This was the first time Vita had made the trek this far down into the dungeons depths, and though she’d never admit as much, the waves of heat wafting off of the flowing lava under their hooves, the faint snarls and rattles of beasts unknown to her… it brought a new layer of nerves to the usually steeled mare. 

The Earthen Furnace was nothing like anything she was used to, and apparently, that was a fact she’d accidentally made visible in her unsettled expression.

“Hey, Vita? Are you alri-”

“Of course I’m alright, w-what kind of question even is that?!”

The mare snaps indiscriminately at her partner on this dive, Logue, who jerks his head back with a sharp huff as his worried tone is cut off before it’d even finished. Logue couldn’t necessarily say he was surprised by this outcome, Vita was a fresh adventurer, and a notably hot-headed one at that, it made sense for her to be a bit snappy when faced with what she probably took as probing for weakness… he could understand that, having faced an amount of similar prodding in his time as a dungeoneer in his time himself, but it didn’t stop the fact she didn’t look comfortable down here. She almost looked closer to a mouse standing on the edge of a rat trap.

Maybe he could…

“Nothing, nothing! My hooves are just getting a bit hot, thought I’d see how you were fairing” Logue casts a friendly little smile over at the mare, who holds his gaze for a few moments before rolling her eyes with a light huff.

“Well, uh, I guess so, yeah. I’m not used to the temperature down here yet…”

The moment she takes her eyes off of Logue, it seems the stallion concocts a little idea in his mind, and without much warning, Vita steps awkwardly to the side as he strides past… seemingly skipping down the brick path, swapping between jumping on two and three hooves as he goes.

“W-What are you doing?” Vita gasps, ears pricked in surprise, looking around for a moment to make sure there were no eyes to take note of the odd little behavior.

“Keeping cool! Why don’t you try it?”

Vita stood there in confused silence for a few moments, pawing at the path. She couldn’t imagine it worked that well for keeping cool… but she couldn’t help the slight smile finding its way onto her face as she watched him skip away. 

It almost reminded her of something she’d done long ago on the surface, dancing alongside her father, jumping along the rocky streams up top…

Nobody was here, it couldn’t hurt… could it?

Logue pauses a little ways ahead of Vita, throwing his head back to look at the mare, at the very least hoping to find her looking a little more spirited than the uneasiness that’d been plastered on her features before; however, he finds something even better. Vita, standing on one front hoof, one back, seemed to be making her way toward him in a fashion similar to how he’d been going along. 

A focused smile finding its way onto her face, Vita skips along the path, her attention entirely ripped away from the previous nerves she’d been harboring in favor of keeping herself steady. Shockingly, just having something tactile to put her mind to like this made her feel far more comfortable. She was honed in on her surroundings, nothing felt like it could surprise her like this… Huh.

“Yeah! Just like that, you got the hang of it!”

Logue beams over his shoulder at Vita as the mare catches up, throwing a bit of an annoyed look his way as she joins his side, like she hadn’t just been smiling to herself the whole way here.

“It’s not that hard when you figure it out, y’know?” Vita tilts her head up at him, mouth opening to speak once more before she realizes… huh, they’d made their way through there awfully quick, hadn’t they? Maybe it was that simple? 

Vita forces herself to give Logue an appreciative smile, bumping her shoulder lightly against his as a sort of acknowledgement of what he’d just done; and as Logue returns the friendly gesture, Vita can’t help but think to herself…

Time really does fly when you’re having a bit of fun… who knew?