A soft, chill wind blows through the passageways of the Overgrown Caverns. It blows across the brook that glistens in every color of the rainbow, brushing gentle ripples across its surface. The breeze brings with it the whispers of ghosts that stubbornly linger in the dungeon, either by choice or by fate or some invisible hand trapping them there:

Galatea.

Galatea.

Galatea.

The breeze brushes against the brook, bringing more ripples.

One of them expands outward from a point in the center of the brook.

And from the hidden depths of the brook’s beautiful rainbow waters, a body emerges: a dark-colored courser, limp and lifeless. It rises just high enough to rest on the shallow bed of the brook, then stills.

Galatea.

Limp. Lifeless.

Galatea.

Its ear twitches. It breathes.

Galatea.

It lifts its head with great effort, and she is born. Or is she simply… alive?

Was she alive before now?

The mare blinks her milky white eyes and does not move from where she rests, lying in the brook of rainbows. A ghost - one of many in the cavern - approaches her, and speaks the word the rest have been whispering, their ethereal lullaby what graced her ears the moment she awoke from her slumber. “Galatea?”

She blinks at it, head tilting slowly to one side. “Galatea…?” She echoes, unsure – and more unsure when she hears what surely must be her own voice, wispy and quiet, nearly creaking from disuse. “Is that… your name?”

But the ghost continues to stare at her as another, much smaller one, joins the first. “Galatea…?”

“So… your name isn’t Galatea,” she hedges, brows furrowing a little, though her confidence slowly grows the longer she breathes the cool, crisp air. The longer she lays in the pearlescent waters that birthed her. “Is – is my name Galatea?”

The larger ghost breathes out one final, mournful, “Galatea…” before it flickers and fades away.

The smaller ghost looks to the now-empty space that was filled with one of its fellows only moments before, and then turns to look at her.

To look at Galatea.

The other ghosts in the cavern slowly fade away, though she does not know why. Perhaps they were never there to begin with.

Galatea looks at the small ghost, at its pointy ears, its long hair tied back behind it in plaits. It looks like a child. She tilts her head. “Why do you remain?”

“Galatea,” it whispers faintly, and reaches a phantom hand for her nose.

“You can stay with me then, if you like,” she tells it, as if that was ever a question. As if this little ghost - her little ghost - belonged anywhere else. It pets at her nose, expression brightening, a wide, gap-toothed smile, and she smiles back.

Something unseen, unknown, clicks into place inside of her.

“Come on, then.” Galatea stands from the rainbow waters, finally, and kneels so little Lucia can climb on her back. Once the ghost-child is settled behind her withers, Galatea turns to nose at her, matching smiles on their faces, before the courser turns away from the brook that awoke her.