Bo had finally gotten the hang of hopping. It had taken him a while and a series of increasingly comical falls – but he had got the hang of it.

It was especially hard to concentrate on not-falling when his ankle jolted every time he hopped, delivering a fresh banquet of agony to his brain. Bo could only grit his teeth and pray the Horus shoots would sort out his injury before he could no longer bear it.

If it was any sign of things to come, the burning sensation in his ankle seemed to signify that something was healing.

After travelling for a few hours, evening reared its head – as the slow, inexorable creep of night, once again, began.

"Keep an eye out for anything that moves," Bo grumbled, "this is when the desert comes alive,"

Yvet bobbed her head eagerly, "What should I be looking for?" She asked, teeth bared.

"If you see a big scaly scorpion, or a leathery flying… thing, we run. Otherwise… we don't need to be too careful,"

"I didn't know scorpions had scales," Yvet mused. "I seem to remember them being all… armoured," she scratched her snout with a wingtip, squinting as she tried to recall fleeting memories.

"Not all of them do," Bo nodded, "some have this black armoury covering instead of scales – but those are too small to cause us any trouble,"

Yvet licked her lips and nodded, "I see; I'll keep an eye out then,"

As evening waned, they arrived at a vast rocky field. Hundreds of shattered pillars of stone reached towards the sky in an uneven, granite forest. These pillars ranged from tens to hundreds of metres tall, all of them relatively uniform in width.

Entering the stone forest, Bo craned his neck to look at the pillars, dwarfed by the hulking monuments.

"Is that-" he paused, listening as his voice echoed throughout the field, "Is that… writing?"

He pointed to one of the pillars, its rough surface covered in faded letters. Letters that had been carved into the stone in a jagged, uneven way.

Yvet squinted up at the pillar, "hm, it looks familiar,"

Bo frowned, trying to make sense of the alien scribbles. But they didn't look like any language he'd seen before, leaving him stumped. "Can you read them?" He asked.

"I- I think so…" Yvet's tone was uncertain, wobbly.

"Well, what do they say?" Bo asked eagerly. Any opportunity to learn something new about the desert's history was a good one. "These were probably recently uncovered by the storm! Maybe we can discover some great mystery behind them!"

"Maybe…" Yvet's amber eyes had honed in on the writing, scanning it with a confused fervour. "But we'll need to go deeper. I can't make these out,"

Bo nodded and hopped a little quicker. He was starting to get the hang of it, after all.

The deeper they delved into the forest of stone, the taller the pillars grew. While the outer structures were faded and worn - the battered writings on their weather-beaten surface unreadable – those further in were in much better condition.

Bo gazed up at the jagged writings, feeling like they couldn't have been carved by human hands. Each letter was uneven and almost… primal – containing the faint scent of long-past emotions.

As they progressed further, these emotions grew stronger, more potent. Each writing seemed to contain unique feelings of its own – with all the carved letters of different widths and styles. Some flowed beautifully; others were blunt and ragged – carved deep into the rock with what felt like fury.

Every letter – although he couldn't read them – carried with it connotations he could almost taste. But there was one prevailing emotion, one whose fingerprints were left on every word, every scratch in the stone.

Sadness.

Bo didn't understand how he knew this, but these words and letters – rough and raw, as they were – were written by those in mourning.

Too transfixed by the emotions of the carvings, Bo failed to notice Yvet's uncharacteristic silence. A steady stream of smoke rose from both nostrils, and her eyes had dulled from vibrant amber to matte orange.

She observed each carving with both reverence and growing sadness.

Finally, they reached the centre of the field, stopping outside a dark pit in the desert floor. Four massive pillars rose at each corner of the square – the most intricate and ornate of the pillars they had seen so far.

These pillars towered over the others, covered in carvings that radiated fury and helplessness in equal measure. The emotions were so powerful and vivid that Bo couldn't help but step back.

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Breathlessly, he looked into the pit – seeing a broad set of stairs carved from yellow stone. The steps were massive, inhumanly so. Each one was a square metre in height and length, as though designed for giants – rather than humans.

He squinted into the dark, seeing no end to the stairs that descended deep, deep, into the ground below. It felt like staring into the mouth of a beast, a very, very large beast.

"Should we... go in?" Bo asked quietly, his whispered question reverberating off the pillars.

Yvet bobbed her head silently; her gaze fixated on the mouth of the pit. Sand had piled up at the edges of the hole, cascading into the darkness in a stream of gold.

Bo glanced at her, noticing she wasn't talking. "What is it? Can you read these?"

She glanced up at him, "I don't know…" she whispered, "I'll have to see what lies at the bottom to be sure,"

With a nod, Bo didn't press the issue. He had noticed something off in her eyes. Something that told him to let his questions lie.

Standing on the precipice, Bo gazed into the dark pit. He could see neither light nor its bottom—only the steps and the depths to which they led.

He took a deep breath and hopped in, landing on the first step. Its surface was smooth - any jagged edges worn clean by the march of time.

Another step, and another.

They descended the stairs, sinking into the gloom. As time passed, Bo lost all sense of space and direction. He knew not how deep they had delved nor how far they had left to go. Only that there was more.

After traversing an unknown number of steps, he noticed a faint glow in the depths. Speeding up eagerly, Bo hurried to the light source.

In the dark, the walls glowed.

A story was carved into those walls – the lines of which looked animal and inhuman – as though cut by claw rather than chiselled by hand.

Bo looked at the carving, marvelling at the intricate detail.

It showed a formless, unliving thing - floating by a rushing river. It was this river that glowed, carved so vividly he could almost hear the water as it crashed against stones on the river bed.

The formless thing was accompanied by a conspicuous blank space, which Bo had never felt about a blank space before. However, as he looked at the nothing, at the empty spot by the river - he sensed a presence there, something that couldn't be carved.

He glanced at Yvet, noticing her reverence as she observed the blank space. If it was as he suspected, then something beyond the mortal coil was depicted in this lack of depiction. Something godly.

"Should we go deeper," he croaked, his throat rusty from disuse.

Yvet bobbed her head silently, her eyes beginning to glow with amber light again.

Deeper.

They continued down the stairs, feeling the air grow stale and musty. As the light of the carved river faded behind them, a new glow sprung up like mushrooms in the murk.

Bo hurried to reach it, pausing by the next great carving in the rock wall. This one was more detailed, showing something that struck him as familiar.

A dragon, and a young one, at that.

It was small, shown to be barely Yvet's size, and breathing a plume of glowing flame. Beside the dragon, a human figure stood. Their face was missing, and their body carved unevenly – without the attention to detail of the dragon.

This figure stood behind the dragon, holding a sword.

The pair faced off against a mighty beast, all teeth and claws. Its body was riddled with cuts and gashes, bleeding golden ichor in streams.

Deeper.

The next carving showed no human. The dragon was alone, fully grown, and alone. Its scales glowed an iridescent blue, each carved with excruciating attention to detail; every corner, every imperfection, and every shadow was captured.

The dragon was missing an eye, and one claw appeared chipped and damaged, worn by many battles.

Deeper.

Another carving showed the dragon as it stood proudly atop a small mountain. The mountain glowed fiery red, bathing the tunnel in a luminous, ruddy glow.

Tiny dragons crawled along the mountain's rim, gazing up at the elder dragon, who was now missing two claws.

Bo could feel tangible respect in the gazes of the little dragons. Their eyes shone like those of a child looking proudly up at a parent.

Deeper.

Surrounded by fully grown dragons, the old dragon's eye glowed a flowery purple. Part of its tail was now missing, but that did not lessen the intimidating aura it disseminated.

Bo struggled to meet the dragon's gaze, shrinking beneath its sole, purple eye.

He glanced at Yvet, noting the awe with which she stared up at the mighty carving. She was looking at the ancient dragon in much the way the baby dragons had been in the previous carving.

"Yvet," he whispered, his voice bouncing off the cavernous tunnel, "what does this mean?"

She looked up at him, amber eyes glowing, "It's a story,"

"A story about a dragon?"

"Yes, and a mighty one at that,"

Deeper.

As they descended the stairs, many carvings were worn or unreadable. The details having been washed away by time or disturbed by cracks in the sandstone.

It wasn't until the final carving they came across that Bo figured out exactly what this was.

A tomb.

The final carving covered the ceiling and walls, depicting the dragon – now ancient and battered – surrounded by green fire. This fire hurt just to look at, making Bo's eyes sting when he stared directly at it.

Behind the dragon, hundreds of formless things cowered together – their ethereal bodies quaking before the toxic flames.

After that, there were no more carvings.

The stairs ended in a grand amphitheatre - at the centre of which lay an enormous stone box.

Bo crossed the boundless cavern, his footsteps echoing with each hop. He neared the stone box, feeling terribly small in comparison.

The box glowed a gentle purple, covered in sorrowful carvings and words he couldn't read.

But his gaze was not drawn to these carvings - magnificent though they were - nor the flowing depictions of the dragon's life, which had also been scored into the box.

No, Bo's gaze landed on the seven words he could read.

Chiselled in the stone on the box's edge were words that carried tangible mourning and sorrow.

On his shoulder, Bo felt Yvet stiffen as she read them.

Here lies, Thuran – Guardian of the young.

He glanced at her, watching as she processed these words. Just as he went to ask a question, she let out a guttural roar. A roar laced with lonely, helpless fury. A roar that hit Bo in the gut.

It seemed he should not ask questions.

Not anytime soon, anyway.