(A big Shoutout to @Kylar_Warp_Shinkai & @Cyclops_Tempest for their support!!)
– – –
Gabriel felt it before the garden finished breathing again.
The darkness had gone with Lucifer. The pressure had lifted. The sourceless warmth returned to its quiet, steady presence, settling over the grass and blossoms like something resuming a conversation that had only briefly paused.
The amber flowers opened first, petals loosening in delicate increments. Then the wildflowers followed, colour returning across the meadow in gentle spreads.
The grass deepened into its richest green, blades lifting where the weight had pressed them flat.
Above, the ceiling bore the new wounds.
Two apertures cut through the garden's sky beside the original shaft, each one admitting the desert's hard sunlight in pale, vertical columns.
The sourceless glow of the garden met that sunlight without conflict. Neither yielded.
They occupied the same air quietly, as though light had decided argument was unnecessary.
