Mia's garden was a rebellion against concrete.
In the heart of a neighborhood where grass was measured in square feet and trimmed to municipal specifications, Mia's backyard had exploded into a dense, tangled tapestry of life. Vegetable rows stood at attention. Herb beds spilled over borders in fragrant riots. Flowers nodded heavy heads to passing bees. And in the center, a small pond glittered, its surface carpeted with lily pads.
And everything, Astraea noted immediately, leaned east.
Not dramatically. Not the desperate reach of sun-starved plants. But a gentle, consistent inclination of stems and leaves, as if yearning toward some unseen nourishment. The east side of the yard—where Astraea stood with Leo, Chloe, and Sam—was noticeably more vigorous. The tomatoes there were plumper, the basil leaves broader, the marigolds vibrantly, almost aggressively orange.
They sense the gate, Astraea thought at first. The mana trickle from the quarry.
But as Mia's mother—a woman with dirt permanently etched under her nails and a smile as wide as her garden—handed out lemonade, Astraea refined her assessment.
The plants weren't leaning toward the distant gate.
They were leaning toward her.
She was leaking. Not enough for human detection. Not even enough for most Awakened instruments calibrated for human-scale power displays. But plants were attuned to subtler things: trace minerals, specific CO2 concentrations, microbial whispers in the soil. And the faint, celestial-grade mana seeping from her pores as her body thawed was, to them, the rarest of fertilizers. It was the essence of a being who had once digested starlight.
Mia demonstrated her power, floating a perfect orb of water over a slightly wilted lettuce plant. The water sank into the soil, and within seconds, the lettuce perked up, leaves regaining crisp vitality.
"Significant growth acceleration," Astraea observed. "Your water carries a restorative signature."
Mia beamed at the technical praise. "I just want them to be happy."
They are, Astraea thought, watching a nearby squash vine twitch almost imperceptibly in her direction.
As they wandered the garden paths, the effect intensified. The daisies at her feet bloomed more fully. The rosemary bush released a sudden, intense cloud of fragrance. The grass beneath where she walked grew noticeably greener, leaving faint footprints of vitality in her wake.
Sam noticed first. He knelt, placing his hand on the grass. "It's warmer here. Right where Astraea was standing."
Mia's mother laughed. "Must be a sunny patch!"
But Leo was watching Astraea with that quiet, growing curiosity. Chloe simply smiled, enjoying the beauty without questioning its source.
It was during the picnic—sitting on a blanket that quickly developed a circle of extraordinarily healthy clover around its edges—that Astraea felt it: a shift in the garden's collective consciousness. Not thought, but pure, thirsty being. And beneath that, something else. A… recognition.
A memory, not hers, but the land's.
Sound: The rustle of ancient leaves.
She stood here once before, not in this garden, but on this land. Four hundred years ago, when it was forest. She had slept beneath an oak that stood where the tool shed now stands. Her dragon-form, small then but still substantial, had pressed into the soil. Her essence had seeped into the bedrock.
The garden remembered. The land remembered. And now, with her return and her thawing, that ancient signature was resonating with her current leakage.
The plants weren't just responding to mana. They were greeting something familiar.
"Everything grows so well for you, Mia," Chloe said, admiring a perfect sunflower.
"It's the love," Mia's mother said, blissfully unaware of the dragon-shaped variable in her garden equation.
Before they left, Mia gave each of them a small potted herb. To Astraea, she presented a basil plant with particular ceremony. "This one's special. It's from the east corner. It's always been the strongest."
The basil quivered in its pot, its roots eagerly reaching through the plastic toward Astraea's fingers.
[System notification!]
[Item acquired: 'Mia's basil']
[Special trait: 'Ancestral recognition' - This plant grows from soil that remembers you!]
[Warning: May exhibit explosive growth if exposed to undiluted mana!]
[New quest available: 'Tend the memory']
[Objective: Keep 'Mia's basil' alive and thriving for one week without revealing its anomalous nature]
In the car, holding the eager basil, Astraea felt the truth settle into her bones. Her return wasn't just about mana and growth. It was about reconnection. The land remembered her. The plants remembered. How many other things would?
That night, she placed the basil on her windowsill. She gave it a single drop of water—deliberately mana-neutral. The plant, while still leaning toward her with palpable yearning, seemed to sigh and accept ordinary hydration.
She measured her height. The growth continued. Steady. Relentless.
But her mind was on the garden. On the memory in the soil. On the way the land had greeted her.
I have been thinking of my return as theft—taking mana this new civilization has discovered. But perhaps it is also return. The land remembers the dragon who slept here centuries ago. The plants reach for the signature they knew before cities were dreams.
I am not just taking. I am being welcomed home by a world that has not forgotten, even when its human inhabitants have.
The basil plant leaned toward her, its leaves trembling with ancient recognition.
Welcome back, it seemed to say. We have been waiting.