Of all the possible things that could have been buried in and around the Hollowed Gorge, a giant sparkling castle was not one item that any in their right mind would expect to make that endless list. Yet there stood such a construct, a construct of somepony with a ludicrously wild imagination and far too many resources on their hooves. Sora, after rubbing her eyes to make certain they were working correctly, decided to patrol around it once to see it in its entirety.

The structure gleamed in a manner that suggested it was carved of crystals, half-tree in design with a myriad of branches woven together to hold up the upper echelons and such. The trunk had two massive double doors built in and two smaller windows at either side, with snow-covered steps that paled in comparison. Atop this massive, priceless treasure stood a multi-point star whose arms stretched to varying and erratic lengths; a jewel of sorts in its makeshift crown.

To one side stood a pair of balconies well above ground level, defiant to the test of time and the ongoing storm around them, though both were covered in a blanket of snow nonetheless. Another balcony sat on the upper echelons, right on the roof of one next to the massive, oddly-shaped star. But whatever beauty it once had, long ago, was now lost—the whole structure was monochrome grey and riddled with ice that did its best to hold everything together.

Sora opted to ignore the doors entirely, instead alighting and coming to a stop on the upper balcony. She gave it another quick scan; aside from the snow itself, and herself and the carriage, it was dubiously empty.

In front of her was a door frame leading inside, just large enough for her and the vehicle to fit through, fitted with dulled curtains that somehow kept themselves whole against all the odds. She turned to her left as Yukito teleported next to her with Omega draped across his back. "You know anything about this?" Sora asked.

Yukito and Omega shook their heads in tandem. "Th' teachers never talked a word about this in th' history books," Omega muttered.

"Or any book, as far as I could recall during my school years," Yukito added with a frown. He took a few steps toward the door frame, then stopped to scrutinize it. "I'm surprised this thing is still standing, all things considered."

"Given that everything else had to be torn down and rebuilt throughout the whole Clash insofar as I know, it's quite suspicious," Sora agreed, ears folding back at that speculation. "Maybe it's protected somehow?" Given the surrounding landscape and its odd weather patterns, that wasn't particularly implausible.

"Either that, or just forgotten," Yukito replied with a slight shrug of his withers. With that, he stepped inside, and Sora began to trot after him. With the howling storm behind them, free to do whatever it very well wanted, the three found themselves in an expansive hall lined with green-tinted doors frozen shut. As this place had no lights to call its own, at least of the electrical sort, Yukito simply charged an illumination spell to allow unhindered sight. A good hundred or so yards off, another open door frame stood, further beckoning them onwards. They took its unspoken invitation and found a spiraling sloped staircase leading downwards as well as upward. It was built with a landing pad of sorts to let them stand on, pausing as they found it bore an anomaly most peculiar.

Scratch marks spanned the slopes going down, light enough to have been brushed aside as mere circumstance, but long enough to have spanned entire steps in sets of four. The marks shimmered a little differently than the rest of the stairwell; less dull, light reflecting off of their grooves, indicative that these were at least fresh enough to be a few hours old. Whatever made them either could not retract the limbs that were responsible for the markings, or was in a hurry to flee the cold outside.

Starbreaker opened the front cab's entrance-exit and jumped out, using her magic to close the frontmost window at the same time. After kicking the door shut and trotting over to see why everypony else had stopped, she wrinkled her nose. "Is something… here?" she asked.

Sora shook her head. "Don't really know. It probably vacated the premises by now," she replied with an uneasy shuffle of her wings. She willed her augments to stop, and so her blades ceased glowing—no use causing further destruction; she'd already had enough for the day. Then, she shifted a hoof to start unstrapping the harness, unclasping the network of burden strap by strap.

"You think it's magically resistant?" Yukito asked suddenly, turning to the carriage as Sora moved to get out of its hold.

With another shuffling of her wings, Sora pursed her lips for a moment. "Dunno. But it would be bothersome to drag it everywhere," she muttered, turning to the vehicle once she had gotten out of the straps. With a hoof rising to her bell, she clicked and muttered, "Light, convert," and waited for a response. The bell jingled, the chiming almost hushed as it embraced the carriage in light and made it disappear.

"Okay… that's awfully convenient," Sora remarked with a sigh of resignation. She turned back to the stairs with nothing more than her brows wedging themselves together.

"At least it ain't cold," Omega piped up as Sora turned to face the stairs again.

"True enough," Sora agreed. She trotted down the steps, slow enough to let Yukito and Starbreaker fall into line behind her. In silence they strode down the scuffed and spiraling flight, the only sounds reaching their ears being their own hoofsteps and the bell's jingling. Here, the thunder did not reach them, though it did not escape the herd's collective notice that it should have by now. The further they went, the more pronounced the silence became—within minutes, and no end in sight to the stairs, the darkness was able to dull even the steady noise of marching hooves.

Though, at that point, they started to notice an odd form of torches pattering the walls, lining the path. These were hewn of the same crystal-like substance that made up the castle's mighty trunk, with rhomboid chunks that flickered with dying glimmers as Yukito passed them. "Thaumatically charged?" he muttered as they passed a particular torch that sputtered wildly before dying with little more than a pop.

"Might not be that way for much longer," Sora sighed, blades rattling a little as another torch just ahead started to glow and falter at the same time. In a way, she could sympathize with these torches, just trying their best to hold out for another day—but it seemed that whatever drove them so simply wasn't there anymore. It was admirable, yet sad in equal measure—the structure seemed to have been signaling for help, yet she knew not how to fix something like this. Nor did she know for how long it had made these signals to begin with.

Magic or not, the castle was more than likely dying, but still holding strong in spite of it. Worse, to its visitors, it may well have been consigned to the pits of oblivion.

Sora shuddered; a green crystal flickered with a glow that was steadily fading as the group passed it. It did not die until she turned her eyes upon it from halfway across the flight. A mental image of Sham's face, framed by blood, surfaced in her mind as the crystal just… darkened to an unsightly black then and there.

Sora turned back to the stairs, wings rattling again. She took a shaky breath, one that didn't go unnoticed by the other three behind her. "Something the matter?" Yukito asked.

"Just… winding down from the flight," Sora muttered uneasily. "I'll be fine."

"Alright…" Yukito said, deciding not to press for further answers. He perked up as he caught sight of a floor that marked the end of the flight, leading to a pair of golden doors thrown conspicuously wide open. Sora saw it too and picked up her pace, though she made sure to keep her hooves from going too fast in her haste to get to them.

"Does she always make that sound when she gets out of a fight?" Starbreaker asked, causing Omega to turn his head towards her.

Omega shrugged as best as he could, without threatening whatever hoofhold he had on Yukito's back. "Can't say. First I heard it," he answered sincerely. "That was th' first battle I got out of alive."

"A battle you couldn't partake in," Yukito noted with a sigh. Feeling Omega turning his head back to him, he added, "Of course, not everypony's cut out for combat, and you're still wounded—insofar as I am concerned, you have an excuse." He frowned when he reached the doors, noticing Sora had stopped at them, head bobbing up and down as she scanned the frames. "No offense."

"None taken. And…" Omega looked at the doors at the same time Yukito did, eyes going round. Deep gashes spanned the length of these doors from top to bottom, large enough to have fit a pair of hooves into since these were so tightly grouped together. "Is a bear hibernatin' here?"

"If that's the case, it's… chosen a very odd place to do so," Sora muttered with a tired sigh. "I pity the bear, either way." She trotted forward, into another hall with the others once again following after her, with yet more scratches in the floor almost leading the way.

"Well, at least this castle is a strategic hibernation spot," Yukito pointed out, sporting a small smile on his muzzle in spite of the absurdity of his statement.

Sora nodded fervently, ears perked to attention. "This place does have its share of benefits," she agreed, a wry twist in her words. She spread a wing carefully as she walked, gesturing to the hall's ceiling. "No cameras to track our every single move, no busybody higher-ups to wedge gags and orders down our throats, no flip-flopping on important issues like said higher-ups…" Her wing closed, and her hooves started to trot a little faster, drumming out an upbeat tune upon the floor. "Only issue's food, really—but we'll work something out once our current stock runs dry."

"And it's away from all those other weirdos that aren't the higher-ups," Starbreaker added, a small but demented giggle worming its way past her lips with the statement.

Sora snorted at the remark, but opted not to give it the honor of a retort—after all, it had its own valid point. Instead, she kept her focus largely forward, sighing rather wistfully. "My first attempt to leave the base failed… I wonder what Mom and Dad think of me now, wherever they're at," she muttered.

At that, Starbreaker trotted around Yukito to level a skeptical glare upon her nemesis. For a moment, her gears ground to a screeching halt at what she had just heard, before rebooting and then processing the implications. "... so, the other soldiers…" she trailed off.

Sora nodded, a thin frown working its way onto her muzzle. "Caged me like a bird, chewed me out to the seven hells and back, and tried to keep me buried in that cage," she muttered grimly, nose wrinkling at the thought. "I didn't notice the higher-ups were watching that day… until it was too late."

Yukito trotted up to Sora's side, and smiled at Starbreaker. "Of course, the other soldiers never took me into account. All I had to do was knock their cage guard out and pilfer his keys," he chirped.

Starbreaker blinked, eyes widening at that admission. That was one of the last things she'd expected him to spill in as casual a manner as she ate meat. "That's how you got…" Her eyes darted, shifting colors, searching for words which eluded her. "Your notoriety?" she finished when her eyes turned back to Yukito.

Yukito nodded. "Most of it, in fact; the rest stemming from the ultimate weapons' projects. That, it turned out, could not have had better timing—an hour later, you showed up and tore a hole into the base," he added wryly.

That made Starbreaker's blood boil, just an eentsy bit. Her eyes narrowed into a glare, though she couldn't hold it for long—it melted away as soon as it had formed. "And even now, you still want to help," she concluded.

Yukito nodded and proceeded to take point. "I've just decided to stop helping the wrong ponies, as they have not only pushed me too far well before the Clash ended, but have renewed my anger. Nor do I want to have a family in their districts. For there, my sins would fall upon any foals I could conceive. It's a fate I wouldn't wish on any," he answered, ears turning back just the slightest inch at that notion.

Starbreaker frowned, tail lashing again as her brain brewed up a picture of an entire army punishing a foal or two. That only made her blood boil some more, until she was convinced that molten lava was going through her veins. "Of course, that would mean they'd have to know about any foals to begin with, and you haven't had any," she muttered darkly and sincerely. Sora's frown deepened when she caught no iota of malice from the statement, and her mind concocted an image of that one mare in the clear cells.

"Exactly," Yukito agreed with a somber nod.

Starbreaker turned to Sora and huffed as they trotted through an open door frame whose doors were torn off. They moved down a curved hall, yet more claw marks leading them on. "No wonder you two are married—you're weirdos of equal measure," she scoffed.

Sora rolled her eyes and snorted, idly noting that these halls had dulled columns that barely held any color between yet more closed doors, all topped with a strange heart-shaped object. Some flashed orange as they trotted past, others opted for an off-cyan sheen, though all in all they tended to go for a pale pink as the light-spell hit them. Around the doors was carved an elaborately etched mural of swirling clouds and countless stars, each as dulled by time as the trunk's outermost wall. Once, long ago, it would have been beautiful to stand in front of and stare at, but now the mural was almost blackened beyond recognition.

Oddly, the clouds boasted strokes of white lightning and whirlwinds of snow that weren't carved in as deeply, yet seemed to have been painted on. As the herd came upon a curved T-intersection and forked left, the stars gradually vanished from the piece, one by one, until all that was left were angry storm clouds spewing out their cold and blinding vitriol. Was that a recent addition to this hall-spanning, forgotten art? Or had it always been there, unbeknownst to all but them?

Sora turned ahead, hearing a door creaking open. Not a double either, but one of the standalones from the left side. Out stumbled a unicorn foal with a feather-topped boulder cutie mark, no taller than her shoulders, and this one had a midnight blue coat that was almost black. Her legs, fading from blue to white past the gaskins and elbows, ended in unshorn fetlocks whose fur trailed behind her hooves in flowing mats as she moved. Embedded in her chest, glimmering like its own light, was a tear-shaped gem of crimson. Sora's eyes widened as the filly with her short, messy indigo mane and golden irises turned to look at her.

Silence held for a few seconds, and so did the staring contest, before Yukito broke both in one fell swoop. "Who… are you? And what are you doing here?"

The filly turned to him, looked him up and down, and lit up her horn and the gem in a pair of twin blue auras before the latter flashed red. She then took one glance at Starbreaker before her ears fell flat against her skull and her pupils shrank. "Nanora!" she shrieked as cyan light flooded the hall with enough power to make the group snap their eyes shut in unison. She blazed past them in a flurry of motion, the sound of retreating hooves reaching their ears as the light died. Sora opened her eyes first and glanced around, trying to see where the wayward foal had galloped off to.

But it was of little use; she was already gone. Only a swinging door was left in her wake. Sora's stomach clenched; her memory stirred, quickly filling in the blanks. The giant boulder near the carriage in the clearing, and the burst of light miles away all suddenly made sense.

That foal—she'd seen her before. In the sky, once, held by mechanical wings…

And if she was all the way out here, in one piece no less, than that meant… something horrible had happened—horrible enough for her to necessitate hiding.

Her ears twitched; she heard another door opening from behind, with enough force to leave an echoing slam. Yukito turned and galloped in that direction; without any further words, Sora and Starbreaker followed. Whether the foal was hostile or not mattered little; they couldn't leave her to chance out here.

In the wilds, with shelter or without, these vanishing acts could very well be her last. Sora had to find her—and fast.

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

The foal, cloaked in a light-refracting aura that made her invisible, sped down several halls as fast as her four hooves could carry her. Having run into the Star-Blasting Light was bad enough, but said Light having company to back her up? That was a tangle she wanted no part of.

All she knew was that she had to get help, fast, and then leave even faster. This place was of no use, now that danger unparalleled had come to roost. And the more she dallied, the closer that danger would come on her heels. Worse, the faster she galloped, the louder her hooves became—not to mention the increased risk of tripping on her own long sock-fur.

But as long as she got her help and then vacated the premises, it would be all worth it—and her cloak helped her to that end. Her mouth firmly shut, she pressed on, wheeling down another curved hall that led to a spiraling staircase ending in a floor a dozen feet below. But rather than run down it, she simply jumped the railing and ran under the flight, throwing open another door with her magic and closing it behind her heels as she blazed into the hall beyond.

"Pigyaaa! How many halls are there in this place?!" the filly muttered to herself through clenched teeth, her cloak faltering as she spoke. As her aura struggled to reinforce itself, she bounded down another hall after barreling through a single door, heart shooting up her throat a thousand beats a second.

Distantly, with the exact measurements lost to her, she heard a door slam open from behind. A worried whinny made its way past her lips, even though the only hooves she had heard were her own. She jerked left, turning on the tips of her hooves, before spotting a set of columns that had flat capitals instead of those heart-posts. Her cloak stabilized; resolve asserted itself as she eyed a door just up ahead.

But she skid to a halt when barging through it revealed another hall waiting for her, one with columns that were topped with hearts. Her legs ached with strain, her breathing already labored—and she was close to pulling her mane out. Her head darted, eyes quickly scanning the area for something—anything—that could point her to salvation.

Another door slammed open in the distance. Time was slipping away from her.

The foal veered right on her hocks upon spotting scuffs and gashes in the crystals. She felt her flesh writhing as she started to gallop again; her legs doubled in speed, her bounds became greater, and from sight she had vanished completely.

But, try as hard as she might, she couldn't vanish from sound. For in her burst of speed, she started to leave little craters in the floor behind her with each leap. Doubtless, the ears of her pursuers would catch on first—and then they'd find her chaotic trail. The filly smirked nonetheless, and turned to the row of columns behind her as she skid to a scratch-marked door. Her magic seized hold of the support beams, front to tail, and with an effort so great that her cloak completely gave way, she pulled.

The columns broke from the walls, and were all sent crashing to the floor in a shockwave that shook the hall. Doors flung themselves open from the controlled disaster's final crash; with the settling dust shrouding her, she lept to the doorframe behind and turned to start running again. Her blood started to boil in her veins, but not through anger—through fear and exertion.

Her little body was only further exacerbating it. Adrenaline, however, had ways to override such complications for a time. But if she went on for too long, then not even her cloak would save her were her pursuers to find her.

But she punted those concerns aside as she threw open another door and paused to take stock of where she was. A T-intersection stretched before her, formed of three flights of stairs leading to an indoor balcony and a door-lined hall leading to a massive foyer. The filly perked her ears, and rotated them before poking her head out onto the central flight of stairs.

Across the balcony on the other side, the unexpected arrivals skid to a halt and glanced around. The filly pulled her head back before they could spot her, taking stock of the situation and lifting a hoof to activate her cloaking device again. "Urg, great, that stupid Blasting Fuse of the World's End is with the Windchime of a Hundred Missiles and a Thousand Impalements?" she mouthed, eyes narrowing and nose wrinkling at the thought. "Rhyaa, this is much worse. Last thing I needed. The Thousand Impalements already knocked me into a mountain once…" She heaved a silent sigh when she heard hooves galloping away; the menagerie started looking in the wrong places.

"I wonder why those stallions are with them, though," the filly silently added as an aside before taking slow, cautious steps onto the central staircase. She walked calmly to the foyer, seeing the balcony stretching around the whole construct—and the herd veering from a door to another one opposite the room. She took a good look at the stallions as they stormed past, and brow and snout met with much wrinkling disdain. "... so they got wounded. And a medic, down to the cutie mark. Fantastic," the filly grumbled—keeping that lodged in her thoughts, lest her cloak fritz and give her away.

The group vanished in a door behind her without ever noticing her.

The filly's tail lashed. She turned to a door on her right and trotted to it, noticing it was marked with a mural of a tree carved around it in oddly rigid branches that stood upright. Wordlessly, with a hoof, she gently opened it and found yet another hallway marked with columns ending in flat capitals—swearing she'd find the architect to this madness and crush them beneath a column, because at this point she was starting to fume.

She trotted down it anyway, heading straight for its end. Opening that led to a spiral staircase.

Ugh. The filly gnashed her teeth, and was about to utter a dark promise when she saw more scratch marks. After them she went, galloping up the stairs and busting into a short hall with one blue-tinted door standing amongst the green-tinted ones as soon as she reached the flight's end. She smirked and rushed right to the odd one out, and flung it open before relaxing at what she saw.

Six green doors on either side, flat capital columns between them, and another blue-tinted door just ahead. She rushed to the second odd one out in a burst of speed and flung it open to find a round table surrounded by seven chairs, six of which were oddly marked with strange symbols. Aside from that, there was nothing of importance—unless one counted the conspicuous wooden wagon, a beaten-up two-wheeler box model with nothing more than reaches and a host of metal boxes stationed awkwardly against a closed door with wheels facing out. And the half-mechanical pegasus stallion sporting a metal-made horn idling about on the table. His ocean blue eyes were turned to her as her cloak gave way, and his mechanical horn and a chest-gem like hers sparked simultaneously in surprise.

The filly studied him for a moment; disheveled and short dust-hued mane with a forelock obstructing the base of his horn, denim blue coat, tornado-and-chakram cutie mark were the most equine features this stallion had. Not among—the. His sole article of clothing, a big red muffler affixed to neck and long enough to be trailing down well past his back, helped to offset his more… unusual features.

For past all of that, though, he was as much machine as ponies could come—metal legs starting where front elbow and gaskin normally began, ending in wicked jointed talons and a pair of opposable digits on his front. One bundle of those talons was clutching tightly to a thin and long knife with its blade pointing down. But there was little doubt about it; the filly had found salvation, strange as he was. She tried to avoid looking at one of his ears and hinds, both a sunset orange in color that may have, once, belonged to another pony entirely.

"Tsih? What's going on?" the stallion asked in a voice laced with a distinct mechanical undertone. The undertone sounded more feminine than it should have, and its reverb distorted his rather high-pitched organic voice somewhat.

"Mira, th-th-the… the Herald… she… she's here," Tsih answered, legs shaking.

Mira's eyes widened; he jumped to his mockery of hooves in a heartbeat, standing a head and a half taller than even the Herald herself thanks to his unnaturally long legs. The blade clattered against the table as he seemed to forget it was still in his grasp. "Already? How? She has no—"

"It's worse than… than that," Tsih cut in, gem sparking fitfully as her tail moved between her hinds. "She h-has reinforcements. The… Windchime's here too!"

Mira's pupils shrank, and his wings spread open on the spot. Natural primaries trembled for the barest of instants, and claws began to tap nervously. The resultant drumming created a constant pinging sound that echoed through the room; metal on crystal should have made another noise, Tsih noted. "You mean… that Windchime?" Mira hesitantly asked. "The same one who kicked all our employers' asses before…"

Tsih nodded feverishly. "Long blond mane and everything," she reported grimly, without any trace of exasperation. Then again, her panic slipped in her trembling tone, and could have passed off as such. "If we don't leave, we're fucked. And that's not accounting for the Sableshrouds—"

Mira's mechanical horn sparked silver, and the aura lanced out a bit before returning to and dying upon the artificial spire. The gesture was enough to cut Tsih off. "We do not speak of the Sableshrouds." His eyes narrowed dangerously low, and his magic made the blade clutched in claw vanish in a burst. He leapt from the table and trotted to the wagon, taking a moment to faceclaw without scratching his face off. "Get in. The weather may turn favorable for us yet."

Tsih galloped over to the wagon and jumped in as Mira turned around and clasped it reaches in his magic. He steered the wagon behind him and ran out the door Tsih barged in from, the blue-tinted one after that, the flight of stairs that were beyond, and then to the third that was still swinging open. His wings were already flapping when he got to the foyer, and he was making for the front doors as though his legs were melting.

But, just before he could reach it, a sudden obstacle appeared right in front of it. He noticed the burst of light first and skid to a screeching halt, digging new furrows into the crystal and propelling his wings backwards to stop himself from tumbling forward. The screaming of the crystals made his ears ache; they folded back in an attempt to drown the noise before it left with his stopping. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he found four ponies looking intently at him—one of which grinned at him maniacally.

"It's them!" Starbreaker announced, pointing a hoof proudly at him. "The ones who attacked me!"

Mira turned tail and galloped to the central staircase up back. Nope, nope, nope, he was not going to have his hide scorched today! Wings still madly beating, he allowed himself a small smirk in spite of his panic and how badly the situation took a turn for the worse for. The castle had many outs, and the newcomers could only block one at a time if they set their minds to it.

But instead, they opted to gallop after him as he took to the air. Fast though the Windchime was, even with a carriage in his magical grasp, Mira was faster—he had more strength in his legs to propel himself onwards, more natural wingparts to work with, and he didn't have to be physically dragging his cargo around with a network of straps anchored to his body. His horn gave off a brilliant light as he ascended the stairs—before time seemed to move in slow motion as a burst of speed carried him to the leftmost stairs in a heartbeat. In doing so, he was briefly distorting the air around him and his wagon before he was gone from the foyer entirely.

The herd behind him was slow enough he heard one of them faceplant against a door that slammed shut at his passing. That made Mira snicker, but with his magic giving him a speed boost, the sound that made its way through that air vacuum sounded slowed and distorted to his own mismatched ears. He weaved down several halls and up several stairs within relatively short order—without bothering to keep track of how many and where he was going.

Only as he darted through an open bedroom and stopped in a library did his magic stop, and with it, so did he. The landing was less than graceful; furniture and old dusty tomes flying about as he alighted and skid to a halt on the floor, knocking over a table that had managed to stop him completely with his barrel. As the tempest of paper and torn blankets around him settled down, he folded his wings and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

Tsih poked her head out of the wagon. "Mira? Why'd you stop?" she asked.

Mira turned to her and sighed. "Chances are, the friggin' Blasting Fuse and her herd are gonna keep chasing us," he answered. "Why she has a herd, or why she ain't fuckin' dead yet, we don't know…" His brow furrowed in bafflement. "Can you cloak again? We'll have to do more than let them see us a third time."

Tsih nodded, and moved a hoof to her gem. With a click, and a flicker of gem and horn, her magic set to work and made them vanish again. Once that was done, Mira started flapping his wings, this time shifting onto his hinds to grip the reaches with his front claws. He began to jog around the room to build momentum, well aware that he was furiously scraping at the floor in doing so. Every second on ground, no matter what form, would draw attention—so he took great care in avoiding the strewn furniture and books.

It just wouldn't do to draw that much more attention to himself and Tsih. Experience had taught him plenty—in some ways, more than anypony could ever, would ever dare to dream of. His augments could only get him so far, particularly when trouble decided to wedge its snout where the sun didn't shine.

As he ruminated on where to go—how, when, for what purpose—he became airborne and darted out the library's back door with nothing more than a burst of magic to wedge it open. He found another hall, brow furrowing as he flew down to it, noting it was marked with columns sporting diamond-beset capitals. At the very least, the things seemed to mark what part of the castle he was in.

As he flew, doors opened and closed, remaining in the former position just long enough for him to see what was in them. Closet, closet, heart-column hall, bedroom, closet… balloon-column hall, closet, closet—wait, what? Mira doubled back a couple of doors and poked his head into a hall to look at its columns. Three ovoid shapes per column, anchored by thin strands of streamer-like crystal that should most definitely not have had the strength to hold them to begin with…

Okay, yeah, definitely balloons. Mira frowned, closing the others doors of the previous hall with his magic. "... haven't balloons been retired long ago?" he wondered, keeping that consigned to his thoughts as he flew down the hall all the same, making sure to close the last door behind him and the wagon.

Echoing faintly throughout the castle, just barely enough to be heard past his beating wings and a new orchestra of opening doors, Mira could hear blades scraping against crystal. He could hear repeated pops, stopping after three consecutive ones to let the scraping fill in the void. Stomping hooves completed the distant cacophony, hard enough to be complimented by breaking and smashing crystal.

All of it, absolutely all of it, was enough to make the hairs along his entire back stand on end. That terrible combination of noises was the stuff of nightmares for even the most battle-hardened of souls. Worse was the knowledge of who was making all that distant racket; had he not seen the herd with his own two eyes, he'd have thought he were still asleep by now.

The racket edged just the barest sliver of louder—closer—for a second. He wheeled down another diamond-marked hall in short order, taking care to close every door in his wake. His mind took out an old, dusty reel of memories—and he heard blades clanging. Missiles exploding. Saw, heard, felt blue and red flames licking at him from every angle. Saw Tsih suffering much the same as everything went to hell around them.

That fire housed an all-consuming fear, and it was enough to terrify Tsih. Enough to terrify him.

They had to leave—before the fires could touch them again. And so Mira shook his head to focus on that one task, paying careful and particular heed to the distant orchestra of madness. In this labyrinth of halls, it was the one thing above all else to watch for.

Any exit, if he could find one, would be a distant second. Any chance of understanding why the Herald and Windchime just had to come here? He'd have better luck making snowballs in the seven hells than to come to an understanding with those two whackos.