Throughout the rest of the day of riding, he’d tried and tried again to get that light to stay for more than a moment but had only made fractional gains. It seemingly just refused to stay on longer and the harder he tried to get better at the timing the worse he seemed to get. Hence, by the time they had gotten to making camp, he’d given up for the day, resigning himself to just trying to unwind.

Ercole had told him that using magic required a good imagination. So, straining your mind with constant practice, rather than being relaxed, could often make you slip up at almost any stage of casting.

The place where they set up camp was interesting though. It was a small grove with a bubbling pool of fresh water in the centre surrounded by bright flowers of an almost supernatural array of vibrant colours. The soothing atmosphere of the place set his mind at ease, enough to tempt him to try once more.

So, after they ate, he tried one more time to make it work, only to curse “Hapasian!” as the light once more went up in a crackle of magic, resigning him to go to bed. Soon the welcoming arms of sleep embraced his tired mind and he slipped into a deep sleep.

It was comforting, like a heavy blanket soothing him as his mind slowed, before dreams then slipped in. A dream that was… Different…

As blurry images fizzled into his mind what he saw was odd… It was a clearing like that inside of Athervi’s forest, lush and green and filled with a warm bright light.

Like any dream, the sights and sensations were fuzzy and only half felt and seen but he could also smell the forest too. The sweet smell filled his nose as he breathed in, his sight growing clearer as he did as if he was becoming closer to the dream.

The flowers and trees became clearer, a small rough stone pavilion coalesced in the corner of his vision, and he began to feel the blades of grass brushing against his feet.

But where’s-

He whipped his head around as he heard a rustling in the grass to his side. That of Hreysti seemingly spawning or growing out of it as he rose to his feet in a stupor clutching his head.

Hreysti!

Dyo wasn’t sure if he even spoke or not, dreams had that terrible blur between what you were saying in them and what you were just thinking. But it seemed like this time he spoke as the vampire turned their head with his bleary eyes scanning around before laying on Dyo.

Dyo..?

That was clearly Hreysti’s voice he heard in his mind as his friend stumbled towards him.

Dyo outstretched his hand for Hreysti, frightened he might fall, but didn’t expect his friend’s cold hands to suddenly wrap around him in a tight hug, the vampire burying his head into Dyo’s shoulder with wet eyes.

“I’m so happy you’re here, I’ve- I’ve never felt anything like this!” Hesti sobbed, his voice now clear in Dyo’s mind and ears, just like his touch.

“Hesti, are you… Alright? Do you know where we are?” The vampire’s head pulled up, their eyes meeting as Dyo saw a sudden realisation pass across Hreysti’s face.

“You’re- actually here? This is-“

“I dunno what it is but I’m really here. It’s kinda like some sort of dream…”

Hreysti suddenly pulled back sputtering, “I’m sorry! I thought you weren’t actually-”

“Real?”

He nodded, a faint blush spreading across his face, “Just forget the hug, please…”

A sly smile crept across Dyo’s face, “I don’t think I can.” he murmured.

With that, Hesti’s blush blossomed into a fiery crimson that covered his entire face with his mouth opening to retort before he was cut off by another rustling of grass. This time however neither could recognise what came out of it.

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It was an ever-morphing humanoid mass made of what looked like glowing rainbow flesh, neither male, nor female, nor anything in between. Instead, it stubbornly refused to be recognised as anything in his mind.

But when it spoke Dyo recognised its voice.

“Are you two… Real?” Agrippa asked cautiously, their head flicking between Dyo and Hreysti.

“It’s us,” Hreysti replied, “But who are you?”

“I’m Agrippa, Hreysti! Do you not recognise me!?”

“Not with how you look now…”

“How I-?”

They looked down then as fast as the crack of a whip jumped back, their “hands” patting themselves over and over again.

“This is a dream I think though!” Dyo added, trying to comfort the seemingly panicked Agrippa, “Just a shared one.”

“You’re mostly right on that demigod.” A light twinkling voice answered.

Now all of them whipped around towards the forest to meet the creature that had slipped out from the darkness of it.

It looked like a short woman with pale green eyes and wiry blond hair dressed in rags. Its ears were pointed and out of everything in the forest, it was the clearest thing Dyo could see.

It was a fae.

Hreysti dashed in front of Dyo, shielding him from the fae and snarled, baring his teeth, but that only seemed to bemuse it.

“Oh, don’t be so petulant northern half-blood, I don’t like snarling hounds in my home.”

“So why did you invite us Luki spawn!?” He growled.

“I’m not a spawn of the gods like you two! I’m of the blood of the deep forest like your friend there and I don’t take kindly to having beasts insult me by comparing me to the likes of you. If it wasn’t for your own blood and family, I would have punished you for your insolence!”

“That still doesn’t answer my question, why are we here!?”

“For a show, a show for both of us.”

“What sort of show? One where we dance for you?”

“One where you enjoy the scrying of the fae. This is one of the worlds beyond, a place where corporeal beings usually cannot go, and I thought it might be amusing to see you witness some of your family through the ley line.”

“Our family?” Dyo asked, eyes widening.

“All of your families, though the fae that were the parents and siblings of the changelings are long gone. So, I hope you are fine with meeting just one of your cousins, changeling.”

Agrippa shook their heads, “My what?! The- The ones-”

“Yes, those fae from before the times of recorded human history that only your bloodline remembers and mine. A deep time filled with the currents of magic… But history is not something we’re discussing, instead, you must all go deeper into your dream, down as far as the ley line lets you go...”

“What does that mea-“

Bu Dyo was too late as the fae faded into the blackness of the forest and the light in the clearing started to dull, the colour of the world fading like the fae. The trees started to loom larger as the light went, new saplings bursting from the ground and growing upwards in a cascade forcing the three backwards towards the pavilion.

The pavilion that then began to glow with a blue light as its floor collapsed into a mirror-like pool of water.

Hreysti tried to push back against it, looking back and forth between the trees, the pool, and Dyo who was forced shoulder to shoulder with Agrippa. The two were inches away from the pool and Hreysti was the only one not in the pavilion.

But despite the fear of that water, he had to be with Dyo and there was only one way to go. So, he decided to pull the arrowhead out and turn back, charging straight into the two and pushing them with him into the pool.

What consumed them was a swirling mass of the glowing blue that descended outwards and downwards forever. A tranquil never-ending sea where the only things in it were the three clutching tightly together as they sank further and further into it.

Dyo needed their embrace at that moment. He needed it as a primal fear filled his mind as thoughts of being stuck inside this pool by the fae ravaged his mind. The only thing that saved him from it consuming him was Hreysti’s hug and Agrippa’s hand as he closed his eyes.

Why didn’t we play this last time?

A voice?

Because Ishtart insisted on Ur despite my luck with the dice.

Dyo opened his eyes.

What met him was not the endless sea but instead a sort of hall. It was blurry like the forest once seemed and endless like the sea, but in a spot both far and close to him was a table laid with intricately detailed cards. He could make out the almost lifelike painting of animals, regal senators, and little symbols painted on them in brilliant colours but what was far more shocking were the players.

On one side was Caeru, the Emoran God of luck himself with long flowing hair and endless milky blue eyes that no artist could ever capture. On the other was a dark-skinned goddess of supernatural beauty with brilliant white feathery wings and eyes that seemed to be made of melted gold. And in the middle between both of them was something that Dyo could barely describe.

It was a mass of discs and wings that constantly spun and beat, with the golden wings covered in an endless sea of eyes, all circling a central mass of light and energy that swirled and fell in of itself without collapsing.

Dyo’s hands tried to grasp harder onto Hreysti but found him not to be there. Instead, he’d spawned to his side, wide-eyed with his arms also outstretched to find him. Dyo reached out to him, grasping onto his hand as their eyes suddenly met, their hands squeezing onto each other’s as both their hearts settled.

“Because I wanted to indulge in my people’s culture!” The dark-skinned goddess cried, “And anyway, he still has an advantage here whenever he deals the cards!”

“That’s why I shuffled them,” The eldritch god resonated with a hint of pride, “so his luck didn’t affect the order of the cards!”

“I think it works like an aura Yaawha,” she muttered with a hint of bitterness.

Ya- Yaawha!? That’s them!?

“Still! We have guests over! Cards are one of the few things we can share between all of us while sitting down.”