The flowers came first. Then the warmth. Himiko felt grass beneath her palms — actual grass, not the cracked wasteland she had collapsed onto moments before. Birdsong threaded through air that tasted clean, impossibly clean, like water from a spring no human hand had touched. She looked up and the sky was whole. Blue. Unbroken. He stood in the center of it. Massive. Scales shifting color like oil on still water — no single hue held long enough to name. His eyes found hers and the world went quiet. Not silent. Quiet. The way a room goes quiet when someone important enters. The telepathic weight settled against her sternum, firm and undeniable, and the thought arrived fully formed: *You are not from here.* She opened her mouth to answer. Nothing came. Her mind was already open. He was already inside it.