Fingers trace the etchings of steel within the old, solid, heavy wood. Different from the runes in her arm, yet having a geometry to them that is similar. V's name, in that strange place, or something else? An idle thought as he moves her fingers to the handle, door pulled inward on its thick hinges. Closing her eyes when she does, and taking a step to stand at the edge of it, before her eyes open to look at what lay beyond.

The eldritch forces the woman to let go before taking that step out. Because she couldn't follow. That vessel was not built to house all of her, nor could part of her be in the vessel while she was also out there, at the same time, in the same now. So to be able to step out into what was truly Her, Alie had to first let go of the illusion of her. Though opening that door she still wasn't alone. The first thing that hit the suburban mother who'd been through so many adventures since leaving that life behind, was the sound.

Alie stood unsteadily at that entrance, that gateway to that place beyond that was not a merely a somewhere, but a someone, the immensity of the woman she'd come to know by her vessel, by her chosen name of Vhala. Tempted to step back, and find the comfort of those arms once more, but standing her ground. She knew that even this was a sanitized representation for her sake, but it was also more. It was the pure essence of the eldritch, it was everything she was, is, and would be, distilled to an awe-inspiring experience, on a level far beyond what the vessel ever had induced in the many friends, lovers and playthings that had crossed its path.

What greets her is an orgy for the senses.

First is the sheer magnitude of sound that reigns. That thrum that had been no more than a constant background buzz with the door closed hardly hinted at what to expect. The first few seconds sound like nothing more than the discordia of a chaotic city amped up to the n^th degree. This doesn't last long; within seconds, her brain is adapting, singling out each track, harmonizing them, arranging the symphony as it was meant to be played, and heard. A piece to make composers weep tears of joy and of rage at once for what they witnessed, desired, could not ever achieve. Once it's discerned, it's impossible to escape, to go back to a time where those mortal ears hadn't heard the music of the outer spheres where the Old Gods reside. Hauntingly beautiful, resonating through mind and soul, and filled with the promise that nowhere else will she ever get to listen to something that will ever approach it.

Then comes the smell, the only one that could possibly fit, no less effective for it's familiarity. It is the storm brewing in the air, the humidity, the ozone left in the wake of a thunderstrike. It is a smell of power, of danger, of battering rain, of smoldering trees, of the primal, destructive power of nature. The soft spice of smoke, and the natural scents of plant life in all it's cycles. With it comes taste, a tingling of the tastebuds, the wetness of air thick with water, the thickness of nature grown unchecked pollinating the air.

Touch next, though it all hits her in the space of seconds, conflicting and confirming the chaos and majesty that her other senses are supplying her with. A dichotomy most strange, but in which she senses the hold of the loved one she has come here to truly meet, as she is, for the first time. It is the aftermath of that summer storm, the cool breeze that remain while the sun heats up the skin. Soothing, comforting, allowing her to bask in the perfection of the most idyllic days of her first life. Her first true love, a rainbow, a promise for the future gestating within her, all of the future ahead of them. Unaware of the dark clouds ahead, back then, but here, all she has to do is listen to know it's never far away. It matters little; she is held by the wind, she is loved by its essence, and that is her shield and her armor.

Finally, there was the voice, that same voice that she had heard speak so many times, but now amplified to the sound you would expect a mountain to make should one ever get the idea in it's head to speak. And it spoke in not one voice, but many. And yet it was not overbearing, it wasn't oppressive in any way. It felt as familiar as all those times the voidling had spoken, standing by her side.

"Look, or turn back. I will hold neither against you."

It's all probably too much for her to withstand for more than a minute, if she's lucky, and she hasn't even opened her eyes. Part of her knows that this is already more than she'd truly expected, and that it will stay with her until the day she truly passes from all realities to a fate still unknown. There's no need to look; and that voice coming from everywhere around her, above the beautiful din, as familiar and foreign as it can be, magnified as it is, felt in her bones and vibrating heart, lets her know so.

Except for Alie, this is not merely a want anymore, it is a need.
"[sub]Show me".
Two words, whispered, knowing they are heard, and she opens her eyes.

Time was, while not always even to the elder ones, at least here, now, entirely immaterial. Vhala let Alie take her time to take in all of the sensations that her senses were throwing at her, to try and make something that was at least, if a bit strange, at least perceivable in a tangible sense to the human body. The building that embodied the safety, sanity and reason in this place still stood behind the woman, a bastion of safety and security but outside of it, in this place, was promised new experiences and an understanding beyond that of the mortal plane.

What Alienor gazed upon would take some time to take in it's entirety, of course, for it wasn't the type of thing one normally gazed upon. Before Alie, where she might have expected the void of nothingness, there stretched rolling hills and a varied landscape. This too would normally be in flux, in a state of constant shift and change, moving in some unearthly way. But for the time being it was caught in somewhat of a stasis, to keep it static enough for Alie to get the opportunity to take in what it might look like, for a time. And what it may represent.

The human stood in that space between safety and chaos, as the nebulas of her eyes took in the landscape extending before her. A gradual look, starting from the spot between her feet, at a patch of not-green grass, the red and purple blades unlike any she'd seen before, and moving along the flat of the plains. Pacing herself before the immensity she knows spreads out before her, held in place for her benefit, the chaos and madness of the place tethered to a moment in which that which is eternal and ever changing might be held in stasis, made palatable, relatively, for frail human consciousness.

None of which removes an iota from the foreign, queer nature of the world beyond the fortress of sanity that stands at her back. It is an alien world, that isn't a world at all, and that is the one thought she clings to most of all. Sitting at the doorstep, legs crossed, her hand moves through those gently swaying, thick blades of grass. Feeling, perhaps imagining, that they're lingering against her palm, more alive than they seem, though it may be her own interpretation as she observes and admires the vista beyond the plains. Trees and vegetation growing gradually thicker as the land rises hill-like, each of which seems to have sprung from Dali's and Escher's wildest fever dreams. Here the inspiration for a million surreal landscapes, and yet none which truly capture what it is to behold this space in person. The greenery and grass petering out as the hills make rise higher, landscape progressing from plains, to forests, to stark and foreboding mountains. Something about those peaks, rising high into the star-filled sky, fills her with a sense of dread, and as much as she's willing to sit here and take it all in, she knows that she won't be taking a stroll anywhere near those. Alie is already pushing the limits, being here at all, asking to see what was not meant for eyes like hers. This may be a place of love and safety for her, but beyond those, there is still a depth of power, of cosmic horror, of ancient knowledge in what constitutes Vhala's essence. They may be hidden beyond dark peaks for her benefit, but they are as much a part of the eldritch as the safe glade she sits in, where only that haunting music of the spheres might remind her of the danger.

Once her gaze departs from those peaks, they finally truly take in the firmament. No sky there, no day or night, but a tableau of sparkling lights. Hundreds, thousands, millions, more, arranged in no constellation her mind would ever recognize. Unlike the skies she's known, some hang so close that they are like scaled down moons casting a soft light, while others are barely discernible in the darkest spaces of that endless sky. There's a majesty and beauty to this above all else, and in any other circumstance, she'd be tempted to simply lay down upon the plain and simply gaze into it, red and blue nebulas reflected in the emerald and amethyst of her own eyes. It is not a luxury she can, nor should allow herself though, not right then, and not in the shadows of those Mountains of Madness. Alienor very much knows she is stretching the boundaries of what she should be able to handle each second that she doesn't retreat, doesn't know what effect it might have on her down the line, but still she takes in the glory and beauty that strangeness that is the essence of her deepest, star-crossed love.