Eris let out a soft chuckle at Otto's star-struck expression. Dáinn, however, looked utterly lost, his brow furrowing as if Otto had just spoken in a forgotten dialect.
"He's really into magic," Eris explained, gesturing at her friend. "A total Harry Potter nerd."
Dáinn's head tilted slightly. "Harry… Potter?"
Eris flicked her wrist. "Yeah, it's a whole thing. Wizards, wands, a talking hat. Don't worry about it."
Dáinn gave a slow, deliberate nod, filing the information away under 'Baffling Human Customs.'
Otto, unable to contain himself, bounced on the balls of his feet. "So, like, magic," he repeated, his voice trembling with reverence. "Is there actual magic where you're from?"
Dáinn nodded. "Yes. But—"
"I knew it!" Otto belt out, whirling to face Eris with triumphant vindication. "I knew it was real! All the texts, the grimoires, they weren't just metaphors!"
Eris giggled at his unrestrained joy. But Otto wasn't finished. He spun back to Dáinn, his eyes wide with a terrifying, pilgrim's zeal. "Can you take me there? I have to see it! I have to breathe it!" A brilliant, disastrous idea lit up his face. He turned to Eris again, grabbing her arms. "We should go! Through the gate! We have to! It would be a dream come true! The ultimate field research!"
Eris looked at him, her smile becoming strained. "Yeah, but… I kinda want to close the gate. You know, before more screaming shadow demons come through?"
"You still can!" Otto insisted, his logic breathtakingly flawed. "After we go through it! A quick tour! An hour, tops!"
Eris nodded slowly, actually considering the insanity for a fleeting second.
Dáinn cleared his throat, the sound like stones grinding together. "You want to go through the gate?" he asked, his tone suggesting they had just volunteered to juggle live grenades.
"Yeah!" Otto chirped, his expression that of an excited puppy dog. "Can we? Please?"
Dáinn shifted his weight, his entire being radiating utter bewilderment. "You are not afraid?"
Otto shook his head so hard his glasses slipped. "Not at all!"
"But you were afraid of what you saw tonight," Dáinn pointed out, his logic impeccable.
"Well, that was because we didn't expect it!" Otto explained, as if this made perfect sense. "So, does this mean you will?"
"No!" Dáinn's refusal was immediate and final, a stone wall of denial.
Otto's face collapsed. His shoulders slumped, his bottom lip protruded, and he looked on the verge of tears. "But… why?"
Dáinn sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "The cat was right," he muttered to himself. "This generation is different." Louder, he said, "Your ancestors feared us. I am not here to bring humans back for a… tour. I am here to find the hounds."
Eris's brow furrowed. "You really are looking for your dog."
"The Cŵn Annwn are not 'dogs'," Dáinn corrected, though he sounded too weary to elaborate. "The gate is a problem that will have to wait, as will whatever else decides to crawl through it. I am here for the hounds. Then, I will return. The gate," he fixed his piercing gaze on Eris, "is your problem."
Eris felt a jolt, like a cold finger tracing her spine. "Oh. Okay. Um… have any advice?"
"Find that spell book," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Eris nodded. "Okay." A beat of silence hung in the room, thick with Otto's disappointment. Then, Eris perked up, a new idea sparking in her eyes. "I know! What if I help you find your hounds, and you help me with the gate? Or at least help me find the spell book?"
Dáinn's nose wrinkled slightly as he considered this. It was an unorthodox proposal. But it would also be an opportunity to learn more about this mysterious girl who shouldn't have been able to open a puddle, let alone a planar gate. He gave a slow, measured nod. "Okay. You have a deal."
Eris jumped up, clapping her hands together. "Great!"
She turned to Otto, who was now pouting in the corner, his shoulders slumped so dramatically he looked like a deflating balloon. "What's wrong?"
"I wanted to help close the gate," he mumbled into his chest.
Eris opened her mouth to include him, but Otto cut her off, his voice thick with the tragedy of it all. "But I can't! I have to work a double shift at The Magic Wand, and then my family is dragging me on a vacation to Myrtle Beach. It's a whole thing."
Eris couldn't help but chuckle at the cosmic injustice of it all. Dáinn simply stood there, looking profoundly confused by the concept of a scheduled holiday interfering with apocalyptic events.
"You have to promise," Otto insisted, grabbing Eris's hands, his eyes desperate. "Promise you'll tell me everything. Every detail! What the air smells like! The topology! The political structure!"
"I promise," Eris said, her smile both fond and exasperated. And as she sealed her pact with an ancient Huntsman, she couldn't help but think that her life had officially become stranger than any anime she'd ever watched.
*****
The slate tiles of The Slaughter Lamb's roof were warm under the morning sun, holding onto the night's coolness in their deepest shadows. Dáinn reclined against the steep pitch, his gaze tracing the slow journey of clouds across the Carolina sky. Beside him, Casper was a sphinx of black fur, his tail tip twitching in a metronome of feline judgment.
"So," the cat began, his telepathic voice dry as dust. "Let me ensure I have the sequence of events correct. You, a Huntsman of the Wild Court, have formed an alliance. With the human girl who accidentally punched a hole in reality. The plan is to wander the mortal realm together, you searching for your lost spectral hounds, and she… what, exactly? Holding your hand?"
"That is the plan," Dáinn confirmed, his voice a low rumble. He didn't take his eyes off the clouds, as if their shapes might hold a map to his missing Cŵn Annwn.
Casper's head cocked, one ear swiveling toward Dáinn. "And you expect me to believe that's the entirety of it? The great Dáinn Herne Cernunnos, reduced to a supernatural bloodhound with a teenage sidekick? What is the actual intention? The one you haven't voiced."
A faint, knowing smirk touched Dáinn's lips. "Your kind doesn't miss much, does it?"
"We see the mouse in the tall grass while the hounds are still barking at the moon," Casper retorted, his tail lashing once. "So. Speak."
Dáinn finally turned his head, his blue eyes sharp. "That girl should not have been able to open the gate. The power required to tear a rift like that… it is not a mortal parlor trick. My intention is to figure out how she did it."
"Ah," Casper purred, the sound laced with understanding. "So you don't think she is human."
"I don't know what to think," Dáinn admitted, his gaze drifting back toward the campus. "There is no overt sign, no glamour I can detect. There isn't any real reason to think she isn't human except—"
"—except she accidentally opened a stabilized planar fissure on her first attempt," Casper finished for him, his tone dripping with sarcastic finality. "A minor detail."
Dáinn nodded grimly. "Exactly."
"And what," Casper pressed, his green eyes narrowing to slits, "will you do if your little investigation proves she is something… other? Something that belongs to your world, not this one?"
The question struck Dáinn with the force of a physical blow. He went rigid, a jolt of something cold and unnamable running through him. The warm slate beneath him suddenly felt like ice. He had been so focused on the 'how' that the 'then' had never occurred to him. What would he do?
"You haven't thought about it, have you?" Casper observed, rolling his eyes with a flourish. "Let me offer some unsolicited counsel. That girl has a family here. A mother, a father, siblings. She has friends, like the chattering boy. She has a life, with its scheduled tests and its… colorful bedroom decor. Whatever grand, ancient plan is brewing in that mossy old skull of yours, just remember: you would be pulling a thread from a tapestry that is not yours to unravel."
"I don't have a plan," Dáinn cut him off, his voice tighter than he intended. "I am here for the hounds. That is all."
Casper gave him a long, slow, deeply judgmental side-eye, a look that conveyed centuries of witnessing foolish immortal decisions. He was about to deliver another cutting remark when his ears pricked forward. His gaze shifted to the edge of the graveyard.
"Oh, look," he said, his tone shifting to one of pure amusement. "Speaking of threads in the tapestry."
Dáinn sat up, following the cat's line of sight. There was Eris, weaving through the headstones with a determined stride, her bright hair a beacon against the somber greens and grays. Casper, with a final flick of his tail, stood and leaped soundlessly from the roof's edge, vanishing into the shadows below. Dáinn remained for a moment longer, watching her approach, the cat's unsettling question now echoing in the silent spaces of his mind.
Eris moved through the Mag Mell Memorial Grounds with a determined spring in her step, the morning sun weaving gold through her hair. She was mentally preparing for a day of supernatural sleuthing when a tall, dark shadow detached itself from the corner of the pub's stone wall.
Dáinn stood there, his expression as unreadable as the ancient menhir in the Ogham Green. Eris's face immediately broke into a bright, welcoming smile. For a fleeting second, something in Dáinn's stern composure wavered, as if instinct urged him to return the gesture, but he mastered himself, his features settling back into their usual stoic lines.
"Good morning," Eris chirped.
An awkward beat of silence followed, filled only by the incessant, whispering rustle of the whisper-vine.
"So," Eris said, clapping her hands together softly. "Where do we start?"
Dáinn shifted his weight. "I am not entirely sure. The hounds' trail is… elusive. They move between the seams of this world and the next. It is not a simple path to follow."
Eris nodded, undeterred. "Well, okay then. Maybe we should try going into town or something. But before we do that…" She gestured vaguely at his entire ensemble. "Do you have something else you can wear?"
Dáinn blinked at her, genuinely perplexed.
Eris giggled. "I mean, I like the whole… Fae tunic look. It's very 'mysterious warrior poet.' But it's probably going to attract a lot of attention. Like, a lot. Remember when you first came into the bar?"
"Oh," Dáinn replied, the concept of blending in clearly a foreign one.
"And the sword," Eris continued, pointing to the weapon at his hip. "Is there someplace you can put that?"
Comprehension dawned. Dáinn gave a curt nod. He didn't call out or whistle. He simply took a single step back, and the pool of shadow at his feet deepened, swirling like ink in water. From its depths, Skógr materialized, the great black horse forming from solid night, his coat absorbing the sunlight, his hooves making no sound as he settled onto the grass.
Eris squealed, a sound of pure, unadulterated delight. "Oh my God! You have a horse in your shadow!" she exclaimed, her hands flying to her mouth.
Skógr tossed his magnificent head, mane flowing like a banner of darkness.
"Can I pet him?" Eris asked, already stepping forward, her eyes wide.
She didn't wait for an answer from Dáinn, and neither did Skógr. The horse, displaying a shocking lack of his master's reserve, walked directly up to her and nudged her shoulder with his velvet muzzle.
Eris cooed, reaching up to rub his face and stroke his powerful neck. "Oh my God, you are so pretty! You are the prettiest, best shadow-horse ever!"
Skógr let out a soft, deep nicker, leaning into her touch.
"Do you like carrots?" Eris asked him conspiratorially.
In response, Skógr stomped one powerful front hoof with a decisive thud that vibrated through the ground.
"I am so getting you carrots," Eris promised, her voice full of fervent sincerity.
Skógr nickered again, a clear sound of approval.
Dáinn, who had been watching this entire exchange with a look of growing bemusement, muttered under his breath as he unbuckled his sword belt to secure it to the saddle. "Traitor."
At the accusation, Skógr shook his head, grunting and snorting, a series of expressive sounds that seemed to form a coherent, if nonverbal, argument.
"You never asked for carrots," Dáinn retorted, as if he understood perfectly.
Skógr let out a short, sharp scream that was unmistakably indignant.
Eris giggled, patting the horse's neck. "Don't worry, we won't forget you today."
From atop a nearby moss-covered sarcophagus, Casper paused in his meticulous paw-washing to observe the scene. His green eyes narrowed with feline insight. "That immortal," he mused to himself, his tail giving a final, dismissive flick, "is utterly and completely doomed."