It was like watching ghosts. Or dancers. Or. Or. Butterflies. Quill didn't have a word for it as he dropped his nose to the ground, carefully choosing his next step in case the tower decided to collapse. Fetch and Elrim walked ahead of him. They made it look easy. Effortless, even. It was like the rocks moved out of Fetch's way when as she chose her path which Quill was trying very hard to memorize. Elrim walked his own, neither of them stumbling.

Yet his knees were scrapped from the third time he slipped, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to climb the tower at all anymore now, but they were beyond the halfway point and there was no where else to go but up.

"Ready yourself, Quill." Fetch's warning came in the form of an almost sing-song voice, floating on the wind as if carried by the very dungeon. "The rocks and walls weep."

"So, a waterfall?" Quill asked unhelpfully, her laughter his only answer. It wasn't the first time that he wondered why she wasn't warning Elrim as well. The lost courser didn't seem to recognize her, but he had a suspicion that she recognized him. Their harmonic movements couldn't be explained any other way.

Walter chattered nervously on his shoulder, shuffling his wings as he felt a chill flow through his feathers. There was a presence here that he could sense in the stone. It wasn't the darkness that clung to each step Elrim took either. He pressed closer, soft grunts and groans his only way to communicate what he felt.

"It's going to be okay, buddy. Meeting with Fetch was the best thing that happened. She's not going to lead us to danger." He tried to be reassuring, the gentle tremors on his back more worrying than the uneven stones below.

"Every place in the dungeon is dangerous," Fetch spoke gently, stepping over the parapet first, and turning her head towards the wreckage. "But death has long since abandoned this place."

"What do you mean?" What kind of answer was that? He hopped the next couple of steps, waiting his turn to walk over the parapet before the entire battlefield caught his eye. Beside him, Elrim stood stock quiet, nothing more than a wraith of the dungeon as Quill struggled to take it in.

Broken buildings, bones picked clean and scattered across the field. There wasn't a single monument that remained completely standing. Even the bits and pieces of cobblestone were cracked and broken. Large swathes of green swallowing up some of the remains, but there were places where even their roots didn't risk going.

For the first time in his life, Quill found himself at a lost for words. He pressed his ears to his head as he stepped closer to the edge, trying to imagine what had happened here. A part of him struggled to understand. The other wanted to flee.

"What happened?" He whispered, the sound running between the broken buildings as if looking for life. The hollow echoes bouncing off the nearby walls. The scene was like a wound that couldn't heal.

"Only the ghosts know," Fetch answered him softly, brushing herself against him in comfort. "It's okay to mourn them. They shouldn't be forgotten."

Quill wanted to ask her what she meant, but he felt the moisture in his eyes. Watched the battlefield steal more air out of his lungs as he took in a shaky breath. Walter's stillness only driving the point home.

He'd wanted adventure and glory. He wasn't ready for the hollow graveyards that were left behind.