"Disappeared prince," he corrects.

"Oh, sure. Neat. Teinnab, Laokab or Bezana-nanananana-ab?"

"Laokab, were you living under a rock for the past twenty years?"

"Well, gee, I'm only around that old, but hey, hmmm." Cynthia stands up and looks around. "I thiiiink I may be under a few rocks. Maybe. Would have to check, yep." She jumps into the ceiling, then sticks her head out of it, hanging her hair nearly to the floor. "I found a rock, so, yeah, I guess so!" She drops the tiny rock into the room, giggling.

He starts laughing, too. "I mean, yes, I'm about that old, too, that's sorta the point I'm making."

"Okay, so which body of yours is royalty that I have to remember disappearing from my childhood of someone who is probably uncommunicated religion-thing-wise," (excommunicated, but she means unpersoned) "in the brain of the not-social person?"

She remains hanging from the ceiling, her legs phased into the dirt.

"Both."

"... Okay." She pulls herself back into the ceiling, becoming but random hair for a moment, before falling back to the ground. She goes to sit back on the tunnel. "Yeah, no clue, rocks it is."

"Yes it pretty much is rocks."

"As we stare at one."

"Yup."

...
...
...

... indeed. Lots of staring.

A little bar graph is in Cynthia's head. On the left graph, her desire to ask some questions. On the right, her desire to stay quiet and have the door opened faster. And then a hand swoops over and crayons over it in a third color. And then a cat rolls onto it, batting everything apart for attention. Crayons are ruined, it's a tragedy. Will need more crayons. Alas, the crayons are not fit for cat-sumption and yet they are being eaten. It is as adorable as it is frightening... What are they crayons made of, anyways? There's a bunch of like, not-dirt around.

... Probably could tell Kaede about that part. Though all that manages to come out from her mouth is a quiet "Meow" out of nowhere.

Kaede blinks and looks at her. "Did you just 'meow'?"

"...Uh..." Her brain takes a second to detangle. "...No?"

"So what did you say?"

"Uhm... Something... Just don't worry about it. I just meant to say that, like, those other tunnels go off to like, some random ore deposits and stuff... So if you need anything made, I probably have some relevant books in my head about metallurgy and forging and stuff."

"Okay, sure."

Cynthia sits and waits, as she was, since this door is taking such a long time to open.

Feels like it's been months. Almost as if an entire holiday season has gone by, and the presents are still BEHIND THE DOOR. But the presents are still there.

Thumb twiddling occurs.

The door rattles a bit.

Twiddling twiddling twiddling.

Hopefully Kaede isn't like, delaying, but, it's probably hard?

Twiddling twiddling. Excessive use of the tunnel's entrance to spin self around the sides of the tunnel, making her hair tangle everywhere turning the tunnel exit into a spiderweb of black hair and nightmare fuel...

It's pretty quiet besides the quiet noises of thumb twiddling down in this pseudo-room. Being distracting would slow down the presents!

It would.

Eventually the door glows brightly and finally starts to open. They can smell the staleness of a room that hasn't been opened in several hundred years, of dust that has long since settled. As light invades it, they can see humanoid shapes, several of them, and what look like tables and bookshelves extending as far as the eye can see. Which is not much but still.

"EeeeeeeeeEEEEEE!"

The circular hair pile that is Cynthia elementalist-leaps past Kaede (the hair momentum's past, no clotheslining) and plops in front of the door. The resultant gust stirs up the dust in the room, but Cynthia switches blessings and blows it all carefully back into a little pile.

The pile spins in place as she untangles herself and gets her head to pop out forwards. "Fi-nal-ly! What prizes await!" She's even more energetic and happy then one can think possible. Open faster. Opeeeeen.

It finishes opening. The chamber beyond is extremely spacious and filled almost completely with several identical featureless statues. What little area there is free of statues is almost entirely occupied by a table with several old tomes and bookshelves with more old tomes.