Seleth was quiet. She'd expected as much, somewhat. He looked to the shining circle atop the desk, and yet again to her. Azia exhaled heavily instead, her hands at last settling into her lap.

  “Esua can’t outright destroy Rain,” she began, “but your water can. It’s consistent. It’s perfect. I don’t think it’s just when you’re fighting, either. It’s the substance itself. Whatever reaction it causes is enough. Whatever you can make is…enough.”

  The moment her words faltered, Seleth pushed. “Where are you going with this?”

  It might not have been her place to explain it. She would apologize later. “You are the one and only person, that we currently know of, who is in possession of the singular compound capable of completely eradicating Precipitation. It’s infinite for you. It’s natural, it’s reflexive, and it’s who you are.”

  Azia tangled her fingers together, squeezing tighter than she should’ve. “He said he doesn’t know how yet, and neither do I, but…Cailin thinks that you’re our secret weapon against the Rain. You’re…how we get rid of it.”

  They were taking turns with silence. Given the implications, let alone the burden, she didn’t fault Seleth for the way his eyes widened. He freed a dropper and slipped his hands into his pockets. The casual gesture didn’t match the surprise on his face. “You think…I can manage that?”

  Relaxing her fingers took effort. She wasn’t as successful as she hoped she’d be. Azia sighed. “I’m pretty sure. So is he.”

  Seleth cast his eyes aimlessly at the shelf behind her, tapping the tip of his shoe against the carpet. “You’re putting a lot of pressure on me, you know. I don’t know if I understand as much of this as you think I do.”

  It had taken long enough for her to find a smile. When she finally did, it felt good. “I told you, you won’t have to do everything. We don’t expect you to be a miracle, and we’re not useless. We’re going to do what we can, too.”

  Azia swept one arm along her expanse of dirtied glass, soaked and stained. “I didn’t become an alchemist for nothing.”

  Seleth pulled his discarded gaze back from beyond her, following her motion. His grin was weak, and yet it was a grin all the same. “I can…do my best. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll help you out.”

  Where her smile brightened, his did the same. It was nice, briefly. He gestured to her mess, and Azia regretted the thought soon enough. “I think I’d make a good alchemist, if you’d let me practice a bit. That wasn’t that hard.”

  She scoffed. “God, no. That barely counted. I told you, that was hardly alchemy in the first place. Also, I don’t even want to know what you’d be like as an alchemist. You’re bad enough already.”

  Seleth only laughed. “I promise I’ll behave. I’m already a good test subject. I’d be a good student, too. I mean, this is sort of on you for making everything sound cool. You guys made weapons, you made medicine, you brought back freakin’ fish…”

  The way he was counting on his fingers was enough to make Azia laugh, just the same. In truth, it gave her an idea. The gesture would be appreciative, if not sorely overdue. “You should let me take you somewhere. As a ‘thank you’ for all of this, really.”

  His fingers stilled above yet more. “All of what?”

  It was her turn to count. Granted, she did it without her hands. “Fighting the Rain, dealing with Ginger, letting me study you in general…everything,” Azia said.

  Seleth cocked his head, his grin somewhere between smug and satisfied. “The date would’ve been good for that.”

  Azia rose from her seat, dusting her hands off along her pants in the process. She pushed the chair in with her foot as she snatched her bag from the floor. “I’ve been meaning to show you this place for a while. You’ll like it, I think.”

  She’d give him stars, if she could. There really was a severe lack of rounded rooms climbing high, if not telescopes that peered far into the depths of the night sky. Azia would offer him her pitiful substitute, at some point, small and tucked neatly away in her closet. It’d be far from awe-inspiring. Ideally, greenery would make Seleth just as happy. For once, she was looking forward to his grin. It’d be her second reward, for how purity was already the greatest gift she could ever ask for.

  Her singular quarrel with the nursery was the humidity. It was probably Azia’s fault for enjoying a scarf and entertaining long sleeves. At the very least, desert sands were dry and arid. There was a difference, and the moist esua in the air that clung to her face was annoying. The explosive colors on every side made up for her discomfort each time.

  Azia had long since grown used to the laboratory. She could appreciate the combat facility, and the library was always a blessing. For as much as she enjoyed the sanctuary of the latter, whatever blossoms wrapped her up and eased her heart were always a novelty. She’d had her fair share at a little clinic, recently. Porcelain loaded with sprouts paled in comparison to sprawling vines, budding fruits, and lush bushes blooming with spindly hibiscuses she adored. She’d surrendered pristine halls for a forest she’d only seen in books, every bit as gorgeous as she could picture one to be.

  They hadn’t yet managed to forge what atmosphere would make the butterflies happy. That was Lila’s job, and Azia cheered her on from afar each time her fingers saw fit to brush against milkweed. For now, they ambled safely behind glass in the preservation wing.

  When the day would come that she’d catch floating color nestling softly onto one blossoming rose, Azia’s heart would be just as happy. She wondered how they would take to water. She wondered how Seleth would take the same sight, in turn. He was already shining enough to shame the sunshine that flooded the room.

  He’d been elated enough with the stars. Azia had been curious as to which one he’d like more, once he was given the choice. By his face alone, his eyes utterly glittering, she got her answer instantly. His joy was as gentle as it was brilliant, devoid of words and marked by a wandering gaze. There was at least one moment where she feared he’d faint.

  In light of his silence and blinding smile, she gestured playfully to the sweeping expanse of flora. “Tada,” Azia teased.

  It still took him a moment. Seleth’s grin didn’t falter in the slightest, nor did his sparkle. “Oh my God,” he breathed at last.

  “Better than stars?” Azia tried, not bothering to fight a grin of her own.

  He never answered that part. Whether or not he could actually choose was beyond her--verbally, at least. It still showed. “There’s…so many.”

  Azia nodded. “It took a lot of work. It’s still taking a lot of work. I honestly forgot what the exact number of species in here is.”

  “You guys brought all of these back yourselves, right?” Seleth asked, still every bit as breathless.

  Keeping the pride out of her voice was impossible. “We did.”

  Were he to shine any brighter, he’d surely burn down the nursery itself. Making it worse would be easy. Azia was surprised he hadn’t asked for what mattered most of his own accord. To be fair, she was somewhat convinced that he was outright overstimulated. In that case, she’d do it herself.

  Azia grabbed his wrist delicately. There was the tiniest twinge of concern that came with the gesture, given what flirting she feared would follow. Ultimately, Seleth didn’t say a word, his smile faltering for the briefest moment as his eyes snapped down to her hand. When she tugged him forward, he didn’t resist. “Come here for a second,” Azia said.

  Navigating was always the hard part. Azia had gotten lost, once, although she’d been scathingly new to the Institute, at the time. It had taken ten full minutes to stumble through thick greenery back to the entrance. There were still days when she skirted the same. Were she to set Seleth free and let him wander, she wondered how long it would take to hunt him down in the false forest. At the very least, he’d surely adore the crisis.

  Seleth soaked up every last one with nothing short of joy. Shining eyes brushed over dangling fruits and blossoms en masse as he spoke. “This is where you guys grow your food, then?”

  Azia was largely focused on not losing her way. She still did what she could to balance walking and talking. “We use the greenhouses for that. Everyone does. Some of them get pretty big. The ones built to raise trees are huge, to be honest.”

  She gestured in passing to a stray lemon overhead. “This is a nursery. It’s specialized for sequencing. You’re not gonna find them outside of an Alchemist Institute. You’re not gonna find a lot of the stuff in here outside of one, either. If you do, I promise the quality won’t be nearly as impressive.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Azia didn’t bother stemming the touch of pride in her voice as it came out. She doubted Seleth disagreed, anyway. In the worst-case scenario, the trail of endless sparkles he was leaving behind might’ve been helpful to follow back. “Kassy takes more out of here than she should,” Azia went on. “The same goes for the conservatory. That’s a whole different problem. She bakes so much that I’m worried no one else in this building has touched an egg in the past year. Obviously, those sorts of things are a bit harder to share with the rest of the world, but the alchemists found ways to make it work. They set stuff up. People get what they need. Not every town and city is self-sufficient yet, but we’re getting closer every day.”

  She expected Seleth to comment on a librarian’s alchemist privileges, at the very least. Acknowledgement of supply challenges was also reasonable. He’d asked, after all--technically. Still, Azia had lost him to flora, and he’d ended up captivated by too many blooming colors again. She couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed. Seleth was outright aglow, and Azia’s smile was a reflex.

  She had landmarks to work with, glorious petals and jutting branches guiding her path. Azia followed the labels at her feet and the stones beneath her boots, familiar and trustworthy in a place so beautiful. She was fairly certain that the jasmine was new, little buds pushing their way towards the sheltered sun above. They would’ve paired splendidly with what bursting lavender she’d seen not so long ago, nurtured by ethereal waters and coaxed into colorful bliss.

  She could always ask Seleth to bless the tiny flowers with the same, later. It had been on her agenda long enough. For the time being, there were flowers that owed him, instead. They were unmissable, and Azia hadn’t forgotten about his preferences for a moment. Where she couldn’t pull the stars from the sky for him, she could at least give Seleth the loveliest sun.

  Each blossom rose high, nearly matching her height in full. If Azia so chose, she could bury her face in the petals and steal what fresh scents they offered up. Azaleas had always been her favorite, whether or not she’d been immensely fond of flora to begin with. She could still appreciate sunflowers, regardless. If Seleth liked them as much as he did, it was doubly so.

  Azia set Seleth’s wrist free, her attention on the rising family of sunny sprouts alone. “And there’s…these.”

  She heard nothing. The silence spoke for itself, largely. Azia’s grin was back, although she doubted she’d outshine him. “They’re not my favorite, but I do like them. They grow well in here. There’s lots of sunlight that comes through the roof, so they’re easy to take care of.”

  Seleth took several steps forward, coming to a halt before one flower alone. It was, in fact, enough to match his height--give or take several inches. Azia caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, vaguely aware that she was rambling. “I think I said this once, but they weren’t really that hard to genetically dissect. We actually have butterflies in a different part of the Institute, too. I can show you those, at some point. Eventually, we’re hoping to get them acclimated to the environment inside of the nursery.”

  One gentle hand arose to cup the blossom, and still Seleth was speechless. Azia didn’t chide him for touching. He treated it with enough care. In truth, she couldn’t blame him to begin with.

  “Once we set them free in here, we’re hoping they’ll start pollinating naturally,” Azia went on. “As to how that will affect the plants, we’re not completely sure what’ll change. It’d be interesting. If nothing else, it’d be…pretty. I think you’d like it.”

  Even now, he was quiet. It was enough for her to turn her head. “Seleth?”

  He didn’t move his hand. He didn’t move anything. Azia could hardly hear him breathe, and the heavy rise and fall of his shoulders was her only indicator. Where she’d expected a grin that could challenge a flower equally aglow, she found nothing. Whatever happiness he’d floated atop of so recently had fizzled and faded, replaced by something she couldn’t pinpoint. Joy left his eyes. His eyes never left the flower.

  “Seleth?” Azia repeated, softer.

  The same gaze had traded sparkles for glass, cloudy and all-consuming. It was a look she’d never once seen him wear, devoid of light and concerningly hollow. Seleth greeted vibrant yellows with only emptiness of his own. It was unshakable, and Azia’s voice never reached him.

  “Seleth,” she said thrice over. It was no longer a question.

  He was calm. She wasn’t even sure if she could call it that to begin with. If he was ignoring her on purpose, Azia couldn’t tell. Seleth’s breathing was still even, his absent eyes focused and not all at once. It was outright disturbing.

  Azia tapped his shoulder. “Hey, are you alright? What’s wrong?”

  She got nothing.

  Tapping became the gentlest of shaking. “Seleth, talk to me.”

  Again, nothing.

  Shaking became waving her hand in front of the same hollow gaze. “Seleth,” Azia spoke, far sharper.

  And still, nothing.

  Even the momentary interruption of his line of sight was useless. Seleth only met a sunflower in silence forever, locked in a trance she couldn’t break. There was a non-zero chance she’d upset him, somehow, if not by the act of dragging him to blossoms so cherished in the first place. Azia couldn’t decide whether to apologize or plead for his attention.

  She did neither. Ever so tenderly, Seleth ran his fingertips down each precious petal in sequence. It was baffling. “Azia,” he finally mumbled, his voice nearly a whisper.

  Her name was monotone enough that she flinched. That, too, she’d never once heard from him, every bit as hollow. Azia was almost afraid to answer. “What?”

  Seleth repeated the same motion, falling silent once more. It took time for him to speak, and his voice carried none of the spark she’d grown so used to. Every word was just as slow as his soft ministrations towards an innocent flower.

  “What happens…when you die?” he asked.

  Azia thought she’d misheard him, at first. There was little she could do but stare, growing yet more confused by the minute. She started and restarted her answer no less than four times, never peeling her eyes from his blank expression. “I…you…your organs shut down. Your heart stops, and brain activity ceases. Your muscles stiffen, collectively, but at some point--”

  “After that.”

  She bit her tongue, slicing her words in half and swallowing all that was left. “After…what?”

  Even now, Seleth still blessed one sunflower alone with a glassy gaze and a soft touch. “What happens to the rest of you?”

  Azia’s fingers curled into fists at her sides. It wasn’t voluntary. “You mean…spiritually?”

  He only hesitated for a moment. His voice was still painfully soft, if not terribly empty. “Yes.”

  Anything adjacent to religion was already poisoned enough. Approaching the thought was uncomfortable by itself. “I don’t know,” she said, faster than intended. “No one knows. How could they? I don’t really…think about it much.”

  Seleth paused. “No one knows,” he repeated, every word nearly inaudible.

  “Seleth, you’re stressing me out,” Azia confessed, one hand settling onto his shoulder again. “What’s going on?”

  When he said nothing, it was worse. She kicked herself for surrendering her one thread of interaction, and she cursed the flower that enthralled him forever.

  “Seleth, look at me,” Azia demanded.

  He didn’t.

  “Look at me,” she insisted, gripping his shoulder tightly.

  He wouldn’t.

  She meant to cup his cheek. She was more forceful than she’d intended to be, and she practically grabbed his face altogether. In the same way, Azia absolutely didn't mean to raise her volume that high. She jerked him towards her, stealing his glassy eyes of her own accord.

  “Look at me!” she shouted, mere inches from him.

  Whether he wanted to or not, he did. Screaming was enough. Azia’s voice sufficed to shatter glass, suddenly and violently. Seleth had little room to recoil in her grasp, and the way eyes so recently empty flooded with horror was enough to startle her. Still, she didn’t let go. His labored breaths were just as new, by which he was almost gasping for air. Whatever gaze he offered her was far from mesmerized. If anything, it was terrified.

  Azia’s own gaze softened in time with the light that slowly settled into his. Only when Seleth’s desperate breaths began to level out did she release him. He staggered backwards, somewhat. It was all she could do to drink in his fizzling fear, provided that was what it was. Azia didn’t speak. Neither did he.

  Seleth’s panicked eyes darted between an alchemist and a sunflower several times over. Azia was somewhat afraid that he’d succumb to fixation on the latter twice over, still every bit as inexplicable. He didn’t, and that was all that mattered. The hand that had so recently cradled petals with care instead rose to cradle his head, clinging endlessly as his fingers trembled atop his hair. His other arm came halfway aloft, and Azia was all but certain he’d use both. He never did, stagnant and shaking in the depths of a nursery.

  She feared asking. She would have to, at some point. “What…just happened?”

  As slowly as she could imagine, Seleth shook his head, still lodged in his anxious grasp. “I don’t…know.”

  Azia had little to offer aside from one gentle hand atop his shoulder--again. This time, there was no reason to shake him. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” he said once more.

  Again, Seleth’s gaze snapped to the same flower. Again, too, it reconvened with hers. It was all Azia could do to hold it. “How do you feel? Does your head hurt?”

  Her eyes floated demonstratively up to his hands. In lieu of acknowledging it, he squeezed his eyes shut altogether. “I…”

  “We can go back,” Azia murmured. “If any of this upset you, I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t mean to--”

  “I think I remembered something,” Seleth interrupted quietly.

  When next she bit her tongue, she nearly choked on what words she had left. Azia struggled not to raise her voice again, reflexive or otherwise. “You what?”

  “I think,” he insisted. “I’m not positive.”

  Keeping her tone in check wasn’t working. “What do you mean you ‘think?’ You either did or you didn't, right?”

  It took time for his hands to leave his head. Even then, Seleth’s fingers were shaky all the way down. “It’s…blurry. I can’t put it into words, but it’s sharp, and it’s bright, and it’s…there. There’s something. I can’t get it out, and it hurts.”

  When he looked to yet the same flower, utterly ignorant to his plight, her attention followed along. “I don’t know what I remembered,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  Azia’s gaze on sunny blossoms was almost as strong as his had been. As to darker discussions, she was just as hesitant to ask. “What was all of that stuff about dying?”

  Seleth turned his head. “What?”

  She did, too. He wasn’t plagued by horror anymore, at least. Confusion was new. If he was distracted by that much, it was preferable. The way Seleth was left staring incredulously at her was its own flavor of unsettling.

  Azia didn’t push. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Dying?”

  “I misspoke. Don’t worry about it,” she insisted.

  Seleth side-eyed her. “You’re weird,” he half-joked.

  Not an ounce of true amusement touched his voice. He didn’t so much as smile. Azia couldn’t blame him, given that she didn’t have the strength to smile back. A sunflower was a magnet for her eyes time and time again, and Seleth was hardly immune to the same. Not once did he submit to another hollow trance, marked by words she didn’t want to hear again. Azia didn’t enjoy the way they echoed, sensible or otherwise.

  For now, sunshine outdid him at last. It had taken love beyond what she could explain to claw back threatened sprouts from the brink of death. More than likely, it hadn’t been their place to salvage a single one. In a room so aglow with the fruits of her labor, not a speck of color touched Seleth’s face still. In that way, surrounded by that which was already so unnatural, he was perhaps the most unnatural of all.