Chapter 85: One-Eyed Joan

The spirit of Yggdrasil once again appeared before Joan, like a drifting lantern guiding him on the path homeward.

Joan followed the spirit through the darkness, not knowing how far he had gone before the path finally came to an end. Before him appeared a faintly glowing hollow in a tree.

Without hesitation, Joan crawled into the tree hollow. Surrounded by a vortex of magic, he was transported away. His vision blurred, his body felt light and floating, plummeting downwards, and when he regained his senses, he found himself back in the ash grove of Powhatan Village, beneath the shade of Yggdrasil. The fiery sunset filtered through the leaves, bathing him in a warm, comforting glow.

“Joan!” Conti came running over, tears in her eyes. She threw her arms around him, holding him tightly as if afraid he might vanish like a bubble. “Thank the Mother of Nature! You’re finally back!”

A surge of warmth filled Joan’s heart—so this is what it feels like to be missed by someone…

Conti looked Joan up and down, then suddenly her eyes widened and her voice trembled. “Your right eye…”

Joan touched his right eye, now blind, and calmly told her, “Now I only have two eyes left.”

Conti found no humor in the joke, and asked through her tears, “Was it that wicked fairy who hurt your right eye?”

Joan, at a loss for a better explanation, simply let the blame fall on the soul-thieving sprite—after all, it could never come back to dispute it.

“Yes, but in the end, I killed it. Losing my eye was a sacrifice worth making.” Joan was still unaccustomed to lying, stumbling over his words, his pale cheeks tinged with red.

Matoka and Victor approached, the couple examining Joan closely. Seeing the blood-caked wound on his face, they both showed expressions of pity and compassion.

“Poor child. It’s all my fault. If we hadn’t brought you to Powhatan Village, you wouldn’t have… you wouldn’t have suffered so much.” Matoka embraced Joan, sobbing uncontrollably.

Joan was both touched and ashamed. He could not bear to continue lying to Conti’s family, who cared so deeply for him, so he merely reassured them gently, “I’m really alright. It doesn’t hurt anymore…”

Victor patted his wife’s shoulder, calming her, and softly asked Joan what had happened after he fell into the tree hollow.

“After I entered the hollow, I was transported to a strange place, where I fought the soul-thieving sprite. After killing that wicked creature, I tried to find my way back…” Joan could not go on with his tale, so he changed the subject. “Conti, what time is it now? How long have I been gone?”

“It’s almost dusk now. From the moment you entered the hollow until you returned… it’s been about three hours.”

“Only three hours? But I clearly remember… I stayed on the other side of the hollow for several days.” Joan shook his head in disbelief. By his memory, he had hung from Yggdrasil’s roots for nine days and nights alone; how could only three hours have passed?

“I can answer that,” Victor said, gently ruffling Joan’s hair. “The place you went to just now is called the ‘Feywild.’ Time there does not flow in perfect sync with the world we live in.”

The Feywild is a plane that runs parallel and intimately close to the material plane, occupying the same spatial dimensions yet entirely independent, like the two sides of a painting. Its landscapes are reflections of the material world, but their features are magnified to extremes. A towering volcano in the material world might appear in the Feywild as a colossal crystal peak, its interior aglow with pillar-like flames. A wide, muddy river could be mirrored as a breathtakingly beautiful, clear, winding stream. A wetland might become a vast, menacing black mire. When travelers enter the Feywild from the ruins of the material world, they might find themselves before the gate of an ancient fae castle.

It is said the Feywild is divided between two courts, each ruled by a queen, with most fey owing allegiance to one or the other. Queen Titania and her Summer Court lead the “Joyful Fey,” while the Queen of Air and Darkness rules the “Gloaming Court” and governs the “Sorrowful Fey.” The Joyful and Sorrowful Courts are not synonymous with good and evil, though many make that assumption. There are many kind-hearted Joyful Fey and many wicked Sorrowful Fey; their conflict springs from the jealousy between their queens, not from any moral stance. The ugly denizens of the Feywild, such as the hags, almost never belong to any court. Sometimes the two great courts wage war, but they also compete in less violent ways, and on occasion even form subtle alliances.

Joan had entered the Feywild through Yggdrasil’s hollow; there are other such portals hidden deep within the forests of Alfheim, though they are all well concealed and hard to find. These gateways to the Feywild are collectively known as “Fey Crossings”—mystical nodes that connect the Feywild and the material plane. Sometimes, travelers wandering into a forest glade, stepping into a pond, entering a mushroom ring, or walking into a tree trunk, pass through a Fey Crossing. To the traveler, it is a single step into the Feywild; to outside observers, the traveler vanishes in an instant.

As for why Joan experienced more time in the Feywild than had passed in the real world, Victor offered a scholarly explanation.

“When a traveler unwittingly enters the Feywild, he feels time pass normally, day after day. Yet when he leaves and returns to his own world, he finds that more or less time has elapsed here. In our world of Valles, time flows faster than in the Feywild, so you wandered for days there, but only three short hours passed here in the village.”

Note: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Feywild Setting

Memory Loss: Anyone leaving the Feywild must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC 10). Failure means losing all memories of their time in the Feywild; success means retaining hazy recollections. Any spell that removes curses can restore lost memories. Fey creatures automatically succeed on this save.

Time Warp: Time passes normally in the Feywild, and characters are aware of days going by. However, upon leaving, they may find that more or less time has elapsed elsewhere in the multiverse. The material plane usually flows faster than the Feywild. The Wish spell can negate these time effects.