The sight of the thing had unsettled her, but Minx put it out of her mind, following Kaleb down a few steps and approaching a narrow tunnel lit only by staggered torches. “Where are we going, exactly?” she asked, a chill running down her spine as they descended into the corridor of carved stone.
Mau's claws clacked against the smooth floors, and she sniffed the air cautiously. The dragons live inside of a mountain? Now I've seen everything...
Kaleb kept his voice down as he replied. His pace had taken on something of the calm, the assured, and he carried on as though he'd walked this path a million times. “I know of a secret route through these tunnels—it'll take us to my parents. Might take a few minutes, but trust me, I know where I'm going.”
“So...” began Minx, “your parents live here?” The passage had been so carefully shaped that she couldn't even detect tool marks in the torchlight. “Stone is coarse and sharp... I never imagined that it could be as comfortable as this.”
“Wait till you see the inside,” replied Kaleb. “Us dragons do have a thing for aesthetics. Beauty is a necessity in life, wouldn't you say?”
She couldn't fight back her smile. The beauty of the stonework reminded her of her own homeland. The Fae didn't work in stone, it was true, but the thoughtfulness of the design and attention to detail mirrored a similar spirit—a creative spirit she'd never expected to find in dragon-kind. Minx had always been content to limit this sort of beauty to the work of her own people, but now that she passed through the halls of the dragons, admiring the handsomely-carved arches in the stone, she realized she'd been wrong to write them off.
Dragons and Fae, perhaps, were not so different as they'd initially seemed. Her homeland was painted in every shade of brown and green—the colors of the forest. Here, tasteful shades of grey filled out every detail. But the traditions of both peoples were united in their respect of natural materials. Up to that point, Minx had never considered that another race, much less the oft-maligned dragons, could have a proper respect for nature like her people. She couldn't help feeling that she'd been too hasty in dismissing dragons all her life; that Kaleb's culture and kin were not inferior to hers, merely different.
With Kaleb in the lead, the trio hung a sudden left, turning into a narrower and more dimly-lit tunnel. This brought them to a handsome wooden door fixed with a beautiful, brassy knocker. Availing himself of a key stored behind some loose stone, Kaleb unlocked the door and pushed it open softly, bringing them into a chamber of frankly incredible proportions. Till they had crossed into the room, Minx had nearly forgotten that they'd been wandering through a mountain. Now, in this great space, she was more than reminded—she was stunned.
The room they found themselves in was exceptionally high-ceilinged, and the natural texture of the mountain had been left in place here and there, showcasing the beauty of timeless rock formations. The ceilings were so high that the shafts carved into them actually admitted embers of the new dawn, which spilled out across the room in ribbons of powdery gold. The furnishings in the room were things of great beauty and style. A massive table of hand-carved wood sat at room's center, surrounded on all sides by sturdy, padded chairs. The stone-working Kurgs had adorned the walls of the room with exotic bas reliefs of dragons, most of them depictions of victory in battle. Natural scenes, too, were featured, and the peaks of the Talon Range had been reproduced on one wall to super-realistic effect.
While Minx and Mau gawked, Kaleb started past the large table and slipped through an adjacent doorway, apparently searching for someone. “Father?” he called out. “Are you in?”
Minx heard the commotion well before she saw its source. From a room to their left, behind another dense wooden door, there arose a clatter. A wild-eyed figure burst through it at the sound of Kaleb's voice, startling both Minx and the Faelyr. This individual, roughly Kaleb's height and possessed of the same long, black hair, was clad in rust-colored plate armor. His thin face, angular and half-concealed by a wiry black beard, was striking for its aura of dominance. “What's this?” blurted the man. And then, without pause, he strode across the room and seized Kaleb by the shoulders. “Where in the world have you been, my boy?”
Kaleb winced in his father's bear-like embrace. “S-Sorry if I worried you, father.”
His father pulled away, appraising Kaleb's face and regarding the recent damage to his armor. “You look like a mess! What have you gotten into now? Worried isn't the half of it! You've been gone for days.” Pivoting from tenderness, he socked his son in the arm with a beefy fist. “For all we knew, you were dead. There was talk of a messenger—of your being wounded. What is all this, hm? I don't remember approving such an absence. I let you out of my sight for a few days and you start requesting aid? You're still too young, too inexperienced for all of this. Where have you been, then? Spit it out, lad!”
Minx recalled the messenger—the dragon whose hide she'd nearly claimed while Kaleb had still been recovering. Kaleb's request for aid had been delivered, but it remained to be seen how willing the dragons would be to assist when faced with all of the details. Torrent's involvement, she realized, might dissuade
