Broken Glass - Taekook

74

The tunnel continues for the next mile or so, the walls sometimes widening to reveal a subterranean cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites made from some mix of bright white or blue minerals. There's a warm, comfortable silence around us, only broken when one of us trips or when the horse huffs through her nostrils at a strange smell or feeling that only she can sense. Aphelia's light stays steady, only flickering when she moves slightly to avoid an obstacle in her way.

The journey is mostly silent, but it offers an opportunity to look at the caverns around us in greater detail. The walls are still mainly made of crystal, but at various points there's also a mark or a painting carved into the stone. At one point, I recognised the shape of Queen Arlayna's wings. In another carving, made out of what looks like red ochre, I can see the basic shape of a sphinx. There's something powerful about it, the way that the pose is designed, and it almost seems filled with energy, though I know that's not possible.

Then there are the carvings. Some are artistic, and others are key signs of scuffles and the presence of living creatures in these caverns. I see the familiar mark of the Stasida's antlers against the stone several times, but there's also evidence of hooves, or tusks, kicking up and cutting out part of the stone. There are muddled tracks on the ground below us. In areas where the floor is made of earth, these are slowly filling with water. On stone surfaces, muddy outlines of a diverse range of hooves, paws, and feet are slowly being washed away by the movement of water.

The air is musty, but not thick. There's an odd freshness to it that doesn't match our location, almost as if the entire place is somehow ventilated from far away. The smell of herbivore droppings, horse, and damp earth take up most of my awareness to begin with, and then they just become familiar. Behind those scents, there's a faint hint of rust, leather, and the metallic scent that enters the air just before it rains.

About halfway through this tunnel, though, Taehyung moves a little closer to me, and I meet his eyes. "You alright?" he asks, quiet enough that our friends can't properly hear him. I nod.
"Are you? Is it weird being away from most, if not all vegetation?" He shrugs, and nods.

"The Yarolian Plains were like that too," he points out. "It is weird, but it makes sense here. You wouldn't expect to find anything growing underground, at least not in such a tiny tunnel. It's clearly a travelling corridor for some species, but that doesn't mean it's the most habitable part of the caves." He pauses for a moment. "Is it weird to you? I mean, most of Eithyr has at least some type of flora and fauna around. You've probably grown used to that at least a little."

I sigh, turning to look at the caverns around us for a moment. "I think it is a little odd, but not to the point that I'm actively uncomfortable. I think it's only something I'm aware of if I think about it, if that makes sense?" He smiles.
"I'm the same. After being around plants for so long, it's a little disconcerting to realise that there's barely any around us. But hey, it's part of the journey. It'll be worth it in the long run, I think." He sighs. "I hope."

"There's always a possibility that we'll figure something else out, or we'll find something we weren't expecting, but I think we're gonna be okay. This is meant to be a sanctuary, after all."

He nods, a small smile crossing over his face. "That's true. I keep forgetting about that part, but I don't know why."
"It's all too easy to forget about things like that. We've grown used to expecting an ambush around every corner. It's okay to be scared, and it's okay to be uncertain. That's part of our life now. We just can't let it overtake everything."

"Easy to say, not necessarily easy to put into practice," he says simply, glancing around again at the walls of the tunnel. As we've travelled further and further down this tunnel, the paintings have become more and more common. Where once they were relatively rare, now they seem to cover almost all of the stone and the crystal. As we keep moving, these images grow more and more complex: they turn from intricate carvings into full-on paintings, made from a mixture of colours and dyes that almost glow in Aphelia's presence.