“Oh, I always forget how energetic foxes are,” the white dryad mused, watching me scrabble around on the ground trying to get a good look at myself.

“Well, this is the first damned time I’ve been a fox, okay? So just chill for a second while I deal with this,” I exclaimed grumpily, finally finding an angle that worked. Huh… I was a purple fox? The fuck?

For some reason, my words seemed to gain the tree’s attention. “Don’t tell me, are you… a mortal?”

“Uh, yeah?” I asked, turning to stare up at the massive rumbly-voiced tree. “I mean, I was human too, until like five minutes ago when some hunter shot me in a church. Pretty sure my soul fell into the leyline or whatever…”

That caused the two of them to freeze in place, staring down at me like I’d just let out the most rancid fart in history.

“Please explain that again, but more slowly and in detail,” the dryad said, all playfulness gone from her tone.

“Um… I was using magic to protect some people, because I’m a witch, then a hunter showed up,” I explained glancing nervously between the two of them. “He was stronger than me, so I tried to run… but I was an idiot and I tried to hide from him in a church. The dead leyline below it caused my gauntlets to stop working and my magic to go… tired. He did the whole villain talking thing, then killed me right there on the altar. I died and, well I guess it was my soul, it fell down into the leyline. Now I’m here.”

“We need to take her to the council,” the dryad blurted excitedly, turning to give the tree the pointiest look I’ve ever seen.

“Hold on… can you like, answer some questions first, because I’m pretty confused,” I said tentatively, ears twitching all weird-like. I think they were doing the ear equivalent of glancing between them, but who am I to know? I just got them like two fucking minutes ago.

“We don’t have time,” the white stick lady said, waving my request away with a bony ass lookin’ hand.

The tree gave a long humming sound, and shrugged in a rather frightening way. Not because it looked malicious or anything, but because seeing a tree shrug is honestly pretty odd.

“We have time, no need to be hasty,” the tree rumbled, giving me a kind nod. A nod that also looked hella weird, because tree.

The dryad wasn’t swayed. “Her blood is still fresh! We cannot waste time!”

Hold on, my blood? What was going on here?

“Okay, one second… first off, where the fuck am I? Second, who the fuck are you two, and third, why the fuck do you keep refering to me as a girl?” I asked, the words rushing out of me in a very frustrated and very confused heap.

The dryad chick frowned down at me with mild frustration, but the big tree guy just laughed. “This place is the realm of spirits and gods. I am a tree, and this is my wife, also a tree, only smaller. As for why we are referring to you as a girl… well, your soul appears to have taken the shape of a female fox.”

Okay, that was weird. Why was my soul in the shape of a girl fox? A little sus, but hey, I’ve been voted off for less, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt there.

“Alright… and what was that about my blood?” I asked suspiciously, doubling back to that particular piece of weirdness.

“We can explain at our destination, for now, I ask that you please follow me,” the dryad said, almost begging with me now. “Recently dead mortal souls do not fall out of the sky every day, and we may be able to make use of each other, if we hurry.”

“Fine, fine… lead the way,” I grumbled, trotting up beside her.

“It will be faster if I carry you,” she said, and before I could get away she leaned down and scooped me up.

“Hey, what the hell!” I complained loudly, wriggling madly in an attempt to break free.

The tree gave a chuckle while the dryad subdued me, “You took a wrong turn if you were trying to get to hell, little one.”

“It’s a figure of speech damn it— wait, hell is real?” I asked, finally giving up my struggle as I stared up at the massive tree in alarm.

“No idea, I’ve never died, nor met someone who has been there,” he replied nonchalantly, and promptly pulled himself up by the roots.

I gave a squeak of surprise and tried to jump out of the dryad’s arms again, but she held me firm. Far out, the tree was… not what I’d expected. I’ve seen lord of the rings, I know what ents are meant to look like, and this was definitely not it.

He was just… a tree, except apparently also some sort of octopus thing, his roots all shifting and undulating as he moved. He and his wife must have some really kinky sex, geez!

“Quit your struggling or I’ll carry you by the scruff of your neck,” the dryad lady hissed, lifting me up to give me a pointed stare.

I just nodded, deciding that sass probably wasn’t the play here. I mean, I was just a fox, and she had a whole ton of pointy sticks to stab me with if I really pissed her off. Dying up in boring old earth was one thing, but I don’t think having my soul stabbed would be a good idea.

“Good,” she smiled, and shifted me back into a more comfortable position.

My new friends were silent during the walk through the forest and its twisting, hidden pathways. Something I hadn’t looked at yet was the sky, which was incredibly jarring when I finally got a look up at it.

It was blue, like earth’s, but that was about where the resemblance ended, because across the whole sphere of it was a pattern of interwoven and overlapping leaves. It was as though the whole sky was the canopy of one massive ethereal tree.

Then there was the forest, which slowly came to life around us as we moved. I watched a doe bound up to within a few meters and peer at us with its large brown eyes. Then, since everything in this place was weird, it blinked and those eyes turned to solid bronze, then back to brown on the next blink.

At one point, I saw a woman trailing beside us in the woods, some thirty feet to our right. She wore a simple, white tunic, while in her hands she carried a bow of gold. A quiver of golden arrows hung at her hip, each one shining in a way that was beyond that of mere metal. For some reason, she smiled at me through the trees, gave a wink and then disappeared. Within me, I felt a twang, an almost musical note of… kinship?

Eventually, the forest began to thin out into woodland, and we shifted to a wide dirt road. That road almost exploded my goddamn brain. Not because it was like, crazy weird or anything, it was just a road… no, what blew my mind were those that used it.

Just about every mythical creature you could imagine was there, prancing, dancing, walking, slithering, and bouncing their way towards a massive city.

That city was the second fist in the phrase, one-two punch. While the road had a sampling of every strange magical creature in human history, that city… that city was a smorgasbord of architectural madness.

Classical greek columns held up aztec pyramids, mud huts sat atop a 30’s skyscraper, and in the distance I could see an acropolis with representation from every culture that had ever had a pantheon of pagan gods.

This whole place was like every myth and legend all smooshed into one bizarro city, and it made me fucking dizzy.

Moving into that wild and magnificent city revealed something else, something far, far too familiar. Squalor. It was everywhere, filth lined every wall, fear and pain lay behind every glance and stare.

I saw a centaur man, withered and dirty, begging to any passerby who gave him a look. From the shadows of an alleyway, a man with the head of a snake eyeing us with interest as we passed, hand straying to his belt where a dagger sat in its sheath.

“Why is this place so… dirty?” I asked quietly, turning to look up at my chauffeur.

The dryad’s expression was stiff and impassive as she replied. “The hunters. Our world was not meant to be cut off from yours.”

“Ouch,” was all I said in reply. What else would I say in this situation? The place was incredible from a distance, but up close? It was a mess.

We continued through the city for what felt like an hour, winding our way through its broad streets on our way towards the acropolis at the center. I was starting to get anxious as we made our way up the grand steps towards what was obviously the seat of power in this place. Just why was I going to go and meet whoever ran the show here? Had I stepped into a trap?

Another thing that didn’t bode well were the statues that lined the broad stairs. Some were whole and recognisable, Poseidon with his trident, a feathered dragon that was probably Quetzalcoatl, and many more.

What was alarming were the number that had been smashed, nothing but their feet remaining on the pedestals, or in some cases a leg or two. A full two thirds were this way, broken and decaying, like a diseased set of teeth in the mouth of a once great man.

This place had seen conflict. Violent, nasty conflict... and clearly there had been a winning side and a losing side. I hoped the good guys had won, because otherwise I was absolutely fucked.

“Welcome to the grand council of the gods,” the dryad woman told me quietly as we ascended the last of the steps. “I pray that they treat us well when we bring you forward.”