Stillwater sinks down to the ground again and Djinni watches him, taking a step to the side to better meet his gaze at this new angle. The teasing she’d half expected does not come; instead he deflates right in front of her. He does answer her question though, far more in detail than she might have expected. Djinni is used to knowing the outside of him, whatever he is willing to show her. She’s never pried at him because he has never done so to her. She asks questions, perhaps far too frequently, but she has never taken the answers as she so easily could.
Djinni listens, the amused smile slipping from her face as she does, replaced by something far more pensive. The life he mentions is unfathomable to Djinni; why would anyone choose to live without the sun? But it is not her story. For a while after she waits, mulling over what he has said. The moon reflects brightly onto Stillwater’s face, highlighting the sharp angles.
“Alright.” Djinni replies, and his illuminated face is cast into darkness.
A cave appears around them, arching earth overhead and long, oval boulders to either side. They look no different than the plethora of other rocks that stand sentinel in the woods of Sylva, but it’s clear from their insider’s view that the entrance to a cave is hidden between them. Between the boulders and down the slope, the pond they had just stood beside a moment ago is visible through the trees. There’s a flicker of the reflected moon through the leaves every once in a while when the wind is just right.
There is a spring hidden somewhere in the bedrock around them, and the soft trickle of water is barely audible above their light breathing. It glints as it leaves the stone of the cave and falls away into the forest floor, merging downhill with the creek that flows to fill the pond. The cavern seems natural; there is nothing to indicate that it had not been here a moment ago. It might eventually connect to the tunnels that run beneath the mountain ridge that separates Sylva and Pangea. Those tunnels might exist. Or they might not; Djinni is not a creature of the damp and the dark and she doesn’t care to explore.
“Is this damp enough for you?” asks the grullo mare. There’s no emotion in her voice – the words could be equal measure serious or teasing. Her expression gives no hint either way, bland curiosity in green eyes surrounded by dark cobwebbing. This is what he had wanted; isn’t it?
natural build - slim
smokey grullo tobiano
sea green eyes