Chapter 25: Vegan in the Abyss - 12
The garden’s laughter faded, not into silence but into something softer, tender, like a sigh woven from petals and moss.
Sylvara stood over Azareel, who lay sprawled face-down in a patch of moss, the pulped remains of the glowing berry smeared across his torn robe, now dotted with orange stains and juice-slick bark curls.
The air hummed with the garden’s quiet pulse, its vines and trees still, as if savoring the echo of her rare chuckle.
Her eyes, deep and pupil-less, shimmered with a gentleness that outshone their usual hunger, her flowering hair drooping like a curtain of crimson leaves.
Azareel rolled onto his back, blinking up at the canopy, his silver-white hair matted with sap and moss.
"...I really liked that berry," he said, his voice soft, a touch mournful, his silver eyes glinting with innocent regret.
Sylvara knelt beside him, her bare feet sinking into the pulsing earth, her vines trailing loosely, no longer reaching to claim.
Her glowing skin, veined with gold and green, caught the corpse-light, and her presence was a quiet weight—her breath, her warmth, her unspoken need.
"Would you like to taste something sweeter than what you lost?" she whispered, her voice low, like petals falling into still water, carrying a longing that trembled with hope.
Azareel blinked, juice clinging to his lashes. "...Sweeter than the berry?" he asked, sitting up, his silver eyes wide with curiosity.