My arm healed quickly, during the st few days.

  This garden's center has a rge natural tree with a thick trunk and purple leaves. A distant circur stone walkway, slightly raised and with no railing, encircles the oak, marking the border of the garden within it.

  Growing below my shoulder height, small trees had their violet crowns decorated with yellow gems. Row upon row of short nectarine trees spreads to my left, surrounded by patches of purple grass and mostly bck and red flowers. The abundantly sweet nectarine has a stunning yellow color.

  Thrown all around me are tall narrow hills of pure granite rock, with dens, caves, and homes carved into them. Between many of the small cliffs, waterfalls peacefully cascade, creating a rge wide staircase, with pools on each nding.

  The garden is a patch of order among this beautiful chaos of scattered purple, bck, and red shrubs randomly jutting from the vertical ndscape.

  Regrettably or not, unlike most creatures of the world, my creations don't need water for sustenance, but, of course, it has other uses—and I poetically equate the sound of rushing water with the heartbeat of nature.

  Silently, I hop from the walkway into the garden.

  In the shadows I see him. Four horns, feral eyes. A demon-looking creature. Head taller than me, he walks on two legs. Large bat-like wings burst out his back. Yellow-eyes keeps his long thigh-thick tail carefully coiled behind. The tail narrows towards the end. The full extended length of it almost matches that of his tall stature.

  He's mowing down hundreds of souls with each scythe stroke; and is also quite fond of writing songs in addition to gardening, which occupies him now.

  Large sways of purple grass are being sliced, making the intensely sweet and sharp smell of fresh-cropped grass imbue the garden with its delightful aroma.

  Aillen at first, with his back to me, doesn't perceive my approach. ''Maker.'' He stops slicing immediately upon noticing me and bows slightly.

  I regard the luscious, well-kept garden. ''It grows well.''

  Aillen looks down at me with pale yellow eyes. He puts his scythe bde down, resting his right hand on the handle; bck cws mirror the grass-cutting tool's curvature. ''Sometimes too well.'' His voice is thunderous but pleasant. A distant rumble of a forgotten summer squall.

  If I don't focus hard enough, my hearing can detect insects walking—an ability that can be annoyingly distracting to manage while reading. Conversing with him requires me to significantly deaden my little curse-blessing, dampening many sounds like the rushing water, chirping of tiny pale red blushes, nearby crakler's click-ccking, the wind rustling the purple leaves.

  ''If left to just a few days of neglect, chaos cims all,'' Aillen notes.

  Considering his rge form, I was always surprised at how he managed to tend the delicate pnts with such...purple touch. Kali pressured him not a small number of times to join the army or the hunting squads. Aillen's resistance to those overtures is even more impressive than his gardening skills.

  Sometimes he would ask me to describe what individual flowers smelled like. Senses of smell and taste, the things I take for granted, were always a source of fascination for my creations. I would try to be poetic and say, ''The scent of flowers is like a subtle most pleasant tickling of the nose.''

  ''How are you?'' I ask. My eyes narrow slightly at the sudden, fleeting discomfort. Despite being fully recovered, a certain sharp and crisp ache passes through my right arm for a heartbeat or two. It makes me think of her. Kali mended in less than two days, however, even if her hand suddenly fell off I doubt the stubborn general would compin to me about it.

  Aillen did not seem to have noticed my discomfort. ''I fare well, if only Jeju was banished from the garden for all eternity I would be sublime.''

  That brings a short-lived chuckle out of me, and a slight ache in my cheeks at the almost-forgotten motion. Jeju is a sweet six-legged dog with no tail and a screeching bark who sadly doesn't share the same respect for pnts that Aillen has. The cute ball of spite always manages to escape his yard enclosure, cutting the path of any passersby and demanding attention. As much as my yellow-eyed friend would hate to admit it, he loves Jeju, we all do.

  I gaze at him, all stoic and serious now. ''I may have a task for you.''

  ''Anything, Maker.''