After maintaining her composure through what felt like hours of impossible revelations, Luna's legs finally gave out. She collapsed onto the bed. As she lay there, staring at the majestic ceiling above, a shaky exhale escaped her breath. Her hands shook slightly against the cooled silk sheets and for a quiet moment, Luna wondered if she would wake up from what surely must be a dream. But the shimmer of the walls, the ceiling, the lingering sensation of the soft manes beneath her fingers, and the memory of those ocean-deep eyes told her that this was no dream. Somehow, she had crossed into a realm where dragons weren't just stories. Dragons were real... with excellent taste in interior design.
"Not a dream," Luna whispered to the empty room as the realization drew silent tears from the corners of her eyes, and a hollow laugh broke free, edged with a sort of hysteria she couldn't quite suppress. Her firefighter training had prepared her for many things: burning buildings, hazardous materials, emergency medical response, etc, but nothing in her years of training and learning had covered what to do when you suddenly wake up in a world where mythology walked and talked.
"Keep it together," Luna told herself as her father's voice echoed in her memory: "Panic is a luxury you can't afford in unknown situations. Assess. Analyze. Act." Luna wiped the tears and pulled herself up.
As she surveyed her new surroundings, the room defied everything she knew about architecture and physics, yet it maintained a harmonious elegance of any carefully constructed building she could recall. The furniture appeared carved from crystalline stones that caught and reflected light in impossible ways. When Luna pressed her hand against a chair, it felt like memory foam, though its appearance resembled that of pure crystal.
Before long, Luna found herself standing before two giant sized doors at the other end of the room. The doors soared to heights beyond any she'd ever seen, doors that would accommodate beings multiple times her size. Given what she'd seen of Sien's true form, the size of this room and these doors made a disturbing amount of sense. But the most peculiar of it all was the lighting. The room glowed brightly, but Luna couldn't find the source of light, not a single light fixture - no windows, no lamps, not even the subtle strips of LED lighting.
"Super Advanced tech," Luna told herself, clinging to the explanation like a lifeline before stepping through the smaller one of the two doors, which swung open at her lightest touch despite its massive size.
Through the warmly lit hallway, Luna followed the path until she approached what appeared to be a bathroom fitting for a dragon. There, in the center of the room, water hung in perfect geometric form, a rectangle suspended in space. No walls, no visible containment, just... water, holding its shape as if gravity had decided to take a holiday. Soft, white steam rose and drifted from its surface in lazy spirals, creating an ethereal barrier around the area. Luna approached the invisible tub cautiously, her scientific mind warring with what her eyes reported. When she touched the water's surface, ripples spread normally. Even the temperature of the water was perfect for bathing.
Drawn by the water's warmth, Luna helped herself to a bath. As she soaked, Luna felt her rigid grip on rationality begin to loosen, and her panic receded, replaced by a strange calm. After her comforting bath, Luna found herself instantly dry, not a drop of water remained on her skin or her hair.
"Right," Luna said to the empty room once more, running her hand against her arm. "Just another impossible thing to add to the list." Then her eyes caught sight of something else in the room she didn't notice before - a clean black dress hung suspended in the air. Luna circled around the dress once, trying to find its source of support but like the non-existence of the lighting fixtures in the rooms, nothing was found. But at this point, Luna had pretty much given up questioning such things. She sighed and changed into the dress.
***
Sien returned shortly after Luna finished the breakfast delivered to her. Without waiting another moment longer, Luna mustered her courage and asked Sien, "Can you show me where you found me? I need to understand what happened, how I got here."
Sien nodded and extended his hand to her. Luna hesitated. "Thank you... but I can walk on my own," she said in her most polite tone.
His smile held a hint of amusement as he watched her flushed over the gesture. "I understand," he said, "but to get there, you'll have to hold on to me. It won't take long, I promise."
Heat rushed to Luna's already hot cheeks at the realization he didn't just simply want to hold her hand, but he had good reasons to offer his help. Still, the thought of holding this impossibly handsome stranger's hand sent a flutter of unexpected nervousness through her; it wasn't something she'd typically do.
"Oh... I'm sorry, I thought you... nevermind," Luna chuckled, her words stumbling around her embarrassment. But the quick, awkward laugh did nothing to mask the pink spreading across her face. Awkwardly, she extended her hand to Sien.
The moment their hands touched, reality shifted. The next thing Luna knew, they had materialized on a beach that defied everything she knew about shorelines. The white sand beneath her feet shimmered with a silvery iridescence, each grain catching the light like miniature mirrors. Each step they took sent subtle ripples of soft blues across the surface as if the very ground was alive with movements. Even the sand here was softer than expected - something like the consistency between silk and fine powder. The air felt different too. Lighter, cleaner, and charged with something Luna couldn't quite define.
"How did we...?" Luna started to ask but the question died in her throat as the cool waves washed over her feet. The touch of water triggered something in her mind - fragments of memories flashed before her, of pain, of darkness closing in, of soft, wet sand against her skin before she passed out. But it was what Luna saw behind Sien that truly shook her world.
Hanging high above the endless sea behind Sien was a sight both familiar and impossible, the beautiful green planet Luna knew all too well. The sight unlocked a flood of memories. Suddenly the missing pieces rushed in, filling the voids of her mind - embracing her parents before leaving on her trip, the hotel balcony, the little girl and her yellow robot, her friends, the plane, the darkened sky, being pulled upward into nothingness, this beach. The memories cascaded through her mind, each piece fitting into place like a puzzle.
Luna's legs gave way beneath her, and she staggered, but Sien caught her before she could fall. "Are you alright, Ms. Luna?" Sien asked before helping her gently to the sand, keeping a steady arm around her shoulders.
"I remembered what happened," Luna whispered. Suddenly, this alien beach that stretched endlessly before her with an ethereal beauty felt even more alien. But it was the planet hanging in the sky that held her attention.
"I was with my friends when the sky suddenly turned dark," Luna explained, her voice trembling as memories of that horror replayed in her mind. "Something... some force pulled me through the clouds into darkness... and the next thing I knew, I was here, but I was too exhausted, I blacked out." Luna paused, trying to find the right words then she pointed toward the green sphere in the sky. "That's my world up there. Axeon. My home."
Sien's gaze darted between Luna and Axeon. He remained silent as if he was in deep thoughts. His suspicions had been correct, but the implications troubled him. No ordinary human should have been able to cross the barrier that had sealed their world for millennia.
"Which planet is this?" Luna asked, her scientific mind seeking understanding. "We never detected any other habitable planets in our system."
"Your planet's twin... Axeon-II," Sien said.