Forehead To Forehead

Fabienne took a long breath through her nose as she stepped deeper into the damp of a cave. It was dark after the first bend and smelled... well. Like a cave. Dirt mixed with water but no rot. The air was cool, and already making her feel clammy.

And the magic. Well, the magic in places like this was special. It was old, echo-y and deafening. Millions of years of waves battering against cliffs. Lost songs of long dead creatures. Wet and salty and unpredictable. Fabienne loved it. It felt like home. She thrived on the ocean. She thrived on this. This was what she'd been born for.

Her reptile eyes adjusted to the gloom. It was harder to contain her true form around magic like this. She wanted to fly, to swim, catch fish and sink boats surrounded by this magic. But without water, with only the echoes of the ocean, there was nothing to swim in, no fish to catch, and very little chance of finding ships to sink.

"Gnome friend?" she called out as she stepped forward. Little pebbles crunched under her feet. "Are you here?"

"I'm here!" Talea called out from much deeper in the cave. "Just a bit busy!"

Fabienne wasn't entirely certain, but her human sounded a bit strained. "You've been gone for two days," she said reproachfully. "And you didn't tell me about it."

"Didn't I? Oh, damn. Sorry. I was... I am busy. Not exactly right now but I couldn't have gone and told you if I'd suddenly remembered this morning."

Curious and a little worried, Fabienne followed the winding cave deeper into the chalk rock. Billions and billions of long gone marine lifeforms surrounded her. They dreamt, as the dwarves said. They dreamt and in their dreams and death created magic, steady as the waves. She took another deep breath through her nostrils and pushed on.

The cave narrowed and widened, at times barely wide enough for Fabienne to push through. Once she had to get down on her hands and knees because the ceiling was so low. But she finally found Talea, sitting in the dead center of a larger cavern. In the dark.

"Are you well?" Fabienne whispered, her voice bouncing around the walls regardless. In her experience, humans didn't like the dark much.

"Yes. Just... busy. As I said." Talea reached up to scratch at her head and then paused. She was wearing a blindfold. In total darkness, she'd still put on a blindfold.

"What are you doing?"

"Magic."

Fabienne stalked closer. "You don't have any magic."

"No. But I'm trying to... look, I know runes and sigils and I know how to find magic places. All I have to do is charge runestones from time to time."

"Alone in the dark?" Fabienne sat down next to her human so she could take her clammy hand. "No spell needs you to be alone in the dark."

Talea turned to her voice, smile shaky. She clasped Fabienne's hand with both of hers. "Would you have kept me company for three days and nights?"

Fabienne leaned forward to touch her forehead to Talea's. "Yes," she whispered softly. "And if you'd have to sit in the dark for a year and a day, I'd have fed you and taken care of you as well."

Talea almost fell forward in her rush to hug Fabienne. Her body was now shaking entirely. "I should have told you. I should have known you'd understand. I hate this spell. But it's so practical and here I can charge multiple runes at once with all the... you know."

"All the magic. I know." Fabienne kissed the top of Talea's head. She smelled like dust and cold, instead of the usual moss and sunshine. In this environment, even the magic of the glass gnome that clung to Talea's every fiber of being was swallowed by the ocean long gone. "There were fish here once, birthing live young, slicing through the waves like arrows," she sang quietly. It was an old song, mixing dwarven and dragon dialects and knowledge. "Their eyes so wide. The snails so big. And shells just everywhere. Where did it go, the ocean wide? Where did it go, the ocean deep? Where did it go, the ocean that once was?"

Talea cuddled up to Fabienne as she sang. She was listening while she was being held, tears in the corners of her eyes. And Fabienne sang the whole song, the long song, in which the miners recounted what they'd found and what they assumed once was.

The bones of what had been surrounded them, answering Fabienne's song with their own.