I am flying over the sea, like a bird, a gull, the wind buoying my wings and lifting me higher. There is hardly any distinction between the water below me and the sky above; I am caught between the two great powers, the waves rippling below me. On the horizon, I see a small island surrounded by pale mist that sparkles in the afternoon sunlight like diamonds. The island is green, not fresh and new green like the first shoots of grass in springtime, but an older, wiser color, aged and knowing. It has seen the tides turn, the winds changes and the sun and moon make their respective rounds for centuries, perhaps even millennia untold… It knows things no mortal can, this island, there is a current of power all around it, like the gentle pull of static electricity, but more insistent, more urgent. This… this is a place of magic, of spirits and forces that we in our time no longer understand or even believe in. I smell rain, salt, moss and dirt, and I can hear the waves crashing on the shore as I land on the sand of the isle. The damp sand underfoot is not white or tropical, but boreal and rich, muddy brown. There is nothing new or virginal here, everything is aged and yet somehow timeless. Vines carve around twisting, gnarled trees with roots worn smooth by the water lapping at them, mangroves filled with mystery. The air is heavy with perspiration that beads on my skin, the sands wedges itself in between my toes, and as I walk into the forest, heavy conifer branches stroke my hair and curious ferns tickle my legs. There are birds flitting from branch to branch overhead, but birds like I have never seen… Birds with decadent feathers of green-black, gold and auburn, birds who seem too fragile and ornamental to fly, yet glide as regally as if the earth were too real for them, below them in every sense of the phrase. Deer walk on stilt-like legs, wide-eyed and deliberate with each step, yet calm, unalarmed by my presence, of the presence of the wolves who have begun to stride alongside me, their silver fur ticked with black, their eyes a tawny glow in the misty woods. The wolves are my guides, though to what I do not know as we wind our way along a narrow path now covered with damp cedar chips. Shadows move around all around me, bird, animal and one thing that is neither and yet both at the same time, a being covered in fur and feathers, gold and silver, mist and stones. Its eyes are black and amber, and it walks as easily on four legs as two, wings folded around it like a cloak as it darts back and forth across the path in front of me. Its movements aren’t clumsy, but neither are they refined, somehow not like anything I’ve ever seen and somehow familiar at the same time. I can smell the scent of the sea on it, like rain but saltier, crisp one moment and musky the next as the odor floats back to me through the mist. It’s not human, but every time it looks back at me over its shoulder, calling to me in low growls and melodic trills, I can see a glimmer of sentient intelligence. I’m curious, I know somehow it has something to tell me, but I’m wary. I don’t fear being hurt. If birds, deer and wolves are unalarmed in this being’s presence, why should I be afraid? Animals are nature’s guardians, they can sense things we humans long ago grew blind, deaf and unfeeling to… Yet caution ripples in my blood like mercury, sliding and cold… What if the being’s message is something I don’t want to hear? Something I can’t, as a human, comprehend or put to use? What if it asks of me a duty I cannot perform? Wild, bestial nature surrounds me in the form of fog and rain, sands and rocks, trees and ferns, birdsong and wolf calls, all untamed and unmarred by humanity. I, a mortal, a human, am a contrast to my surroundings, a distinction made all the more apparent with each step I take towards the island’s centre, following this strange being for reasons I know not. Yet, I am accepted by the creatures who dwell here, and somehow I know that the message which the stranger before me will deliver is of something larger than either infant humanity or ageless nature, a purpose pertaining to and somehow unifying both realms…