They delve into shadow, blackness unto darkness, bodies streamlined and thin and pointed, spearheads of ebony needling through ceaseless oblivion. She is left out of her companion's machinations, his eager reasonings for exploration and adventure; but she doesn't question his excitement, fervor, and ardent passion. If Lil wants to plunge into the heart of the earth, claw into the belly of the beast, she will gladly follow, if only for a chance to get away from the surface and the problems drifting on the wind like clouds through a breezy sky.

Hooves clatter upon soil and rock, hard-worn paths trodden upon by countless keratin. Nostrils flare, drinking in the odor which still clings to damp stone and sweating slime—a thick and clotted reek, remnant of a time long post where the surface grew unsafe. Mother had told her of it; of the disease, the illness, throbbing through the land like an infection, spreading as would wildfire. Monsters, she had breathed, with a face full of rapturous captivation. Nymeria had simply listened, unease spreading thin feelers through her chest, an unraveling sensation of querulous confusion. The images Mongrel had painted for her—of creatures rotting and in ruin, contorted figures hardly recognizable as equine—had given her nightmares that left her thrashing in the grass, her only consolation the quiet chirps of her black when she awoke drenched in cold sweat. How Confutatis could revel in that destruction, that purgatory way... she didn't understand, though she did try.

And for all those images ingrained in her mind's eyes, here she was, sinful skin draped in an obsidian shift. Her skull-marking glows filigree and sickly, cast in an unsettling emerald tinge, an eerie contrast to the trepidation engraved in each cautious step. Lilómiel wings ahead, gleaming and surly in his cockiness, appendages unfurled wide and hooked to snatch at the warm thermals rising from the warren of tunnels. With each step, Nym was drawn deeper into death, into a shroud of unnerving and deep emptiness, until the very air knotted around her and she could feel the heaviness of earth pressing over her head.

Joy throbs through her bond, a pulsation of misplaced happiness that sends her mind tumbling in confusion. What is-
And she rounds a bend in the serpentine path, and arrives at Lil's destination, breath escaping in a ragged gasp of awe. Step stutters, as she stumbles to crackling halt, head shifting, turning, unable to take in the sight before her. Her black soars, glides, through the moist air of the underground, scattering before him a cloud of bats shrilling cries of protest. Haunches sink, weight steeping into her hindlegs, as she observes him, a glitter and gleam of sloe scales amongst dull fur and leathery wings. They are backdropped by a wall of red, cascading crimson pouring down from the wall in the languid movements of a molten substance she watches, recognizes, as precious lava.

The scarlet light illuminates the fangs cutting from the cavern soil, stalactites and stalagmites twining in unlikely and inordane patterns that are gentle on the eye.

Who ever would've guessed? Cautiously, easily, the filly steps into darkness, her hooves a-ringing and echoing through the desolate cavern, moving slowly, delightedly, through the unpredictable twirling patterns. A shiver of langorous bliss curls through her bond, an image of toothy fangs revealed in a shark's grin shortly followed by the taste of bat filling up her mouth. She wonders how he ever managed to find this world, this beautiful, breath-stealing place cocooned in flame and soil; it wasn't as if he often took from her side.

Still, she couldn't quite complain. This... this striking sense of awe was not something she was much accustomed to, and was certainly a sensation to relish.