Callahan didn’t get lonely, deep in the underground.

The steady plink, plink, plink of distant dripping water echoed to the same rhythm as the clop, clop, clop of her hooves on the cobblestones. What a feat of building, the dungeons are. Callahan could always appreciate that.

The floor arched up, smooth stone bricks became uneven cobblestones became mossy boulders that she had to focus not to slip on. One wrong step could cause her great injury. Callahan was sure-footed, confident. She was not worried, she had traversed many levels of the dungeons and a slightly rocky incline wasn’t about to scare her off.

Her footing slipped, no, wait, it was the stones that slipped, not her. (She would never.) The stones themselves had lifted, twisted, reshaped themselves until something with a face was looking back at her. Stone giants with hollow sockets for eyes that looked groggily down at the spotted shadow in their midst. She perched precariously on the boulder shoulder of one, and her ears pinned back. They were in her way.

“Well, get on! Move it!” Callahan barked. She didn’t have time for this nonsense of giant slow stones.

“I said, get!” She reared, brought her hooves down hard on the mossy stone. Would the thing even feel it?

It seems it didn’t matter if it felt it, because the thing got her gist. It stepped forward, too slow to dislodge the stomping mare. Just another step closer… And she leapt to the next statuesque giant. Two, three more precarious leaps across the space between giants and she had reached the end of the stairwell. Unscathed.

Callahan tossed her head, her teeth bared in annoyance. The stone giants kept their doleful eyesockets on her and she stomped her hoof one more time to drive the point home. They turned away, back to their resting places. Good. They’d be out of her way when she returned, loaded with treasure.