Prince Owen stared at his reflection in the pond, wondering if it was really him. He hadn't had those dark shadows under his eyes back when his life was carefree.

"Funny how I'm losing sleep over a girl that's getting too much of it," he thought. He had waited until the morning after he had returned home to set out on his quest, thinking it would be good to rest instead of diving in head first. But it hadn't done much good, since he had stayed up half the night excited and worried about his journey.

And here he was, about to begin it.

"All you have to do is jump in the pond," he told himself, clutching the Gossamer Sphere tightly in his hand. It was better than trying to go through a mirror, he thought. If it didn't work, he would only have to go for a brief swim instead of humiliatingly running into solid glass.

He counted down in his mind. "Three, two, one..." His weight shifted forward slightly, but his feet didn't leave the ground. Doubts overwhelmed him.

"Once I jump, I can't come back."

"I could fail. I could die in Etherea, or stay too long."

Owen took a deep breath in and let it out in a slow stream. "Think of something else. Claire. Who's going to wake her up? It has to be me. It's the only way I can make sure her rescuer will actually love her."

Owen's reflection looked back at him, urging him to go. He nodded and took another breath. "Three, two, one..."

There was no splash. There were no ripples. He simply went through the surface of the pond and disappeared.

~*~

Owen lay gasping for air face-down in a patch of grass. The first impression he got was that he was cold. In his next thought, he remembered the feeling after he had jumped through his reflection, how it felt as if he had been expanded and squeezed, burning and freezing, heavy and light.

Now he was here, wherever here was. "Am I in Etherea?" he thought. As far as he could tell, the grass he was lying in was normal. With a grunt, he pulled himself up to find out more.

He was very high up, standing on the slopes of a tall, grassy hill. The air was sharp and cold. Above him, the hill kept rising until the grass disappeared, leaving bare stone that was frosted with snow at the summit.

All that Owen saw at first seemed perfectly normal. Maybe Etherea wasn't as strange as he imagined. But then he started noticing the strange parts. The snow was a blinding white, more light than any shade he thought he would ever see, and the grass beneath his feet was so shockingly green that it hurt his eyes to stare at it too long. Then there was the sky around the top of the hill. It pulsed with fluid colors of red, blue, and green, which flowed around the hilltop as if it were water trickling around a stone in a river.

Leading from the foot of the hill was a narrow, twisted path, which stretched across a land covered in green plants and glowing with unnatural colors until it disappeared into the horizon. Owen had no idea where it could lead, but he decided that at least it gave him something to follow.

The fairy had never given him the directions to the exact place in Etherea he was supposed to go. Nor had she told him at what time he had to leave. Since she had neglected to provide such seemingly vital information, Owen figured something on his journey would help him work it out.

Going down the hill was easy. Although it was about as tall as a mountain, it was not jagged like one, only having smooth ground carpeted in soft grass. It sloped down gently, making it seem more like a pleasant stroll than anything else. Glowing colors shifted and swirled around him beautifully.

Without noticing, Owen happened to step through a low-lying cloud of blue fog that floated over the ground to his left. When it touched the cloud, his left leg was flooded with a strange sensation, like there were fireworks going off underneath his skin. The pain subsided quickly, but when he tried to take another step it felt as if he were stepping onto nothing. His unsure leg wobbled and collapsed, bringing him to his knees.

Owen glanced over his shoulder at the blue cloud. "Did that just make my leg numb?" he thought. Praying silently that the effect wasn't permanent, he tried to rise to his feet. Again he fell, thwarted by his now useless leg.

He grunted in frustration. How would he walk? He had to get somewhere and get there soon.

"First lesson of Etherea," he thought bitterly. "Never touch the stupid glowing color clouds."

Since he couldn't bare standing (or rather, sitting) idle when he had something important to do, he began to crawl down the hill, trying every now and then to stand and failing.

At last with much hard work, Owen made it to the base of the hill, where the ground levelled out to almost flat. There the narrow path was before him. He attempted to get to his feet another time, but he fell, feeling both extremely clumsy and incredibly irritated.

So he crawled on hands and knees along the path as well. The grass of the hill had left green stains and smudges of mud all over his clothes, and now the path coated him in a layer of its reddish-brown dust. It was so undignifying that Owen had to constantly remind himself why he was doing it.

"I'm doing this for Claire. She would appreciate it. Actually, she'd probably laugh at it."

Owen smiled a little at the thought, and pressed on, determined like an infant set on making it across a floor.

As he crawled along the path where it passed by a swath of trees and bushes, he heard the heavy movements of something big. He froze, trying to make as few movements and sounds as possible.

Only a few yards away, a wild boar emerged from the bushes. Though like most things in Etherea, it was not like one that could be found in the real world. It had no eyes, only a blank, furry face; its tusks looked like daggers; and its size reminded Owen more of an ox than a boar.

Owen had previously come to accept his invalid state, but seeing the blind head of the enormous beast swinging from side to side and its nostrils quivering in the effort to smell out its surroundings awoke a sense of fear and urgency to get up and defend himself should it attack. However, trying to stand would also likely draw more attention to him, so he fought his nerves and remained unmoving.

It didn't help much. The boar suddenly paused in its sniffing with its head turned in Owen's direction, and he knew that it had sensed him. The boar moved closer, slow at first, but it gained speed steadily and was eventually charging toward Owen like lightning, the ground rumbling with its pounding hoofbeats.

Owen frantically pushed himself up. To his surprise, he was regaining the feeling in his leg, but it was still unsteady, and he swayed. There was no way he could run, and there was no way that he could stand his ground firmly enough to fight.

The boar was almost upon him, levelling its dagger tusks with the obvious intent to kill. Owen raised his sword, stumbling slightly with the movement.

Out of nowhere, the shadow of something huge swept over him and the boar. There was a large blur followed by a gust of wind, and in a moment, the boar was being carried, squealing in terror, into the sky by a dragon.

"A dragon!" Owen thought. The creature was more terrifying than he had imagined. Although he could only see it from the back as it retreated into the distance, he could tell by its pointed talons, swiping tail, and bulging muscles that it was not to be messed with. And it was huge! He had thought the boar was big, but the dragon was easily twenty times its size.

"And it saved me instead of attacking!" Owen thought, relieved beyond words. If the creature had been aiming for him instead of the boar, he would have been done for.

Now that standing was possible, Owen sheathed his sword and took a few steps down the path. The going was still slow, but at least he was going.

The countryside stretched out of sight in front of him, the road he travelled splitting through it. He had a long way to go, and he was only glad to be able to walk again.