At the very top of the city, the Falconia Palace Gardens were a paradise of beauty, decorated with countless flowers, butterflies, pools, fish, lotus leaves, shrubs, and exquisite pavilions. But the peace and quiet of days gone by had vanished completely, leaving only endless desolation and despondency hanging in the air.
The charming maids who had once busied themselves throughout the garden, along with the gardeners and the maids who trimmed the shrubs, had all disappeared without a trace. Things along the paths and around the flowerbeds were also somewhat disordered, as though people running in a panic had knocked them over. No one had returned to set them right.
The butterflies, birds in the trees, and leisurely fish, however, knew nothing of the human world. Guided only by their instincts for survival, they needed little in the way of emotion and could not experience the desolation and despondency that filled the place. So they still fluttered among the flowers and shrubs or swam through the pools, enjoying this rare peace that belonged only to them, free from interference by humans or nonhumans alike.
And now, unexpectedly, in this desolate garden, inside one of its exquisite pavilions, a man sat facing a woman dressed in finery and wearing a crown. His hair was silver, his features were more beautiful than those of a lovely young woman, and yet he wore a man's scale armor, with a pair of wings on his shoulders.
"..."
"..."
On the white jade table in the pavilion sat a set of exquisite, luxurious gold-inlaid teaware. But the tea in the two cups had long since gone cold, without even a wisp of steam rising from it.
Even so, the two of them continued to sit in silence. Neither seemed inclined to drink the tea, pour