The river bend was quiet.
The birds had stopped singing. Or perhaps they had never been singing. Perhaps the silence had always been there, waiting for Hóng Yè to notice it.
He noticed it now.
Lì Jìng sat beside him on the fallen log, her shoulder close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her skin.
The white petals from the fruit trees drifted down around them, landing in her hair, on her shoulders, on the pale green scales of her arms.
She did not brush them away.
Hóng Yè watched one settle on her cheek. It lay there for a moment, fragile and white, before a breeze lifted it and carried it toward the river.
He looked away.
"The fruit," Lì Jìng said. "You said it was sweet."
She was looking at the trees, at the golden fruit hanging just out of reach, at the way the light caught the dew on their skins.
"It is," Hóng Yè said.
"Will you get one?"
