ARTHYR AURELIO AND THE MISFITS’ OASIS — A place to belong

When they emerged from the passage, they found a group of young creatures, one or two of every kind. They talked, interrupted one another to laugh, and listened with an attentiveness that Skyblue found almost bewildering.

The dragon stopped a little way off. Suddenly she was conscious of her paws, her wings, everything about her that must look strange. She wanted to retreat before anyone took too close a look.

A young winged mare left the group and came to meet her. She was one of the smallest, with bright, alert eyes and no great hurry to ask questions.

“Come,” she said. “You belong here, too.”

Her name was Aurora, and she lived in a faraway community of winged horses.

Skyblue followed her. At first she said very little. She listened to the others’ stories and began to recognize, in their different voices, things she could have told them herself. They, too, had grown up on the fringes of their villages. They, too, had been told they were strange, that they asked too many questions, that they must learn to behave like everyone else.

Here, they could speak without weighing every word. No one asked them to hide who they were.