Nyx had told him to wait here for a moment, and Gordon was fine with that. This cave was one of the nicer ones, a little light coming in from a crack in the ceiling, ferns, and no huge insects of any kind. What a nice change. The dun marked weld let his head droop toward the ground for a few moments, grateful for the respite.

In that moment something plopped onto his back. Gordon lifted his head and rolled his eyes back to try and see it, but he couldn’t, he could only feel the sharp claws digging into his hide. With a panicked shriek he reared to his full height and spun, trying to shake off the creature but it clung to the harness holding his equipment and to his skin. “Nyx. NYX! There’s something on my back and it feels like it has at least a hundred legs!” There was nothing to do but call for help. Undignified, yes, but spinning like a whirling dervish and flailing your hooves around was undignified too.

Gordon had never been so relived to hear the sound of hooves on stone as Nyx came charging back at her full speed. She looked ready to run something down and trample it underfoot, but as she looked at him she came to a skidding halt. “Stop. Stop. Stay still and I’ll get it.” Nyx rammed a shoulder into Gordon, pinning him against the cavern wall and leaving him no choice. He trembled as the taller courser stepped back and glared at his back. He felt the terrible creature come loose and turned to look at the wall. Gordon didn’t think he wanted to know how many legs it had. Two hundred at least, surely, all terribly clawed.

“There. It’s just a stupid cat.” Gordon turned to see Nyx was right. Glowing bands of magic were wrapped around a large ginger cat which looked mightily offended to be removed from its perch and lowered to the ground in such a way.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Gordon asked shakily, ignoring the cat now that he knew it was, well, just a cat and not something horrible. Not something unknown and horrible anyway. He was pretty sure it had clawed right through his shoulders in an attempt to hang on.

“Here of course. There’s magic everywhere. It takes just as much as effort as doing things with your body most of the time.” Nyx seemed matter of fact about it. But Gordon was impressed, mostly because he’d just been saved from a deadly dangerous feline.