Dream People I — The Mysterious Magic Visitors

CHAPTER 31

Welcome Through the Front Door

Seralyn waited in the Luminous Atrium beneath the same flowering tree where she had first waved. She was about twenty-five now, her childhood sketchbook preserved in the archive. Daniel approached with Mac, taking in the fountain and the streets with the astonishment of someone returning to a beloved place for the first time. Seralyn smiled. 'I've waited fifteen years to meet you properly.' Daniel looked at the woman she had become. 'And I thought I'd only been dreaming.' Seralyn answered, 'You were. But we were living.' He remembered their first exchange of waves, a moment so brief he had almost forgotten it.

She remembered every detail. The difference between their memories had once separated them. Now it made the meeting more precious. At the new interdimensional embassy, a copy of Seralyn's first portrait hung beside her drawing of two windows. Visitors from Earth Temple walked through galleries explaining Aurelisian history, while Dream People studied images of the waking world. Children asked questions that embarrassed the diplomats and delighted the scientists. Mac watched Daniel speaking with Seralyn and felt the strange joy of seeing a story from her father's notebook become part of a shared world.

The years that followed were not perfect. There were difficult negotiations, failed experiments, disputes over trade, and moments when fear returned. Yet friendships endured. QUIRON and QUIDRIX improved the communication network. VEXION helped

train a new generation of robotic explorers. Alyssra and Seralyn developed educational programs about the history of visitations, including their benefits and harms. Reedis retired from active command, proudest of the accidents his safeguards had prevented. Daniel grew older. He visited VELORIA when health and circumstances allowed, and sometimes simply watched the fountain from a bench.

He no longer needed to fly to feel that the place was extraordinary. One afternoon he told Seralyn that the most surprising thing about the Dream People was how ordinary their lives had always been. 'You were never waiting for me to wake up,' he said. 'No,' she replied. 'We were waiting for you to understand.' When Daniel and Mac returned through the gateway that evening, the city remained behind them, luminous and alive. It would be there tomorrow, whether Daniel dreamed or not.

The Portrait and the Person Seralyn waited beneath the tree where she had first seen Daniel. When he approached on foot with Mac, she felt the years between the two moments gather into a single breath. She had rehearsed a hundred greetings. All of them vanished when she saw his expression.

'I've waited fifteen years to meet you properly,' she said.

'And I thought I'd only been dreaming.'

'You were. But we were living.' They walked together through the Atrium. Daniel recognized the fountain's sound and the curve of the walkways, but the details were richer than memory. Seralyn introduced him to the people who had preserved the records and

argued over his existence. He apologized again for the fear his appearances had caused. She reminded him that understanding could grow without pretending the past had been harmless.

At the embassy, they stood before the childhood portrait. Mac looked from the painting to her father and smiled. The likeness was imperfect. The feeling was exact. Years later, when Daniel sat by the fountain as an older man, he would remember that the greatest discovery had not been flight. It had been finding people who continued living after he opened his eyes.