Challenge: My Fantasy Vacation

For the last two years, I've been taking part in the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge over at Long and Short Reviews. The first link will take you to the list of topics; the second one goes to the homepage, where you can find a post with everyone's responses each week. Feel free to join in! 

The prompt for today is "my fantasy vacation". So, well, all right...

I open my front door and I'm looking down my sidewalk to the street. The mailbox is relatively new, the lawn is covered in grass and very green after all the rain we've had, and the neighborhood is quiet. I close the door again, because none of that is very interesting.

Then I think about it for a while. All right, I'm not going on my own. So I help Beautiful Wife and the boys get all ready to go: comfy shoes, durable pants and shirts, a bit of equipment and a change of clothes just in case...

We open the front door again. 

The concrete sidewalk is gone, replaced by sparkling flagstones lined by a pair of hedges that close into an arch overhead. The light out here is dim and green, and fireflies flicker as they move back and forth. This definitely wasn't here before, but that's sort of the point, isn't it?

Everybody troops forward, and I lock the door behind us. 

We emerge from the end of the hedge-tunnel into a land of sparkling white, where snow gleams underfoot and our breath turns to smoke in the chilly air. Stately trees bear their decorations of frost, and the moon is barely visible through their branches. A young man in a leather jacket is leaning against a lamppost nearby, smoking a cigarette; I note that what appeared to be furry trousers are on second glance the goat-legs of a faun. 

He looks us over, eyes wide with surprise. "Sons of Adam? Daughter of Eve?" 

"Wrong turn," I say, and start herding the boys back the way we came. 

"Hang on!" calls the faun. "Our rentals are very affordable! And you can catch the lift up to this bitchin' Black Diamond slope if you hurry--!"

It's too late for him; we're back in the tunnel, only this time instead of the leaves and branches of hedges we have thirsty roots wound through rich, dark soil. The short passage back to our door is gone; this one winds and turns and seems to double back on itself. The floor still sparkles, though...

This time when we emerge, the path we were on has turned to gold in the morning light, and rolling green hills stretch away to either side. A pretty young woman in a wide -- and suspiciously clean -- dress of pink and white turns to face us, smiling brightly. 

"Oh, no," I say, when I spy the wand. "Not here, either." 

She looks puzzled. "But haven't you come to...?" 

"Flying monkeys give me hives," I tell her, truthfully. We turn our steps the other way, and this time Secondborn leads us off to the right. He's eleven, and impulsive, but we follow him anyway.  It's another tunnel, low enough that Firstborn and I both have to duck down, but it's neither dark nor dirty; the rounded, wood-paneled walls are clean and set with wide windows that look out from what is clearly a hillside. 

"Here we go," announces Secondborn, and leads us out through a circular wooden door. 

We're tall here, tall as none of us are in our own world, but the people we meet are friendly and only slightly suspicious of how we arrived here and why we might want to get to the Lonely Mountain. They give us directions to Rivendell, and a strong hint that we really ought to ask for advice from the elves there; we set off. 

As we're leaving the Shire, Firstborn turns to me. "So... wait. Are we going to slay a dragon?" 

I shake my head. "Not this time. You're not ready yet. Besides, dragons are an endangered species; we don't hunt them for sport. No, this is just a chance to travel culminating in the opportunity to steal a bit of dwarven treasure back from the dragon's hoard. What do you think?" 

"I don't know." He turns to look at his younger brother. "What do you think, Bro? Best vacation ever?" he asks. "Or just the best vacation ever?" 

Secondborn studies him suspiciously. "Um... yes?" Then he nods decisively. "Good thing I brought my Poké Balls."

Beautiful Wife puts a hand on her vorpal sword and grins at me, and off we go on my fantasy vacation.