The Festival of Unity faded as gently as it had come.
Lanterns dimmed. Music softened. Families gathered their children and followed winding paths back to forest homes and stone strongholds. Magic settled into the soil once more, though something subtle lingered in the air, like a quiet afterglow.
Juniper was led away reluctantly, her small fingers still tingling as though something warm had just slipped from her grasp. She kept glancing over her shoulder, green eyes searching for the dark-haired girl she did not know how to name.
Pyrrha did the same.
That night, beneath the great oak, Juniper dreamed of silver-flecked eyes and soft laughter. Within the stronghold, Pyrrha dreamed of glowing leaves and green light drifting through gentle hands.
Neither could name what they had lost.
Only that something was missing.
⸻
As spring softened into summer, the invisible thread between Juniper and Pyrrha grew quietly stronger.
Juniper began wandering farther from her treehouse, guided not by curiosity, but by a feeling she could not explain. She paused beside moss-covered stones. Followed narrow deer trails. Stood at the forest's edge where roots gave way to smooth stone. Her parents watched with gentle curiosity, sensing the shift in her spirit.
The forest no longer only spoke to her of rain and roots.
It whispered of something beyond the trees.
Sometimes Juniper would simply sit at the boundary where grass met stone and wait.
She didn't know why.
Only that it felt right.
⸻
Within the stronghold, Pyrrha changed as well.
She lingered near windows that faced the forest. When ancient scrolls were unrolled, her eyes still followed the runes—but now they drifted toward distant green horizons. The fortress's magic hummed softly around her, not with warning, but with anticipation.
She began to dream of wind through leaves.
The stone did not resist these dreams.
⸻
Neither child spoke of the other.
Yet both carried the same warmth in their chests, like an ember that refused to fade.
They were too young to understand longing.
But not too young to feel it.
⸻
One afternoon, Juniper wandered farther than ever before. The forest did not stop her. Branches bent gently aside. Roots shifted from her path. It was as though the trees themselves were guiding her toward something they wished her to find.
At the edge of the forest, sunlight spilled across smooth stone paths that led toward the old festival grounds.
Juniper took a step.
Then another.
⸻
That same day, Pyrrha slipped quietly from her lessons.
The stronghold did not bar her path. Ancient doors opened with whispers of magic. Her small feet carried her through echoing halls and into open air, toward the place where forest and stone met.
She did not know why she was going there.
Only that she must.
⸻
And so, guided by worlds that loved them, two small figures walked toward the same place.
Not as strangers.
But as something far older.