He'd not yet been given his title. Perhaps that's why he crept along the bracken and thickets as if it was more of a law he was breaking rather than his life he was risking. The fallen kingdom calls to him just as it calls to the rest of those within Acadia.

As Thaumiel's hooves slip against the stone where ruins crumble and cave inward, he descends down into the depths -- ears pinned and eyes wide. Just a peek. Just a single glimpse at what lies below, at what his people strive to return to the light and to build back from the ashes. Overgrown vines and thick plantlife cling to his coat and his mane as he moves forward -- well, rather, downward. The slope is quite forgiving as eventually the dungeon's chasm opens to ancient ruins and a relic of a past Thaumiel could only grasp at with his imagination. Relics and history dredged from these depths lined the castles and cathedrals of his home. Someday, he'd contribute to it.

Someday, he'd restore this place to the light of the sun.

The stone here looks thoroughly picked-over, and he hadn't anticipated anything else. It wasn't as though the young courser had expected to find the key to the Kingdom's return so close to the surface and so quickly upon first setting hoof in here. He's simply elated to be in the space at all, and that shows in the way Thaumiel's pace picks up and the wide smile spreads across his lips.

His mother would scold him upon his return -- foreign kingdoms and strange beasts tried to lay claim to this area just as much as their kingdom did. They'd string up a young colt like him and bleed him dry. It wouldn't matter, though -- Thaumiel chased the sunbeams that filtered through from the surface and couldn't think of a better place for himself to be. And, outside of the stray bat or the strange noise of a far-distant animal, he was alone.

A sudden patch of moss sends his front limbs sprawling until he skids to a halt in front of a pile of rubble and the crumbled walls of what had to have once been a structure of some kind. He raises his head with naive, eager eyes. Even the simplest of structures capture his imagination in a way such as this.

He's nearly satisfied with just that -- the broken stone -- before a glint catches his eye. Something stuck underneath one of the larger cobbled stones. It takes a great deal of effort to move it, but it's moved -- and underneath lies a thin band of gold fashioned into a crown. How had this been missed by the Knights before? This tiny piece of history -- this tiny thing that was once a part of something far greater. A heavy weight swells in Thaumiel's chest.

A sign, surely. A little piece of sunlight meant for a child of the celestial body to find. This was his path, after all.

Thaumiel gently pulls the crown between his teeth, testing the light weight of it. Wondrous ideas like destiny, or faith, or fate, or honor send his head spinning. Acadia existed for such a reason as this. Thaumiel existed for such a reason as this.

The sound of a few stones tumbling to the ground in the distance snap his attention back to reality, alongside the realization that he isn't as alone as he thought he was originally. The young horse quickly turns back towards the surface light, oblivious to whatever eyes might watch from the dark beyond, and once again chases the sun.