Falcon impatiently knocks on the smooth shell before him, glaring at it all the while. He’d initially thought it was just a boulder, but his brother had pointed out the spiralling ridges all around it, and the slime at its base; what’s actually blocking their passage is an absolutely massive snail.
“C’mon,” He urges the creature inside. “We all know you’re not a boulder, so could you just move already?”

“Just because I said it’s not a boulder doesn’t mean it’s likely to move,” Harrier says with clear exasperation in his voice, as he lays down for a brief rest. “Seriously, it’s a snail. Even if it decides to listen to you, it’s still going to take its sweet time actually budging!”

“Well, if it actually decides to get out of the way any time soon, it’ll save us some time having to find a different path!” Falcon retorts, indignantly pawing at the ground.

“Uh huh,” His brother answers, his tone flat. “And, how long before it stops being ‘we’ll save time if this works’, and starts being ‘sunk cost fallacy’?”

“It won’t turn into sunk cost fallacy, because it’s going to work, damn it!” Falcon snaps, before turning his back on Harrier to headbutt the snail, trying to shove it into moving. Unfortunately, all the chestnut Courser learns from this exercise is that the snail’s shell is definitely as hard as stone, despite it not actually being a boulder. “Ugh…”

Harrier mutters something under his breath, and the taller stallion gets up to storm over to Falcon. “Alright, that was dumb even by your standards. We’re turning around.”

“Hey, maybe that wasn’t a great idea, but I am not dumb!” He says defiantly, stomping a single hoof. “Why do we always have to go with what you want, anyway?”

“Every dungeoneer has to learn when to cut their losses one way or another,” His seal bay brother explains through gritted teeth, as he not so gently nudges his brother away from the stubborn snail; and Falcon is irritated to note that Harrier is ignoring his actual question. “Better you figure that out now than when we’re dealing with something actually dangerous…”