A red pegasus looks down, a troubling thought strikes her, and her feathers ruffle up in dramatic plumage.
You'll end here, forever tumbling, crushed by the tons of stone above while being beckoned by the plummet to nothingness. Desperately, she seizes any kind of purchase she can find, which denotes little consolation as her body promises to fall evermore. She tries to scream out, regardless of the fact that there is no one to hear.
A scream?
She needs to 'scream?' A scream of fear, pain, and utter desperation needs to be let out.
She can't; the air has been leeched out of her lungs, from her very surroundings as if not anything ought to utter here.
Her eyes cannot focus anymore, tears streaming down her face. She falls forever, and no one will ever know the reason.
The world starts to make sense, like a beautiful dream gradually becoming more and more vivid until it's crystal clear. She spots a ledge in the distance. She feels her body clasping the vine with all of its might and suddenly with a peaceful momentum, her trajectory eases her toward a sheer earthen embankment. \
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Slam!
Her feet hit the ground, and she scrambles to find her steadiness. Her legs wobble as she scans the terrain, atop her small purchase, but she manages to steady herself. The ledge she now found herself roosted is halfway up a sheer rockface, above her, the wall seems to curve upward into its own horizon.
From here she can see a large wooden door, about a mile south canted at an odd angle, wedged between a tremendous crack in the wall. She remembers the door, somewhat, and the nostalgia breezes within her feathers like a wave of recollection.
This is good.
From here, she can get a good grip with both wings.
She pulls herself up to continue her journey.
A sunless light floods into the dark fault from the crack in the massive earthen wall and immense debris floats gently down like dust in an afternoon window. She spots a large clearing of slate, as she crests a mile-long ledge of moss-covered brick.
In the middle of the slate expanse lies a blue gemstone, surrounded by golden flames. It looks like it's glowing with an otherworldly light.
Slipping and sliding on the stone, she grabs at the stray cracks in the nearby odd walls for support. She clings to them as she attempts to make her way towards the gem. She looks at it in the light of unknown origin. As she stares into the stone, she sees a face looking back at her. It makes her feel weird, but then she never really liked the look of faces. To a pegasus such as this, everything is better admired in darkness.
"KAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMM!!!!!!!!!"
A thundering explosion of sound overwhelms the pegasus; one of many nodes in her head ached.
In the midst of some unspeakable force trying to rip her in two, she bolsters herself, protected by her rock-like feathers and even tougher skin.
She feels as if she will go blind from pain.
She hears rustling and screeches as some of the golden flames on the walls go out. The pegasus catches a glimpse of a black beast's face on one of the walls. She leaps back, nearly tumbling off a sheer drop. Catching herself she balances over the precipice, expertly estimating her wings. With trembling hooves, she places the jewel in her satchel. A nearby tremendous door swings open slowly on rusty hinges and reveals;
Nothing. There must be some distance to go.
She walks through the door, finding herself in a long tunnel of winding blackness.
The walls and ceiling are high to the point of giving her the sensation of being aloft in the air.
She spots several large bats crawling around the floor, around twice her size.
They eye her warily, but they don't attack. Strangely enough, they seem to be afraid.
After what seems a wearisome time of walking she comes to a dead-end, more brick. More stone, more vines.
She sighs.
A feline sits just out of sight, watching her.
With all her strength, she grips onto the walls with her wingtips. She uses her hooves to tear at the stone like a rat and manages to displace enough bricks to wriggle through a hole. Light floods into the cavern through the hole as she crawls out. She emerges and stands up to look around. A stairway made of stone leads up to a second hole in the brick, from which light spills onto the opening like water spilling over a rock in a stream.
She glances back at the hole she's just come from and a familiar feline watches her from the hole. He's a gold-speckled cat with a wry smile; she recognizes him as an old life and ponders the length of his existence for a time before sneezing politely.
He leans against the stone wall, watching her ponder.
Suddenly he leans forward, swishes his tail, and darts his eyes across the room, then to her.
They stare at each other.
The red pegasus straightens up with alertness and her eyes shoot back in annoyance, one of her ears involuntarily lays back.
The cat purrs and closes his eyes. He smiles.
She smiles back.
Prancing in place expressively, the pegasus cocks her head at the feline and chuffs.
He replies with a languid stretch.
She seems to nod.
He seems to smirk.
She lists up over the stone wall and begins to search for a place to climb.
She feels a paw on the back of her fetlock, and she jumps with a start.
The cat deftly hops to a brick outcropping just above them, he meows once dismissively.
She starts to climb after him.
Finding purchase, she climbs to where he is and reaches out to touch his fur with a wing.
He recoils.
She frowns.
He glowers and looks away.
She reaches out to touch his face. He cringes away and shuts his eyes. She retracts her wing. He watches it. She turns her head and stares at him, waiting for a moment keeping her grip strong with her patient wingtips.
He waits.
Shrugging, she hops off from the wall and acknowledges the cat no more, her gaze slowly stirs up.
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