Chapter 33: Things that Bloom and Bite - 8
Later that not-evening, as the vines hummed low and the berry scents thinned to a sleepy haze, the others drifted into their own quiet worlds.
Sylvara had returned to her roots, literally—submerging partway into the soil, her glowing skin veined with gold and green blending seamlessly with the earth, her amber eyes half-lidded as she whispered lullabies to unseen blooms, her voice a faint melody carried on the mist.
Virelya stretched out lazily across a coil of herself, her porcelain mask cracked with a faint smile, mumbling strange, broken prayers in a language older than names, her golden, slit-pupiled eyes fluttering closed as she slipped into a half-doze.
Azareel and Nyxsha were the last ones up, sitting near the edge of the glade where the moss grew thin and the broken cathedral stones peeked through like old bones pushing up from forgotten graves.
The air was cooler here, the Abyss’s chill seeping in, a reminder that the garden’s warmth was borrowed, not owned.
Azareel was braiding something again—vines, twigs, a flower or two—their forms twisting into uneven loops, not symmetrical but somehow beautiful in their imperfection, his silver-white hair catching the fading glow of the berries.
Nyxsha watched him in silence, her massive form hunched on a jagged rock, her golden eyes narrowed, her tail twitching faintly.
The quiet pressed on her, heavy with unspoken thoughts, her black fur rippling with unease.
Then, finally. "Why?"
He looked up, his silver-gray eyes, flecked with rain-blue, blinking in gentle confusion. "Why what?"
She shifted, her claws flexing against the stone, clearly irritated at having to elaborate, her voice gruff.
"Why do you do that? Sit around with things that can eat you. Smile at things that hiss. Braid vines like they’ll hug you back."