Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTX6SZFK36AQZG857C710WK

The standing stones loomed before them like ancient sentinels, their bark-covered surfaces pulsing with an otherworldly energy that made Rory's teeth ache. She pressed her palm against the nearest oak, feeling the rough texture beneath her fingertips as reality seemed to ripple at the edges of her vision. "This is it." Isolde's voice carried on a breeze that shouldn't exist in the still Richmond morning. The Half-Fae's silver hair caught light from no visible source, creating a halo effect around her ageless face. "Step through quickly. The boundary doesn't like hesitation." Nyx's form flickered between solid and shadow, their violet eyes scanning the space between the stones. "The Veil is... strange here. Neither torn nor whole. Folded." "Like origami made of reality itself." Rory touched the Heartstone pendant at her throat. The crimson gem pulsed warm against her skin, a steady rhythm that matched neither her heartbeat nor her breathing. She'd grown used to its warnings near Hel portals, but this felt different—not alarm, but recognition. "Together then." Isolde stepped forward without leaving footprints on the frost-covered grass. "The Grove chooses who enters. Be respectful." They passed between the stones. The world turned inside out. Rory's stomach lurched as up became down, left became right, and time stretched like taffy. Colors bled into sounds—she could taste the violet of twilight, hear the scent of honeysuckle. Her delivery bike, left leaning against a normal Richmond Park tree, now seemed a thousand miles and a heartbeat away. Then everything snapped back into focus. "Bloody hell." The words escaped before she could stop them. They stood in a clearing that defied every natural law she knew. Wildflowers carpeted the ground in impossible abundance—spring daffodils blooming beside autumn chrysanthemums, summer roses entwined with winter hellebores. The air itself shimmered with threads of gold and silver, like spider silk caught in sunbeams that fell from no visible sun. Above them, the sky couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Patches of midnight blue studded with stars existed alongside sections of noon-bright azure, dawn pink bleeding into dusk purple at the edges where they met. No sun, no moon, just ambient light that seemed to emanate from the very air. "Don't stare too long at the sky." Isolde moved with practiced ease through the flower carpet. "Mortals who try to map it tend to lose pieces of themselves." Rory tore her gaze away, focusing instead on the trees ringing the Grove. If trees they were. Their trunks twisted upward in spirals that hurt to follow, branches reaching out at angles that geometry insisted couldn't exist. Leaves of copper, silver, and gold chimed softly in a breeze she couldn't feel. "The trees are singing." Nyx's form had solidified more than usual, as if the strange physics of this place gave them substance. They tilted their head, listening. "No... remembering. They're remembering." "Everything here remembers." Isolde paused beside a pool of water that Rory could have sworn wasn't there a moment ago. The surface reflected not their faces but other times, other possibilities. Rory glimpsed herself with shorter hair, with a scar across her cheek, with eyes that weren't bright blue. She stepped back. The Grove responded to their movement. Paths appeared and disappeared like suggestions rather than fixed routes. A butterfly with wings of literal stained glass fluttered past, leaving a trail of musical notes in its wake. Somewhere in the distance—or perhaps just out of sight—water babbled over stones, though the sound came from above rather than below. "Why does it feel like we're being watched?" Rory's hand drifted to where she'd secured the Fae blade Isolde had given her. The moonsilver weapon hummed against her hip, cold even through its sheath. "Because we are." Isolde's lavender eyes tracked something invisible. "The Grove remembers every visitor. Past, present, and..." She paused, a slight smile playing at her lips. "Well. Time isn't linear here." They moved deeper, though direction seemed a negotiable concept. The flower carpet gave way to moss so soft it felt like walking on clouds. Mushrooms grew in perfect circles, their caps shifting through prismatic colors with each step the group took. One ring they passed glowed with foxfire, the blue-green light painting their faces in ethereal hues. "Don't step in the circles." Isolde's warning came almost too late as Rory's foot hovered over a particularly inviting ring of red-capped toadstools. "Some lead elsewhere. Some lead nowhere. Some lead to when you've never been." The Heartstone's pulse quickened. Rory pressed her hand over it, feeling the warmth spread up her arm. Strange that a demon artifact would react so strongly to a Fae place. Unless... "There." Nyx's whisper carried unusual weight. They pointed with one shadowy finger toward what Rory's eyes had been sliding past, unable or unwilling to focus. A structure stood between two impossible trees. Not quite building, not quite growth, it seemed carved from a single enormous pearl, its surface rippling with opalescent waves. Doorways—if they were doorways—appeared at random intervals, some at ground level, others floating twenty feet in the air. Stairs that might have been branches or might have been frozen waterfalls connected different levels in ways that made Rory's eyes water. "The Heart of the Grove." Isolde's voice held reverence. "Where future touches past, where maybe meets certain." As they approached, the air grew thick with possibility. Each breath Rory took seemed to fill her lungs with potential—she could taste choices unmade, words unspoken, paths untaken. Her skin tingled with the electric sensation of standing at a crossroads where every direction led somewhere significant. The nearest doorway—an arch of woven moonbeams—trembled as they drew close. Through it, Rory glimpsed not a room but a forest of silver trees under a scarlet sky. The image shifted, showing the same trees under bright sun, then withered and dead beneath starless dark. "It shows what might be." Isolde's hand on her shoulder kept Rory from stepping forward. "But might-be is a dangerous country for mortals to visit." The Grove pulsed around them, alive and aware. Every flower that bloomed, every impossible angle, every shift of light and shadow felt deliberate, like words in a language too ancient for human tongues. Rory understood now why Isolde spoke in riddles—how else to translate thoughts formed in a place where metaphor had mass and meaning could be touched? Her fingers found the Heartstone again. Its warmth had spread through her entire body now, a gentle fire that didn't burn but illuminated. She could feel connections she'd never noticed before—threads linking her to this place, to her companions, to possibilities spread across time like a vast web. "We should go deeper." The words surprised her as they left her mouth. But the Grove had accepted them, and somehow she knew there was more to see, more to understand. Nyx's form rippled. "The shadows here... they remember things that haven't happened yet." "Then perhaps," Isolde said, her smile enigmatic as always, "we should let them show us." They moved toward the pearl structure, toward doorways that led to anywhere and nowhere, while overhead the patchwork sky continued its eternal dance between day and night, and the trees sang their memories into the spaces between moments.