Long shadows dragged down the narrow roads, pulled along by dull moonlight. Altair crept out of the old town with Alioth’s voice to guide him, ushering him to leave the streets he had grown up in. Outside the tangle of small houses and old ruins, a desert of black and gold sand unfurled before him. A cold breeze slithered through the grains.

Altair was never told where he went, only to keep walking. Eventually, Altair demanded he slowed to a stop. The sun had risen above the horizon, and he stared into a pitiful pond.

“What is this?” he asked, bending down to touch it.

A ripple pushed through the surface. The water was a gross shade of brown, stained by the sand.

Step in.

Altair stood up and blinked. The pond settled once more. “What?”

Step in.

He opened his mouth to protest, but any complaint fell dead on his tongue. He dipped his hoof into the water.

Altair yelped as he started falling forward. He should have collapsed into the pond, but just as he hit the water, he was upright again.

His heart pounded, and he set a hand over his chest. His eyes were almost perfect circles as he looked around the new world.

Tall, red grass swayed in a warm breeze. Wisps of blue fog twisted over the field. Above him was an endless, black sky that merged with the crimson land along the horizon. Altair lifted his head all the way up, then froze.

A single eye stared down at him.

The white of it had a touch of ashen ivory. Slender, blue veins ran through it like bolts of lightning. The iris was a deep indigo color, with spikes of purple and red within it. The pupil reflected the grass around him, and he wondered where he stood within that reflection.

Zyres watches, Alioth commented.

Altair could feel them hovering over their shoulder, but when he turned, the fate wasn’t there.

We need to go. Our realm is in the middle of this world.

“Zyres… the sky deity,” Altair whispered. “Can… can they see us?”

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He didn’t look away from their eye. Thin tendrils curled into long eyelashes, and the sky dipped down to form the curve of a nose. The longer he stared, the more he could define the shapes of a face.

Yes. She knows you’re here… but she doesn’t mind.

“Is this her realm?”

This is just the outskirts… one entrance of a thousand.

“That pond—”

A gateway for the divine.

“Am—”

Yes, you’re one of us… a reborn version of me. You are just as holy as the gods, if not more so.

“The gods are real,” he gasped.

They are. Stories have to come from somewhere. Now come along, you’re wasting our time.

Altair slowly pulled his gaze away from the unblinking eye. “Are… they all like that?”

Sometimes. Zyres is the sky, she encompasses everything— your world, these realms, the universe itself. She is a strange deity, passive but observant. There is nothing secret from her. Alioth seemed to speak with experience, as if they had spoken with the god before.

“What are the rest like?” Altair inquired, walking forward. He felt Alioth trail after like a ghost.

Nothing like your interpretations.

“Hmm,” he hummed, thinking.

Nes is a very lovely god, Alioth said, knowing what he was going to ask. He is the moon, the stars… the night within the sky. Zyres takes care of him.

“What does he look like?”

The fate hesitated. It… is difficult to put into words.

“Why do you look so…”

So much like mortals? they finished. I don’t know.

“You just—”

No, I don’t.

Altair continued walking. He felt the eye of Zyres following after him, as if she focused on him and him alone.

He never did reach the end. It was like he walked in place, but Alioth insisted he go on— until they demanded he stopped.

There was nothing ahead of him, nothing behind him. It was all the same crimson field.

Be careful… another realm comes soon.

Altair reached a hand out, and a hot breeze kissed his wrist. He took another step forward, and a new realm devoured him.

Endless hills poured around him. Clovers spread over everything. A lush forest grew on either side of him, spilling over with plants, and hundreds of birds sang loudly to the day. The sky was no longer the back skin of Zyres, but instead a mirror image of the land he stood on.