Aria slowly closes her eyes, shutting out the dim cavern around her as she focuses solely on her other senses. The cave settles into silence after Lord Fenrir's greeting, yet something feels... different.A faint murmur.

Voices. Too distant to distinguish, little more than broken fragments carried upon the moving air.Her brow furrows.Then she notices it. The next current that washes over them is unmistakably warmer than the cave itself. Not by much, but enough to feel against her skin. A few moments later, another follows. 

[center]Warm. Moist. Rhythmic.

Not a draft. A breath.[/center]

Her gaze slowly lifts toward the darkness ahead.

[CENTER][i]
The cave remains cold...

Only the wind changes.

No...

Not the wind.
[/i][/CENTER]

She inhales carefully, comparing the scent carried by the warm air to the greasy residue she had examined moments earlier. The same faint odor lingered within it.

[CENTER][i]
The same scent...

The walls...

The air...

They're connected.
[/i][/CENTER]

If breathing alone could produce a current that reached them from this distance... then whatever lay ahead was far larger than she had first imagined. Yet it had not attacked. Instead, the warmth seemed to grow only after Fenrir had spoken, as though the creature had stirred, becoming aware of those standing within its domain.

"It senses us," Aria says quietly, careful not to raise her voice. "I... believe what we've mistaken for the cave's wind is actually its breathing." Her eyes remain fixed upon the darkness ahead. "The warm currents carry the same scent as the residue coating the walls. Whatever I examined before...the breath condensate... it came from the same creature."

A brief pause follows before she adds, her tone thoughtful rather than fearful. "If that truly is its breath reaching us from here..." she murmurs, "...then the creature before us is absolutely enormous."