The water of the hidden spring rose to their waists, cool and silken against warm skin. Sunbeam stood facing Moonbeam beneath the cascading waterfall, where the world narrowed to mist, light, and the sound of water striking stone.
Sunlight threaded through the canopy above, catching in his orange hair and painting him in gold. Behind him, a faint halo shimmered—an echo of his power, a ring of light that pulsed gently with his heartbeat. Across from him, Moonbeam's own halo glowed in soft cerulean, a quiet moonlight that held its own even in the day.
They were alone in the grove, surrounded by flowers that leaned toward the water's edge, their colors vivid and strange. The air smelled of wet earth and blossoms; each breath they took felt shared, as if the spring itself were breathing with them.
Sunbeam's eyes were closed, his expression peaceful, a small, knowing smile on his lips. His hand held Moonbeam's under the surface, fingers laced with hers. Tiny spheres of light floated up between their joined hands, drifting like bubbles, as if the spring were responding to their touch.
Moonbeam lowered her head, lashes resting gently against her cheeks. Her long blue hair flowed behind her like a river, drifting on the water's surface. She could feel his warmth through their joined hands, radiating through the water, steady and reassuring. The glow at the center of her chest brightened—an intricate lunar sigil made of light, beating slowly like a second heart.
"Do you feel it?" Sunbeam asked softly, his voice nearly drowned out by the waterfall.
She nodded, eyes still closed. "It's... calm. Warm. Like the world is holding its breath for us."
"The spring recognizes you," he said. "It knows your light."
He opened his eyes then, and for a moment, he simply watched her—every line of her face softened by the mist, every droplet of water clinging to her skin like tiny stars. There was reverence in his gaze, the kind reserved for ancient relics or sacred altars, yet he looked at her that way as if it were the most natural thing.
Moonbeam, sensing his gaze, finally looked up. Their eyes met, and the air between them seemed to tighten, as if a string had drawn them closer without either of them moving at all.
The sigils on their chests answered one another. Light sparked in the water between them, spreading outward in a slow, glowing ripple.
"Sunbeam..." she whispered, fingers tightening around his. "What is this ritual doing to us?"
"It's not the ritual," he replied with a faint, gentle laugh. "It's us. The spring only reveals what was already there."
A flush rose to her cheeks, barely visible beneath the blue of her hair and the cool reflected light of the water. She had stood on battlefields with him, back-to-back against impossible odds, had walked through ruined cities under the same sky, had debated strategy with him long into sleepless nights. Yet here, in this quiet place, the simple act of holding his hand felt more overwhelming than any battlefield.
He lifted his free hand slowly and, with a care that made her heart stutter, brushed a wet strand of hair away from her face. His fingers lingered for a breath along her cheek, calloused yet impossibly gentle. Where he touched, the faintest flecks of golden light sparked and faded.
"Moonbeam," he murmured, his voice lower now, colored with a tenderness he rarely showed to anyone else, "you don't have to be strong here. Not for me."
Her throat tightened. She had always been the composed one, the calm luminescence guiding others. But under his gaze, the armor of duty and composure softened.
"I... don't know how to stop," she admitted. "I'm always... holding everything together."
"You don't have to hold this," he said. "You can just feel it."
His thumb moved in a small, reassuring stroke over the back of her hand beneath the water. The motion was simple, but it sent a quiet shiver through her, not of fear, but of release—of something long restrained finally allowed to surface.
She drew closer by a small step, the water rippling around them. Their halos overlapped, gold and blue blending into a ring of warm, soft white. The light that formed where they intersected shone brighter than either alone.
Her forehead gently touched his chest, just over the glowing sigil there. She could feel the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat against her skin. He lowered his chin, resting it in her hair, arms naturally wrapping around her waist with a protective, enveloping ease.
They stood like that, bodies close, hearts resonating, as the waterfall roared on and the world beyond the grove ceased to exist.
"Together," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "No matter what comes, no matter what they ask of us. Promise me."
His arms tightened around her, not possessive, but anchoring. "I've already promised," he said. "Every time I step into the light, I think of you. Every time I burn, I burn for both of us."
Light swelled where their bodies touched, a steady bloom spreading through chest and arms, spilling into the water, turning the whole spring into a glowing pool. Tiny motes of radiance rose around them, drifting up like fireflies.
Moonbeam leaned back just enough to meet his eyes again. Her own shimmered, not just with reflected light, but with something much more vulnerable—trust, longing, and a quiet joy that she no longer tried to hide.
She raised one hand, placing it gently over his heart. He mirrored her, resting his hand over the sigil at the center of her chest. For a suspended moment, it was as if their souls leaned toward each other the way their bodies did.
Their halos flared in unison.
They closed the distance between them, foreheads touching, breaths mingling. The world shrank to sensation: the cool water swirling around their waists, the warmth of their hands over each other's hearts, the soft brush of their noses, the way their lips hovered so close that every shared breath felt like a promise almost spoken.
In that luminous stillness, no grand declarations were needed. The spring already knew. The light already knew.
Sunbeam and Moonbeam existed as two distinct beings, yet in that sacred pool, they were a single, unified glow—sunrise and moonrise meeting in the same sky, neither overpowering the other, each making the other more beautiful.
Whatever battles awaited them beyond the grove, whatever burdens leadership would demand, this moment belonged only to them: a quiet, shining sanctuary carved out of time, held together by the simple, undeniable truth of their intertwined hearts.
The world shifted almost imperceptibly when they leaned that last fraction closer.
Sunbeam's nose brushed Moonbeam's, a feather-light contact that sent a subtle tremor through the water around them. Their halos, already overlapping, drew inward until the rings of gold and blue curved together like the outline of a single, luminous heart. Above, petals loosened from the flowering vines along the rocks, drifting down in slow spirals—yellow like sunlight, blue like the evening sky, turning lazily before kissing the surface of the spring.
Their foreheads met.
The touch was gentle, but the effect was anything but.
The sigils at their chests pulsed in perfect unison—his a radiant pattern of prismatic lines, hers a delicate geometry traced in moonlit white. Between them, just beneath the water, a third symbol shimmered into being: a small, inverted triangle of light suspended in the currents, as if the spring itself had etched a seal in the space between their hearts.
Moonbeam drew a slow breath, feeling that symbol as a pressure, a warmth, not on her skin, but in the deepest part of her. It was as though the spring had decided: you belong together, and now the world must adjust around that fact.
She exhaled, the air from her lips mingling with his. They stood in absolute stillness, as if any sudden movement might shatter the fragile perfection of the moment.
"Sunbeam..." Her voice was barely more than a breath against his lips, words carried on warmth rather than sound.
"Hm?" he murmured, eyes closed, letting the quiet syllable sink into the space between them. He didn't pull back. He simply existed there with her—solid, steady, present.
"What do you see?" she asked. "When the light reacts like this. When our halos... merge."
He considered the question rather than answer too quickly. Typical Sunbeam—careful even with his honesty.
"I see... possibilities," he said at last. "Futures that only exist if we keep walking side by side. I see battlefields where your calm keeps my fire from burning everything down. I see nights where the world is too heavy, and we carry it together instead of alone."
He swallowed, the movement brushing his lips against hers just enough to make her heart stumble in her chest.
"And," he added, softer, "I see you laughing somewhere far from here, where no one needs saving and no one expects you to lead. I don't know how we reach that place yet... but I know I want to be there when you do."
A tiny, helpless smile curved her lips. The spring caught the expression in its mirror-surface and scattered it back as ripples of light.
"You always speak as if the future is a battlefield," she said gently.
"For us, it usually is," he replied wryly. "But that doesn't mean it can't hold gentler days."
Moonbeam's fingers tightened around his beneath the water. The petals around them swirled with the motion, drawn into a lazy orbit, as if gravity itself had shifted its allegiance to the pair of them.
"What do you see, Moonbeam?" he asked.
She hesitated, not from lack of vision, but from the intimacy of naming it aloud.
"I see... a horizon," she said slowly, searching for the right words. "A line where night and day meet without devouring each other. A world that remembers it is allowed to be both bright and quiet."
Her voice grew steadier as she continued.
"I see your light shining over broken lands, not as a weapon, but as a promise. And I see myself beside you, not behind or ahead, but exactly here—" she squeezed his hand "—where your warmth doesn't burn and my calm doesn't smother."
Sunbeam's jaw tightened, just for a heartbeat. The vulnerability in her words touched him more deeply than any praise or oath of loyalty ever could.
"You always make it sound so beautiful," he said.
"It is beautiful," she replied. "Because it's us."
The triangle of light between them brightened, then slowly rotated, its edges tracing faint lines into the water that vanished just as they appeared. It felt, in a way, like the spring was listening to every word.
For a time, they said nothing more.
There was no rush, no ticking clock, no summoned aides waiting at the edge of the grove with reports of invasions or diplomatic crises. Just the waterfall's endless descent, the soft drift of petals, and the steady warmth where their foreheads and fingers met.
Sunbeam slowly shifted his hand from her chest, letting his palm slide up along the side of her neck, coming to rest at the curve of her jaw. It was a careful, reverent touch, as if he were tracing the outline of a constellation he'd memorized but still found miraculous.
Moonbeam leaned into the contact without thinking. Her eyes remained closed, but the tension in her shoulders unwound, thread by thread, until she felt almost weightless in his arms.
"Do you regret it?" she asked suddenly, the question rising from some quiet place she rarely listened to. "The roles we were given. Being what we are to our people."
His thumb brushed idly along her jaw in thought.
"There are days I hate it," he said without flinching from the truth. "Days when I want to be just a man standing in a river with the woman he loves, without the universe watching."
Her breath hitched at the word loves, not because it surprised her, but because it felt like something she'd been carrying in silence for so long that hearing it aloud made her chest ache.
"But regret?" he continued. "No. Because every path that led me here—to this spring, to this moment with you—was worth walking."
She opened her eyes then, slowly, lifting her gaze to meet his at last. In his warm, sunlit irises she saw herself reflected not as a leader or a symbol, but as a person—someone he cherished in ways that had nothing to do with power or responsibility.
Her hand left his chest and moved upward, fingers threading softly into the damp strands of his hair at the back of his head. The gesture drew him imperceptibly closer.
"Then let the world wait," she said. "Just for a little while."
He smiled—a small, luminous curve of his lips that felt like sunrise.
"For you," he replied, voice barely above a whisper, "I could make an eternity out of 'a little while.'"
The spring answered before either of them moved.
Light erupted from the water around their waists—not violently, but in a gentle, rising bloom, as if the spring had become liquid starlight. The petals touching the glowing surface flared briefly, turning into tiny, weightless embers that drifted upward instead of sinking.
Within that radiance, they closed the last sliver of distance.
Their lips met in a kiss that was less a collision and more a surrender, slow and careful, the kind of kiss that held more promise than urgency. There was no need to rush, no hunger to prove anything. It was simply the meeting of two long-guarded hearts finally allowed to speak in a language older than words.
Warmth flooded through them, not just in their bodies but in the very patterns of light inscribed on their chests. For one breathtaking instant, the sigils dissolved, reforming as a single shared constellation that belonged to neither sun nor moon alone.
When they parted, it was by choice, not necessity, foreheads resting together once more, breaths mingling in the mist.
Around them, the spring settled, the glow softening to a steady, quiet shimmer. The petals finished their descent, some clinging to bare shoulders, others carried away toward the roots at the water's edge.
Sunbeam exhaled, a soft laugh hidden in the sound. "You realize," he murmured, "that once we step out of this water, everything will be complicated again."
Moonbeam smiled, the expression tender and unafraid.
"Of course," she said. "But that is for later. For now, it is simple."
Her fingers laced with his more firmly, as if sealing a pact.
"For now," she repeated, "there is only you and me, the spring that bears witness, and the promise we carry back into the world."
The waterfall roared on, ancient and indifferent, but within the ring of their joined halos, time felt newly written—two luminous threads intertwined, ready to face every storm the world could conjure, so long as they returned, again and again, to this sacred stillness between sun and moon.
They stayed in the embrace of the waterfall until the light around them softened from brilliant white to a gentler glow, like a lantern dimmed but never extinguished. The spring's surface calmed, petals settled, and the sigil between them faded back into the water as if the grove had tucked their secret away for safekeeping.
Reluctantly, but without sadness, they drew apart—only enough to breathe and move, not enough to break the thread between their hands. Their fingers remained intertwined as they waded toward the shallow edge, droplets sliding down their skin and catching the light like tiny stars.
The path that awaited them was narrow and green, a ribbon of soft moss and pale stone leading away from the main pool. Flowers bowed over it on either side: roses in impossible shades of blue and teal, violet asters, little bursts of pale green that glowed faintly in the shade. Overhead, the canopy arched like the ribs of a living cathedral, letting down shafts of sunlight that painted shifting mosaics across the ground.
Moonbeam glanced back once at the waterfall—its curtain of silver still roaring, its mist still hanging in the air like breath that hadn't yet dispersed. Her halo, faint now, flickered once as if offering a farewell. Then she turned forward again, following Sunbeam.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked, curiosity softening her voice.
"Somewhere the spring wants us to see," he replied, not pretending he had all the answers. "Can't you feel it? The pull?"
She could. It hummed beneath her bare feet, a quiet guidance in the earth itself. Each step forward felt right, as though they were following a path laid down long before either of them was born.
The trees opened suddenly, and the grove presented them with a second heart.
Nestled in a ring of stone and flowers lay a smaller pool—perfectly round, its water so clear and bright that it seemed less like liquid and more like a captured fragment of sky. Two tiny channels fed it from the main spring, trickling in with silver threads that sent ripples across the surface. The water glowed from within, each ripple tracing circles of luminescent blue that danced along the stone lip.
"This..." Moonbeam whispered, slowing beside him. "This wasn't on any map."
"Some things don't belong on maps," Sunbeam answered quietly. "They belong in stories."
He looked at her then, eyes bright with a boyish excitement that she so rarely saw these days. For a heartbeat, the weight of his title seemed to lift; he was not a supreme commander of anything, just Sunbeam—barefoot, leaf-wrapped, standing in a secret garden with the woman he loved.
He squeezed her hand. "Come on."
He led her to the edge of the stone ring. The flowers were so close they brushed their calves—blue roses nodding, petals soft as whispers against their skin. The pool's surface reflected them back: orange and azure, sun and moon framed together in a perfect circle of light.
Sunbeam grinned suddenly, the expression mischievous. "Tradition of the Solar Regime," he declared, entirely making it up. "If you find a mysterious magic pool, someone has to test it."
Before she could reply, he stepped in.
The water greeted him with a delighted splash, rising around his ankles in spirals that clung for a moment before sliding down his legs. It was cooler than the main spring but not cold; it tingled, as if stitched with tiny threads of lightning and starlight. The flat surface broke into ripples that raced out, bounced against the stone, and curved back toward him in overlapping circles.
He laughed—an open, bright sound that sent birds fluttering in the higher branches.
Moonbeam stood at the edge, one hand to her mouth, startled into a smile. Seeing him like this—unguarded, playful, water streaming from his calves—ignited a warmth in her that had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with tenderness.
"Well?" he asked, turning half toward her with water dripping off his feet. "Dangerous? Cursed? Have I turned into a frog yet?"
She folded her arms, pretending to consider. "You talk too much to be a frog."
"That's a relief," he said. "Though a frog with solar powers would be terrifying, admit it."
Another ripple of laughter escaped her before she could stop it. He held out his hand, palm up, water streaming from his wrist.
"Moonbeam," he said more softly, the humor gentling into invitation. "Walk with me. No rituals this time. Just us."
She let herself look again at the world around them—the flowers, the twin streams feeding the pool, the waterfall now framed at a distance like a painting. It truly was a place outside of duty, outside of expectation.
She took his hand.
The moment her bare foot broke the surface, the pool reacted.
Light flared, starting where her toes touched and spreading outward like ink in water—only this ink was a radiant blue-white. The glow wrapped around her ankle, then climbed her calf in a lazy spiral, meeting the golden shimmer already coiled around Sunbeam's legs. Where the two currents met, they braided together, forming bands of pale, shifting green.
"This water is more dramatic than you are," she said, secretly delighted.
"Impossible," he replied. "But I'm willing to share the spotlight."
They stood together in the center of the little pool, ankle-deep in swirling light. The twin channels continued to feed it, each droplet that fell sending out new ripples that turned into rings of luminous color around their feet.
Moonbeam looked down at the patterns circling them. "It's responding to our balance," she murmured. "Your heat, my calm. It's... harmonizing."
"Is that a polite way of saying I splash and you keep things from overflowing?" Sunbeam teased.
"Something like that." Her eyes sparkled.
He shifted his weight slightly, sending a small, deliberate splash her way. The water that leaped up glittered in arcs against her legs and stomach before falling back into the pool. Instead of irritation, a delighted sound slipped out of her—half gasp, half laugh.
Her response was immediate and precise; she flicked her foot just so, sending a focused little wave back at him that hit perfectly at his knee.
"Unprovoked aggression from the Lunar Regime," he gasped theatrically. "History will remember this."
"If history is listening in on us right now, it needs a new hobby," she replied, and splashed him again, a bit harder this time.
The pool joined their play. Each splash became a ribbon of light, clinging to skin for a moment before dripping off in glowing droplets. Their halos—barely visible before—brightened with each burst of laughter, gold and blue painting shifting shapes on the surrounding roses.
For a while, there were no strategies to discuss, no looming wars, no delicate political balances—only the simple joy of watching each other laugh. Sunbeam's grin was wide and unrestrained, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead. Moonbeam's eyes shone, her cheeks faintly flushed, her usually measured composure replaced by something brighter, freer.
When the splashing finally slowed, they found themselves standing close again, breaths a little quick from laughing, water swirling lazily around their ankles. The pool calmed with them, the ripples smoothing into slow, concentric circles.
"You know," Sunbeam said quietly, "if anyone saw us like this, they'd never believe we're the same two who command armadas and sign treaties."
"Let them doubt," Moonbeam answered. "It's dangerous to underestimate the power of... this."
She looked down at their joined hands—the anchor that had remained steady through all the splashing and teasing—and then back up at him.
"This," she repeated, "is why we fight so hard. So that somewhere, someone else can laugh like this without fearing the sky will fall on them."
His gaze softened, the playfulness mellowing into something deeper.
"We'll get them that world," he said. "Step by step. Pool by pool, if we have to."
She smiled, the expression small but luminous. "Then let this be our first step."
The pool responded once more, as if in agreement. A single, bell-like bubble rose in the center, expanding until it looked like a small glass dome, then popped silently. When it burst, a fine mist drifted outward in a perfect ring, passing through them without wetting their skin—just a cool shiver, a whispered blessing.
Against the backdrop of the waterfall, framed by endless roses and the arching trees, they stood together in the glowing basin: Sunbeam, all golden warmth and unshakable resolve; Moonbeam, all serene depth and quiet strength. Two forces that the world had always seen as separate, now learning how to simply be together.
Hand in hand, they let the water swirl around their feet, their laughter lingering in the air like another kind of light.
Somewhere far beyond the grove, duties waited. Armies, councils, decisions that would reshape continents.
But here, in this secret circle of sky-water and blue roses, they had carved out something the world could not touch:
A beginning that was entirely theirs.
The light in the little pool shifted again.
What had been clear water glowing from beneath began to deepen in color, the blue growing richer, like twilight slowly poured into the basin. Around the stone ring, the roses trembled, petals loosening and drifting into the pool until splashes of color floated on the surface—azure, teal, pale green.
Sunbeam felt it first: a subtle change in the way the water held his ankles. Not heavier, not threatening—just more present, as if the spring were no longer content to be a surface they walked on, but wished to be something they truly entered.
Moonbeam's fingers tightened around his. She felt it too: the gentle draw inward, a quiet invitation that came not as a command but as a question.
"Do you sense that?" she asked softly.
"Yes," he replied. "It's... calling us."
The glow beneath their feet thickened, becoming almost like liquid light, more dense than water yet still soft. It lapped at their calves, swaying with the rhythm of their breathing rather than any breeze.
Moonbeam closed her eyes for a moment, listening—not with her ears, but with that inner sense that had guided her through countless rituals and storms.
"It's not hostile," she murmured. "It's curious. It wants to know us."
Sunbeam nodded. "We came this far trusting it. We can trust it a little more."
She opened her eyes again and met his gaze. There was no trace of fear there, only quiet resolve and a tenderness that matched his own.
"If we go," she said, "we go together."
"Always," he answered.
They took a single step closer to the center of the pool.
The change was immediate and gentle. The luminous water rose slowly around their shins, then to their knees, not in a rush but in a patient, almost reverent ascent. It did not clutch or grab; it simply lifted and supported, as though the spring were reshaping itself to cradle them.
Tiny, intricate symbols began to appear in the glow around their legs—little triangles, circles, and lines that moved like constellations drawn in motion. Each symbol that formed around Sunbeam found a twin around Moonbeam, then the pairs drifted inward, merging into more complex patterns.
Moonbeam watched, mesmerized. "It's reading us," she whispered. "Not our titles. Not our power. Just... us."
Sunbeam exhaled slowly, letting his shoulders relax. "Then let it see everything."
The water rose higher, to their thighs, then their waists. Yet their lungs remained easy, their bodies light. The pool supported them like a slow, rising embrace; their feet gradually lifted from the stone, leaving them gently buoyant in the center.
Around them, the grove fell into a hush. The waterfall's roar softened to a distant murmur, as though someone had drawn a veil over the sound. Birdsong faded. The only noise left was the quiet whisper of luminous currents flowing past their skin.
Moonbeam felt an aching calm spread through her chest—a stillness she had never quite allowed herself before. Her duties, her worries, her careful calculations all seemed to settle at the edges of her awareness, leaving only the steady presence of the man whose hand she held and the living light that held them both.
"Sunbeam," she said quietly, "do you feel... heavier, or lighter?"
He smiled faintly. "Both. Like everything I am is being acknowledged, but none of it is a burden."
They drifted a little closer, bodies almost touching now, the water cupping their ribs, then their shoulders. Their halos, which had dimmed during their play, brightened once more—circles of gold and blue shining above them like twin suns glimpsed through a canopy.
As the luminous water reached their chests, something shifted within their sigils. The patterns that had once been separate—solar geometry, lunar geometry—began to rotate and interlock, not erasing each other but fitting together like pieces of a greater design.
A warmth bloomed between them, radiating outward. It felt like standing at the center of a promise finally answered.
Moonbeam laid her free hand over her heart, feeling the steady beat beneath the water. Sunbeam mirrored the gesture over his own. The spring reacted at once: a column of soft blue light rose between them, surrounding their joined hands and then widening to encircle them both.
"We're not sinking," she realized aloud. "We're being... carried in."
"Into what?" he asked.
Her lips curved in a small, serene smile. "Into whatever comes next."
The water rose past their shoulders now, but there was no panic, no struggle. Each inch upward came with a deepening sense of peace, as if the spring were slowly removing layers of noise and fatigue from them. Their thoughts quieted, their muscles loosened, and the usual tension that came from always being needed melted away.
The surface reached their collarbones. Sunbeam shifted so that their foreheads touched again, just as they had beneath the waterfall. Their noses brushed; their breaths mingled.
"If it shows us visions," he murmured, "let me see them with you."
"If it gives us rest," she answered, "let it be rest we share."
The water climbed to their necks, cool and luminous, yet somehow as comforting as a familiar embrace. Their halos dipped lower, rings of light touching the surface and sending out soft ripples of color—gold on one side, blue on the other, blending where they met.
Moonbeam drew one last deep breath, not out of fear, but as a conscious, trusting surrender to the spring's gentle pull.
"Together," she whispered.
"Together," he echoed.
The pool rose over their chins, their lips, their cheeks. The world became refracted light and soft, shifting color. Sunbeam's hand tightened briefly around hers—a wordless reassurance—and she answered with a small squeeze of her own.
Then the surface closed calmly over their heads.
From above, it was as if the pool had simply brightened. No thrashing, no disturbance—only a slow swirl of gold and blue deep within the clear, glowing water, like two lights spiraling toward a shared center.
The roses leaned in, their petals trembling. The little channels continued to feed the basin with silver threads. The waterfall roared far away, a memory beyond the circle of trees.
Below the surface, in the heart of the pool, the light wrapped around Sunbeam and Moonbeam like a cocoon.
They did not feel cold or starved of air. The luminous currents filled their lungs with something that wasn't breath but felt just as essential—a serene, sustaining energy that asked nothing of them except that they rest.
Their bodies drifted downward not in a fall but in a slow, weightless descent. The deeper they went, the softer everything became: sound, thought, the sharp angles of old fears. Their fingers never parted.
Visions flickered at the edges of their awareness: fields under a shared dawn, cities at peace, children laughing beneath banners that bore both sun and moon. Not promises, not certainties—just possibilities the spring wanted them to remember.
Finally, the descent slowed.
They settled at an unseen "floor" of light—a quiet cradle at the deepest point of the pool. There, the water's glow wrapped around them like a blanket woven of starlight and sea.
Their halos, now fully submerged, burned brighter than ever, overlapping until they became a single luminous ring hovering just above their closed eyes.
Their hands remained intertwined.
Their breathing—whatever form it took in that luminous realm—matched perfectly.
And for the first time in a very long time, both Sunbeam and Moonbeam knew a rest untouched by fear, unbroken by duty. No alarms could reach them here. No crises could knock on the surface. The grove held its secrets close.
Above, the pool looked almost ordinary again—just a small basin of shining blue in a ring of roses, reflecting the waterfall's distant light.
But beneath that quiet surface, two hearts lay side by side, wrapped in a luminous stillness, gathering strength for the world they would someday rise to shape again.
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