[@Belle][@LadyRunic]. ((Beending the timing and placement of the portals a little bit.  Hope you don't mind.  Also merry Christmas, if you celebrate.))

When the portal opened near the little summer garden, Maxwell all but tumbled through.  Perhaps the sprite harrying him was not permitted to do him lasting harm, but that made the little shocks and the stabs of her needle-thin sword no less painful.  "Ow!  Lei, quit it!" he cried, trying in vain to fend her off.  "There's people who are hurt, they'll die without help!"

"You'll die, if you don't get your weak mortal behind away from those things!  And you'll get me killed with you!" the tiny fey shrilled back, her wings buzzing.  "Or did you not notice them just KILLING EVERYONE?!"  She stopped her assault as the portal they'd come through closed.  With the possibility of going back safely eliminated, Lei saw no reason to continue her harassment of the distressed med student, at least for the moment.  She landed on his shoulder, grabbing his ear for balance.  The sprite was trembling in fear.  Trouble was fun, sure, and like most sprites she had a certain blindness to danger, but those /things/ were unquestionably awful.

Maxwell looked for the vanished portal, and felt guilty when relief flooded him at it being gone.  For all that his first instinct was to help others, he'd been terrified as well.  Indeed, with the adrenaline now wearing off, he was starting to shake, as the reality of his close call sank in.  Nor did it help that he had no clue where he was.  The last time he'd found himself in entirely unfamiliar surroundings, he'd been informed his career as a pediatrician was over before it had even started.  He wasn't keen on having to adjust to a second dramatically different set of rules.

"Where are we?" he asked Lei, looking around in an attempt to distract himself.

"Summer, most likely.  Not sure quite where.  Don't worry, Max, I'll keep you from getting eaten~"

The young man wasn't sure if her words were reassuring or a cause for further concern.  He ran an unsteady hand through his hair and adjusted his grip on his med kit, but was saved the trouble of dwelling on it by a thin voice singing a tune.  It sounded like a child, and not a very happy one.  Max headed cautiously towards the sound.

What he found was a little girl, preschool age, singing in a small garden.  Her eyes were rimmed in red, though her cheeks were mostly dry.  "Ooh, another mortal," Lei commented in his ear.

"Behave yourself, Lei," he murmured venturing a few steps closer, though not entering the garden.  Then he lifted his voice to address the child.  "That's a very nice song," he said, a genuine smile turning the corners of his mouth upwards despite the pounding of his heart from his recent fright.  "I wondered who was singing such a lovely tune.  Was it you?"