@Imperfect_M
Only very specific pathways exist between the lands of the Fae and the realm of mortals. Some of her kind could travel without them, but it took a great effort of will and magic to accomplish such a task. Magic that required a faerie be hale and whole.
She was neither, and yet she did it anyway.
Anoria knew it was dangerous, but she could not stand to be in the Glade a moment longer. Its Keeper was kind, and she truly had needed the rest, but she could no longer stand to feel the pitying eyes on her every time she turned her back. She knew Lakali meant well, but the careful way she treated her only served to fuel a burning sense of rage and self-pity that she'd spent the better part of the last several years attempting to suffocate.
The problem was that the Moonlit Glade existed both in the realms of her birth and in the mortal land; it was easy to cross between the two there, but she wouldn't actually
escape it if she did.
So, as she followed the faint, spiraling path that circled to the center of the Glade, she reached out to the inherent power of the place and sought to twist the path, guide it just
slightly of course, just for a moment, so with her next step she found herself not in the Faerie Glade, but...somewhere else.
It worked. To an extent. And it
hurt.
Anoria sank to her knees as she stepped through the veil between worlds and pain jolted through her body, drawing all the strength from her body in less than a moment. She threw out a hand to brace against the earth and gasped desperately, lungs burning, and though she was panting near frantically it still felt as though she could not draw breath.
The last flickers of magic from her foolhardy attempt shimmered in the air around her, a faint halo of blue and silver light, then faded. Shivers wracked her frame and the slight faerie raised her head to look around, vision blurry, as she desperately tried to make sense of her surroundings.
She could make out vague shapes, too carefully arranged to be natural formations of stone or wood, and what might have been the flickering light of a fire pit--beyond that, it was all blurred colors and tilting shapes.
Where...where
was she?