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Edam found herself at Edam again, and she could nearly feel her blood pressure lower with her first deep breath. The air was so clear, the sky was so blue - in spite of all the contention with Mason over how much time or what level priority she devoted to magic or monster-fighting, she really did love it here. It was rare that she felt at peace: there was always something happening in her mind, some livewire of anxiety or distraction or work or something, but here? Here, she felt at peace.

She had landed in nearly the same place she had the first time she’d come - a little to the side of the mouth of the cave. As far as she could tell, the cave was her Wonder, and she had meant it when she’d decided that if her Wonder was a cave it would be the best cave around, so she hadn’t come unprepared.

Clasped in her hand was the handle of the small wagon the twins shared, and it was piled high with a variety of cleaning materials. She had done her research on cave restoration and had packed accordingly - all gentle materials, soft brushes, a broom and dustpan, gloves and masks and eye protection. She had briefly considered bringing a vacuum, but further reading had indicated that most caves were extremely fragile ecosystems and that they had to be handled with care.

She wasn’t sure if non-Earth caves followed the same rules, but it was better to be safe than sorry, and she didn’t want to ruin her Wonder before she’d even gotten to know it. So she left the wagon near the mouth of the cave and unloaded a tote bag full of rags, then tucked a spraybottle of distilled water and soft brush into it. Then she pulled on rubber gloves - awkward over her armlets, but she liked the armlets too much to take them off - and a high-grade facemask, and a pair of goggles over her eyes. She also tucked a high powered flashlight under her arm, one much stronger than the feeble light offered from her phone.
Feeling like she was about to do battle against an industrial pile of mold, Edam entered the cave.

She lost the eye protection first - trying to see where she was going through them was far too difficult, and she couldn’t push them into her hair because of the horn clippies, so she had to turn back around to deposit the goggles back in the wagon. But then! She went in, and she meant it this time.

The cave was much the way it had been the previous time she’d been here: old, quiet, rocky, and sloping downward. She paid extra special attention as she went for any major changes - any openings or doorways that hadn’t been there last time - but she saw nothing unusual. At least, no more unusual than a cave on another planet already was, anyway.

After a few minutes of walking, Edam frowned faintly - it seemed like she should have come to the place that the cave dead-ended by now, but there didn’t appear to be any dead end in sight. She’d been planning on working her way outwards, with the cleaning, so she wouldn’t have to undo any progress she made by walking all over it, but…it did not appear that there was a wall at which to stop at, anymore.

Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe Edam was more like Castle Blarney than she’d originally thought.

In addition to not stopping when it was supposed to, the path also very much kept sloping downwards. Edam was glad for the flashlight, since all light from the mouth of the cave had long-since faded away. Now, it was just her, the various cleaning materials she clutched like they were a lifeline back to the surface, her flashlight, and–

Edam stopped abruptly. She turned the flashlight off, and had to blink two or three times to make sure she wasn’t imagining it, but–no. She’d thought the ceiling of the cave was just reflecting the flashlight’s beam, but now with the light off, she could see: hundreds and hundreds of teeny tiny bioluminescent crystals, like home-grown lamps to cast dim, purplish light on the rest of the cave. This was also the point that she realized the ceiling of the cave had been getting further and further away from the top of her head for–well, she didn’t know how long, but it was far too high to reach now, even standing on her tiptoes.

That was probably for the best, she realized; even wearing gloves, any contact with the strange native stones above might ruin them, or break them, or–activate something terrible, or something. For a long time, Edam just looked at the crystals jutting out of the cave ceiling, watching with fascination as the level of light emitted seemed to pulse faintly, brighter, dimmer, brighter, dimmer, almost–
Almost exactly in time with Edam’s breathing.

“Woah,” Edam said, and as she did, the crystals directly above her glowed much brighter, like they were responding to her voice. Edam covered her mouth in surprise, eyes as big as dinner plates as she watched the light return to its normal level as silence returned.Were the crystals alive? Well, technically, all crystals were alive, sort of, but–

Edam shook her head. As remarkable as the crystals were - and they were - they did not represent the end of the path. Rather, they illuminated the way forward, and Edam followed it, flashlight off and tucked into her belt at her side. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light now, and every step she took made just enough noise to keep her path lit as she went.

The path had also widened considerably, and where there had been simple walls, there now appeared to be stalagmites and stalactites, some taller than Edam was. That meant two things: water happened here, and that water carried similar minerals as Earth, or at least minerals that resulted in similar formations. Edam sort of figured that much, since the air was breathable by her human lungs, but - still. It was nice to see something somewhat familiar in a strange, strange world.

(Had Edam learned as much about caves in her entire life as she had in the past few weeks? No, no, she had not, but if Mason was going to check out every book on medieval castles from the library, then she could become enough of a geology expert to know how stalagmites and stalactites formed.)

(And also: stalagmites, with a g, came from the ground. Stalactites, with a t, came from the top.)

It also told her that this cave had been around for a long, long, long time. So many hundreds of thousands of years to build these funky mineral towers. At least, Edam was pretty sure it would take that long, for some of these, but she’d have to double-check–

Abruptly, the path she’d been following opened up. She almost hadn’t noticed, except for that all the crystals - hundreds of them - were suddenly all lit up, and also, they were probably a hundred feet, five hundred feet, a thousand feet, up in the air now. And also, they were multicolored, twinkling and pulsing up there like–like–Edam didn’t even know. The purple gave way to deep blue, then cyan, then white and pink and even yellow, reflecting the sunlight–

Wait, what? Sunlight?

Edam blinked. Rubbed her eyes. Turned the flashlight back on. She cast it around the room and couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her: the room, because that’s what it was, the cavern, was ginormous, hugely sweeping above and across, so big that her flashlight didn’t even reach the other end of it. The stalagmites and stalactites that Edam had just been marveling over now looked like–like–nothing more than trail markers in comparison. The colors of the stalagmites and stalactites were astounding too - what minerals had made those things? Edam could only gape, her brain feeling like it wasn’t operating at a high enough level to fully process what she was saying.

However big this cave was, Edam was sure that it put every other cave on planet Earth to absolute shame.

Edam dragged her eyes back to what had caught her attention in the first place: was that sunlight? Edam forced herself to move, feeling sluggish and stupid and very, very small, as she went. There was a faint dripping noise, and more water-y sounds off in the distance, but she decided that could wait. Was that sunlight? How was there sunlight? In a cave that had been on a downward slope for–Edam glanced at her watch and raised her eyebrows at the number displayed there: hours, somehow? No wonder her legs were so tired, but–
But she had to see what was at the end of this path. She had to find out if that was real, actual, honest-to-goodness sunlight at the bottom of this cave. Magic was one thing, but that–that was just–it was too much, Edam decided.

It just wasn’t possible.

Her feet marched her slowly in that direction, bumping into every stone and rocky outcropping on the way. It took a long time, but Edam didn’t even notice, because there was so much to look at, to try and process and understand. There were small puddles as she went, and Edam did try to avoid those, but mostly she didn’t even notice, except for the noise, and even then, she only noticed because every time there was any kind of noise, the crystals so far way up there flared up, faintly, but just enough for Edam to notice.
Edam blinked in surprise when her feet - did not hit rock. They hit - soft. Soft? Edam blinked and looked down. She had stepped on a pile of…

Was that moss?

Edam squatted down and brushed her fingers over the material, letting out a soft breath of amazement. She knew, faintly, that it might be safer not to touch them with her bare hand, but she couldn’t help it - she had to know what it felt like. And it felt - absurd. It felt ridiculous, but it was somehow one of the softest things she had ever touched in her entire life. She wanted to pull a few–strands? Handfuls? Snippets? Samples--to examine them back home, but she just couldn’t bring herself to kill something so–so–

So impossible.

Edam stood back up and glanced up ahead - the path had reappeared, but instead of continuing its path downwards, as it had been the entire way into the cavern, it looked like it went…up.

It also looked like it was at least partially covered in grass. Or moss. Or–something. Vegetation, at any rate. And at the end of that path, beyond a gentle curve, there was light that looked to Edam a lot like sunlight.

Edam kept walking, moving slower as she crossed the soft patches, because between the strange lighting, her damp boots, and the vegetation, Edam was distinctly aware that the potential for falling down and, at best, getting incredibly dirty or, at worst, breaking a bone, was drastically increased. The incline of the path wasn’t that steep, but Edam still found herself breathless and wishing for a handrail or a walking stick before she was even halfway up, not even to the curve in the path yet.

This made her dread the walk back up to the mouth of the cave. How could she have forgotten the number one rule of hiking: go half as far as you think you can, because then you’ll have to walk back.

Edam paused. Sat down on a nearby stone that was remarkably flat, perfect for sitting, resting, when winded. Like the cave had known this was exactly where she would need a break.

“Thank you,” Edam whispered to the cave, the words coming out breathless in spite of herself. She looked back the way she’d come - how was the cavern even more beautiful from this angle? It just - kept breaking her brain, how perfect this place was.

And it was hers. Or it was…her. She wasn’t quite sure which. Maybe both? Edam just tried to focus on her breathing. She closed her eyes and just let herself listen to the noises of the cave, because - there were noises. There shouldn’t have been noises, Edam thought; there weren’t noises at Blarney.
But it wasn’t animal noises, she realized after a moment or two. It was the soft trickle of water, from…somewhere far away, and the soft woosh of breeze through trees.

Trees?

Edam frowned slightly, her curiosity outweighing her exhaustion. They were in the bottom of a cave, for pete’s sake. Even if that cave did have moss, somehow, there was no way it could have sunlight, or trees. These things were just - not how anything worked, on any planet. To be a cave, it had to be underground. Edam followed the path upwards, around the curve, and…
Stopped.

Stopped at the mouth of the path, which again opened into an impossibility: a forest.

There was a forest at the bottom of her cave.

Was she dreaming? Was she asleep? Edam did, in fact, actually pinch herself, just to make sure she was awake - and the forest did not disappear in a haze of sleepy confusion. It still stood before her, greener than any green she had ever seen before ever in her life. It seemed to go on forever, but - no, there were walls, she realized belatedly. Cliff walls. Cave walls.

Above, far above her, was the open sky. At the top of the cliff walls was the forest - jungle? - that Edam recognized as surrounding the cavemouth. The trees in front of her, the forest at the bottom of her cave, were almost tall enough to reach up and join the rest of the jungle far up above.

It was the most beautiful, unbelievable thing she had ever seen. Edam cautiously took a step or two forward, leaves slicking underneath her boots as she walked. There were little twigs everywhere, bigger sticks. The breeze she had heard earlier - she felt it now, playing with her hair and cooling the sweat that was coating every inch of her body. She could see it, ruffling the treetops around her.

It was impossible. This whole thing, this whole place, this whole - magic was nothing short of impossible.

And Edam got to see it. She got to - do it.

Somehow Edam found herself crying, tears mixing with sweat as she walked and walked and walked.

What was she walking to? Toward? Edam had no idea. But she knew she was going - somewhere, meandering through this impossible jungle, with trees much skinnier than trees ought to be, but somehow they still felt so ancient she didn’t even want to touch their trunks. She followed the pull, unwilling to fight it if she even could. It was still strange, without any animal noises, but…

But this place was alive. Alive. It was alive in a way that Blarney wasn’t. She even thought maybe it was alive in a way that the Joyeuse Garde wasn’t, and that place was fully revived. This place was alive, and wild.

Edam realized a moment later what she was being pulled to: one tree in particular was much larger than all the others, wider and taller than the others, and in the very center of the self-contained jungle. She didn’t know how she knew it was in the middle, but - she did. This was…

This was It.

The roots were thick and strong, digging into the ground around the base of the tree, immovable. Deep. Edam took a deep breath, cast her eyes up, up, up the trunk. It seemed like it went on forever, up into the clear blue sky so tall that the top of it might not exist at all.

Edam pressed her hand against the trunk. It was solid, real, and she let it rest there for a heartbeat, two, three. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for, if she was waiting for anything or if she was just communing with nature, or Nature, or communing with her Wonder, or what, but she was sure she was doing - something–

When it happened, Edam couldn’t help the yelp that escaped her when her hand went through the tree trunk. She stumbled back, tripped on the roots, and landed on her butt, staring up at the semi-transparent, glowing tree trunk. Oh god, the tree trunk was glowing.

Edam scrambled to her feet and readied her slingshot, though she didn’t have any ammo, nor did she actually get any bad vibes from the semi-transparent glowing tree trunk. So far it was just - just that, just standing there, being a tree, semi-transparent and glowing. Cautiously, Edam lowered her slingshot. Nothing happened. Edam took a step or two forward. Nothing happened.

Slowly, Edam reached her hand out into the tree, as she had inadvertently done before. It phased through the trunk and continued in up to a few inches past her wrist. Her fingers collided with something - something. Not quite hard, but it had a physicality to it somehow. Was it - a ball of sap? No, it had defined edges, something harder than sap. Her fingers closed around it, and when still nothing happened - she wasn’t smote or anything - she slowly withdrew it.

In her hand was…

“What are you?” Edam asked aloud, and fortunately the thing did not answer. It was swirly and opaque and a little bit blueish around the edges. It seemed to be - why did it feel like this glowing orbish thing of nothingness was waiting for something?

Edam cupped the thing in both hands, and then -

Something happened. Into her free hand plunked–

“My ring!” Edam said, delighted in spite of herself at the hunk of shiny silver in her hand. Emblazoned on the centerpiece was the same bow-and-arrow logo that decorated her outfit–

Edam yelped again as she took in the outfit she now wore - it was not the uniform she’d been wearing when she entered the cave, or when she’d left the cave to enter the jungle. It was not the outfit she’d been wearing even five minutes ago.

And also, her slingshot was no longer hooked into her belt. Instead of the patterned belt she’d been wearing a moment before; it was made of the same fabric as the rest of her dress, which was - there was more of it now. Differently patterned, and there was a blue thing now crossing over her chest, and there were more furs at her hips–and feathers, dangling from her horn-clips, which she could tell were heavier, more - real, somehow - and her slingshot, which she’d just gotten used to, was replaced by…

Edam slid the ring on her finger, the middle finger of her right hand. It fit perfectly, melding to the shape of her hand like it was made for it. Which…maybe it was. Edam glanced at the strange glowing orb-thingy in her other hand, and it remained silent and strange and magical, then pulled out what, she guessed, was her new weapon. Blarney’s stick had just gotten stick-ier, but her slingshot had become…

It was a piece of fabric, with two strings attached. She pulled it out from her belt, turning it over to try and determine what exactly she was supposed to do with this thing, but–it clearly needed both hands, so she tucked it back into her belt for the moment and returned her attention to the glowy orb thingy.

“Thank you,” Edam said, voice soft. “Thank you for–for the ring and–the weapon and–and all of this. Thank you for all of this.”

The orb, true to glowy orb thingy form, said nothing. Edam slowly returned the glowy orb thingy to the place she’d gotten it from - the very heart of the very tallest tree in the whole crazy cave-jungle. Once she withdrew her hand, the tree became as solid as it had ever been, like it had never been transparent or glowing or anything but a tree.

The ring felt cool and perfect on her finger, like it had always been there. Was this what it felt like for Mason? Was that why he never took it off, even when he was powered down? She could only assume so. Edam glanced around the jungle once more, thought of the trek she’d have to make back to the mouth of the cave, and shook her head.

She’d worked so hard to get here, she deserved to enjoy it, for at least a little while.

So she found - made - a pile of leaves, lush and soft, and laid down on them. She fell asleep before she’d even closed her eyes, a smile on her face.