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.