Once she was certain to be out of sight from lookouts and scouts, she brought out her karai’i from a pocket sewn into her belt and laced with protective runes against divination and other such magic. A bracelet made up of slim threads of silver and gold coated with gem dust, leather, and particles of fleece braided together to hold hollows where beads and stones would fit. For a couple of minutes, all she could do was run her fingers over it and find all the different textures that were organized just the way she liked it. Find the imperfections of repairs, battles, and carelessness. It’d been hidden away so long it felt strange to bring it out in the open. It fit snugly around the small sending stone on her wrist that was secured with a leather strap. The sapphire encrusted within the citrine glimmered in the dwindling light. A moment and the pair merged like old lovers in the night with a tickling buzz. Taking a deep, steadying breath she muttered the keyword, and the tracking thread activated with a faint glow.

Slowly she turned around, holding her hand out until the glow grew more intense as the magic sensed its kin deep in the jungle below. The path she followed was overgrown and barely visible in the dark underbrush as it wound itself down the cragged rocks toward the bottom of the valley. In places, it was so precarious she expected every footstep to slide from underneath her. Soon the noise of Base 19 disappeared completely and left were the sounds of wind and nocturnal animals waking up to begin their hunt. 

Stealthing along the path, she felt almost a part of them. Part of the routine. Memories came unbidden and unwanted. Blood. The smell of sweat and adrenaline. Growls. The bitter aftertaste of moonshine. Endless alleys and streets replacing each other one after the other. A laugh. The clink of thick glass against metal. Brown eyes with hair hanging into them just so.

"Stop it," she muttered, blinking against the onslaught.

"Let them go."

El's step slowed till she came to a stop, a cold sensation growing in the pit of her stomach.

"I did not say anything."

She had thought it.

"Let him go."

Her eyes burned, but she refused to give in. If she gave in, that would be it. Had she known all this time? Even now, focusing on getting home, she tried to figure out when it had happened. When her heart had abandoned her.

"Promise me, Elder, you will not do anything foolish. This path is not for you. Remember who you are, remember your purpose. We are at war. Do not make this mistake. Do not -"

“Why do you care? What makes you so bloody afraid?” she blurted out in an exasperated exhale before she could stop herself.

The dignified rage came like a slap that left a splitting headache in its wake. It took minutes before she could take a proper breath again. Many more before she could move her muscles.

“I am sorry,” she said, reaching out to that place in the back of her mind where her presence could usually be found.

But this time, there was nothing. No answer. Reaching out further, she could not feel her patron’s presence near or far. She had not meant to hurt her feelings or question her judgment. But the chaos inside her grew stronger still, and now she was left alone. Abandoned. It scared her. She closed her eyes against the noises and the lights, against the pain and the tingling pulse of her still active karai’i. It was often easy to forget that her patron was a goddess and she was not. Their relationship had become so natural that she had begun to ignore the order of matters.

All she could do was push on, ignore the dread and the grief. Put one foot down after the other. This was a mission, just like anything else. All she had to do was keep her eye on the goal and everything would be alright. Distance was what she needed. That was all. Distance. Space. About half an hour had gone when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Something was off. An eerie feeling told her she should not be there. In a moment her hands held daggers at the ready and she calmed her mind to read the nature around her. That’s when she heard it. Small sounds like bones breaking.

Edging towards the side of the path, she peered down into the darkness and immediately wished she hadn’t. There, on a flat plane of rocks, was a nest made up of loose twigs and stones, long feathers and down scattered about. A mutilated body was haphazardly thrown just outside the nest and within the nest lay odds and ends, shiny things placed carefully about, and something even more dangerous: eggs. And there, gnawing at the pieces of the corpse was a very large creature whose head, torso, and arms were that of a naked, beautiful woman with long, stringy hair, while its legs and wings were more like a vulture’s. Harpies.

“Fuck!” she cursed but bit her tongue before any sound could escape far too late. The creature’s head snapped up, revealing a mouth full of teeth and shriveled lips covered in blood.

Amid the chaos and turmoil inside her, she heard the most wonderful melody she had ever heard. It seemed to ease her pain, her worry, her confusion as it soothed and calmed her. She wanted to hear more of it. Hear it more clearly. Again, looking over the cliff face she saw the harpy beckoning her with a radiant smile. Come to me, she said, join me. The woman pointed to the path laid out before her, covered with flowers. The music soared until her heart ached with its beauty. There was a sharp, brutal pain shooting through her head with a resounding thunderclap that nearly brought her to her knees. Staggering, Elmira shook her head as her vision cleared and she leaped back from the fifty-foot sheer drop under her foot.

The music became a screech that ripped through the air like a whip. On the path ahead a figure appeared, familiar, very, very familiar. Brown locks tied back in a braid, pointed ears, monk robes flowing in the wind as the apparition moved towards her, reaching out with a desperate plea. Lani. Her Lani. Just as she remembered her.

“Nice try, bitch.” Elmira growled and spun to fling both her daggers at the harpy queen.

They hit her square in the chest and sank five inches deep before they blinked back to her. The harpy let out a war cry and took to the air with her gargantuan wings spanning 30 feet from tip to tip. The forest around them erupted with answering calls.

Crouching down in a defensive position, Elmira drew a symbol with her weapons in the dirt and cried: “Oh, Fatestitcher, bring me your light!”

Her daggers burst with divine flame as Ayursha answered and granted her this boon, the blades growing three times their length with light just as she felt a pair of claws dig into her shoulder, piercing her armor just above the collar. Her vision darkened momentarily before she dropped to the ground, pulling a new, much smaller harpy with her. With the monster off balance, she took her opportunity to slash across its chest. The radiance of her daggers sank into its flesh. It howled and pulled back, allowing her to roll away and get to her feet. Only then did she allow herself to feel the moment of relief, realizing she had not trusted her patron to answer the call.

Barely out of breath, Elmira took stock of the situation. The queen was now surrounded by three of her kin, dwarfed in comparison and one in bad shape.

“Fuck this.”

The queen howled and dived for her, claws outstretched, drenched with blood and gore from her latest victim. Putting the daggers in one hand, Elmira pulled out her boomerang just in time to reflect the brunt of the claws. Two of the other harpies saw their chance and dived, swinging their clubs. One caught her just below the shoulder blade, the other missed its mark and swung wide. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her blood pumping hard. It had been a while since she’d had a fight like this. Against monsters. And she was having fun. Elmira grinned and leaped, throwing her boomerang at the queen while she let a dagger fly in a perfect arch toward the harpy that had caught her first. Its eyes widened in surprise as the dagger sank into its throat and it started plummeting into the valley, bouncing lifelessly against the cliff. A moment later her weapons were back in her hands and she turned to the remaining monsters with a snarl.

The harpies sang in unison, but this time it found no purchase on Elmira’s mind. Not even three of them together clouded her judgment, her calculations. One harpy fled as soon as it sensed the fight going the wrong way but the queen remained, as did one other. It was a dirty fight. Claws, clubs, daggers, weapons, fists trading attacks in a wild flurry of blows as the harpies tried their best to force her off the path. The small harpy fell to her boomerang as it clipped it in the back of the head from behind when the queen ducked from it.

In a moment of distraction by a collection of lights in the underbrush, the queen managed to grab her and lift her high into the air. Elmira struggled, but the claws dug into her painfully as her ears rang with howling screeches.

She grits her teeth. “Enough!” she said and reached into the source of her magic to command the monster. “Drop!”

Her command found purchase in the angry matriarch of the harpies and the claws opened. Elmira fell fifteen feet into the branches of a tree clinging to the side of the mountain with nothing more than roots and rocks. It swayed under her weight, digging into her side and thigh.

“Flee!” she commanded again as the matriarch shook out of its trance with an angry roar.

It was too much for the monster who turned with a wail and fled. Wind from her massive wings tore through Elmira’s cloak and hair, rustling the tree precariously. Soon the forest was quiet once more, or as quiet as it could get as the night brought creatures out to hunt.

She looked around. The path was only about five feet above her. An easy jump. She moved along the path for another twenty minutes before settling down on a boulder to assess her wounds. Pain came as the adrenaline finally gave way and it was all she could do to not put her head in her hands and let the world spin around her. Reaching into her bag of holding she plucked out a greater healing potion and looked at it. She tossed it back in, pulled a superior one out, and drank it in one go. The effects were immediate. Warmth spread through her body and the wounds tickled as they closed and the pain subsided. It would do for now.

In the corner of her eye, she could see more globules hovering in the canopies and the underbrush nearby. Will-o-wisps. Fantastic. So far they appeared to stay their distance, though.

“Push on, my champion,” the voice whispered in her ear.

Elmira sighed, still sore from the fight whose effects were still washing over her. “I need more time.”

“The dark storm comes.”

The Dark Storm. It wasn't the first time the name had been mentioned, but she knew better than to press for answers right now. She had been abandoned, if even for a moment. For a moment she has not been Ayursha's paladin. She'd been weak, open to the harpy queen's charms. It was a lesson hard learned, but one she would not easily forget. A mistake she would not make again.

With some hesitance, she got to her feet and pushed on down the winding path. This time she walked carefully to avoid drawing any unwanted attention from the local monsters and creatures in this area. For the next hour and a half, nothing approached her location, the wisps did not bother her, and the tension in her shoulders began to give way.

The hike was in some places more like a climb than a walk, and she had to step carefully to avoid the drop to her left. This was not a path for humanoids, that was for sure. At some point during the night, she heard someone inside her head. A stranger’s voice whose words were weak and sounded far, far away, and muffled beyond comprehension. All she could make out was Arman, safe, please. Elmira gasped.

A sending.

It took resolve to not respond. She was supposed to be gone. Presumed dead. No one in the Base could know where she was. That someone had managed to find her with a sending was a miracle enough with the erratic nature of arcana in this area that made such magic useless. With some effort, she filled her mind with thoughts of the leaves rustling in the wind, the crunch of her boots, and all the other small sounds of nature that cleared her mind. When the sending came again, there were no feelings, no thoughts risking finding themselves going back to the sender. Just an empty soul, just like Maesia had taught her.

When she finally neared the edges of the area affected by the leyline nexus above them, the sky had begun to brighten - or perhaps it had been brighter for a while, she could not tell. All she knew was that time had passed, been wasted on a too-careful trek. The tracking thread was glowing hot against her skin but flickering. Close. But not exactly here. The energies prickled her senses. It was because of the nexus that most magic was limited or useless, which made for a perfect location for a secret base but made spying rather complicated.

The crystal on her wrist vibrated softly with excitement. Somewhere ahead was her goal, ever closer than before. After what felt like forever the ground leveled out somewhat and she found herself in a kind of oasis. Water broke under her boots as she leaped onto flat ground, the surface rippling with clouds of sediment and dead leaves and roots. The jungle here was moist and lush in deep shades of green and blue, the ragged rocks high and broken, with long-forgotten paths leading between them. The ground was in places covered in stale water that would cover her ankles if she weren’t careful of her step.

By the first careful light of dawn, the sense of magic in the air was nearly palpable for someone so attuned to the ethereal as she was. Small, glowing fish swam through the air around her, through trees that did not exist in their plane. She was here. Beneath her feet the stone was carved with deep groves that created runes she was very familiar with. Through the thick ivy and moss, there was a structure ahead of her. Two pillars with an arch between them. The jungle had all but taken back what was once its own, but she could still see the ancient craft of the early portals beneath it all. With great care, she set about the task of removing the vegetation, and when dawn had fully arrived it was free.

“You are majestic,” she told it in the soft tongue of celestials.

Walking around the structure she felt a deep, solemn reverence that she had not felt in a long time. This was sacred ground for some, and for her ancestors, this was everything. Every chisel scrape, every forge line, every merge was a memory. She investigated the sigil on the ground for defects, cracks, anything that might suggest travel was not safe. But she found none. The portal was intact. Time was of the essence, yet she could not help but take a moment to marvel at the sheer craftsmanship of the builders. She kneeled on one knee in the center of the carved circle of runes and reached for the necklace she kept close to her skin beneath all the layers of the syndicate clothing. A pearlescent pendant held by gilded branches and vines came free into her hands. As she held it up it seemed to swing towards the portal, pulled by an invisible force. Her heart skipped another beat. She hadn’t arrived this way. She had no idea where its anchor lay. She couldn’t wait to find out.

With a final incantation, the crystals along the arch and the circle on the ground lit up with a force that tore at her hair and clothes. The arcane energy swirled up blue and green, forming intricate, arcane, geometric patterns that weaved together across two planes to shape a formula. For a supreme engineer or an archmage, it was a map of the weave and a map of the word combined. For her, it was familiar and beautiful beyond measure.

In the moment between one breath and the next everything stood still, even time itself. The constant threat of death, torture, and blackmail had nothing on the fear of not being heard. Of not being recognized. She was not the woman who had left. There were more scars on her body. More darkness in her soul. More red on her hands.

“You are still mine, child,” the voice of her patron whispered in her mind.

Tears sprung to her eyes as Ayursha’s presence once again embraced her fully. Power filled her blood and her very essence once more. How she had missed it.

“I am sorry,” Elmira said.

“I know.”

Elmira smiled. In this forgotten sangoran grove the endless years of tension fell off her shoulders and with a practiced step that was never forgotten she stepped through the horizon, leaving Base 19 behind for good. And everyone in it. The sensation of travel by portal always made her a little giddy. It tingled when the arcane energies rippled through every fiber of her being, hurling her across space in an instant.

Before she could even take a breath, her eyes cleared of the ethereal plane and her foot touched grass. There was a slight stumble when the portal pushed her out, but she managed to right herself without too much flailing. First thing she noticed was the sound of laughter, and it took her a long moment to realize it was hers.

Everything here was so different. A gust of air was sweet and fresh to breathe, and she filled her lungs as much as she could. This place, wherever it was, was everything Sangora was not. The forest was bright green and filled with sounds of critters and woodland beings living amongst trunks that rose high into the sky. At least fifty, a hundred feet. The smells of blossoms and wet earth mingled with the unmistakable smell of smoke.

"Shit!"

Spinning around, she saw the Portal behind her, the sigil now dormant but surrounded by budding flames. The flash had somehow ignited the leaves around it. Quickly she drew shapes in front of her and willed the air around the flames to quench them, pulling on the magic inherent in her blood. It felt good. So good to wield so openly. Even though no one was around to see her perform this miracle, unnatural to the natural world but as easy as breathing to her essence.

At last, only light grey smoke remained in the air, soon taken by the gentle breeze until that too was gone. The area around the Portal was charred and blackened. A scar that it had done nothing to deserve.

“And now I am feeling sorry for plants,” she said out loud to no one before turning on her heel and walking away.

Her knees gave way about four minutes away from the site, and she sank with her back against a mighty trunk. When the emotional storm came crashing over her, she did not fight it. Rather, she embraced it, embraced the chaos, the darkness, the dark thoughts, the grimness, the anger, the loathing, the terror. Everything. She let herself feel it all. It was more than Arman, more than being safe after 80 years, more than getting a slap on the fingers. But whatever it was it was too big to put her finger on so she didn’t bother.

Eventually, her body stopped being racked with sobs, drifting off to sleep with sheer exhaustion. When she woke she guessed about four hours had passed. Her knives were in her hands within the blink of an eye and her feet under her in less than two.

“You let me sleep!?” she asked her patron. “Shterc!”

Cursing, she checked that everything was in its place before pulling herself together. It was fine. Of course, it was fine. She was nowhere near Sangora. Traveling by Portal wasn’t as simple as getting near and stepping through. There was magic involved, ancient magic from the Fey and Shade not easy to come by since the Shadow War broke out. How long would it be before she stopped looking over her shoulder?

“Never,” she thought with grim realization.

Work hazards. Around her the forest was alive and bright and beautifully serene and old. Ancient even. One of the first Avaleenian forests. Of course, she was in Ala. The small continent on the other side of the planet, a long way from home, and a long way from the heart of Khorun.

When she’d put out the fire around the portal she’d seen that it wasn’t a crossroads. It was an anchor, simply receiving travelers, so there had to be another one somewhat nearby. How many proto-portals did Ala have? Elmira tried to think. That was the wrong question. What was the pattern? Not close enough to each other to interfere with the paths, but not too far to be a bitch to hike either. Mirrors. They built them like mirrors.

Adjusting her bag on her shoulders, Elmira started walking back towards the Portal and the other way. There was a rolling mist, as there always was in the autumn months when the warm ground met the cold air. It swirled around her ankles as she headed through the forest in the hunt for the second portal. Her karai’i led the way, a perfect, overgrown trail through the underbrush until she happened upon a familiar structure.

The moss had almost covered the runes on the slab before the portal, but they seemed intact. It had been hard to design a path through the weave. It had all depended on wherever the first one would send her. Now she knew. Ala. Her hand stalled above her karai’i, her tongue hesitating to recite the ritual. The temptation to explore the realm in a way she seldom had the chance to briefly clouded her judgment. What if she just disappeared for a while? Simply vanished into thin air.

Quickly, she snapped out of that preposterous idea. Too many counted on her. No way she wasn’t going home. Her life in Sangora was well and truly over. Elmira was no rogue or maze hunter, she was the Elder of Agartha, Voice of Ayursha.

“That’s a good thing,” the voice in her head told her.

“Is it, though?” she wondered, realizing that she argued with herself. Loneliness could do that.

“Think about everyone back home, child, everyone you have not seen in eighty years, everyone you have had to shield to save the mission.”

“There are a few I would not mind seeing again.”

“There’s Alana,” her patron reminded her in a conversational tone that threw Elmira for a spin. “She will join the Awakening.”

“Our little girl is growing up,” Elmira smiled. “And I missed it because I put myself first.”

“You put your people first,” she said dryly and with a hint of reproval. “And let us not forget she kicked you out the door.”

Elmira could hear the eye roll. It was true, but the guilt remained. Then again, being the Elder of Agartha had never been her own choice. While the position gave her the freedom she had desperately needed, it was also an immense burden. As much a wondrous gift, as it was heavy iron that bound her.

No sooner had she let the thought finish when her Orb activated on its own. The Portal flared up, the surface catching the sunlight spectacularly. A million little lights beckoning.

“Did you give me a vacation?” she suddenly asked her.

The notion was both hilarious and preposterous, but once the idea settled into her mind, she could not shake it. Hands on her hips, she glared at the swirling ethereal plane in jest.

“Who in their right mind takes a vacation in Sangora?”

“People who go to the right side of it, naturally,” came the dry answer.

The path she found was convoluted as hell and apparently based on old information so on the second pass she found the Portal locked, forcing her to find a way around. It wasn’t all that unexpected, but it made her almost bite through her chin. Since the war, Portals broke down more often than not with the realms imbalance being what it was.

That’s how she found her feet sinking into a thick layer of sand, much to her surprise. Soon it was in everything.  Inside her clothes, shoes, in her lungs, turning her hair from black to dusty gold. And it was everywhere. The Wastelands had felt like a clever idea, but that notion was fading fast. Marks in the sand got covered swiftly on this wide open plain, where the wind could roam without hindrance and no soul wandered near. It was the scar of the Second Sundering, a cursed place, a dead place. This portal has been placed by the illevans after the shadow wars came to Avaleen. They’d roll in their potential graves if they knew she was using this.

Pulling her tunic up to cover her nose, gave her some relief against the sand but the wind was picking up from the west. Glancing over, she spotted it. A sandstorm that covered the horizon from end to end.

“Shterc!” she swore.

The voice huffed. “Language”

Ignoring her, Elmira looked around. If memory served, this portal had once stood high on a platform of marble, accessed by two flights of stairs. That must have changed since she last visited this place. Tread lightly, she thought as she stepped into place. Or she’d get buried faster than she could flinch if it was loose enough. The orb communicated with the weave much faster now, having grown used to each other’s company again. The Portal hissed and sparked.

Nothing happened.

“What? Why?” she wined, flinching at her own tone.

Twice the activation ritual did nothing. She tried again, and again nothing. Nothing. The portal merely frizzed and she screamed. Four times she tried before stalking over to the back of the left pillar and started digging on her hands and knees to reach the hub. Most people did not know it existed and didn’t care to. The portals were just fancy archways if it wasn’t for the hub. Crystals aligned in a perfect way, which together with the sigils and the runes made everything possible. That’s about as much as she understood about the whole thing. She was an arcanist, not an engineer.

The heat was excruciating, like a lid covering the landscape, and the black in her hair and her clothes did nothing to help matters. The fabric grew uncomfortably hot on her skin, and she desired nothing more than to rip it all off. But that could raise some eyebrows at her next destination.

With the wind picking up pace and sand, she at last reached the hatch and paused. Scratch marks ran along the edges. As if someone had pried it open. She began investigating the hatch, looking for clues of tampering, traps, or anything out of the ordinary. Satisfied that it was safe, she unhooked the latches and opened it full of trepidation, praying that none of the crystals were missing.

It was not unheard of. Scavengers usually sold them for profit, especially from abandoned places. With an explosive sigh, she noted they were all there. Far more pressing was the fact that the enchanted lever that was supposed to be there was not in fact there at all.

“Are you kidding me?” she exclaimed. “Who would cut this out?”

Sand had entered the system too. Elmira had to do some arcanist hot-wiring of the entire magitech system to get the portal to work. Even then, it would only be good for one travel. With the storm fast approaching, her mind spun with plausible explanations.

“A saboteur?” the voice asked quietly.

“I devised this plan myself.”

“Who knew about it?” it wondered.

The answer came unbidden. The Council knew. And only one of them would love to see Elmira lost in the plane between realms. Seora Atal.

Determination to not just return, but to come home no matter what seized her. It was satisfying to think up several ways to humiliate that ráktva and it fueled her work for the next hour. With the newfound purpose, the work went a lot smoother. The edge of the storm was above her now, making it harder and harder to see. One more connection and she activated her orb. Nothing happened.

“Ignis, come on!”

There was a small twinge of something inside her. “Rude.”

Just as the sands rose like strings around her, the portal flared up. She had never thrown herself into the plane so fast. Despite there not being air inside the weave, she still took a deep breath of relief and gratitude.

“Well done,” the voice said as she hurled towards the next anchor point.

What happened next was an assault on her senses that threatened to overwhelm her. The cold bit into her skin hard after the blazing desert, but it was the shouting and insistent barking that really threw her for a loop.

“You arrogant, inconsiderate moron!”

The voice belonged to a furious older woman dressed in furs, holding on to a barking dog that kept jumping up and down while the woman hurled another string of curse words at her.

“Look what you did to poor Ygrit!” she screamed. “You got her in a right state.”

“Ygrit? What about me, your husband!” said an older man, with a weathered face and grey locks peeking out of his fur hat.

He came stumbling from behind the Portal, clutching his chest. Snow covered his clothes from when he had fallen and it was coated into his hair.

His wife tutted. “Oh, you’ll be fine.”  

“How do you know?” he challenged. “The damned thing could have burned me!”

“Did it?”  

He hung his head. “No,” he confessed, much to his wife’s triumph.

“Snow as far as your eye can see”, the voice murmured appreciatively. “Beautiful, if you like that sort of thing.”

Elmira had arrived in Ashenvale on the pole side of the Bordon Mountains. An outpost mostly abandoned, save the research teams that ended up on this side of the world. Here and there, fault lines punctuated the flat glacier, leading to sparkling caves, and the remains of a tower of which you could only see the top inch. Everything was made of ice above the surface, except the Portal. You couldn’t say the same for the research station standing next to it, or the statue of the Portal builder placed in front.

The inhabitants of this village had gone underground to protect themselves from both weather and beasts, carving entire cities out of the rock. It was magnificent if you could gain entry. But Elmira didn’t feel as if she was in anyone’s good books at the moment. The woman slapped the snow away from her husband’s back with a rough hand, which he didn’t seem to enjoy one bit.

“Now, who the hell are you!? Don’t you people have some manners?” she demanded.

“I am so, so sorry,” Elmira said, hoping the woman would see the sincerity in her eyes.

She scoffed, her hands landing on her hips. “You should be. Look at her, poor Ygrit.”

The still agitated dog kicked up snow as it spun around, barking at the Portal.

“She cares about the dog more than she cares about me, the love of her life,” the husband snorted, throwing his wife a dirty look.

She waved him off. “Oh, hush, will you?”

“I am just passing through,” Elmira said, trying to smooth it over, not wishing to be the reason the couple argued. “So, if you do not mind...”

She left the question hanging, gesturing towards the Portal.

“Sure, on you go,” the wife said with a sweetness that cut like a knife. “Not like you care.”

Meanwhile, the man had hobbled over to Ygrit and started cooing with her. His efforts fell to pieces the moment the Portal activated with a whoosh that whipped up the surrounding snow. If looks could kill, Elmira would be in the grave ten times over by how the woman glared at her.

“I am so sorry again,” Elmira reiterated, apologizing profusely. “I truly did not know you would stand so close to it.”

The man muttered. “I only did because I was told to.”

“You were not,” his wife retorted.  

“I was too!”  

“You are not an engineer.”

“I almost was!” he pointed out.  

Elmira was afraid to ask. “What are you talking about?”

They both looked at her like she was a madman rambling about adamantine turtles, while they stood with snow in their hair and a barking dog next to them.  

“It is to be deactivated,” the man said as if stating the obvious.  

Strange. Elmira eyed the Portal but could see no fault with it.  

“Why?” she wondered.

The woman, being eager to get Elmira out of the way, just shrugged.  

“The engineers are probably on their way as they speak,” she said, gesturing to the Portal. “On you go. Don’t let us keep you.”  

“We’re not rescheduling maintenance for anyone,” The man nodded sagely. “Not even the Elder herself, if she ever showed up.”

His wife laughed. “As if.”

“She could, you know,” his tone became defensive again.  

Elmira smiled. “How do you know I’m not her?”  

“Funny! You’re funny,” the woman said, looking anything but amused. She made a shooing motion. “Now, go.”  

“Is something the matter with it?” Elmira persisted.

“All I know is that the engineers got a message from some higher-up to deactivate with immediate effect, awaiting repairs,” came the biting reply. “Some software malfunction, or something.”

”It is magic, not clockwork.”

“No later than noon,” the husband said ignoring Elmira.

“Half-noon,” she corrected.

He frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure it was noon.”

“What higher up was that?” Elmira cut in, her interest peaked.

The woman shrugged. “How should I know?”

“Not our business,” the man agreed.  

“Ygrit, stop it!” the woman exasperatedly told her dog, who was now trying to jump up on her back. “See what you did?”  

Knowing when she was beaten, Elmira stepped into the Portal, though she still had a bad feeling, wanting to ask more.

“Poor Ygrit,” was the last thing that she heard as the matrix whisked her away to the next planet.

It felt good to get away from the bickering couple. But what they said had added fuel to the nagging suspicion that someone was tampering with her journey. If that was true, then anything could happen. She just really hoped she wouldn’t be interrupting anyone next time, or their dog.

This was the last trip to the destination that would take her to her ride. A shuttle stowed away in a cave behind a waterfall. Cliché but effective. That’s when it happened. It was faint at first but the snag was swift and ruthless. A sensation much like running over a speed bump too fast, while simultaneously getting yanked to the side. There was no chance to avoid it.

Elmira got hurled through an open portal far off-course, chucked out of it with an incredible force. To her, it looked like the concrete platform slammed into her, rather than the other way around. She tumbled down the few steps before coming to a stop. Everything hurt. She was afraid to open her eyes, but did it anyway.The metallic structures loomed, and there was the sound of a crowd. Elmira was sure of one thing. She had absolutely no idea where she was.