When Rainbow Dash reached the bottom level, she didn’t immediately land, instead choosing to navigate the twisting and winding passageways of the buffalo dwelling by gliding wings, holding Churning Bag the whole time.
“Why aren’t you touching down?” the mountain ram asked.
“Shhhh!” Rainbow hissed, flapping her strong wings. “We’re quieter if we remain airborne.”
“We are?”
“So long as we don’t yap on and on like friggin’ pet hyenas!” Rainbow grunted.
Churning held his breath, watching as wall after wall of mirrors glinted past his peripheral vision. Rainbow carried the two up and over bridges, past platforms, and through narrow corridors. The whole time, not a single buffalo made its presence known.
“Where is everybondy?” Churning slurred.
“Beats me,” Rainbow muttered, her eyes darting left and right as the two hovered high in a circular chamber flanked with empty wooden platforms. “Looks like they all ran for the hills.”
“I hate to break it to ya, girl, but we’re inside the hills.”
Rainbow Dash winced. “Yeah…” She gulped nervously at the low ceiling and even lower walls. “Bogus.”
“Hey!” Churning hissed under his breath. “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
He pointed a cloven hoof towards the lower right area of the torch-lit alcove.
Rainbow’s eyes squinted.
At first, she saw nothing. But then--in the slitted frames of multiple glittery surfaces--she saw a dark shadow appearing and disappearing. A loud noise rumbled around the rocky bend. The mirrors rattled while streams of dust trickled down from the ceiling.
“Bloody hell…” Churning Breath exhaled.
Rainbow glanced at him, rolled, her eyes, and dropped the ram on his flanks.
“Ooof!” He winced, looking up. “B-but I thought you said--”
She waved for him to be quiet, flapping her wings as quietly as she could while diving towards the rattling passageway. Once she reached the tight juncture, she flipped upside down and clasped the ceiling with the crooks of her hooves. Holding her breath, Rainbow Dash scaled the serpentine passageway upside down.
She followed the winding, narrow tunnel--left and right and left again. At last, Rainbow came upon the next chamber of the buffalo’s oversized ant colony of an abode. Abandoned market stands and stalled wooden carts filled the center of an underground thoroughfare. She spotted several satchels, containers, pots, and utensils lying the ground at random, as if dropped by several buffalo without a moment’s hesitation.
The underground chamber was nightmarishly silent. With no wind and no wildlife, the only sound was the occasional flicker of torches, and even that was meager at best.
Rainbow bit her lip, her wings twitching beneath her. Shaking her mane so that it hung behind her ears, she continued crawling, scaling the middle of the ceiling as she approached the rest of the cave from her lofty position.
At one point, she heard the rattle of a wooden crate.
Rainbow stopped dead in her upside down tracks and flung a look behind her.
The leather flap to a bison home rippled to a stop. All was silent yet again.
She raised an eyebrow, then looked forward once again. As she continued creeping, her coat grew slick with sweat. As the seconds progressed into minutes, she felt her legs wobbling, aching. Her little acrobatic act of stealth was starting to take its toll on her. She struggled with the temptation to open her satchel and take another pill, not that Rainbow was aware of a way to down a capsule while hanging like she was.
The pegasus climbed over a courtyard full of blankets, saddlebags, and various other homecrafted goods. The area beneath her opened up, revealing what looked like a blacksmith’s shop and a water fountain. Several canisters had tipped over, spilling water across the granite slabs laid out plate after plate. Rainbow tilted her head down, watching the rippling water.
Suddenly, she froze, for she saw that the steady stream of liquid had been disturbed, and several claw-marks had been freshly streaked across the floor. Each footprint was twice the size of her very own body, with pointed fingers that stretched for several feet.
Gulping, the pegasus murmured, “Brilliant.”
She heard a gasping sound, followed by the rattling of glass. Her eyes darted towards the far end of the market.
The hint of a hairy brown figure stampeded out of view. The reflection of a buffalo streaked past three curved mirrors, side by side. Five seconds later, all of those very same mirrors filled with dark gray scales--stretching and contracting--and then gone with a flurry of tree-trunk sized limbs.
All was silent once more.
Grimacing, Rainbow Dash kicked off the ceiling, flipped, and spread her wings out. Quietly, she glided towards the adjoining tunnel. There, she crouched, tensed her muscles, and crawled ahead after the sound of clopping hooves and rumbling flesh.