Their interminably silent trek together lasted until the sun lay full on the horizon waving its last goodbyes to the valley below. Everywhere she looked, there were little red beads shining at her, unblinking. She hummed a small melody to soothe herself. The reply she got was a unanimous chirrup from every pair of red specks. Tharur, his rotund outline only fairly visible in the half-light of the decaying afternoon, jumped up with a start and knocked his head on a branch. Growling as he got up, he rubbed the knobs that protruded from his tough little skull.
“Songbirds. What dissimulators,” he and a particularly grey-green one were transfixed antagonizingly.
He disengaged his ocular focus and motioned with his forearm and many claws to follow him into the darkest, deepest part of the woods available, the land illuminated now by only half of the glimmering discus. Hesitant at first, Fluttershy let the calming pervasion take over and guide her to what she could only assume was safety. Her fear was an almost-tangible aura standing her hair on its ends, but when the little scaly form stopped in front of a great trunk, she knew she was somewhere safe.
Around the grand roots and down a wide and shallow spiral stone staircase they went. Close to the entrance, there was no reverberation as the walls consisted mainly of hard-packed dirt held together by randomly slithering roots of downwardly diminishing size, although a few anchoring roots continued the further down.
After a few revolutions, it seemed as if darkness would blanket them. Just when all light would have been snuffed out, a shimmying cylinder of flame tapered upwards atop a stick. More torches spaced every so often clung to the walls with elegant metal apparatuses. Then, the end of the root systems coincided with the revelation of hallways that led through the now-emerging bedrock.
Despite Fluttershy’s lightness on her hooves relative to the other two types of ponies, each hoofstep produced a resounding clop that bounced about the cavernous space endlessly, compounding with each previous step. It was cooler and drier down here, but she kept her wings to herself and proceeded cautiously, following the reptilian whose back, punctuated by menacing spikes, never turned.
She stopped at one of the hallways and peeked at its contents. She had to bend down, as it was all made for something half her height. There were four doors on each side and another at the end of the hall. Each of them had a curious three-symbol mark and a miniature knocker.
“Follow, please,” Tharur’s rough click preceding a garble forced a characteristic gasp out of the pony as she immediately swiveled her cranium to face him. He turned and walked down, slowing until he heard the first beats of keratin against the bare stone. Tharur returned to his regular pace, which was clearly normal for something of his stature but blisteringly slow for Fluttershy.
After a while, Fluttershy ceased to sneak a peek at every apparently seamless excavation and continued down. As they descended, her mind dreamt wakingly, and she let her head droop down. Her eyes rested on the endless aberrations offered by the stone as it passed beneath them. Her eyelids drifted and her consciousness seeped into a trance, lulled by her own hoofsteps as well as the gentle scraping of talons against the unceasing rows of rock. Many revolutions above, the nightlife, full of dragon-owls, dragon-Aye-Ayes, and dragon-bats went about its own revolutions, unseen and unheard by the two of them.
The sensation that alerted Fluttershy to the world outside of the confines of her mind was the decrepitude in her knees from the constant negative vector she had been assuming. However, she did not allow herself to ask for a rest. Interminableness had long since grown into a tangible companion. What seemed like hours to Fluttershy while she dwelt in the antipodes of her mind lasted mere minutes.
And then, after losing herself in the endlessly variable colors, shapes, textures, and inlaying of stones, Fluttershy tripped and fell. A soft, “heh-whoop,” precipitated the soft thud of flank on stone. The lack of staircase forced her to take a wild step intended a few inches into the stone, lose balance, and fall. She got up quickly, disgruntled and warm with embarrassment, contrasting with the cold, nonjudgmental surroundings. She was dubious as to whether or not Tharur noticed at all because he was busy pulling a couple of great wooden doors across from the final stair of the staircase.
They were impressively large for even Fluttershy. They looked old and worn, with the wood at the bottom of each door soundly scuffed from countless openings. At the same time, they looked new, covered in a warmly colored stain that looked like it was added the day before. Placed a meter above the floor on each was a single, well-polished ring that served to open the doors out into the stairs’ chamber. The hinges, also polished, were of a sturdy build.
Consoling her sore flank and stretching her wings from root to feather-tip, she flinched at the tension in both. Realizing that the poor little guy in front of her was trying fruitlessly to budge the door, Fluttershy jumped into the air and grabbed a hold of one of the rings. Flapping her wings profusely, she developed cramping in the wing roots. She built up a hot and cold sweat as a result of fatigue and cramping, respectively. Fortunately, the slab of wood gained benevolent inertia and the horizontal burden was eased by the easing of the hinges. As both dragon and pegasus sat on the floor panting, Tharur surprised Fluttershy with, “And at long last, here are my father’s quarters,” he continued after inhaling, “which includes my own.” Getting up, he walked through the doorway without a single glance backwards. “You may stay here while we arrange a home for you.”
“Er—We?” Fluttershy inspected her cold, lifeless surroundings, scanning the inanimate rock layers in search for a single iota of life.
“Our whole village would be glad to find you lodging.” Tharur said with a small smile as he looked out from the darkness that once harbored a closed door. He motioned first with a small swipe and then the universal sign for silence: an index claw perpendicular to the lips. He held it there for a half-second and blinked his double-eyelids eerily before disappearing into the lightless ink. Fluttershy noticed that he had a cat’s slitted-pupils surrounding his steel-blue irises.
It was not easy for Fluttershy to sleep that night. Laying on her back, her initial plan was to panic. That seems like a sound plan. Panic and then—panic and then… Panic and then wake up the chief? Make a bad impression? Fluttershy summed up her wits and turned on to her side. The small, pitch-black dormitory had no visible walls. She only knew the doorway’s vector relative to her position in the bed.
Her breathing intensified. The space had no visible walls, and there was no way of knowing which way she would go after she reached the doorway to the dormitory. There was no telling where those wooden doors were or if they had been closed. Her id had run out of simple ideas and left her fate to higher cognitive powers.
Trust Tharur or run? What if this is a cave with big, super-scary dragons in it? Fluttershy withdrew beneath the covers and cowered into their softness. Deep breaths. She let go of her indecision, and an intellectual calm asserted its dominance over her petty fears. Still under the covers, Fluttershy came to the realization that she had just controlled her sense of fear with will. Remain still and exert an iron will. She grasped a fold of blankets between her hooves and rubbed them against her face. They were soft. Ergo, whoever resided here cared enough about their blankets to ensure that they and their guest would not face destruction at the hands of beasts. Tharur could be trusted. It took a different manner of will to stop cringing and come to her senses. The new feeling of personal victory filled the emptiness. In the soft bed, a satisfied sigh seeped smoothly through her nostrils as she sailed into the ethereal realm.