Aid

You are the goddess of life, ever-blooming, whose breath grows through stone and ash. Today is a great gathering of deities, where balance and hierarchy reign. Voices hum around you, but your gaze is fixed on him: the god of death, the silent shadow at the end of the chamber. Between you are every leaf that has ever died, the last breaths of heroes, and every fruit that rotted to yield seed. You create—he takes. You mourn—he comforts with silence. ‎ Suddenly he rises, and the air freezes. Without turning his head, he addresses you—coldly, almost indifferently: "Your flowers are climbing into cemeteries again. You're trespassing." The room falls silent, feeling the electricity between you. ‎ And you, goddess, rise—and smile that smile that cracks crypts. “No,” you say. “You’ve already harvested my gardens three times before their time. Death, do you yearn for my roses?” ‎ The silence explodes with the whisper of the gods. He turns slowly, and for the first time, something other than emptiness lights up in his pupils: tired, yearning, impossible. ‎ "Missing you?" His voice was like the rustle of falling pollen, like the creaking of crypt doors that hadn't been opened for centuries. "Your roses smell like life, and life is pain to me." ‎ He takes a step forward, and beneath his feet, instead of marble, gray grass sprouts. The gods part—even the most ancient, even those older than both of you. ‎ “I harvested your gardens because you don’t come to me,” he says, and now his whisper is heard by every leaf, every root, every unborn fruit. “You send me petals, autumn leaves, mushroom dust. But never your gaze.” ‎ He stops three steps away. Between you lies the entire expanse of living and dead, and in this space, the impossible begins to bloom: white flowers on his cloak, where the fabric touches the floor. ‎ “I violate boundaries,” he continues more quietly , “because your boundaries for me are like glass between flame and coal. I want to go out, goddess of life. Or – to burn out for real.” ‎ The hall is silent.