[o] There's no plan

It was not often that the Tidebreaker became lost, but the confines of the Burrows were one such place. He walked by the faint starlight of his trident and the dark scales of his hippocampus form that lay across his shoulders and curved over his brow and cheekbones, the cosmic mirror with its distant suns and ancient nebulae that moved within them shedding only a ghost of galactic radiance by which to see. He had a lantern if he needed it, but for the moment it hung from his belt, unlit as his bare feet tread silently through the hot darkness beneath the Climb.

It was an accident that brought him to the glittering vault of Soulfire Reach. Or perhaps it was fate. His steps slowed as the reflection of a thousand stars caught facets beyond counting and scattered into the cavern. The scent of blood was thick, but he had come from contemplating the Mountain's Roar and it was not entirely strange to senses so recently inundated in the thick, coppery aroma of the waterfall.

But it was the glow of a single small flame that had caught his attention and drew him onward across the sticky floor. There in the red shadows huddled a form he knew well and he stopped again to study the fall of pale hair over black silk and armor.

"Maea." He spoke softly in the space that was so clearly not made for one such as he, but his deep voice echoed in sonorous whispers throughout the crystal-studded cave. "What is wrong?"