I regretted it almost the second my narrow sailing boat undocked from the wooden quay. The grand stone castle of Elderwyn faded into the distance as my ship sailed downstream back towards the ocean from which I had left six days prior. Every part of my body was urging me to turn around, to go back to the castle and fix my mistake. But I didn’t. That would have been too easy after all. Cobbled streets through which I had been meandering only a few hours ago lay in an orderly expanse behind me, the faint glow of the city still guiding my path forward. Elderwyn, despite being the capital city of Aeloria, was not a place I had ever visited before today, and it wouldn’t be somewhere I would ever visit again by choice, not after this. My cramped sailboat continued down the river Tirith, the harsh and cold northerly winds pushing me forward and back towards my father and our crew. At least I would be able to face him again now, without the constant arguments, the scrutiny that had followed my life for the past few months.

The forests that lay to my left hours later were dark and foreboding despite seeming so welcoming in the warmth of the afternoon sun that it had been bathed in a few hours prior. Now even the glow of the full moon couldn’t reach the woodland floor. I had visited the humble thicket village a few times as a child, then again as a teen once or twice. Some of the centaurs had become personal friends of mine as my father continued his trading at their small harbour. I continued sailing past their woodland town of Aldrath, my slightly shaky hands not allowing me even a second to think about changing my mind and turning back. I would greet my friends another time, I would have to for my own sanity. The narrow rickety craft swayed under my feet, only making me more uneasy and agitated. I had never gotten sea sickness before although it seemed like a real possibility now, it would be so much easier to just turn around and go back to land, but my decision was final now, in a way it had been since this started. But That didn’t make doing it any easier. Quite the contrary in practice.

The cracked skin that covered my fingers gripped the clammy wheel, manoeuvring the small vessel past the other boats on the waterway that seemed uncharacteristically hectic for this time of night. Wood splintered and jabbed into my palms as I continued to grip the steering equipment harder, drawing a meager amount of bloody dots that I could barely feel. I twisted the helm slightly, twisting my cramped ship down the curves in the river. I would be passing Aldrath by dawn in two days, then it would only be another four days or so before I was welcomed back onboard by my father.

The full moon cast a glow over the water, illuminating the fading silhouette of Elderwyn as I continued sailing south. It was a beautiful city, towered over by the stonework castle in the foothills of the Dreadspire mountain range that lay to the north of the city. Under different circumstances I would have enjoyed exploring the region. But that was under different circumstances.

A door is always harder to close once you know something magical is waiting for you on the other side.