And the name of the cavern is Death. It whispers this to the silver creature paused just beyond its doorstep as if it understands the quickening of his heart. But if Caneo still fears that old shadow, it's with the worn out fear of familiarity, as the man who invites wolves to his hearth no longer flinches at the sight of their teeth but remembers, always, how their hunger promises to end him. Caneo was born with wolves for nursemaids; he hasn't paused because he fears the dark, or the name of the cavern itself. He is watching with cold eyes the sluggish river of flame at its edge, as if he can learn to understand that color of beauty.

He cannot.

Back on his withers, a rustle of matte scales prods him past the burning river and deeper into the dark. It's for her he goes; she has suffered enough of sunlight for his sake — suffered enough for his sake. The thought slides like a knife between his ears and those ears turn back, and now Caneo isn't smiling. Now he is a monument of cold and weariness, a thing shaped like a deer or like a blade, a thing made for places only dreamt of by this cavern. He is loose; he is lost. He descends and the music of his hooves fills the air like a procession of bells: down, down,
                                                                                                          down,
                                                                                                                                          down.



Swallowed by the dark.

But it isn't true dark; lights like tiny fires guide him on, their breath just warm enough to point out footholds and glitter on the backs of the still, still pools. They remind him of Tandavi (what doesn't remind him of Tandavi?) and his stomach roils the same way the snake roils, her small body burrowing into the sparse threads of his mane. Even in the dark she hides, close to the heat of his skin as she can get. Recently, she fears the world. She begs him to retreat from it. And her fear is constant as her hunger, only this time it finds a twin in him and so here they've come, to the place Caneo names Death and the place the serpent names Safety. Even his breath is loud here, as he walks. He's even more a wraith below ground than he is above.

With far-away eyes, he sweeps the edges of the shadows until he finds something more interesting than the crawling flame outside, than the constant pull down of the serpent's heart beat in his head. Caneo's long tail twitches as slowly he draws past the fountain (its silver voice) and approaches an illuminated wall. Up there is the scrawl of so many memories like the wandering voice of some ancient. Up there is something powerful, something holy, and before it the silver creature pauses, caught between fire and shade, delicate in his approach. He forgets fear.

There's something — is it joy?

He steps near enough to brush the fine hairs of his muzzle across the patterned stone. And his voice is a smile; is a note of laughter without the razor's edge. "But does it end happy?" he wonders, stepping back. But does it end? he echoes, silently. Instinct moves heavy in his breast, though the weight of the pulse could never be called fear. It's something else; it's something he thought he'd forgotten.

Caneo...