03/09/2025
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Ashes of Forever
by Dany
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"Love is fire.
It warms, it guides, it saves.
But left untended, it consumes everything — even itself."
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Prologue: The Museum of Quiet Things
Long before the fire, there was light.
In the hushed halls of a museum, where marble floors whispered under quiet footsteps, two women walked side by side. Their laughter rose like music, soft enough to disturb only the dust, bright enough to carve itself into memory.
Kate paused before a painting — a storm at sea, waves crowned with foam. She tilted her head, her voice no more than breath.
“It looks like us.”
Jade smiled, her hand brushing Kate’s. “Then even the storm has beauty.”
They kissed there, beneath the silent gaze of stone and canvas, unknowing of the eyes that lingered in shadows.
Eyes that envied.
Eyes that burned.
But for that moment — that fragile, eternal moment — the world was only theirs.
Love, after all, always begins as art: something delicate, something precious, something too beautiful to last untouched.
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Chapter One: The Museum of Quiet Things
The museum was nearly empty, its marble floors echoing only the hushed footsteps of two women walking side by side. Jade’s laughter lingered in the air like a fragile melody, brushing against Kate’s heart the way sunlight caresses glass.
They stopped before a painting — a seascape, waves crashing wild and luminous. Kate tilted her head, eyes drinking in the turbulence on the canvas.
“It looks like us,” she whispered.
“How so?” Jade asked, her smile soft as dawn.
“Because even the storm has beauty when you’re near.”
Jade slipped her hand into Kate’s, and the silence between them became sacred. Around them, the world stood still: the statues, the oil portraits, the history trapped in frames.
But not all eyes in the museum were made of stone.
In the corner of the gallery, Jestro watched, his stare burning like a candle left too close to paper. He told himself it was admiration, devotion even — but deep within, it was hunger, a fever that refused to cool.
And just beyond the velvet ropes, leaning casually against a column, stood Alliyah. Her gaze lingered not on the seascape, nor on Kate, but on Jade. Longing traced her expression like cracks in porcelain, fine and dangerous.
Neither Jade nor Kate noticed the two shadows watching. They only saw each other, and for a moment, that was enough.
Love, after all, is brightest in the beginning — before envy sharpens its teeth, before devotion curdles into obsession.
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Chapter Two: Beneath the Willow Trees
The park was a quilt of green and gold, stitched together by the gentle sway of leaves. Beneath the great willow trees, Jade spread a blanket, and Kate lowered herself beside her, resting her head against Jade’s shoulder.
Children’s laughter rang from the playground, distant and sweet, while pigeons wheeled above like gray confetti. To Kate, the world was soft, tender — as if every detail had conspired to bless this afternoon with peace.
“You always find beauty,” Jade murmured, brushing a strand of hair from Kate’s face.
Kate smiled. “No — beauty finds me through you.”
They kissed, a quiet union beneath the curtain of willow branches.
But peace is fragile.
From the opposite path, Jestro lingered, pretending to feed breadcrumbs to the pigeons. His jaw tightened as he watched the kiss, his hands clenching until crumbs became dust.
A voice startled him.
“She doesn’t belong to you.”
It was Alliyah. She leaned against the willow trunk, her eyes fixed on Jade with a longing that mirrored Jestro’s own for Kate.
“You want her too,” Jestro accused softly, narrowing his eyes.
Alliyah didn’t deny it. Her lips curved into the faintest smile. “And you want Kate.”
For a moment, the air between them trembled, thick with unspoken schemes.
“If we break them,” Jestro whispered, “perhaps what we desire will be within reach.”
Alliyah’s gaze lingered on Jade’s laughter, carried like music across the grass. She nodded once.
Beneath the willow trees, a pact was born — silent, poisonous, and unseen by the lovers who still believed the world was theirs alone.
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Chapter Three: The Language of Waves
The sea spoke in tongues of foam and salt, its breath scattering pearls of spray across the shoreline. Jade and Kate walked barefoot along the wet sand, their shadows stretching long, hand in hand, as if the ocean itself had tethered them together.
Kate stopped to watch the tide. “Do you think love is like this?” she asked softly.
“Like the sea?” Jade tilted her head, curious.
“Yes,” Kate said. “Always returning, no matter how far it drifts. But dangerous too. If you’re not careful, it swallows you whole.”
Jade smiled, pulling Kate into her arms. “Then let it swallow me, as long as you’re there.”
They kissed against the wind, and the horizon burned with the last embers of sunset, painting their embrace in gold.
Yet behind them, two figures lingered where the dunes gave cover.
Jestro’s eyes glowed with restless fire, watching Kate’s every movement as if memorizing her body in the amber light. His heart pounded with a craving too sharp to name.
Beside him, Alliyah leaned into the dune grass, her gaze fixed not on the sea, nor the sunset, but on Jade — her expression one of yearning carved deep enough to wound.
“They’re too strong together,” Alliyah whispered, bitterness threading her voice.
“Then we break their strength,” Jestro muttered. “Piece by piece, until they crumble.”
A gull cried overhead, its lonely voice swallowed by the waves. The sea kept rolling in, infinite and indifferent — as love was, as jealousy was, as fate was.
Jade and Kate laughed as the surf chased their ankles, never sensing the eyes upon them, never hearing the vows of envy carried off by the tide.
TO BE CONTINUED...