The underground passage is another world, one like a distorted mirror image of the void strung between the stars Sarielle has always dreamt of. The stars' realm is full of light and beauty and calm, graceful peace, but down here, the quilted sheets of darkness are speckled with only drifting dust and dirt, winking in and out of view of her wilting candlelight. They hang in the stale air like frozen ashes. Or ruined snow.

She breathes out a long plume of a sigh, watching the dust grow frantic as it scatters. As the only other thing that moves down here, the tiny particulates are beginning to develop lives of their own, zipping and dancing around her like aloof companions. They're a better toy for her imagination to play with than the long loops of shadow. If she lets her gaze linger on those for too long, they knot together to form a noose, snarling and grinning with the desire to strangle her.

The candle's plinth weighs in her hand. She shoots it a glance as she wedges it against her chest, grimacing at how much wax the tiny flame has burned through. More than a day has to have passed, though the hours are akin to candle wax in here: slippery, misshapen, and eaten through with startling speed and agonising slowness all at once. Day and night, time itself, are strangers to places the stars don't touch.

Was this what it felt like to live within Nathan's cell? Nameless days and months and years of dust? Sarielle pauses and twists to look behind her, swallowing hard as the thought skitters over her bones.

The weak, yellowish ring of light glides over cracked walls and bare-rock floors, all as grey as the rest of the passage has been. Further on, the corridor funnels into a black maw, the rest of the way sealed off by darkness and isolating her in the tiny pocket of where she stands. It's all felt so endless. Aside from a brief, restless attempt at sleep thousands of paces ago, she's kept walking, each limping step taking her further from the cascade that stole Dalton from her, and yet she still can't quite grasp escape. It's far longer than she could've imagined, and far more of a maze. She's already tried three other pathways, all which led to dead ends, whether purposeful or the result of other cave-ins. She isn't sure she wants to decide which.

Hand sweeping through her dusty, tangled hair, she turns and carries on, climbing the steady upward slope of the passage, tacking steel to her resolve. Just keep moving, she tells herself. It isn't endless. Everything has an end.

I have to make this worth it. She swallows again, biting the inside of her cheek until the ache of tears subsides.

If she's the one who has to make it out while the others fall, then she will make it out. Any pain in her legs and feet is inconsequential in comparison. All she needs is to escape, and then to survive, and then to fix everything.

She could almost laugh. "Just fix everything," she murmurs, wondering if the dust dives aside to dodge the bite of her sarcasm. "Easy enough. I'll just summon my magical world-fixing powers."

The silence leers back at her, and it's only in the echo does she notice the bitter drag to her voice. She exhales through her nose, wincing. "Stars, I sound like Fiesi, don't I?"

Neither the shadows nor the dust have an answer for her, but a hard lump drops into her stomach all the same. She shivers, pulling her cloak around her so that the fur lining its shoulders tickles her cheek. "I don't suppose world-fixing powers let me turn back time so he can taunt me for that."

Her words linger listlessly in the air, meaningless, simply filling the silence as paper to cover her grief. Even so, they relax some of the tension in her shoulders. She breathes again, in and out; the dust makes breathing something of a chore, but she's gradually growing accustomed to the itch in her lungs. Besides, she'll be free of this place soon. She will. Another few steps brings her within sight of a glint of light, one clearer and lighter than the muted battle her candle fights with the dark.

A tentative flutter awakens in her chest. She quickens her pace, corners of her mouth lifting in an open smile.

It all falls away within seconds.

The way ahead is blocked by another tower of rocks, a huge, gnarled, frowning face staring impassively down at her. Rubble litters the ground. The light is nothing but a thin stream, a single finely-cut ray slicing through a crack way above her head and too far to reach. She slows to a stop, steps painfully heavy. If there were wings in her chest a moment ago, they're nothing but mangled feathers and pieces of hollowed-out bone scattered in the pit of her stomach now, crushed beyond recognition.

Even laying eyes on another rockfall makes her want to cry.

She inhales sharply through her teeth, banishing the urge, and imbues her thoughts with hard focus instead -- it's jittery and shudders at the seams, but it'll do. They're only rocks, and the gap far above implies that the entire pathway hasn't caved in, not like before. Kicking aside a few stray bits of debris, she picks her way to the heart of the blockage and wriggles her hand into a crack.

A few hefty tugs, and the rock is teased away. Dust and pebbles billow out after it, but when she crouches down, she catches sight of another light-leaking gap, this one no bigger than her fingernail but so tantalisingly there. A delighted laugh trips from her tongue, shaping her smile once more. She tosses the rock aside and sizes up her next target. "See?" she mutters, more content with the sound of her own voice now. "I don't have to fix the entire world right now. I'll fix it just like this. One step at a time. One rock shifted, bit by bit, until I find my way through."

The song in those words dances through her veins as she moves the next piece of debris, and then the next. The glint of light grows a touch wider. She imagines she can see rolling green hills through it, like a keyhole that expands to encompass everything beautiful beyond and worth fighting for. Desperation burns in her lungs, craving that fresh air and that promise. Candle placed on the ground and swept aside, she squats down on one knee and wrestles her arms into the pile, wrapping them around a larger chunk of rock, leather vambraces scraping uncomfortably over its rough surface. She blows out a long, concentrated breath.

"Bit by bit," she tells herself, and heaves backward.

She meets resistance at first, but with a little persuasion and grit behind her strength, it begins to give way. A giddiness widens her smile as a ray of sunlight breaks through, kissing her cheek. Just a little further.

She pulls again, harder, and the rock finally rolls from her grip and to the ground with a thud. The hole beyond it is visible for less than a second before that terrible, spine-itching rumble spears ice through the epicentre of her joy.

Scrambling to her feet, she races back the way she came. The sound chasing her ascends into thunder, a crackling sound that rubs over her bones. Her heart pounds, and she whirls once several paces away, watching with horror as cracks eat into the ceiling and break it apart. More rocks rain down, bouncing off the few, pitiful stones she extracted and filling in to bury her view of the sunlight.

She doesn't see the rock that crushes her candle -- there's too much to look at, and she shakes too much to take in any of it -- but she knows when it happens. The corridor is plunged into pitch blackness.

For several moments, all she can do is stand there frozen, listening to the debris bounce and crumble in echoes that skip emptily between her ears, before even that fades away and all she can hear is the strained sound of her own, panting breaths. They gradually become less sporadic, calmer, quieter, steadier, until even she is as stiff and silent as the dark encasing her.

Dust tickles her nostrils and scratches all the more at her throat. Her whole body aches.

"Bit by bit," she breathes, words unravelling, "until it all collapses down on you." She doesn't realise she's started to cry until the last word shatters into a sob.

Blindly, she staggers to the side until her palms meet the crudely-carved wall, and then her entire weight is thrown against it, hands scraping all the way down as she slides to the ground. It's cold against the side of her head and her knee, a numb embrace only marginally better than choking on empty air. She curls into it anyway. Despair convulses through her in serpent form; muscled loops of it strangle the air from her lungs and fangs dig hot venom between her ribs until every heartbeat is pain. The tears are warm against her icy face. She buries it in her arms, then tucks it between her knees, as small and tight as she can be beneath the weight of the darkness.

It should feel silly. The tears should make her laugh, make her scoff at her own melodrama, but she can't dredge up any glint of that view. There's no glint of anything amongst hollow blackness. No light, no sunshine. Her chest aches with how deeply she misses the sunshine. Her skin feels pale and ashy, untouched by soft rays.

Timeless moments drag on, and the dark remains.

At some point, once the tears have run dry and her nose drips and her eyes are sore, she musters the courage to unfurl, shifting just enough to press her back against the wall. Rough rock pokes in a hundred uncomfortable places. Her cloak's fur prickles the back of her neck. A numbness like the sleek, murky body of a river gliding through her, awash with silt and grit, she tilts her head back until it knocks into the wall. Her unseeing gaze angles blankly at the crumbled ceiling and the sky acres above that.

A sinking sigh drifts from her lips. She closes her eyes. "I'm sorry." The apology has no labelled destination, but her mind drowns her in memories.

Her father's face is most prominent within them, all gentle laughter and forgiving smiles, unyielding in the guilt it wells up within her. Her breath shudders in and out. Where is her father now? Is he still here somewhere, waiting for rescue? Is he thinking of her as he suffers? Will he know deep in his heart that she has failed him?

Because the stories were only ever stories, weren't they? She wipes her face, but still feels dirty, unworthy of her own skin. The words were only words, in the end. I was never cut out to save anyone.

Sarielle Diraldi was nothing but an ordinary girl all along. A girl who lost. How much has she lost? She hugs her knees tighter, buried in loneliness. She misses everyone. She misses Dalton.

Something warm tickles her shoulder.

She flinches, a dry gasp lurching up her throat. Her gaze whips uselessly around to scan the darkness, hands flying out flat either side of her, heart writhing like a fish out of water. The sensation was utterly foreign. Softer than stone, firmer than the brush of her dangling hair, but not quite the touch of fingers. Not being able to see makes it ten times worse. She swallows and shoves down the sticky heaviness that might assault her voice before she lets it fly free. "Is there someone else here?"

The question bounces emptily through the corridor without answer. She shakes her head, bewildered. She can't be going mad already.

Then the pain arrives.

It begins small, a crystalline spark of a thousand tiny spines pricking her gut, yet blazes up rapidly, bunching her stomach with clawed, searing fingers and rolling outwards to burn the underside of her skin. The shock snatches her scream. Throwing an arm over her middle, she digs it in, curling tighter into herself as her senses all catch alight. Everything burns. It's a fight to breathe.

The pain crawls upward to her chest, pressing on her lungs, then lances up her arm. It's jagged in the way it boils the blood in her veins, soaring with the vicious howl of a canine beast. Her skin heats. Sun-like warmth pools in her palm. Hissing, she painfully opens her hand, fingers spreading wide as they swell.

Stars. This feels like stars, the touch of the stars. She's seeing stars. Isn't the sun only a daytime star? If so, it's fallen from the sky, leaked underground, is now swallowing her whole. Green light floods her vision. Her fingers are bright red and blistering.

Her messy thoughts stutter. Green light.

Light.

She hasn't the strength to gasp, but everything tightens with shaky disbelief. The light is that of fire, though coloured in summery grass-blade green, and its source is the centre of her palm. It flickers merrily, licking over her skin with somewhat eerie calm. Awe briefly chokes out agony. It's beautiful. She lifts her head, half-expecting -- or hoping, rather, in the depths of her charred core -- to see Fiesi standing in front of her. His name is on her lips. Only he'd be stupid enough to set her on fire from the inside out in a simple attempt to create light.

But Fiesi isn't there. Instead, a bird perches on her knee.

Its weight has been lost somewhere within the pain, but its visible size is striking alone. Snowy white plumage allows its chest to gleam in the emerald firelight and makes its markings all the more striking. Crescent smudges line its back and wings in orderly rows, albeit fluffed out of precision where the feathers have been disturbed: they appear dark brown upon first glance, but a longer look allows their green outlines to shine forth, bright enough to warn of something not quite natural. The far more telltale sign of strangeness, however, lies in its eyes. Where most birds like this should stare back with a wide, beady black eye, this one has glowing eyes of green, identical in shade to the flame cupped in Sarielle's hand.

Even so, there's no mistaking it as a white falcon. Hope's unfaltering symbol, come to find her. Sarielle can only stare.

One of its own feathers is clutched in its silvery beak. It dips its head, and static pops in her ears, her head pounding as fire crackles in her bones. Her heart strains. The falcon's presence does little to lessen the internal agony of the fire; it has found its way into her lungs, and now pools in her breath, burning her tongue with every laboured exhale. Surprise and amazement are slowly peeling away to make way for horror.

She can't survive this much longer. What is this? Tía flame? The green blaze still dances as if it isn't aware how much it is tearing her to pieces.

The falcon's bright, otherworldly gaze watches her with what can only be interpreted as blank interest. It moves its head again, waving the feather it holds. Another aching crackle splits her temples, and yet somehow an audible word coils up beside her eardrums, whispered from nowhere.

Light...

It sounds, oddly, like a command. Its strings tug at her mind and the meaning unfurls.

"You..." A groan cuts through her voice as it shatters, but she tries again, determined to ask. "You want me to... to light that feather?"

The falcon's head bobs in a hurry. A nod. Several nods.

With little thought and a lot of physical effort, Sarielle drags her hand away from the cowering by her ribs and holds the flame out. The falcon shifts. The tip of the feather edges nearer until the fire licks at it, pouncing, climbing. It's suddenly all she can see: fire and feather and fire.

Dark shutters swing over her vision, stealing it away. She forgets to breathe, and by the time she tries, it's too late. She's burning. It all burns. She's floating. Her heartbeat winks in and out.

She isn't sure at what point exactly consciousness slips her grasp, but when the darkness recedes, her cheek is pressed against icy stone. Cold leaks through it. Cold. Relief rolls its tendrils outward, gliding over her skin and emerging in a contented sigh. The frosty nip of the air trickles slowly into her awareness in tandem. The fire within her is gone. She feels sore and empty in its absence, like a whistling hole has been cut into her stomach, but at least alive -- hopefully, alive. The throb eating its way through her arm feels real enough that she chooses not to consider the alternative.

Warm light leaks through her eyelids. Cautiously, she forces them open.

The underground passage is tilted on its side. Upon the floor she's laid on, the same falcon as before stands, staring impassively at her. In its beak is the feather. Emerald light streams outward in brilliant swathes from the flame perched upon the feather's tip, blazing high despite how little the feather appears to have been damaged. The magic of it swells in Sarielle's chest, easier to appreciate now the pain has faded. She tries to push herself up with her right arm, winces as the burns scream, and eases gradually into a sitting position with her left arm as support instead. The falcon lets out a soft squawk, dropping the feather -- its flame doesn't falter -- and hops closer to her. She's sure she can see some distant, twinkling kind of concern buried within its green eyes.

Hesitant silence hangs in the air, tingling at the back of Sarielle's neck. She breathes steadily in and out, reeling back the dizziness, and slowly some sense twining together the past few moments sews her thoughts together. "You're a Synté, aren't you?"

A nod.

"So..." She lifts her gaze, trailing it past the bird to the collapsed rocks and the opposite wall, swamped in shadow, but no figure emerges. "Is there a Tía here with you?"

Its beak wags left and right this time. No.

She swallows and touches her middle, fingers tracing over the spot the flame had first sparked to life inside. "That was Tía flame, though? It must've been. You... channelled it through me?" Is such a thing truly possible? She studies her right hand, the one plastered with ugly red, swollen and ridden with the pearly shine of emerging burns, and winces. Possible, maybe, but not pleasant. "Why?"

It strikes her when she looks up again that 'why' is a very difficult question to answer in nods and shakes. The falcon's gaze is unblinking and gives nothing away. With a sigh, she shoots a fruitless glance up at the ceiling. "Stars, maybe I am going mad."

Apologise...

She jolts, gasping sharply. The crackling voice is easier to catch now it isn't swamped in flame, but no less startling. It booms over her thoughts and tangles them in knots. Frozen, she stares at the bird. "Was that--"

Only way... connection... speak...

The words have a feminine lilt, soft and airy, formed of a breeze she can only just catch scraps of. Their message succeeds in leaking through, though, just about. "You are speaking to me." A smile bursts free. "That's incredible. How?"

The falcon shifts, and Sarielle is sure she senses a foreign nip of impatience amongst her thoughts. The voice shoves through with more force. The flame forms... connection. Difficult... possible... am sorry for hurting you.

"Oh, it's fine." She can stand a little pain if it means really talking to a magic bird. A white falcon, even. Her smile stays, and for the first time in a good while the tension ekes from her shoulders. If this isn't a good omen, a sign all is not lost, what is? She was foolish to think of giving up at all. Her father would want her to keep trying, right to the end. This can't be the end just yet. She won't let it be.

Her heart is no less heavy, loneliness no lighter a burden, but this is hope. It's something to beat back the despair just long enough to take her next step.

"Do you know a way out of here, then?" she asks the bird.

Rather than respond, it hops on the spot, then snatches up its firelit feather, tilting up its beak in offering. Slow and careful, Sarielle takes it by the stem, struggling not to marvel again at the beautiful, strange green glow of the flame. Fear ruminates in her chest, but the fire doesn't move to hurt her. Her fingers just barely feel its heat.

Holding the feather aloft, she clambers shakily to her feet. Exhaustion drips through her limbs like melted ice in the wake of the blaze. The ache in her injured leg has gone, though, she realises with a jolt. She casts a wide glance over the long shadows draping the passage. "Where?"

With a flap of its wings, the falcon takes off, gliding a circle around her. Rescue, it says, word fading in the middle but clear nonetheless. Follow...

Sarielle doesn't hesitate to obey.

The bird leads her away from the dead end, back the way she came through the passage. She has to walk quickly to avoid being left behind, stumbling along, thankful that the pain in her arm is beginning to numb a little. They're serious burns, the kind that need treating, but she hardly has any such opportunity. She can only press on. The falcon is a brilliant white-green flash guiding her forward.

A thought strikes her. "Do you have a name I can call you by?"

A pause lingers, the falcon bobbing up and down in the air. Saiph.

"Saiph," she echoes, letting the name's soft ending slide through her lips. It warms her in a gentler way. "Are we going to rescue my father, Saiph?"

The sugar-sweet edge of confusion wafts at the back of her mind.

"Reuben Diraldi. My father. He's imprisoned in the castle somewhere." Or dead. Breathing in deeply, she quickens her pace. Not knowing hurts just as it did before. "He has blond hair like mine, and he's--"

Not him. Saiph's voice cuts in sharply enough to sever Sarielle's train of thought. It -- or she, rather -- spirals in the air, a haze of rumpled distress. Fiesi.

"Oh." Sarielle's gaze drops to the feather, watching its flame flicker. A stone drops into her gut. "Fiesi is... dead, Saiph. He's gone. I'm sorry."

Saiph dives downward, coming to land atop a jagged outcrop of rock that shreds a wall to the right. The inky shadows that half-conceal her make the glow of her eyes extra noticeable. Save Fiesi, she whispers. The words have a deep earnestness to them, a surety and determination and other swirling emotion that Sarielle can't quite comprehend. It catches her off guard. She slows to a stop a pace from the bird, unsure what to say in return.

The opening cut into the wall distracts her within the instant regardless. Eyes wide, she ventures towards it, holding out her feather-torch. The green light bounces off slick, smooth rock walls, pulled in tight and narrow to form a path not much larger than an animal's burrow. She doubts any animal has claws sharp enough to carve its home in rock, however; this has been built with a purpose, albeit a long, long time ago. Damp cobwebs glisten at its entrance. Stalactites jostle for space, giving its ceiling an ominous, jagged appearance, like a fanged maw. Hollow darkness pools beyond the flame's reach. It's no wonder she missed it entirely when she first passed through here, and even now she sees it, netted shivers drape her bones.

"Through there?" she dares to ask.

The hot presence tickling the back of her mind seeps approval.

She gives a trembling, nervous laugh. "Great." Rolling her shoulders, she does her best to calm the fluttering in her stomach. It's alright. I can do this. I have to. If she has any chance of saving anyone, she has to. She lowers slowly to her knees, then to all fours, manoeuvring her chest into the passage with care to avoid scraping her burns. Her shoulders wrestle a little on their way in, though thankfully the walls widen enough to allow her some degree of comfort beyond that. She supposes she can be grateful of the weight she's lost during her travels as a soldier. Fourteen-year-old Sarielle might've had some trouble.

Twisting around, she casts Saiph a backward glance. The falcon still perches atop a rock, watching, wings shifting. "Are you coming with me?" she asks.

Cannot... Saiph's head swivels. Must go.

"Can you fetch help from the other Tía?" Tentative hope hitches the question. She winces a moment later, thinking more deeply about it. "Tell them not to kill Nathan, though. Not yet. I... I have to try to get him back."

Saiph's response, if it exists at all, crackles wordlessly in Sarielle's ears. Please be on my side, Sarielle prays anyway. She won't lose Nathan too, not easily.

"And if Fiesi is still alive," she adds, holding the bird's gaze, "then I'll save him. I promise."

Warmth floods her thoughts, flicking in and out. Thank...

"No, thank you," she replies, more firmly, her words as steely as they should be. "Really." Saiph can't know how grateful she is in full. It scares her, in truth, how close she came to giving up. "And... goodbye," she adds "I hope I see you again."

Saiph's flap of her wings reminds Sarielle, rather humorously, of a human-like wave. She laughs. How ridiculous this all is. It's probably silly to smile as she resumes crawling her way into the belly of the earth, stuck between plates of spiky rock with only a fiery feather to light her way, but she can't help herself. It's better than the sombre lump buried in her chest. It reminds her that there are still things she hasn't lost, not yet.

I still have myself, she thinks, and there's no reason why I can't be enough, whatever I'm worth.

All she can hope now is that she has someone else to save, too.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

I'm aware that this arc is already a complete mess but I had fun with this scene regardless. Meet Saiph. She's cool :D

Just ignore the minor breakdown Sarielle had. It's all fixed now don't worry everything is fine.

- Pup