Hawkes glared at the back of Solace's head, completely ignoring Hearse as the gentle black giant of a courser spoke quietly with xem about the weather. 

Usually, Hawkes was in a much, much better mood while they were in the dungeon. Usually they could just kinda, be the biggest personality in the room. Especially when Hearse was around. Hearse was all quiet and demure and didn't talk all that much, and even when he did, it was about a topic they had chosen. But then the two of them had bumped into Solace and now Hearse was trying to be all polite and respectful to their elder dungeon diver. They knew their mood was childish, but that didn't stop them from wishing there was something they could kick the living daylights out of. Even just a rock would be nice, to see it skittering over the ground, who knew it might even spook Solace. Grumbling, Hawkes tossed their head and looked around, trying not to think about their old childhood frenemy who was walking a few paces ahead of them. 

"There's... no weather down here." Solace's terse reply to Hearse's attempt at conversation was almost like acid in their ears. 

".... I suppose not." Hearse's cold, dead words fell limply to the ground.

Eaugh.

Hopefully Solace would get sick of them and scramble off like xey normally did. Xey weren't one for company, so xey didn't usually stick around whenever Hawkes had run into xem before. But now that they thought about it, maybe xey just didn't like them. A dusty snort left Hawkes nostrils as they jerked free from their thoughts. This was ridiculous. 

Their ears pinned back and they lowered their head, staring around the wide cavern and trying to look anywhere else but at the two horses trotting along in front of them. Hearse had stopped talking, which meant Solace was quiet. A blessing, in the least, but alas it was not soothing enough for the fire in Hawkes soul. Their eyes darted around, trying to find a more interesting corner of the dungeon to set their mind against when they spotted something curious against the far wall, just under the shadow of what Hawkes assumed to be a former pillar. 

They debated for a minute, whether or not to go off by theirself or call attention to it for the others to see. After a heart-wrenching moment, Hawkes puffed out their chest and let their voice raise over the silence. "Hey, look over there! Do you see that Hearse?" They said, making a point not to mention Solace as they trotted over towards the mysterious corner.

"What? The empty corner?" Solace remarked, barely changing xir path as Hearse and Hawkes broke away. "It looks like an old camp of sorts. Nothing all that interesting, I'd say."

Hawkes' ears swiveled as they examined the old iron cookery and the long dead remains of a fire. Unfortunately, much like Solace had so brilliantly pointed out. It was simply a camp. Their tail swished irritably at the thought xey were correct. "Not just a old camp." They paused for a long second, frantically looking about to find anything that would make it anything but an ordinary abandoned camp. "Aha! Human armor." They pointed with the tip of their hoof, looking triumphant. "This wasn't just some courser's camp, it was a human's. So that makes it far more interesting." They lowered their head and blinked, staring quizzically at the set of armor. It looked so old. Like. Wayyy old. 

"Be careful." Hearse's shiveringly, quiet voice broke their concentration. "It may break if you touch it."

Hawkes opened their mouth to protest, though quickly closed it again. He was right. Indeed, it almost felt wrong to breathe near any of this stuff. To unsettle the dust almost seemed amoral somehow. 

"Well, well. Perhaps you were not wrong after all." Solace's voice almost made Hawkes start as they jerked to look at whatever it was Solace was looking at.

Almost immediately their indignation shattered as they stared up at the writing on the wall. "GALATEA... what do you suppose that means?" They tipped their head to one side, trying to read the letters in any other manner of way. "Has the word tea in it. I suppose it could be a type of it?" 

Hearse shook their head. "Feels like a warning." 

Solace snorted. "Feels like a spell, I'll say." Xey took a few steps away from the campsite, backing a good five feet away before speaking again. "Seems like something magical if you'd ask me." 

Hawkes bit back the urge to say that no one had indeed asked, but instead spoke their other thought. "I don't think it's a threat. But it does feel... deeper than I can wrap my mind around." They half expected some remark to come glinting towards them from Solace, but there was nothing. The other courser was standing there silently, staring up at the word with a strange sense of solemn about xem. Hawkes couldn't help but be quiet as well, staring up with impossible curiosity. 

"I suppose we'll never know." Hearse's voice broke the silence like a ghostly whisper.

"I hope we will. Or if not us. Someone else, in the distant future." Hawkes couldn't help the words that left their mouth. Something about the secret of that place felt solemn and wrong. They wanted to know, and the idea that no one would ever know made them upset. But not mad. Which was in so many ways strange. They shook their head, forelock nearly falling into their eyes. "Whatever the secret is, we shouldn't let it keep us from going on our way." They wanted to stay there for so much longer, figure out what had happened, who the armor had belonged to, why that place had seemed to locked in the moment something had gone wrong. They swallowed, tearing their attention away from the campsite, forcing theirself to continue walking towards the direction they'd been heading in the first place. 

They didn't notice, but Hearse and Solace also seemed reluctant to leave, everyone's gazes lingering on the word that seemed to seer its way into their mind.

GALTEA

Whatever could it mean?