They walked through the tunnels for a few minutes, and stopped in a small cavern. They could not hear the storm here. This wasn't unlike the cavern that Brush had found Firestone in. She sat down in the middle of the cave. Soma sat near the entrance. She curled up and started scratching at the stone floor. Soma remained at the door, listening for the sound of hoofsteps. He was frantically hoping to hear step down the hall.He was afraid that the thing that had fallen was hurt. Or even dead. He sat in the entrance. And they were waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
A full two hours passed. Soma stood up and stretched his wings.
"I'm going to go see if the storm is slowing down enough for me to leave. If I'm not back withing ten minutes, either I've left, or I'm lost." He said in a quiet tone. Brush simply nodded and continued scratching. Soma turned to the tunnels. He started walking. Hoping to hear steps in the dark and cool catacombs, hopefully from whatever had fallen from the branch.. He reached a fork in the path, and turned right. He was wandering through winding passageways. "Did the amount of turns change since we passed through?..." He asked himself. He reached another junction, this time with four total turns. The first sloped upwards. The second had a sharp 90 degree turn about 20 feet in. The third simply went forward and had no foreseeable end. The fourth tunnel sloped downwards. He turned back, and began walking back to the first fork in the rocky hallways. However, after a few minutes of walking, he reached another junction. It was the same as the last! He paused, then started down the one that went upwards. He realized that he had been gone for more than ten minutes now.
Hopefully Brush was looking for him.
----
She was in the cavern. The eyes of her biggest project were done. Ten minutes was all it took.
She was proud of herself.
Smiling, she rose up, and began walking towards the exit. He'd probably be gone. But she felt better. Maybe there would be some animals to catch! She walked to the cave entrance to find he was really gone. His jacket was gone, along with his backpack. Both of which were left on a small ledge above the entrance. But.. the storm was still raging beyond the mouth of the cave. He wouldn't have gone out there.. would he? She turned to the tunnels, so she could roam about the rocky passageways. She began humming quietly. It was a tune that had no name. She had made the melody up years ago, and simply continued adding more parts to it. By now, nearly two years later, it was three full minutes long.
She continued down the halls, worrying about Soma being stuck in the storm somewhere. He left, probably because he was too impatient to stay and wait for the storm to pass. He was generally rather good with waiting, but not when it came to times when he would have to wait in one specific room or area.
He hated things like that.
---
His legs were soon tired. The granite halls were sloping upwards, and still he saw no end. The angle gradually evened out, and he sat down to rest his burning muscles. Oh, how he wished he'd brought his backpack, so he could eat an apple, and use his pencil to mark his trail..
But he'd left them on the ledge above the mouth of the cave.
He looked around. There was two different shades of red. One was the wall, and the other was.. in a pattern...
He looked closer. These weren't patterned. This was writing. Written in.. Blood red.
He suddenly felt an urge to keep moving.
He got up, mumbling to himself. "No.. it's just a coincidence.. it's not blood, or writing.. it's just the way the granite looks.."
But in the back of his mind, he knew it wasn't just the way the rock looked.
He continued on. As she moved, the writing became messier and messier.. Droplets of the red ink were splattered.. Eventually, they faded to simple streaks.
He felt tired, and hungry. But still he walked.
He thought of how long he'd been gone from home. His parents were probably worried sick about him..
He found a new fork in the road. The were exactly the same, just reflections of one another. He contemplated each side for a moment, and chose the left one.
He walked.
And walked.
And walked.
---
Brush was walking through the tunnels. Still humming, she reached her favorite place in the entire system of stone corridors.
It was a rounded area that had well over twenty passages. She had marked all of the ones that had already been explored.
She went into one of the ones that had remained an unknown territory. She'd gone through, and gotten far, but had never found the end. It was an interchangeable route, that seemed to be different every time somepony would go through.
This time it led to a dead end two turns in.
She turned back, and began walking.
She reached a dead end where the exit should have been.
She ran back to where the ending WAS, and found that it had opened up, leading to a four-way junction.
She took a tunnel that went downwards.