The world dissolved in a nauseating lurch of impossible colors and a sound like shattering crystal. One moment, Eris was standing on damp, leaf-strewn earth, the scent of pine and Dáinn's wild, green magic filling her lungs. The next, her feet met a floor so smooth and cool it felt like solid moonlight.
She blinked, her vision swimming. The air itself had weight and taste—a cool, thin vintage, flavored with frozen honey and the ghost of rosewater. The dizzying grandeur of her surroundings snapped into focus, and her breath hitched. She stood in a vast entrance hall, its walls, its soaring vaulted ceiling, even the sweeping staircase before her, all forged from what could only be described as solidified air. This was the Glass Citadel of the Hollow Hills, a place spun from captured sky and dreams of ice. The walls were not transparent, but translucent, hinting at shifting, pearlescent depths where light moved in slow, liquid currents. Through the ceiling, the sky was a perpetual, bruised twilight, streaked with lavender and the faint, greenish shimmer of a phantom aurora.
"So this is what all the fuss is about."
The voice was a melody, each syllable perfectly pitched, yet carrying an undertone of dry, ancient amusement. At the top of the grand staircase stood a woman who made the citadel itself seem like a mere setting for her presence. Lady Rhiannon. Her gown was a cascade of liquid silver and shadow, embroidered with threads that seemed to be woven from trapped starlight. It was an elegance so absolute, so far removed from Eris's blue jeans and messy ponytail, that it felt less like fashion and more like a natural law.
Eris could only stare, her jaw slack, all capacity for speech stolen.
Lady Rhiannon began her descent. She didn't walk so much as glide, the hem of her dress whispering secrets against the glass steps. The sound was like wind chimes made of bone and diamond. She stopped directly in front of Eris, who felt like a grubby, unfinished sketch next to a masterpiece. A long, cool finger, lighter than a moth's wing, lifted Eris's chin. A devious grin, sharp and knowing, spread across Lady Rhiannon's impossibly beautiful face.
"Now that I have a look at you," she murmured, her eyes—the color of a winter storm over a deep lake—sweeping over Eris's features, "I can see why. You are very new."
Eris blinked, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness in her throat. The condescension in that tone, the sheer shock of it, finally jolted her from her awestruck stupor. She cleared her throat, a rough, human sound in the pristine silence. "I am Eris…"
"Sylvie MacDuffie. I know." Lady Rhiannon dropped her hand and turned with a rustle of cosmic fabric. "Walk with me."
Eris swiveled her head, taking in the impossible hall, the sheer, overwhelming otherness of it all. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
"Come, child," Rhiannon called over her shoulder without looking back, a lazy wave of her hand dismissing Eris's hesitation. "I don't want him to stay in a panic for too long. It's bad for his complexion."
The mention of him—of Dáinn—sent a lance of pure concern through Eris's bewilderment. She rushed forward, her sneakers squeaking awkwardly on the flawless floor. "Where am I? I was with—"
"I know. And now he is in utter turmoil. It's good for him to experience that," Rhiannon said airily, leading them through an archway that opened onto a garden that defied reason. "There are few things he has valued enough to consider precious. It keeps him humble. Or, well, it would, if he were capable of it." She smirked.
The gardens of the Hollow Hills were a symphony of impossible botany. Trees with bark like polished jet bore leaves of beaten copper that chimed softly in the non-existent breeze. Flowers pulsed with a soft, internal radiance, their petals feeling more like velvet or cooled wax than plant matter. A stream meandered through, its water not clear, but a deep, swirling indigo, and it smelled of wet stone and forgotten memories. This was the ecology of myth, every leaf and stone a carefully placed note in a song of power.
"Where am I?" Eris asked again, her voice smaller than she intended. "Why am I here?"
"I have brought you to my residence," Rhiannon said, gesturing to the citadel that rose behind them like a frozen geyser. "Gwyn ap Nudd, King of the Fair Folk, Lord of Annwn, asked me to check on Lord Dáinn. See what was keeping him from his duties." She plucked a flower that shone like a captured moonbeam, tucking it into her hair. It immediately began to hum a faint, melancholic tune. "Lo and behold, when I reached out to Skógr, he informed me of what was transpiring. I simply could not contain my curiosity."
Eris tried to cut in, to explain the gravity of the open gate, the escaped hounds, the souring milk. "We have to—!"
Rhiannon waved a dismissive hand, the gesture slicing through Eris's plea like a knife. "I care not about those mongrels. My only interest is the intentions of you and Lord Dáinn."
Eris cocked her head, genuinely baffled. "Intentions?"
A low, rich chuckle escaped Rhiannon's lips. "So innocent. This will be fun." She studied Eris for a moment longer, a predator appreciating a particularly intriguing mouse. "Alright, child. I've seen enough. I do believe he has experienced sufficient torture for one night."
With swift, decisive movements, Rhiannon unfastened a necklace from her own throat. It was a simple chain from which hung a single, teardrop-shaped pearl that swirled with a captured, miniature aurora. Before Eris could protest, she felt the cold metal settle against her skin, the weight of the pearl a sudden, shocking anchor over her sternum.
"What—?" Eris began.
"Okay, off with you now," Rhiannon interrupted, her smile widening. She made a shooing motion with her fingers.
The world twisted again, the scents of honey and roses were violently replaced by the damp, familiar aroma of pine and earth. The last thing Eris saw was Lady Rhiannon's satisfied face, and heard her final, amused whisper hanging in the suddenly mundane air.
"I do love a messy entanglement."
The scent of frozen honey and rosewater vanished, replaced so violently by the damp decay of the forest floor that Eris gagged. Her knees buckled, the solid, unyielding weight of the world crashing back into her bones. Her fingers flew to the unfamiliar coolness at her throat, closing around the pearl that pulsed with a soft, internal rhythm, a phantom heartbeat from a place of impossible elegance.
A voice, raw and frayed with a terror she had never heard in it before, cut through the rustling leaves. "Eris!"
It was Dáinn, but a Dáinn unraveled. The sound of her name, torn from his throat, snapped the last of her disorientation. "I'm over here!"
The undergrowth exploded as he spun and crashed towards her. In two great strides, he was there, his hands flying to her face, his touch anything but gentle. His palms were cold, his long fingers framing her jaw with a desperate intensity as his eyes, wide and wild, scanned every inch of her—checking for cracks, for missing pieces, for any sign of the nothingness he clearly feared had taken her.
"You're whole," he breathed, the words a ragged exhale. She could feel the rapid, bird-like flutter of his pulse where his wrist pressed against her neck. The scent of him—cold night air, horse, and the sharp, green tang of panic—was the most welcome thing she had ever smelled.
She placed her hands over his, stilling their minute tremor. "I'm okay."
A sound, half-sob, half-sigh, escaped him. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers, his eyes squeezing shut. For a long moment, there was only the sound of their mingled breath, his gradually slowing from a frantic pant to something resembling calm. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath around them.
"What happened?" he murmured, his voice low and rough against her skin.
Eris pulled back just enough to look at him, shaking her head as if to dislodge the memory. "I was here, and then… I wasn't. I was in this… this place made of glass and twilight. The Glass Citadel of the Hollow Hills."
Dáinn went perfectly still. The panic in his eyes crystallized into a hard, knowing dread.
Eris continued, the words tumbling out. "There was this woman there. She was… breathtaking."
"Lady Rhiannon," Dáinn finished, the name dropping from his lips like a stone into a still pond. He nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, and let his hands fall from her face as if they were heavy. He planted them on his hips, staring at the ground as if he could find answers in the tangled roots. A low, vicious curse in a language that tasted of old stone and older blood ripped through the air. He turned and took several steps away, one hand raking through his dark hair until it stood in chaotic waves.
"I have…" he began, his voice a strained mutter meant only for the trees.
A fresh wave of panic, cold and sharp, washed over Eris. "I didn't mean to— I didn't—"
He spun back to face her, his expression fierce. "You didn't do anything wrong." The conviction in his voice was absolute. He let out a short, humorless chuckle, a dry, cracking sound. "I… I am distracted. And it is because—" He cut himself off, his gaze sweeping over her, from her messy ponytail to the new, suspicious pearl at her throat. He took a deep, steadying breath, visibly wresting control back from the chaos. "We need to get back."
Eris nodded, the motion small and defeated. The relief of being found was rapidly curdling into a sour feeling of having blundered into a game she didn't understand, a game where her very presence was a complication that caused ancient, powerful beings to curse and run their hands through their hair in frustration. She hugged her arms around herself, feeling the chill of the hollow hills still clinging to her skin, and followed him as he turned to lead the way, the silence between them now thick with unspoken truths.
The ride back through the clinging mountain dark was, once again, wrapped in a heavy silence. Eris sat before Dáinn on Skógr, the heat of his body a solid comfort against her back, but the space between them felt vast. The memory of his panic, the sharp taste of his fear, was being slowly pickled in her mind by the souring feeling of being a problem. The cool pearl against her chest felt less like a jewel and more like a brand.
She could feel the tension in the arms that bracketed her, in the set of his jaw she knew was clenched without having to see it. The questions bubbled up inside her, a geyser of confusion and a desperate need to shatter the quiet. She took a breath.
"Who was she?" The words were small in the vast, rustling dark.
Dáinn let out a long, measured sigh, the sound ruffling the hair at her temple. "Lady Rhiannon is… a law unto herself. She is neither friend nor foe. She is merely someone who insists on interjecting herself into my affairs whenever she deems them sufficiently entertaining."
Eris digested this. "Is that where you're from? Is that what your home is like?"
She felt the subtle shift of his posture behind her. "The Hollow Hills are a realm within the Otherworld. But they are not the entirety of it. Think of them as… a particularly opulent and sharp-edged neighborhood."
"What is it like?" she pressed, twisting slightly to try and catch a glimpse of his profile. "The Otherworld, I mean."
A beat of silence passed, filled only by the steady rhythm of Skógr's hooves on the soft earth. She could almost hear him sifting through millennia of experience, searching for words that would fit a human mind.
"It is… a tapestry," he began, his voice low and thoughtful. "Woven from memory, desire, and the raw stuff of creation. Its geography is a matter of consensus and mood. One day, a forest may be a sun-dappled haven, the next, a labyrinth of thorns and sorrow. The seas are made of liquid starlight and forgotten melodies. It is not one place, but many, all layered over one another like pages in a book no one has finished writing."
Eris was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed. Then, a spark of recognition lit her eyes. "Oh!" she said, the sound bursting forth. "So it's like the Grand Line in One Piece!"
Dáinn's body went still behind her. "The… Grand Line?" he repeated, the unfamiliar words clumsy on his tongue.
"Yeah! It's an anime—a kind of story from my world. The Grand Line is in the Blue Sea where the rules of physics and navigation just… give up. The islands all have their own crazy weather and magic and ecosystems. You need a special log pose to navigate because a normal compass is useless. It's a sea of infinite possibilities!"
Dáinn's brow was deeply furrowed, his mind visibly working to align the concept of an anime with the ancient, profound reality of his home. "This… 'log pose'. It attunes itself to the unique magnetic signature of each subsequent island?"
"Exactly!"
"And the inhabitants? Are they human? Fae? Spirits of air and earth?"
"Well, there are humans, but also fish-men, minks, giants, and all sorts of people with wild powers from eating these magical Devil Fruits!"
He was silent for a long moment, processing. "I see. And this 'One Piece' itself. This ultimate treasure. Have you been there to see it? What is the most expedient route of travel? And this 'Luffy' fellow you speak of with such fondness—what is his court? His domain?"
Eris let out a belt of laughter, the sound startlingly loud and joyful in the solemn night. It felt like cracking ice. "Dáinn, no! It's not a real place! It's a story. It's all drawn and written down. It's not somewhere you can go."
The silence that followed was different. The tension had not vanished, but it had been transmuted. She could feel his confusion, a genuine, almost childlike bafflement from a being so old.
"A story," he repeated slowly, as if testing the concept. "You devote such passion… to a narrative that has no physical reality?"
"The passion is the reality," she said, her voice softening. "The feelings it gives you, the adventures you get to have in your head… that's real."
He was quiet for the rest of the ride, but the set of his shoulders had eased. He wasn't brooding now; he was contemplating. The unspoken truths were still there, but for a moment, they had been joined by something new—a bridge, clumsily built from the unlikely materials of anime pirates and fairy kingdoms, stretching across the impossible gap between their two worlds. And for now, that felt like a victory.