The cave was dark, cold, and damp. A drop of water fell from the ceiling onto Torrent's snout, then splashed off his scales as soon as it arrived. Griffin looked around nervously.

"Hello?" Orca called. "Is anyone there?" Her voice emptily echoed off the walls. "Is anyone there? Is anyone there? Is anyone there?" She received no answers.

"C'mon," Orca said, "I know there's an animus in here. Probably in further."

The three continued in further. The cave went far into the hill, further than what Torrent thought was possible. Is this magic? he wondered. He glanced around the walls of the cave, and touched one, dragging a talon down its surface. It felt smooth and ethereal, like the walls of the Summer Palace, or Griffin's feather. The cave was not just any cave, but the epitome of all caves. There was no cave more cave-like than this cave, this cave was perfect.

"Hello?" Orca called again.

There was a strange silence, until suddenly a voice called back, almost making Griffin jump out of his feathers. "Princess Herring?" it asked. "Is that you? You haven't visited for a while." The voice was rough and jarring, as if it hadn't been used in a long, long time. It seemed to reverberate from everywhere in the cavern.

Orca looked around, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. Who was Princess Herring? Orca hadn't heard of her before. An old SeaWing princess, perhaps? "No, my name is Princess Orca," she replied. Suddenly, Orca felt a giant shake in the ground, as if an earthquake had just happened by. She looked up to the ceiling. Rocks were gently crumbling down.

Suddenly, the walls appeared to move. Stone crumbled and broke off them, falling onto the dark floor in thin slabs, then further collapsing into dust. Dark black dragon scales were revealed behind them, larger than any scales Orca had seen before. Veins of shimmering gold appeared between the scales. The walls continued crumbling and rotating, until the largest dragon Orca had ever seen crawled out of the walls, almost wrapping herself around the three.

The gargantuan NightWing's head reached down, stone continuing to fall off it as her neck moved. Just her head was larger than the three of them combined. As the NightWing moved her nostrils in front of Orca, and sniffed her, the puny SeaWing princess could not help but back up in fear, tucking her tail between her legs. She'd heard that the older a dragon was, the larger they got. How old was this dragon? Or was this magic?

"You're not Herring," the NightWing replied, opening her mouth and breathing hot sulfuric air over the SeaWing princess. The NightWing's breathing was slow and raspy, as if she had immense trouble just doing the simple task of taking in air to her lungs. Her slow heartbeat shook the ground.

"Er . . . no." Orca replied. She noticed a humongous necklace resting around the NightWing's neck. A strange aura floated off it, making Orca's scales shiver. This dragon was clearly an animus, and a very powerful one at that.

"Orca, you say?" the NightWing said. She slowly turned her head, smelling Griffin and Torrent in turn. "It is so very good to have visitors. I haven't had any in a very long time. Why have you come? Did Herring send you?"

"No," Orca replied, still unsure who Herring was, "I don't know a princess named Herring."

"Oh, that's a shame," the NightWing replied. "I am . . ." The NightWing thought for a moment, as if she was attempting to remember who she was. ". . . Sunscorcher. Yes."

Orca nodded. "Er . . . Sunscorcher, we came to you to ask you a question. About animus magic."

Sunscorcher lifted her head up slowly, with an expression of surprise on her face. She opened one eyelid, revealing a milky-white orb over her pupil, surrounded by a golden iris. "Animus magic," she said, almost like a whisper. "That's what Herring asked me about when she first visited me. Are you sure you are not Herring?"

"I'm not," Orca patiently replied.

"You shouldn't mess with animus magic," Sunscorcher scolded. "It's very dangerous, you know. Herring got into trouble with animus magic. I hope she's alright."

"You are an animus, right?" Orca asked. "I am too. I wanted to ask if there was a way to not lose my soul."

"An animus?" The NightWing thought for a moment. The rocks shuddered beneath the dragons' claws. "Yes, I am." Suddenly, Sunscorcher laughed. The horrible, raspy laugh reverberated about the cave walls. Torrent and Griffin covered their ears.

"Losing your soul?" Sunscorcher asked. "Animus dragons don't lose their souls when they use their magic." She flicked out forked tongue. "Their souls become more complete. More perfect. More beautiful. Can you hear them?"

"What?" Orca asked. She was becoming more and more certain that this dragon wouldn't be any help.

Sunscorcher opened her other eye. It was just as milky-white as the first one, but the blind NightWing appeared to be staring right into Orca's soul. "The voices. They whisper to me when I use magic. They're beautiful, are they not?"

Orca shuddered. Griffin tugged at her tail, and silently motioned towards the exit of the cave. Orca shook her head. Maybe the animus would still say something useful. "They . . . are?" Orca replied.

Sunscorcher nodded, as if agreeing with Orca. "Yes, they are. Always there. Always there. No matter how hard I try to make them go away." The giant animus suddenly looked angry. Griffin glanced back again to make sure there was still an exit. Sunscorcher played with the necklace around her neck. "I tried to make them go away," she whispered. Tears started to form on her milky-white eyes. "But it only made things worse. You've tried too, haven't you? I can smell it." Orca rubbed one of her claws on the golden bracelet she had made to protect her soul.

Sunscorcher suddenly raised one of her talons, and jammed it deep into her ears, not even flinching. Crimson blood started pouring down her claws from her ear, onto the ground beneath. It started to form a red puddle on the ground, slowly flowing towards Orca.

"No, there's no way to stop them," Sunscorcher continued. "That's just not how it works. There is only one way to silence the voices forever." As she pulled her talon out of her brain, she shook it, sending what looked like chunks of flesh or brain onto the wall. Quickly, the blood stopped dripping, and the hole she had made in her head magically started to mend itself.

Griffin tugged on Orca's tail again. She looked back to the entrance. Sunscorcher was slowly moving her huge tail in front of the entrance, attempting to fully encircle the three with her body. Orca nodded, and motioned Torrent. The three started to slowly move back towards the entrance of the cavern.

Tears fell down Sunscorcher's snout, splashing on the ground, and merging with the puddle of blood. "I miss Herring. She was such a nice SeaWing. But I had to silence them, didn't I? She would have hurt other dragons, and I couldn't let that happen. The voices had gotten too loud, and she couldn't hear me anymore. Can you still hear me?" The last question seemed to be directed towards Orca.

"Yes, I can hear you fine," Orca replied, nervously moving towards the entrance. Just a few more moments, and they would be able to escape Sunscorcher.

"No, you can't." Sunscorcher replied. "They've gotten too loud." Suddenly, Sunscorcher moved her tail inwards towards her head, attempting to complete the circle and trap the three inside.

"FLY!" Orca yelled. Griffin and Torrent opened their wings, and flew over Sunscorcher's incoming tail. Orca did the same, and just narrowly avoided it. The NightWing roared in anger, and the tunnel shook in retaliation as for the first time in centuries, or maybe millennia, she attempted to get up. Sunscorcher marched towards the exit of the tunnel, her jaws open wide, as the three flew towards the exit. Orca looked back, and saw what Sunscorcher was doing. She heard a deep influx of breath from the giant NightWing: Sunscorcher was going to breath fire.

Orca glanced back to the tunnel. She saw light ahead, but it was too far. They weren't going to make it. Large rocks started to fall from the tunnel ceiling.
"Tunnel!" Orca commanded. "Collapse on Sunscorcher and kill her!" The top of the tunnel shook for a moment, as Orca flew as fast as she could away. A familiar wave of exhaustion washed over her, but the princess's adrenaline far overpowered that, and Orca's wings kept beating.

A cracking noise sounded throughout the air, and huge boulders suddenly paraded down on Sunscorcher's head, crushing it against the bottom of the floor, along with the necklace she had been wearing. Orca glanced back for a second. The giant NightWing's skull had been fully crushed. Scarlet blood flooded out of her head onto the rocks, but it was quickly hidden beneath more falling boulders. The rest of the tunnel was collapsing.

Orca, Torrent, and Griffin made it out of the tunnel just in time. Just after Orca's tail had gotten free of the cave entrance, it collapsed into a rocky rubble below. Sunscorcher's body was forever lost, far beneath the leveled hill.

The three breathed a collective sigh of relief, and landed a small ways from the rubble. Orca lay down, her head spinning. The rush of adrenaline had subsided, and the magic she used had finally taken its toll. She brought out the map, and opened the parchment. She glanced to the ink blotch that represented herself. This time, there was only one in the area. The blotch representing Sunscorcher had disappeared. The ancient animus was dead.