The path had simply... vanished. Or rather, it had changed somewhere - somehow - between here and there, then and now. She had been turned around somehow, but memory could not provide her with the specifics. It had become a jumbled mess in her head, with lost time and strange lights... Whatever had happened, she had come out the other side trembling with uncertainty but otherwise unscathed.

How to make sense of a forest becoming a shoreline, though? How to explain the dim light of the forest becoming the sun barely peeking over gentle waves?

Starshade shook her head, which quickly became a full-body shudder that failed to completely dispel her nerves. Whatever could not be explained could be left for another time. She had to repeat the sentiment to herself more than a dozen times before she could believe it enough to start her tentative trek along the shoreline.

It was beautiful, at least. The sun had begun to rise in earnest, and she could see mountains standing at attention in every direction. Forests too, their silhouette rising in the south. She couldn't help but pause from time to time, lifting her nose to the breeze and breathing in carefully.

Oh, it would have embarrassed her to know just how clearly out of place she looked even from a distance - a well and truly lost child, directionless and dazed, as she picked along the edge of the water, alone again.