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It’s just him, taking pleasure in nature. It’s him, sharing this pleasure with her.

It doesn’t have a big picture meaning, and it doesn’t have a grand function, and it doesn’t have a moral. It’s just glee for its own sake.

Somehow, she knows this. Or maybe she surmises it because of all the things he has said tonight.

Deities are born from the stars. Dragonflies are born from the water.

With a single glint of light, they awaken and spread their wings. Fully grown dragonflies are the size of mountable creatures, but these little guys haven’t reached that capacity yet. According to the tales, they live near sacred waters, nesting in the trees after birth. But no deity had ever found or seen such a spectacle. Thus, her people have settled for viewing these creatures everywhere else, and perhaps that’s been enough.

If it had stayed enough for Sorrow, she would have missed out.

Those small wings begin to flutter. One by one, the infants break away and skip through the air. They dash about, chasing the motes.

It’s a dance. It’s beautiful.

No, it’s magical, a term that has grown bland to Sorrow, so commonplace that its resonance has been diluted. When was the last time she saw something, felt something, that was truly enchanting? Anything that she hadn’t developed an immunity to? Anything that reminded her that magic is breathtaking?

An inscrutable sensation scrapes her throat. “I had no idea,” she exhales. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I was a stripling when I first came upon this cove. I got lost in the enclave and ended up here. It reminded me that one can know everything about one’s world, yet not know everything. There’s often more to discover and a new way to look at things.” Envy chuckles under his breath. “It sounds trite, I’m fully aware.”

“Don’t you mind sounding trite in front of me?”

“Not tonight.”

Is that because he feels comfortable being transparent in her company? Or is she just that inconsequential?

Envy curates the universe’s impression of him. Everyone but her.

Is that because she matters so little? Does that disturb her?

The dragonflies continue to drip from their chandelier hives and skitter around the cove. Some of them skate the water’s surface, scattering translucent beads.

Sorrow punts her toe against the grass. “It doesn’t sound trite. It sounds like you’re a misfit, like the rest of us.”

“A fashionable misfit,” Envy improvises, placing a pinky against his plush, infuriating mouth. “Shh. It will be our secret.”

“It’s only been several hours. Have we graduated to sharing secrets?”

He tilts his head, squinting with mirth. “Dear me, was that a quip? Is the Goddess of Sorrow teasing?”

She shoves his shoulder. They twist, reclining across from each other, their backs against the rocks. Speechless, they admire the scene, piebald in a swirl of darkness and lightness.

Envy once chastised Love for taking residence in the trees while she served the mortal realm. Tonight, Sorrow speculates if his judgment had been a front, an inflated role he’d been playing, the picture of a haughty god.

Case in point, the closer their classmates grow, the less he remarks on Love’s fetish for climbing trees. In fact, he commends it these days, just like he endorses Wonder’s habit of hanging upside down from branches—her classic meditation pose.

The dragonflies practice the art of flight, fluttering and rotating like discs. As they exercise their wings, there’s an erratic synchronization to it that Sorrow admires. But when they fall in sync, separating into batches and then spiraling, the whole place ignites.

Her profile feels the caress of someone’s gaze. Sorrow peeks behind her hair and finds Envy maintaining an indolent sprawl.

“What?” she says, defensive.

“You’re smiling,” he says, serious.

So serious, when she’d have expected him to gloat and praise himself for diverting her. To the contrary, he seems perplexed, like he’s never seen a smile before and doesn’t know how to interpret it.

She certainly doesn’t. She doesn’t know what to do with her grin, invisible to her eyes yet balanced precariously on her face, like a piece that has come loose. By the same measure, she can’t decide what to do with his frown, because he frowns about as often as she smiles.