THE FIFTH REALM: TURQUOISE — Ernesto's voice

One night, before bed, Helio asked her to get plenty of rest.

“Tomorrow we’ll go a little deeper.”

“Deeper?” Skyblue asked, though this time her question came with a smile.

Before going into the shelter, she leaned back against the cherry tree’s trunk.

“Just when I think I understand one realm, I reach the next, and it feels as though I have to start all over again.”

She watched the words come out. There was no complaint or anger in them; they were simply what she felt. She could listen to them without having to answer herself at once.

“You can hear that conversation without joining in,” the cherry tree replied. “There is an observer within you too.”

Skyblue stayed there for a while, feeling the bark against her back. She thought of Ernesto. She had sensed him throughout her journey, but there was a question she had avoided asking. She was afraid of the answer, and at the same time she was afraid she had left him too lonely.

“How is he?” she asked at last.

The cherry tree didn’t need her to say his name.

“Would you like to hear him?”

Skyblue straightened up.

She had imagined his voice countless times. She had supplied answers for him when he stirred his branches, and she had heard him in her dreams. But now…

The laughter came first.

She recognized it before she had time to think. It filled her chest with such a familiar joy that, for a moment, she felt herself resting beneath the mango tree back in her village.

Then she heard a deep, warm voice, like a cello.

“Hello.”

Skyblue opened her mouth. She had so much to say that she couldn’t find a single word.

“I’m happy to see you,” Ernesto went on. “I’ve seen these places through your eyes. I’ve lived your adventures with you.”

“Haven’t you been lonely?”

There was a brief pause, filled with the movement of leaves.

“At first, I felt your absence very keenly. Then I began to discover how many ways there were for us to be close. You’ve never stopped talking to me, Skyblue. I’ve been learning to hear you better all the time.”

The dragon rested her forepaws against the cherry tree’s trunk. Her friend was there, though he was still in her village. She didn’t understand how it could happen, but she felt it with a certainty no explanation could have strengthened.

She wanted to tell him what she had seen, to ask about his branches, her parents, the mangoes. Yet suddenly she had no need to fill their meeting with words. The silence was enough for her to know him.

She closed her eyes.

She felt more present than ever: everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere. Only this moment existed, and this moment was eternity.

“It’s time for you to rest,” her friend whispered.

Gently, Skyblue began to feel the ground beneath her paws again, the scent of the blossoms, the shelter of the cherry tree. She drew a deep breath.

“Thank you.”

That night she fell asleep asking nothing more of the world.