It had been a normal day.  Clouds were low on the horizon, and the winds were changing, but that never stopped Gwyntaan from having a good day of fishing.  They'd been out of sight of land for a few days now, so he was a<em>little</em>tired of the menu, but it wasn't like there was much to do about it.  Ever since Tin had left the ship, supplies tended to be bought more carelessly than before - so, hunting it was.  He ate on the wing, since fish weren't the sort of thing that he could eat over the course of a few days without distress.  Freshly killed was the only way to do it.  When his belly was full, he caught a thermal back up to the cloud-level, where the airship he called his 'den' should have been waiting.<br/><br/>It wasn't there.<br/><br/>With some alarm, Gwyntaan dropped below the clouds again, scanning the sea for some wreckage.  There was a grey streak of land at the horizon - a tempting alternative - but Captain had taken good care of him for the last several years.  Even a wild creature like himself remembered the smell of kindness.<br/><br/><em>Oh wait - that was the smell of the boiler.</em><br/><br/>He raised his head and let his hunting senses take the lead.  The faintest whiff of hot carbon reached him and he set off, following it to where the clouds grew thick and - greenish?  That wasn't right.  The winds picked up, scattering the tenuous smoke, but dragons also hunted by sight, and now he could just make out the familiar silhouette against a thin strip of vibrant green light, bright enough for him to close the thin membrane that would have prevented him from getting snow-blindness in his birth-lands.  Rain and even hail buffetted him as he flew closer, slowly gaining on the airship.  It was on a fixed heading for the strip of light.  Gwyntaan was about a hundred wing-lengths behind it when suddenly, like passing through a door, the airship vanished.<br/><br/>A door in the sky?  Only there wasn't anything 'closing' the door - it was still the same bright strip, surrounded by clouds that were roiling with lightning.  It wasn't a place to stay.  There was that streak of land he'd spotted earlier...<br/><br/>He spiraled around the strip of light, indecisive.  Odd - the back side looked the same as the front side.  Most doors led somewhere, and even if you went off the side of the ship and around to the other side of the door that way, you saw the place that you'd come from.  He flew a little closer, and the smell of the thunderstorm seemed stronger near the light.  It would be a narrow fit - how had the airship gotten through?<br/><br/>A gust of wind cemented his decision.  As it was, the very tips of his wings brushed the edges of the 'door', and he could smell the acrid tang of singed feathers as he plunged into the world beyond.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The trip through the portal was unlike anything Gwyntaan had experienced.  Up and down were meaningless, and even the subtle magnetism of the Earth was just - gone.  He hadn't stopped at the panel - wouldn't have known what to do with it if he had.  The only thing that guided him out of that place between worlds was the fact that he could just make out the<em>Sunset</em>ahead.  If not for that, he could have easily gotten lost.<br/><br/>He emerged from the portal nearly a full minute after the<em>Sunset</em>.  He was no longer over the sea, and everything looked<em>wrong</em>.  Wrong directions, wrong colors, wrong terrain.  It even<em>smelled</em>wrong.  The one familiar sight and scent was the<em>Sunset</em>, and he homed in on it with a mix of relief and irritation, 'announcing' his return by deliberately landing with a little less grace than usual.  Captain would think twice before trying<em>that</em>trick on him again.