"Salamanders are valuable to sell as alchemical components, but they are also overhunted and becoming scarce. You find one that has strayed too far from the magma, its skin beginning to cool and harden. It would be easy to capture it like this. What do you do?"

✦

Archimedes stopped mid-step, his sharp eyes narrowing as he spotted the small, trembling form near the edge of the magma flow. A salamander. Its normally vibrant, molten skin was dimmed into dull, cracked hues as it lay motionless on the cooling stone, Its tiny chest rose and fell in shallow breaths, the heat it so desperately needed now just out of reach.

Terrence, who had been trailing a few paces behind, trotted up beside him, his hooves clicking against the stone. "Well, would you look at that," he said, a note of excitement in his voice. "That little guy could fetch a small fortune at the alchemist's market."

Archimedes turned his head slightly, his ears flicking back in thought. "Or ...it could serve as a fascinating specimen for study. Its properties are unique—imagine what we could learn about heat resistance, or regeneration, or alchemical reactions."

Terrence snorted, though not unkindly. "Come on, Archimedes. You're already thinking like a textbook. You know as well as I do that someone else will grab it if we don’t. At least we’d make good use of it."

The stallion hesitated, his gaze lingering on the salamander. The creature blinked sluggishly, its eyes glassy, and he imagined it pinned beneath the weight of his tools, studied with precision. A part of him thrilled at the thought—the knowledge it could provide, the breakthroughs it could inspire. It would be for science, not greed. 

And yet, the creature’s skin cracked again, and a faint, pained sound escaped it. Archimedes’ ears flattened further. He stepped forward, his hooves carefully avoiding the fissures where magma pulsed below. “Do you think that justifies it?” he asked, his voice soft but firm, like the echo of an old lecture hall. “It is not our place to exploit its misfortune. If we were to meet a creature as large as we are to him, I should hope to recieve kindness.”

Terrence shuffled his weight, his tail swishing with unease. “You’re overthinking it. It’s just a salamander, Archimedes.”

“And yet its kind grows scarce because of that very sentiment.” Archimedes lowered his head toward the salamander, his breath stirring the fine ash on the ground. The creature flinched but didn’t move. “Without them, the Furnace will suffer. Its balance depends on them, as does its survival.”

Terrence let out a low groan. “I’m pretty sure we’re the ones suffering right now. You don’t see the salamanders worrying about us.”

Archimedes ignored the jab, focusing instead on the fragile creature before him. Slowly, he extended his muzzle and nudged the salamander toward the edge of the magma pool. The heat radiating from the lava was almost too much, even for him, but the salamander stirred at the proximity, its cracked skin regaining a faint shimmer. A flicker of its molten glow returned as it weakly crawled the rest of the way, slipping into the bubbling magma with a soft hiss.

Archimedes straightened, his expression carefully neutral. “It belongs there.”

Terrence exhaled, shaking his head with a small, crooked grin. “You’re a strange one, Archimedes. You ever think about selling your wisdom instead? Might fetch more than the salamander.”

Archimedes didn’t dignify that with a response, though the faintest flick of his tail betrayed his annoyance. “Come. We have more pressing matters than bartering with life.”

Terrence lingered a moment longer, staring at the magma where the salamander had disappeared. He sighed, the grin softening into something quieter, his ears relaxing slightly.

“You’re lucky I like you,” he muttered, before trotting after him.

The Furnace rumbled on around them, the heat rising once more—a small sign that, at least for now, the balance remained intact. Their hooves struck the stone with a rhythm that echoed through the smoke-choked cavern, the sound of two very different minds moving forward as one.