The Courtyard
The portal shimmers like rain water sweeping along your flesh and you step into a fragrant courtyard filled with softly surrsurring willows and languid will o wisps. It is always night here, the dome above filled with alien stars, and chimes always sing the pleasure of the wind.
A wrought gate of some golden substance glows with an interior light (you peer close and find it is inhabited by luminous insects tasked an incomprehensible function). You step through as it opens for you, trailing motes of buzzing light.
The portal sings.