Oak Creek never explained how he’d done it.

The milkfruit had been considered extinct—its groves turned to dust, its seeds to myth. Yet now three cultivars were thriving somewhere under his quiet watch: white, yellow, and the nearly mythical big blue.

When asked, he’d only say:

 “Some things don’t want to be found until they’re ready.”

It wasn’t evasion. It was reverence. He spoke of the fruit like kin. The blue milkfruit in particular—creamy, opaque, and luminescent—had a presence that felt older than language. Cold-pressing the fruit released a flood of cerulean mylk—dense, nutrient-rich, and shockingly opaque. Each tree, when mature, could yield up to 20 gallons per harvest.

From the juice, he created Oak Creek Sherbet: three-striped push-up pops.

The white was mild—soft hints of peach, cherry, and vanilla.

The yellow struck sharper—like biting into sunshine, citrus and pine.

The blue was something else entirely. It tasted like motherhood. Like memory. Like being held.

The sherbets sold out everywhere.

But so did his silence.

Peach Grove College—the prestigious agricultural institute where he’d once borrowed lab space—filed suit, claiming partial rights. Said the fruit’s genome had been sequenced on their machines, that the proprietary data linked it to their campus and their legacy.

Oak Creek didn’t argue.

He simply kept working. He released a new line of sherbet bricks. Started consulting on a baby formula prototype—Blue Formula #3, for infants with dairy and soy intolerance. Early testers called it “comfort in a bottle.”

But he was tired.

One evening, he sat on the stone stoop with Professor Green Feather, his closest friend. They shared sweetroot tea in carved mugs and watched the swarms of late summer gnats dance over the compost heap.

Green Feather wore his signature red vest and a thin film of academic guilt.

“They’re putting pressure on me,” he said quietly. “They want a statement.”

“I know,” Oak Creek said.

“They’re talking about revoking my grant if I don’t distance myself.”

Oak Creek nodded. “You do what you need to, old friend. I’d rather lose rights than see you lose peace.”

Green Feather didn’t respond right away. He just exhaled through his nose and tapped the mug rim three times—his old habit when he was thinking about legacy.

The truth was, Oak Creek had never explained how he’d coaxed three cultivars of an extinct stonefruit back to life. Not even to Green Feather. Not the seed source, not the soil alchemy, not the silent grove he tended in the canyon mist. Some suspected he’d been led there by visions. Others whispered about seed codes hidden in Pangaean lullabies.

Oak Creek never said.

Because it wasn’t about proof.

It was about preservation.

And now, with sherbet in every freezer and push-up pop wrappers crinkling across four provinces, he was building more than a brand. He was building a memory. A taste that couldn’t be undone.

As the stars blinked on overhead, Green Feather finally said, “You’ve done something holy. Just… try not to let them bury it in paperwork.”

Oak Creek just smiled. “They can try. But you can’t copyright wonder.”