Every time he’s ever come to the mountain, or even to its base, the journey itself is always a fever dream. It all passes by him like wet paint smeared cross his vision. It’s like ingesting something that alters the world around you, warps it, or clears the fog away, and drops you in some place you were not when it began.

He’s not sure what he was thinking prior, or the walk to the edge of the Mountain’s feet, but a grin finds its way across his raven lips. It is as it always was – a fever dream. The animal’s calls around him are eerie, distorted and wilder sounding and the flora morphs into bigger, more dramatic shapes and varieties. Summer brings brilliant blood-red rose like blooms along a rocky path, the orange glow of the sun light making the edges of their brilliant petals look like their edges are smoldering. Thorny vines come alive as he passes, crawling weakly underfoot, snagging the long feathering on his ankles and the tips of his tail. It is play, or illusion, or both, but either way it does not draw a reaction from him as it is meant to do. He brushes passed, continuing up the rocky slope with a steady step and a mad look in his eye.

His feet find the path fairly easy to navigate, slipping only once or twice and faltering in his navigation only once (and not detrimentally). The top is close enough to taste and the foliage has all but fallen away from the Mountain’s big broad, treacherous faces. Some gnarled old trees, likely fae trees, remain in clusters, but mostly it is sharp barren rock. Soon he’ll reach the peak, or a plateau enough to call out for a faerie, whichever comes first will serve well enough.