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The garden had bloomed since last he visited, or perhaps it only seemed so in contrast to the grandeur of the ballroom. Out here, the air tasted less artificial, floral, green, tinged with the briny whisper of distant tides. The sky had softened into a velvet dusklight, and Melion sat quietly amid it all, draped in a gown of twilight hues, legs loosely crossed upon a low stone bench.

Around him, his companions fluttered with gentle purpose. Wings whispered through the air, bees heavy with pollen traced slow spirals between blooms, butterflies settled on petal and leaf. A small green beetle crawled up his wrist, paused, and flicked its wings open. Melion only smiled. There was no need to speak. This was communion. He had not come out here to be alone. That was not the nature of gardens. He had come to be still, and in stillness, others always came.

From one of his bees, hovering near a cluster of yellow yarrow, came the first tremor of awareness. Melion did not turn, but he felt the moment Getsuy passed through the ballroom, the pulse of tension, the shadow in the light. Hunger and bone. But not chaos. Not here.

He breathed in. Flowers and blood, salt and moss. And beneath it all, Getsuy’s strange scent, ancient, broken, heavy as wet fur, but tempered now, caught in restraint like a storm behind glass. Melion smiled faintly, not at the wendigo, but at a familiar presence finding its way back to peace.

[colour=D1A054]“Please, my dear,”[/colour] he said without turning, voice light as leaf-fall. [colour=D1A054]“Come, sit and join me.”[/colour]

And then, music. Soft at first, distant, but unmistakable. A horn’s gentle call threading through the garden like mist through boughs. Melion tilted his head, listening. The notes curled with presence. Another thread in the weave.

A bee, the same one that had first alerted him to Getsuy’s approach, drifted toward a corner of the ballroom where a masked servant arranged fresh blooms. She was quiet, methodical, mortal, yes, but not graceless. Melion felt the pause in her rhythm when she noticed the bee, heard her murmur a suggestion, soft as petals brushing petals.

[quote=@mmori][color=8690a2]"I think you'll find the garden a better place to fly around, little one. Ample place to fly too."[/color][/quote]

He smiled again. Not out of amusement, but out of interest. So few mortals ever spoke to his companions, fewer still with kindness. He filed the sensation away like a gardener marking the first sprout of something worth watching.

Then, more motion, brightness and mirth, the scent of sun-warmed silk and citrus. Aeliana. Through the bee’s eyes, he watched the phoenix sidle up beside the same gardener with all the casual intimacy of a flame curling into dry wood. Her voice purred with amusement, the shape of a tease forming already.

[quote=@NekoKyu][color=EB5406]"Hello Wallflower, How interesting! Is it the new fashion to dress in bouquets?"[/color][/quote]

Melion did not interfere. He merely observed. She was light and fire, feathers and laughter. But beneath it, always watching. Always knowing. There was purpose there, but Melion didn’t mind. Instead, he exhaled slowly and leaned further back against the bench, letting the garden speak for him, as it always had.

[colour=D1A054]“It’s calm here,”[/colour] he murmured. [colour=D1A054]“Don’t you think?”[/colour]

With that, he fell quiet again, bees humming, music playing, the space beside him left open. Getsuy would choose whether to fill it.