The half-child frowns when he catches sight of Heart Caves. He hadn’t meant to go this way at all. He had meant to head North, back to the Basin, where he could find Erebos. In fact, he is quite ready to turn around when Tobias bleats softly. Tilting his head, the half child watches the way the Cerndyr looks concernedly at the underground, as though he desires to travel below. Brief flashes of images- a black body that looks more like a shadow than reality- enter Adelric’s mind. Is there some mystery below that Tobias is eager to solve? Perhaps. So, though he believes it would be best for him to return to the Basin, he obliges his companion, who has otherwise followed him with unwavering loyalty.

To the hole in the ground they go, looking at the darkness, and the half-child pauses at the top. He has never been below here before, though he has heard brief tales of the place from his mother. But an evil past does not dissuade the scientist. In fact, it intrigues him. Monsters with unnatural faces, limbs not the way they should be, monstrous desires to eat and chew and infect… It is a macabre subject, but it fascinates him, especially now that he stands at the threshold of the reminders of such evil days. With a smirk directed towards Tobias, the half-child descends, his hooves clicking along the stony ground.

The switch from bright daylight to the murky light provided by the flickering of the underground flames is difficult to adjust to at first, and the half-child barely notices the tail hairs of the mystery horse disappearing down one of the tunnels. Is this one of the monsters that his mother had spoken of? Whickering softly to Tobias, the half-child begins down the tunnel as well, trying to allow his eyes to adjust. For now he says nothing- he has always been a man of few words and has never tried to draw attention to himself. Perhaps he will just observe for now, if he can catch up… Breaking into a slow trot as his eyes adjust, he looks to Tobias for guidance, but the deer’s eyes are focused on the darkness ahead of the pair, trying to once again catch sight of the dark shadow he had seen.

@[Rhoa]

“Oh.” The half-child doesn’t even attempt to hide the disappointment in his voice. “You’re not a monster.” Of course, his disappointment may not have been so great had he not gotten his hopes up so high. There had been a moment where his heart had raced and beat more furiously in his chest. There had been a moment where his legs had thought to shake and his horn had been lowered as though it were a weapon. That moment had come, creeping upon him slowly and then all of the sudden, taking him over as his hooves had clicked their way through the damp underground. It had come as Rhoa had turned and raised his wings, the embers glowing softly in the distance, and he had been sure he was seeing a monster. It had come, and then disappeared all of the sudden, leaving him feeling hollow and bored, as he realized that he was only seeing a pegasus, and then he had frowned.

Now, standing in the dark underground, staring at Rhoa, the half-child isn’t quite sure what else to say. He had come here seeking adventure and excitement, seeking answers for Tobias, and they have found none of these. They have only found a child. Of course, the half-child supposes there are other mysteries to be explored in these murky bowels of the earth. “What are you doing down here?” he states then, ignoring the typical social convention of introducing himself.

Indeed, he may have introduced himself, had his mind not begun to wander. Probing his mind outward, he reaches for Tobias, sending him an image of Thor as they had met him in the frozen wasteland surrounding the Basin. He remembers the evil that had come to his wings, the pain they had caused him, and Adelric remembers the distinct desire that day to remove Thor’s wings- an experiment in science, to see what internal changes had caused the pain. For a moment his head twitches, dropping an inch as his though his horn wants to point at the joint joining wing to body on this colt. In his head he is all but encouraged by Tobias, who shares his macabre desire to explore anatomy through vivisection. However, he is quick to return his head to its normal position. There would be no way to restrain the pegasus (surely it would be painful to remove an appendage). So instead, he resigns himself to learn about his other interests. “Have you seen any monsters?” There will be time for anatomy and physiology in the future.

@[Rhoa]

Glowing things? The half-child is admittedly confused about this poorly articulated description of what the colt is here to find. Glowing what? And what manner of glowing? He has seen bugs that create light from within, plants that seem to be bioluminescent but from without, water that glows from bugs that swim in its murky depths. And things… Oh, there are so many things. Animal, plant, or mineral. Living? Inanimate? Once living but now deceased? Color, texture, quantity (clearly more than one, but how many)? Does he need different varieties of glowing things, or multiple copies of one glowing thing? Also, why does the child himself not count? Surely his wings glow. Is that not good enough? It’s all the half-child can due to not sigh dramatically. Clearly this colt is not a scientist. Another disappointment.

At least he managed to offer one description. Moss. It answered a few of the half-child’s questions, but not nearly enough of them. And of course the extra description only added a mountain more. What, after all, was a festival of the sun, and was he supposed to attend? His judging eyes continue to watch his latest companion, his mouth turned down into a frown, as he contemplates where to take this conversation. His disappointing, distracted conspecific will seemingly not know how to answer any scientific queries, as he has failed so spectacularly thus far.

But all the while that Rhoa is speaking about monsters, Adelric finds himself distracted in his own right, his mind overflowing with a sudden emotion that does not belong to himself. Tobias? With one ear to Rhoa that he might at least hear his words, Adelric turns his head to Tobias. He doesn’t even begin to know how to describe what his companion his feeling, the emotion far beyond anything he has known, when he is suddenly rewarded for his patience.

As Rhoa suggests that Adelric and Tobias come, if they aren’t afraid, Tobias’ antlers begin to flicker and glow in their own right. The tips illuminate, shining bright light into the dampened corridor. The light seems to try and find a focus, perhaps somewhere near Rhoa, but it never exactly settles on one location before flickering a few times and ultimately dissipating entirely, leaving the trio in the same murky lighting they had been in before. Curious, the half child comments to Tobias internally, having never seen such a display from the Cerndyr before. Admittedly, the cervid seemed equally as confused.

“But don’t collect us,” the half-child says then suddenly, as though completing some sentence he had spoken before or as though Tobias’ light display was an affirmation that the duo would help. Stepping forward, the child nodded his head to Rhoa, allowing him to take the lead on his exploration. If there were monsters ahead, Rhoa would needed to attend to them. Adelric’s mind was far from such farfetched curiosities now; his thoughts were of light beams for antlers now. Glowing things, indeed.

@[Rhoa]

“Adelric,” he says absently in response to the pegasus’ question, his eyes glancing all over the caves. Nothing glowing immediately comes to his attention- is the other colt certain there is such a thing down here? “I followed you.” He speaks as though it is the most natural thing in the world to follow another. Well, that was why he was down here, right? With nothing glowing to capture his attention, his mind wanders back to the wings Rhoa wears. Does he ever have to prove that he is worthy of his home, by being only pegasus? Does he ever have friends that he would like to show around, but must leave them behind because of the form of their body? And for that matter, he thinks as his mind skips through a few of the more obvious steps in his logical progression, if I cut off Aithniel’s wings would that make her belong?

He ponders the idea for a long while, wondering if he would be any less bitter about the demi-goddess’ membership in the Basin. He still doesn’t think it is fair he must hide who is beautiful mother is, just because she does not wear a horn on her head.

The half-child, in his musings, almost forgets that he follows the other boy who lights their way through the caves. It is thus, that he finds himself very surprised. For all the lack of scientific knowledge the boy had demonstrated earlier, he asks a very curious question. One that Adelric himself does not have the answer to. For a long while he is silent, looking around, brow furrowed in concentration. “Trees can crack rock,” he suggests finally, remember a tree root he saw stuck through a stone one time, “But there are no trees down here.” Well, none that he can see. Perhaps when they reach the glowing room, he will find himself proven wrong.

“What else moves rock?” he wonders aloud, his question more for the likes of Tobias than Rhoa, but if the prince can gather his thoughts together enough to provide a reasonable response, the half-child will not mind. And though the question was one he rather enjoyed- a mystery that he did not know the answer to immediately- his brain does wander as children’s minds will. “And what,” he adds, “does a festival for the sun entail?” If nothing else, at least the boy in front of him is easy to talk to.

“We’ve never been underground before,” comes his prompt response to the first query, which is easy enough to answer. “I wanted to know more about it.” Of course, he wants to know more about everything, but everything will come in time. For now he starts small, categorizing the experiences he can find, storing them away in his young mind, cultivating the thoughts and ideas, learning when he can, and thinking when it is more appropriate to do so.

As for the wind… the child’s response is a resoundingly annoyed, “Maybe.” He’s disappointed. In his head, he and Tobias try to imagine a world where wind could have drilled straight down into the same spot of the ground long enough to tunnel away into the snow. They have a difficult time with it, cannot create a scenario that makes sense, and so Adelric is left rolling his eyes as the child. He wants to like him, he really does, but Rhoa makes it so… very… difficult.

Eventually, the half-child decides to stop wanting to like the pegasus so much, and instead focus his attentions on his surroundings. Absently, he listens to the description of the festival, but parties have never much interested him and though he will try to please the gods if they are around, he does not care to join their parties. Instead, he focuses on a trinket that he finds stuffed in a little hole the in wall, wondering how Rhoa did not catch the twinkle of the little green stone as the light from the fire pit bounces off of it.

“Cool,” he says in awe of the trinket, picking it up and noticing that it has a little hole that will just fit over one of Tobias’ tines on his antlers. Placing it thusly, he decides not to clarify whether the cool was for Rhoa or otherwise, and continues to follow, hoping this adventure leads somewhere more exciting than a long hallway.