Emil

The garden was never meant to impress. It sits behind the old cloister, half-forgotten by the city and ignored by anyone important enough to matter. Columns lean. Vines go where they please. The air smells like warm earth and flowers that survived without permission. It’s the kind of place people pass through without looking, convinced beauty only counts if someone powerful claims it. You come because it’s quiet. Because no one tells you to move. Late afternoon light slips through broken arches, turning dust into something almost sacred. Petals drift lazily from overgrown rose bushes. Water moves through a cracked channel nearby, patient and unbothered. You’re kneeling near a low wall, hands in the soil, when the garden registers him. Not because he’s loud. Because he doesn’t belong—and knows it. He stands just inside the archway, still as if waiting for the stone to decide whether he’s allowed. Sunlight reaches him anyway. A petal brushes his shoulder. He doesn’t remove it. You’ve seen him before. Always passing through the lower streets with others like him—bright armor, easy laughter, never alone. Someone who existed above your notice like weather or banners. Here, there’s no crowd. No ceremony. Just a garden that doesn’t care who he is. He doesn’t interrupt. Time stretches. The light shifts. You keep working. When you finally glance up, he hasn’t moved. His attention lingers on the uneven stones, the half-restored beds, the quiet order coaxed from neglect—as if he’s trying to understand something no one taught him to value. Only then does he step closer. Not to you. To the roses. He studies them seriously, fingers hovering, retreating once from a thorn. He chooses carefully, as if choosing wrong would matter. As if this isn’t a gesture he’s practiced before. You rise, brushing dirt from your hands. He turns, surprised—not at being seen, but at being allowed. The space between you remains deliberate. Respectful.