I’m not even sure what woke me up, but as I rolled over and coughed, I was more surprised that I didn’t see blood on the grass as I pulled and picked myself up, pulling my things onto my back as I started being able to feel how much weight all of it is to a much more constant degree. I don’t even know if I started walking in the direction of the road again, just started walking. My hood up and my jacket around me tighter as I tried to keep myself warm despite the fact I was both shivering and sweating.

              As I walked, the scent of the forest rapidly started changing, the air got a bit warmer and the ground almost got spongier underfoot. I looked around to see myself in a different forest than I had just been in, I looked to the ground to see a large defined ring of softly glowing red mushrooms.

              “Breech gate” I whispered, a breech gate is a natural phenomenon in magic where an area of the veils between the planes is thinnest and thusly can be breeched, there’s all sorts of them that lead to all of the various planes, though how it’s form can give you a hint as to where you ended up. A ring of mushrooms means a fairy circle which can only mean that in my feverish state, I had stepped into one leading to the fey-realm. I walked back over to the ring and stepped back in, but the glow of the mushrooms died out as I stepped in. “…shit” I said quietly as I saw the glow of the mushrooms fade off. As I looked around, the sky was so much brighter and so much more colorful, but like passing clouds, the mashed up pastel, jewel tone, vivid and neon shades of the sky faded and swirled into each other, like a sea of spilt paint or a blurred together kaleidoscope. “How the fuck I get here?” I asked, obviously knowing that I stepped into the breech gate, but I did nothing to try to open it or use it, I just stepped in and I’m instantly here. I’ve only ever read about this realm in school, the most I know about it is that the fey realm is called Glimmerstand and is ruled over by Empress Cordellia Glimmerglow and the whole idea of courts being extremely important and to never eat or drink something a fey person gives you or you’ll be trapped here. I never took the classes that went into depth about the other planes. Though…another realm, that’s about as far I could get away from my parents.

              As I stood in the clearing, staring at the faded ring of bright red toadstools, the initial panic and everything lessened as I talked my thoughts out loud and processed them, the idea of being as far from my parents as possible making me take this a bit easier, but there was still the extreme panic about the fact that…I wasn’t on my home plane of existence and therefor had not a clue as to where I was. The trees around me were far taller, wider and more swirly and twisted than those of the mortal plane and they were strange colors too: some had bark in shades of purple or blue with canopies filled with softly glowing pastel leaves or leaves that looked like they were made of glass. The thick, plush grass underfoot was a dark maroon color and grew nearly up to my mid-shin, softly glowing flowers speckling the clearing and a slightly denotated trail leading away from the clearing, a lopsided sign tacked to the tree beside it that said Hallowed Mire and pointed along the trail, the sign vaguely arrow shaped. As I walked down the trail, there were other signs, but they were all pointing weird directions, some were curved to point behind them, some were pointed upwards or downwards and every which way.

              As I walked, I started to notice the vague feeling of…going in circles and as if to play tricks on me, I walked back out into the clearing with the ring of toadstools.

              “Shit” I whispered quietly as I looked around the clearing, thinking about what to do, Glimmerstand is not an area that one should mess with. I remembered something, not from my classes or anything, but an old fairytale, wandering is the only way to get anywhere in the fey-realm. I started down the trail, but as I did so…I decided to close my eyes because if I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t be lost, no? I took slow and small steps to ensure I didn’t face plant or trip over something, the crunch of thin twigs and roots underfoot, the sound of my claws against the rough bark of the passing trees or the sound of my horns softly running through the softer, more pliant boughs of the smaller limbs a bit overhead…I was purely going on my other senses to navigate before I opened my eyes and found myself…somewhere else. “…holy shit” I whispered

              Where I stood was the apex of a tall hill that grandly swept out before merging into endlessly swirling, twisting and winding roads and pathways, flanked by suburban homes made of tiny castles, huge trees or mushrooms and other elements, I saw one made out of giant jack-o-lanterns too, street-lights made of twisted vines that curled up and over where huge flowers bloomed glowing brightly to light up the area. As the suburbs sprawled out, they smoothly and gradually got taller and taller and taller till skyscrapers that quite literally scraped the sky and left thin trails in the cloud cover above, a wash of brightly colorful light and other elements. Ships that flew on fin like wings off their sides, rudders and propellers on their back or tops floating off to the side of the skyscrapers or docked in huge floating platforms, there were floating structures lashed onto the others with heavy chains or sat atop thick posts of live growing trees. It was…as magical as it was impossible to take in just how much was going on. I looked at the cheap water-proof solar powered watch on my wrist and the hands were just going crazy, not knowing what was happening. I looked up to see not one, but three moons were high in the sky; a large powdery blue moon that was so large that my palm’s width couldn’t span its width, above to the left of it was a smaller cotton candy pink colored moon that was strangely oblong, almost egg shaped and above/between both was the smallest moon which could be hidden purely by my pinkie nail that was a pastel soft yellow color.

              The air was crisp and comfortable, just a touch cold, the feeling of a recently passed storm on the air with how humid it was and a soft layer of fog and mist collected at my ankles as it roiled out of the forest. It was…a perfect fall day by the weather. As I stood there, trying to figure out what to do, my heart seemed to pulse hard in my chest and I wobbled back and fell on my ass as I tried to catch myself, but I started coughing again and fully collapsed on the ground as either exhaustion or the sickness I was coming down with overtook me, I could have sworn I heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, but I couldn’t tell because the moment I tried to look over to see if I could see who was coming close, before I could see anything I had passed out.