Ankyra Sound then, a vision came to me — when you came along

if he followed, the sylph acknowledged it only by the flick of a long and piped ear. she had felt his gaze long after the arms of the grotto closed in on her. 

down through the dank hollow of warped flowstone and columns of ruined stalagmites; down past corrupted boughs of slime and past the skittering shadows of nameless and orderless beasts that stirred only as caiaphas passed. 

it was near black in that indomitable void, but caiaphas’ feet found the worn surface of the path easily enough. her steps, muted by the quiet clink of tired water and the groan of stone against empty space, seemed diminutive in such a complex and massive sprawl of tunnels — as if she and tux were simply lost souls that walked the behemoth underbelly of a towering beast.