The laughter was forgotten, lost in the feverish haze of his mind, the present overpowering the distant queries of a rambling mind; he was young and familiar, strong and sound, a splotch of red along a flank and a horn spiraling from a fine, sharp brow. By his feet, in the ruins of its erstwhile house, lay a prince clad in the soft, childish tan down, but unmistakable in shape with its white-tufted tail and the small, charcoal ears, lost in the formless reddish-beige. Mauja, still cloaked in the dream-like state, ground to a halt, extended his nose forward and peered curiously at it—far enough away to not be a threat, but clearly odd, maybe even a tad eccentric, in his silent study of the small, sleeping animal. It was beautiful, he concluded, beautiful and young and vulnerable; cherished, he decided also, with a deep glance in the yearling's direction.

He breathed in. The cave smelled of cave, and young horse, and that peculiar smell of all things newborn—clean and almost chemical in some way. The little cub itself had realized the world was to be observed not upside down, and sat by the protective hooves of its friend and caretaker. It was, simply put, adorable, with its tiny, fuzzy body and baby face. Not that it stayed righted for long, tumbling with the grace of a young, bendable creature. Youngsters were hardier than you expected.

Mauja's blue eyes drifted up the colt's face. It niggled at something in the back of his head, some memory hidden behind the detached dreams of air-castles and the warm, dull ache of fire arcing through his bones. Something dark, it touched darkness, shadows and horror, anger, loyalty and some kind of terrified surprise. He breathed out in a long, slow sigh, a slight frown creasing his forehead, around the eyes, wrinkling fine, dark lines in the otherwise smooth face. "For everyone's sake," he agreed in an absent-minded way, his mind still lost, trying to claw its way through the dream-like state and into real, tangible memories. But it was hard, when nothing had felt real for a few hours, and the voices and steps of others kept floating through the prismatic tunnels, echoing from far-off places and distorted by the mane planes they echoed against. It almost sounded as if everything but the child's voice was heard underwater, swallowed by the stillness of the sea.

But his world, which was like the slow swirl of dust motes in rays of golden light, fell down to the ground like so much stained-glass and shattered, swept away by the bubbling river of Sacre's voice. White lids closed and opened rapidly over blue eyes, some sense of clarity restored to them—and details he'd previously not been able to register slipped into his mind. The red splotch, like old dried blood, on a black flank; the red horn, red ear, crystal blue eyes piercing his own.

It was the colt, the one who'd run up north. Somehow, he'd found his way here, safe and sound, for which Mauja was grateful.

He still wasn't used to these general feelings of kindness and care.

"Sacre," was the first thing he said when the name's owner finally fell silent. Mauja's voice was gentle and lilting, a sense of bemusement lingering like fragments from his shattered, waking dream-land. "I am Mauja-" no more, no less, "-and, yes.. after a fashion." Could you say he'd been in a fight? Probably. Won? Maybe? He hadn't defeated the wolf-child and Ktulu, but neither he nor Circuta had been swallowed by the darkness—they'd fled, alive and relatively whole, with no darkness seeping through their veins and transforming their flesh. They still bled red. "You know the shadow-creatures? Like those in the Basin? They attacked me, but I managed to escape."