Grant expected that stepping through the door-slash-portal would feel different than a normal door - maybe tingly, or accompanied by a ‘whoosh’ sound effect. But it was disappointingly easy, just like moving through a normal door, albeit one that had better insulation than was physically possible. The second he crossed into the snowy plateau he felt the cold bite into his skin, his shirt, pants and fluffy slippers offering little to no protection against the freezing, howling gale that filled the air. Grant gasped involuntarily, the cold air filling his lungs and sending a chill seeping into every inch of his body. He raised his hands to hug himself and started rubbing his arms.

“Jesus Christ, you c-could have w-warned me!” He stammered as loudly as he could manage over the wind.

Kyra turned around, seeing his distress. Surprise flickered across her face, followed quickly by concern. “Wait, you feel the cold?”

Grant’s teeth began chattering as the air seemed to grow colder. “O-of c-c-course I feel this! Ho-How c-could anyone n-not?” Yet even as he spoke, he noticed that despite her relatively light and breezy outfit, she seemed completely unaffected by the sub-zero temperatures.

Kyra frowned, stepping closer to him and touching a hand to his forehead. Grant shivered even more violently as her amazingly warm hand conflicted with the freezing environment around them.

“I don’t understand,” she said, frowning as she began to rub his arms as well, “You should be immune to almost all temperatures, we all are.”

The heat from her hands worked wonders, quickly alleviating the worst of the chill, but it still took a minute before he could respond. “You mean… like, magically immune? Cause I’m not feeling very magical at the moment.”

Kyra looked him over and sighed. “Well, this normally is covered in a much more impressive and delicate manner, but yes, magically immune. You won’t be able to actually do anything impressive for a while, but you do have some abilities now - or rather, you should have some abilities. Apparently you’re a slow developer.” She kept rubbing his arms, deep in thought. “Okay, I guess I’ll have to take care of this for now. Can’t have you freezing the whole way home.” She stepped back, icy air immediately rushing in to fill her space and making Grant shiver violently again. Closing her eyes, she drew a deep, slow breath. As she exhaled, she opened her eyes, revealing not the piercing brown eyes she normally had, but deep, bright pools of blue light swirling around her sockets. Looking at them, Grant couldn’t help but feel like the light wasn’t actually coming from her eyes, but that he was looking through a window of some kind, gazing at a far distant river of energy that extended beyond the edges of what he could see. Before he could get lost in that ocean of comforting, beautiful light, Kyra raised her hand and he felt a surge of invisible energy burst from her fingers and slam into his chest, making him lose his balance for a second as he was pushed backwards. He raised his head angrily, ready to let loose with a barrage of curses, but stopped as he noticed a change. He no longer felt the cold. Raising his arm, he looked at his hand and could immediately see a faint blue outline around his body, a couple of inches from his skin.

He looked up at Kyra in amazement. “I… I don’t feel the cold anymore. I don’t feel the cold or the wind or anything! You just… You just cast a spell.” His voice seemed to echo back off the shield, lending it an eerie tone.

Kyra winced a little, eyes now returned to their normal colour. “Well, not exactly. I mean, if you want to call it a spell you can, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s not perfect - you sound a little weird to me, and ideally you’d be able to still feel the wind but just not get cold, but it’s the best I could do. Sorry, as I said, I’m relatively new here”.

“Sorry?” Grant laughed, waving his arms around and watching how the field around him conformed to his body, “Are you serious? You just used magic to stop me from freezing to death and you’re sorry? This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”

Kyra blushed, clearly embarrassed. “Thank you, but I promise it’s nothing special. Fyodor or Suriya would have been able to do a far better job, but I guess it’s not bad for only a few years of work.”

“It’s more than not bad,” he said, grinning at her, all thoughts of distrust or fear now distant memories in the face of the magic forcefield surrounding him.

Kyra grinned back. “Thank you. Anyway, we better get on our way. We’re heading for the mosque, just over the ridge, then on towards Sanctuary. Close the door, would you, then follow me.”

She turned back and began marching towards the edge of the plateau ahead of them. Grant stared after her for a moment, marvelling at what he had just witnessed, before turning and looking behind him. Rising from the snowy expanse around them was a circle of dark, rich soil surrounding an exact replica of the Victorian cottage that they had stepped through to get here. Through the door he could see the grassy plain and the edge of the amphitheatre he had appeared in. Shaking his head and grinning at the absurdity of his new reality, he stepped forward and closed the door behind them, then set off after Kyra.

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It took them about ten minutes to cross the plateau, moving briskly despite the snow-covered ground. Grant quickly discovered that the shield around him also protected his feet from getting soaked as he trudged through the snow, which at some points was over a foot deep. Not only that, it also seemed to make it a lot easier to move his feet despite the resistance he should feel from wading through such deep snow. Kyra moved even more easily than he did, the snow seeming to offer no resistance at all as she marched steadily through the slush. As they walked, the excitement of the magic surrounding him began to wear off slightly as his mind drifted inevitably back to thoughts of the friends and family who would soon be frantically trying to find him. He thought of the housemates he had become fast friends with over the last year at university, and of his aunt and uncle who had provided so much support since the accident that had claimed the lives of his parents. As images of them crying over news reports of his disappearance filled his head, something occurred to him.

“Wait,” he called out, stopping in his tracks as they neared the edge.

Kyra turned back, raising her eyebrows. “Yes? I’d prefer not to stop until we get home if that’s all the same to you.” She jerked her head towards the cliff a few metres ahead of her, frowning when he didn’t move. “What is it?”

Grant stared at her, replaying their conversation from earlier. “Did… did you say you’ve been here three years?”

“Yes, I have,” she said, “And?”

“So… so we’re… stuck here? Forever?”

Realisation filled her face and she drew a breath. “Ah. I’m sorry, Grant. I should have said something earlier. I was meant to have this whole speech prepared to soften the blow.”

Walking back to him, she took his hands in her own and looked into his eyes. “The short answer, I’m afraid, is yes. As far as any of us know, we can’t get home. But,” she continued, gripping his hands slightly tighter as despair swept through his body and made his breath rattle, “none of us have given up hope. There are lots of us here, and most of us spend every day working out a way to get home. Every year we get closer, and every single one of us believes that together, we will figure out how to return. I swear to you, we are close. I can feel it.”

Grant looked down at his feet, squeezing her hands tight as tears threatened to fill his eyes. “But… my family… they’ll be looking for me, if I’m here for years… they’ll be devastated. They’ve already lost so much, I can’t just disappear…”

Kyra raised a hand and cupped his face, eyes staring earnestly into his. “I know Grant - trust me, I know. We all do. Just remember, you’re not alone, and every single person you’re going to meet has people back on Earth that they left behind. But it’s not safe here, and every minute we spend away from Sanctuary is a minute for something to go wrong. Please, try and hold it together until we reach safety, please.”

Grant nodded, blinking the tears from his eyes and taking a deep breath, not trusting himself to speak just yet. Kyra’s eyes searched his face a moment longer, before gently smiling and nodding at him before she turned back towards the cliff.

As they approached the ridge of the plateau, Grant looked out over the valley that stretched towards the distant mountain range, trying to occupy his mind with the wonders of the world before him. Kyra’s comment about ‘back on Earth’ had hit him deep with the revelation that he wasn’t just in a weird part of the world, or the world had changed somehow, but that he was really, truly in a different place. Shaking his head slightly to clear it, he looked down at the cliff edge. Now that he was right in front of it, he could see a winding trail of metal stairs with a guard rail built into the sheer cliff face, leading down a few hundred metres to a small, single-room mosque at the bottom of the valley. Kyra nudged him with her shoulder, nodding towards the staircase.

“In case you were wondering, that wasn’t originally here. Apparently, it was made by Nia, one of our forerunners, over 500 years ago. Still looks brand new, doesn’t it?” She smiled at him.

Grant nodded, forming a weak smile back. He appreciated her efforts to try and engage him, and not let him wallow in despair, but it was going to take more than a staircase to distract him.

Kyra looked at him a moment longer before moving forward and beginning to descend the stairs. Grant followed along, looking around him as much as possible in search of distractions. He noticed with a start that while, at first glance, the stairs seemed unremarkable, they didn’t seem to be attached to the cliff with any bolts, screws or chains. Instead, the rock looked like it had been fused to the steel, giving the effect that the stairs had actually just grown out of the rock. Then again, he thought, letting out a weak chuckle, who’s to say that it didn’t. No more ridiculous than an invisible shield. He looked up in the sky, realising for the first time what Kyra had meant when she said they might not get back before dark. The sun was in a completely different place in the sky here - not only at least a few hours closer to the horizon, but also it seemed to be making a much higher arc than it had been on the plain. So we teleported across time zones? Again, why the hell not? Sky’s the limit, I guess.

Still looking up as he turned around, studying the new environment, he saw something flying towards them from the opposite direction he and Kyra had been facing as they descended, coming at them out of the sun. Shading his eyes to try and get a better view, he squinted at the shape. It looked like a bird, but shaped differently than any bird he had seen, almost like it had a huge, deformed belly hanging underneath its wings. As he watched, another identical shape veered off from the incoming blur, and a second did the same in the opposite direction. They were flying in a single file, he realised, but now they’ve spread out. They were now definitely less than a kilometre away - and closing fast - before he finally could clearly make out their silhouettes.

“Uh, Kyra,” he called out, fear creeping into his voice, “please tell me that gryphons are friendly creatures?”