“Do you hear that, Esquire?”

“Esquire Occidere, child.”

“Come on dude, listen. Do you hear that?”

A low growl interrupts the cavedweller before he can reply, and he startles at it.

“Ah, Empress! You hear it too, I presume? Very well then—I suppose there is a sound here that I’m not privy to!” His tone is nervous with the hound lumbering along beside him, but he swings his head toward Luc to curl his lips minusculely in blatant annoyance at the dog siding with her. It might almost be threatening if he wasn’t just shy of fourteen hands. 

Luc grins in retaliation, but she knows Esquire Occidere can’t see it.

More hissing whispers echo through the cavern, indecipherable and without a source. The vines clinging loosely to the stone walls and ceiling sway, as if disturbed by a gentle breeze. But Luc spent her entire foalhood on the Surface—she knows what a breeze feels like, and there certainly isn’t one down here. 

Verdant tightens around her body, tongue flicking rapidly in hunger. Luc glances down at him curiously. She doesn’t smell anything that could be considered prey, but the serpent certainly seems to. Perhaps—

“Rats!” Esquire Occidere cries, stamping his hooves in terror. He must have caught their scent, much like Verdant.

Seconds later, hundreds—thousands, even—of rats are spilling out of the cavern walls, a stampede of brown fur and bald tails. Bark-baying echoes louder than their squeals as Empress dives in, the most alive Luc has ever seen her. Verdant, too, is striking out, grabbing several rats in a single bite before retreating to his perches to reap his rewards.

Esquire Occidere is flailing, kicking out with his hooves each time a rat brushes against him. He squeals whenever one attempts to climb up his legs, rearing and bucking to dislodge them in a blind frenzy. Luc tries to stifle a laugh at the absurdity. 

“I guess— ha! I guess this is what—haha—we were hearing!” she manages to gasp out between chuckles. 

“Are you laughing?” Esquire Occidere hisses, but the threat of his tone falls flat as he lets out another terrified squeal when a particularly small rat touches his hoof. 

Luc throws her head back in uncontained amusement. “Yeah! This is— ha! They’re just rats, dude!”

Esquire Occidere pins his ears and snarls, clearly prepared to chastise his apprentice for her mockery, but then the rats are climbing up his legs quicker than he can fling them off. In a fit of terror, he gives a final buck before bolting down the corridor back toward their home. 

“C’mon, Empress. The old man needs all the emotional support he can get, I think.” Luc laughs at the groan the hound answers with, clearly unhappy to abandon her feast. But she follows the courser without another complaint regardless, a slow walk compared to Esquire Occidere’s panicked frenzy.