OVERTURE — An unexpected wink

One morning, she woke before dawn, as she did every day. Everything was in its place. And yet something had changed.

Ernesto, the tree she called home, was shining with a new light.

Skyblue went outside, circled his trunk, and flew up to his crown, looking for fresh leaves or new flowers. Nothing explained the radiance. The light was coming from Ernesto himself.

She gazed at him. Ernesto had sheltered her from the cold, shaded her in summer, and held her tired body at the end of so many adventures. He had listened to her cry out her sorrows and sing out her joys. He had laughed and danced with her in his own tree-like way, which was a very particular way, and entirely his own.

Suddenly, she felt an enormous love for her old friend. And she realized she had never thanked him.

She called him “my tree,” “my home,” “my Ernesto,” as though he belonged to her.

“Thank you,” she said, almost in a whisper.

Ernesto shook his branches with that familiar little movement of his. Skyblue smiled. His trunk gave a twitch, and he winked at her.

The dragon froze.

It was one thing for Ernesto to smile. He had always smiled. But to wink—with his trunk?