When she looked up at him and agreed so reluctantly to being put down, he understood the impulses that had been guiding him and acted accordingly; he leaned forward and pressed a little kiss to her forehead, feeling tender about holding her and just as sorry as she seemed, to be letting her go (though she had begun to feel heavy and cause his arms to tingle painfully in the last ten or so minutes).
Once she was on her feet, he told her she could keep the cloak on because he hadn\'t thought hers was very thick and it would be cold and windy in the tunnels, but he did need the candle and lighting equipment out of the cloak\'s pocket. After some fumbling and much touching of her hand, he managed to retrieve the necessary items and crouched down to get the candle lit. It took him about five minutes - certainly long enough for his blush at kissing her forehead to die down - but eventually their little space was illuminated with what seemed an intensely bright glow, considering how accustomed to the dark they\'d become.
Freddy put the flint and steel in his pants pocket, holding up the candle and grinning at Ryanna, more comfortable squatted down as he was. When his hand emerged from his pocket, it held a large key instead. "This way," he told her needlessly, gesturing towards the tunnel with his head. It was easier for him to duck walk his way there - his prediction about almost being at the gate had been correct, it was only about ten awkward steps until they came to the very serious-looking barrier of steel. The key turned easily in the lock and the gate swung outward, towards them, without a sound, proving that the exits were well maintained.
After a bit more gesturing and shuffling from him, Ryanna entered the tunnel beyond the gate and Freddy followed. The area on the other side was a completely different story to the low, narrow natural entryway they\'d just traversed. Freddy locked the gate and then straightened gratefully, stretching his back and standing at his full height, even able to lift his hands over his head now. The tunnel was completely dirt but had been dug with intent - three men would easily be able to walk abreast in here, or a carriage traverse it, but the latter wouldn\'t get anywhere beyond the gate, whereas the former could move in single file out of the cave without too many dramas. A few tree roots poked through the roughly-square tunnel sides as they moved along the tunnel, evidence of how long these tunnels had been here - though they looked regularly maintained because they were.
"Alright then; let\'s see where we are and where we need to go. I think we\'ll aim to come out at the guardhouse, don\'t you?" he asked Ryanna jovially, his tone filled with forced cheer because he didn\'t really want to give her a chance to ask why he\'d felt the compulsion to kiss her. He didn\'t want to know, himself. He walked briskly along the dry, even ground towards the end of the tunnel, where another crossed its path, creating a four-way crossroads. Set into the dirt wall on their right was a stone tablet that had a series of curious marks carved into it. There was a single dot and an arrow pointing to the tunnel directly ahead of them, two dots and an arrow indicating they should turn right, three dots and and arrow indicating left and a dash with an arrow pointing back the way they\'d come.
It likely wouldn\'t take Ryanna long to figure out that they were following the trail marked by two dots and that two dots meant the Guardhouse (and that a dash meant an exit) but Freddy didn\'t elaborate on what any of the rest meant - especially when four dots, a star symbol and a sun symbol appeared at the various intersections they reached. They walked steadily through the tunnels, the thoroughfares not changing overly much in feature, for they stayed the same width and height, only the root systems appeared to alter. Sometimes the wind fairly whipped by them, threatening to cut straight through his clothes, other times there were pockets of warmth almost as if there was a fire nearby.
Although Freddy needed to concentrate on the signs at all the tunnel ends that they reached, he didn\'t need to be as quiet as he was in between; he just wasn\'t sure what to say to Ryanna now. It was easier to simply murmur about what direction to head and hold the candle up so that the two of them could see the path ahead.
