[o] A garden for no one

The desert stretched out in every direction, a sea of pale gold and bleached ivory, shimmering beneath the haze of the Flowerbirth sun. Sand dunes rolled like frozen waves across the horizon, interrupted only by the occasional jutting ribcage of some long-extinct leviathan, its bones half-swallowed by time and dust. There was no wind to speak of. No birds. No life. Just heat, silence, and the slow creak of the earth exhaling beneath a sky too wide to contain.

Dorian moved through it like a mirage.

He had shed the heavy furs of Deepfrost for something more suited to this climate—lightweight linen the color of bone, tailored to drape cleanly over his frame and catch the wind when it deigned to stir. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his collar open, exposing a glint of collarbone and the pale gleam of skin that had rarely seen such uninterrupted sunlight. His boots left prints that faded behind him in seconds, swallowed whole by the shifting sands.

There was nothing hurried about his pace. The heat didn’t touch him. Not really. His skin flushed under the sun, his hair dampened faintly at the nape of his neck, but there was no discomfort in his expression—only a distant, almost meditative calm. A man on pilgrimage. A god at recess.

From the pocket of his coat, he withdrew another of the black velvet pouches. These were lighter than the ones he had used in Halo. The seeds inside didn’t need to burrow through ice or fracture stone. Here, the land was already soft, already eager in its emptiness. He knelt beside a skeletal femur the size of a tree trunk, and with the gentle reverence of a gardener, he pressed two fingers into the sand and dropped a seed.

He did it again a few feet farther. And again. No rituals. No fanfare. Just a slow, steady scattering of intention across the dunes.

The void would take longer to bloom here, perhaps. But when the rains came—when Hak Etme’s miracle of life burst suddenly into colour and song—the corruption would be ready. It would ride in on the backs of flowers, twining itself around delicate stems and bleeding through the petals. The desert would come alive... and never return to sleep.

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy

The last seed slipped from his fingers like a secret, vanishing into the sand without protest. Dorian lingered a moment longer, crouched beside the hollowed skull of some long-dead beast, his pale hand resting lightly on its sun-bleached jaw as if offering it a final benediction.

Then he rose.

The motion was smooth, unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world—and perhaps he did. He brushed his hands together, letting the fine grains of Hak Etme’s future scatter from his palms and drift back into the desert wind. No ceremony. No drama. Just the faint hiss of sand falling through fingers and the subtle shift of linen in the heat.

His work was done.

Not in the way others might mark it—no monuments, no battle cries—but in the way that mattered. Quiet. Precise. Irrevocable.

The desert stretched before him, still beige and silent. Still pretending it hadn’t changed.

Dorian smiled faintly, the expression barely touching his eyes.

~FIN

He'll rekindle all the dreams
it took you a lifetime to destroy