At the base of the Akana, where its lower ribs dipped beneath the low hills of the Fey Woods, there were little oasis’ of secret, hidden places, where the weather calmed and the shrubbery was evergreen, carved and tended by enigmatic hands. You could walk in and out of one almost on accident, crossing some secret threshold; they were less dangerous than fae circles, but somehow more magical. Fairy lights dangled from an unseen canopy, shot far above skies the shade of the deep sea. The moon’s light came down in shards of arctic ice, dappling the ground and sending the crystals– white, per the season– dancing and glimmering in a peaceful, chill wind. Fae felt at home, here; maybe because she shared a name with the place; or maybe because she was a scout, and discovery and exploration ran through her veins. Every step forward, every new vista, thrilled her, just as much as the last; and wandering through these secret gardens, a seemingly infinite number of frost-covered cobbled paths and trellis covered in greenery, still clinging to the warm palettes of late fall, was akin to a constant sequence of revelations. It was not without its perils. The snow blanketed the floor, filling the night with a muffled silence; the lights themselves, dancing and dangling, flashed between blinding beams and thick darkness, making it difficult for eyes to ever adjust to the true cadence of the light. It is a good challenge, even if the paths are an invisible spiral into the orbits of (possibly) less than friendly strangers.