THE SEVENTH REALM: AMETHYST — You belong too

One afternoon she heard a familiar beat of wings. She looked up: Aurora had just landed a few paces from the clearing, her feathers ruffled from the journey. Her weary expression vanished the moment she saw Skyblue.

For an instant neither moved.

Then they ran toward each other and hugged as best they could, in a tangle of wings, mane, and scales.

“You’re here!”

They said it at the same time. They drew apart to look at each other, then hugged again.

“I thought I’d have to search the whole of the enchanted lands for you,” said Skyblue.

“So did I. Though with that color, you wouldn’t have been hard to find.”

Skyblue looked down at her scales and laughed.

They had so much to tell each other that they began everywhere at once. One asked a question while the other answered an earlier one. They interrupted, apologized, and laughed again. At last they went to sit beneath the orange tree and let their stories find their own order.

Aurora had passed through the realms too. She had feared things that had never even occurred to Skyblue and sailed through situations the dragon had found difficult. Skyblue listened, surprised at how much she didn’t know about her friend.

They talked of the Sangha and Arthyr Aurelio. Of the days when being misfits had seemed the worst thing that could happen to them. Of how they had drifted apart, each carrying questions she didn’t dare share.

“I thought you’d found your place,” Skyblue confessed.

Aurora looked at her in surprise.

“I thought the same about you.”

They fell quiet. Then the winged mare rested a wing against her friend’s shoulder.

Skyblue remembered the little Aurora who had welcomed her on the other side of the mountain: “You belong here, too.” For years she had kept those words without knowing how much they had both needed them.