The corners of Kalin’s mouth stretched to their maximum in a massive yawn. The young Courser was exhausted- it had been a long day of navigation training, and the infernal heat of the Furnace had been draining. She was ready to call it a day. Or, at least, whatever a day may consist of down in the dungeons. There was no real way to tell time down here, she’d found, and she was too nervous to ask Crispin such a basic question. He’d probably tell her it was a matter of time before she, too, could sense the passing hours through…magnetic fields, or something.

“We will soon rest, young one,” the grey Courser rumbled from ahead of her. “There is a point just beyond the Mouth that serves as a good respite area. It is cooler there.”

“The Mouth?” Kalin asked tiredly. She had no desire to face another trial of combat or wits in her current state.

“Yes. It is a large hole in the stone, behind which lies a series of tunnels set back from the magma fields,” Crispin replied.

“Oh.” Kalin couldn’t muster the strength to ask more. Her hooves dragged across the cobbled stone surface, seeming to be pulled down by the heaviest of weights. She was somehow both more and less comfortable on this level of the dungeon; her wooded, mountainous homeland could not have been more different in altitude, but it shared many of the same craggy features as this rocky underworld.

“We are here.” Crispin halted, looking up.

Kalin’s jaw dropped as her gaze fell on the enormous hole in the cavern wall. It did, in fact, look like a mouth; holes equidistant from the top of the gaping archway glowed dimly with distant firelight, and the darkness of the mouth seemed to be screaming- or, she thought as she stifled another yawn - perhaps yawning. Maybe it was fate that the rest area was just behind it.

“Come along.” Crispin’s tail flicked lightly over her face, and she spat his hairs from her open mouth before hustling up next to him. The majesty of the natural structure had revived her, but not by much; she was still eager to fall to her bedroll and practice watching the inside of her eyelids.