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I never really appreciated just how difficult it is to teach an apprentice. I knew it would be tough the second I said yes to Granuaile, because becoming a druid takes practice, patience, and most of all, time. Twelve whole years of it.

Seven years in, and I've long since understood what difficult truly means. Sometimes Granuaile gets frustrated (who can blame her? I wasn't much better during my own apprenticeship), and sometimes I channel my old archdruid more than I care to admit. He was a shit excuse for a human being, but a brilliant druid and teacher. I'm being a bit of the former today, I will admit, and coupled with Granuaile's frustration over our current project, the day hasn't been going well. At all.

When Granuaile slams a door in my face for the third time today, I decide we should probably take a break. I hear the Geekmobile start up and drive off, and I sigh. She'll be going into town to blow off steam, and I've long since stopped tailing her, content to let us both cool off and come back when we can handle it.

I'm about to reach out to Oberon as I go down the hall and open my bedroom door, but as I step through, everything changes.

Again.

"So this wasn't a weird fever dream," I say out loud. I scrunch my bare feet in the carpet and take off down the hall that opens out into a lobby that looks very familiar. I head over to the main doors and peer outside. Yep, the view is exactly as I remembered it, and I'm glad I haven't eaten since dawn.

I turn back to face the lobby and take a good look at the people around, and wonder who I'll meet this time. Thor again? Al Capone? Ooh, Captain Mal? Fingers crossed it's someone interesting.

Maybe I'll have some more time to study the magical patterns here and figure out how they work - and how I can work with them.

I can find the door home in a little while.

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Eric had learned to be subtle over the years when dealing with humans and living in a human world and so the question that was burning at the front of his mind was one that he pushed down for the time being. There was no better way to scare off a potential food source than to ask why it smelled so damn good.

"This place can be...confusing. It's not the best word for what this place can be but it seems to be the one I can most easily access right now. Do you agree?"

Do I agree? Hell yes. But it also happens that confused is a word I don't like, especially when applied to me, because it's generally followed by surprised and dead if one's not careful. (And I am careful. It's not paranoia if the gods really are out to get you, you know?)

I nod and take another look around the swanky hotel. "Yeah, confusing is definitely up there."

I don't need to activate my Faerie Specs charm to see that Leif's brother from another mother is a vampire. The pasty skin alone would give it away - it's very dead chic. I have a vampire unbinding spell ready to go if things go wrong, but for now...we can talk.

"I've only been here once before, and didn't have much time to explore. Still feeling my way around, I guess."

"I have made it more or less my permanent residence. Things at home are not actually in my political favor." Eric preferred being alive over meeting the true death and there was nothing in Bon Temps or even the rest of American right now that was conducive to his staying alive agenda. It was much easier to simply hide in the hotel until things calmed down and were back to normal.

"It isn't so bad, once you get over the strangeness of it all."

I hate vampire politics. They somehow always find it more in their interest to make other people (see: me) do their dirty work for them. And are they sorry when they get caught out? No. No, they're not.

"If by strange you mean the fact that we're on an island floating in the middle of space, there's no getting over that."

I felt more comfortable when I shift planes. At least then I know where I'm going and what to expect. This? This is some next level weirdness that my brain isn't ready to handle yet.

"Of all the strange things I have encountered in life, I have never floated on an island in the middle of space. Unless it was Fae-country, of course, and they are not fond of us."

Eric still did not know what this man was, exactly, other than not human but he didn't seem to be Fae based on his own (admittedly limited) experience. The hotel did seem at times to be Faerie, given the time anomalies, but Eric had no other evidence to indicate it was.