While I’d excelled at Women’s Studies in my first year of college, Astronomy was another story. Still, I could tell that what I was seeing shouldn’t have been possible.

The early morning sun percolated through the dissipating mist, casting the landscape in a haze of a million hues of pink. It lit up the network of canals crissing and crossing between thousands of guitar pick-shaped islands.

Connected by graceful bridges of a glittering metal, many of the nearby islands could’ve been a city block in a major city, with a dozen spiraling towers clustered around a central green space.

Some islands boasted squat, blocky architecture packed tightly together; while others had spread out, circular buildings like circus tents in open pasture.

Yet others were covered by willowy-looking trees with canopies weighed down by enormous leaves, and yet others further in the distance looked to be farms.

And it was all flat, save for the curiously narrow, a ridge of grey mountains curved toward the convent, like a brood of ducklings following their mother single-file—if the ducks were Doritos. Just what ecological forces could’ve caused the formation of such a terrain?

Bewildered, I tracked the line to the horizon…

A horizon that was much too close.

As I said, I hadn’t done well in Astronomy, but I’d learned enough to know a horizon so near meant that this planet was small.

Very small.

And having borne the brunt of weight jokes in my past life, I remembered that gravity was dependent upon mass. If this world were so tiny, it would need to be quite dense in order to one, hold an atmosphere; and two, keep us fixed to the ground.

It certainly didn’t feel any different from the pull of Earth, but perhaps this body was as used to this planet as it was to Makayla’s touch?

As if on cue, she came up behind me, hands resting on either side of the balustrade, entrapping me. She leaned into my back and rested her chin on my shoulder.

She pecked a kiss on my ear, sending a shiver up my spine. “Is the fresh air clearing your mind?”

Maybe, but I was only more confused by what I was seeing, not to mention her tantalizing ear-kiss, the soft press of her body, and her gardenia scent setting my nerves alight with longing. It was impossible to tell if her gravity or the planet’s had a stronger pull on me.

I wiggled out from her arms and began a circuit around the top of the tower. Undaunted, she took my hand in hers, and pressed her shoulder to mine. It took all my self-control not to give in to desire, and instead looked over my new world.

The view looked much like the first side I’d looked out, with the web of canals forming thousands upon thousands of islands with several distinct styles of architecture. Far off to the north—I assume it was west, based on where the sun was rising, which in turn assumed this planet rotated the same way as Earth—many of the blocks had been reduced to rubble.

I pointed at the devastation. “What happened there?”

With a tsk, she loosened my fingers so that I was gesturing with an open hand. “Do you really not remember? Or are you just testing me?”

I shook my head.

“That’s the border of the Minotaurs’ empire.”

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The mural of Kavala’s murder at the hands of the minotaur god flashed in my mind, sending a shiver through me. To banish the thought, I continued walking, looking down over the balustrade.

The sanctuary, itself, sat atop the highest of the Dorito mountains, several hundred feet above the ground below. Lined by graceful homes which blended with threes, a flight of stairs cut into slope ascending to the shrine grounds. Five domes, each with a hole in the center, encircled the tower. A latticework of corridors, rooms, and courtyards connected the domes to the dower.

If this all sounds like the kind of description you would get in a role playing game, that’s because Dungeons and Dragons was my escape from reality. I preferred to play online, however, where I could wear the skin of my character without fellow players ever seeing me.

Of course now, I really was wearing the skin of a fantasy character, the perfect one for me. My breath hitched at the thought, and combined with my wobbly legs, Makayla needed to give me a tug to keep me from plummeting over the side.

“Maybe it’s not enough fresh air up here,” she said, hand squeezing mine.

Her fingers, interlaced with mine, felt... right.

I gestured to the holes in the domes. “When it…” I tried to say rain, but no word came out.

Makayla favored me with a raised eyebrow.

“When water drips from the sky,” I said, pantomiming rainfall like from some childhood song, “doesn’t it get into the domes?”

“What are you talking about? Water doesn’t fall from the sky.”

Then just where did it come from? I looked down at the intertwining canals, searching for some central river. My gaze tracked back towards the ruined islands, the realm of the Minotaurs. “Are they taking our land?”

“Well, it was our land, before the human Cultivators took it from us.” She gestured with her delicately spread fingers towards the shattered blocks near the western horizon. “That’s where we came from, just beyond the horizon. In our youth, it was forested, but the humans took it from us. They cut down the forests to make space for their ugly buildings.”

And now they were reduced to rubble. “The minotaurs just destroy what they conquer?”

“They turn it into grassland, to support their growing population.”

There was some kind of irony here, given that on earth, humans deforested the land to feed cattle; whereas here, the bovines tore down human settlements, built over the elf forests they’d cut down.

Still… “it must take a lot of effort to clear all the rubble.”

“Slave labor,” Makayla said with a look as if she’d sucked on a lemon. She gestured down below. “Not even humans deserve it, despite what they did to us. They’ve taken so much.”

What was she pointing out? My eyes followed her indicated direction, closer to the sanctuary, where all the islands looked whole and intact.

“Where is the border between our lands and the humans?”

Brow furrowing, she met my gaze. “That’s all human territory surrounding us. Our people either live on designated scales as second class citizens to the humans, forbidden to leave; our free folk live on in what’s left of our three kingdoms on the slopes of the spine.”

The way she said humans again carried the same disdain a human might have for a cockroach. I might have been a human just a few hours ago, but now I was an elf, whose people didn’t even have a contiguous territory.

But wait… “Did you say something about scales and spines?”

“You really don’t remember a thing.” She shook her head, expression bewildered.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. What are the scales and spines?”

Taking my cheeks in both hands, she turned my head towards the land below. “The scales are down there.”

“The… the…?” I wanted to say islands, but the word stuck in my throat. Instead, I drew my finger in the shape of the guitar picks beneath the buildings.

“Yes.”

“The land separated by the…” canals, rivers, streams, none of the words came to my mouth. “…channels?”

“Yes.”

Just what kind of land was this? “Are there…” oceans didn’t work, either. “Are there large bodies of water?”

“Lakes?” She gestured west. “Yes, a few. We used to live near one, formed where Arian dislodged a scale with his spear.”

“Arian?”

“Father of Kavala, son of Yuway, creator of the Universe. He injured the dragon so grievously, it went into hibernation, and he bade Kavala keep watch over him.” She gestured directly up, at the dome.

At Kavala’s eye, which was visible through the dome room, but not here. Wait… “We live on a Dragon?”

She looked at me as if I’d grown another head.

My head spun. Taking in the landscape with new eyes, I saw the ridge of mountains as the ridge along a dragon’s back. The way it rose, higher and higher, we must’ve been on the dragon’s head.

An enormous dragon’s head.

While this planet might be small compared to earth, it had to be significantly larger than the most sprawling metropolis on Earth. And it was either a moon to Kavala’s Eye, or Kavala’s Eye was a moon to here.

Overwhelmed by the revelation, my legs gave out beneath me.