"Yes but you did not really say why we were going down and you did it practically in response to something I was saying."

Cynthia sighs. "Yes. Yes. I know. You keep saying these things, I still have the same response."

She reaches behind her back into her backpack and pulls out a small lantern.

...well alright. Lantern.

She lights it in a very public-unfriendly way, her finger becoming a lighter.

Cynthia then looks over at Kaede. "You can keep going? I don't reaaaally mind being yelled at."

"I'm pretty sure I was keeping conversation to acceptable volume levels."

She tilts her head slowly to the side, then shrugs and turns to the hole. "Handholds here. So on. Just follow me." The lantern is attached to her belt, and then she's over the edge.

He follows! And if he's spending a tiny bit of mana for night vision here and there, who can blame him?

And if there's no comments for a little bit, they go down for a little while and then a sort of crawl through a tunnel horizontally. They would end up in the little antechamber with the wall scratches that Cynthia was using for a room.

The night vision is a good plan. When the crawling starts, Cynthia turns into a shuffling hair-pile that would cause nightmares to the unaware, among blocking a bunch of the light from her lantern.

Yep, no comments. When they reach the antechamber, though, he looks at her quizzically.

Cynthia puts her backpack down, takes out her shovel and attaches it to her belt, then leans back against part of the unmarked wall and looks towards Kaede. "My little house. Lunch or something?"

"—sure, why not."

Cynthia pulls out food from her backpack, then stares at Kaede. She realizes something is wrong, but fails to think of what. "... The door is like, a little bit past here? Not more than like... A small crawl's away."

Cynthia then looks at the food in her hand and then back to Kaede.

He blinks at her. "Something wrong?"

"I don't know, are you okay? I'm okay." Munch.

"Yeah, I think so," he shrugs, and finds some food in his backpack.

"Suuuure. We've kind of been in weird topics the whole flight." She lies back on the dirt floor and eats.

"Well, yeah," he says, smiling, and does the same.

Munch munch munch.

Then halfway through eating Cynthia, with her not-holding-food-hand, idly creates a copy of her ruin-outline from the scratches on the earth wall, then uses fire to cook the copy into a little faux-ceramic portable rectangle with the diagram on it. She then stares at it for a few seconds, then floats it over toward Kaede. It'll stay intact on its own, but it doesn't seem much more durable than a dinner plate.

Cynthia is almost done eating, not too adverse to just shoveling a little, but at least eats quietly and with her mouth closed. Her shirt has acquired some crumbs, though.

He inspects the little outline, and finishes eating.

Finishing of eating.

"Bad question, but... Are you like, carrying around two different outfits? Wouldn't that be kinda awkward if someone looks in and sees the wrong half of underwear?"

He sporfles. "One, I'm carrying a few sets of different outfits, yes, but it doesn't change a whole lot between genders. Two, it's all stored in my backpack anyway, someone would have to be rummaging through it to see anything. Three, 'awkward' is just not a state I can occupy. People can feel free to assume I wear girls' underwear to their hearts' content. Heck, it's kinda hot, even."

Good thing Cynthia is still lying on her back somewhat, to hide the sudden blushing from strange thoughts. I regret asking thaaaaaaaat.

"Okay? Okay. Okaaaay." She sits up and pushes her hair around quickly. "To the door then?"

"Indeed."

"Excellent!" Backpack back on, down the other tunnel. This once splits and branches, but Cynthia knows the way of course.

"Even if I feel like, you're making fun of me half the time, it's nice to have someone to talk to! And hey, doooor time!"

"I don't think I've made fun of you once."