🕯️ Part 4: The Pact of the Gentle Flame

A vow between two souls — not to bind, but to burn beside

Once, in the time between winters, two witches met by accident — or by spell. 🔮

One carried a fire that never dimmed, but flared too fast. 🔥
The other, a wick that had never been lit, yet smouldered inward with longing. 🪔

They did not speak of forever.
They spoke of now.
Of breath and pause.
Of heat that did not consume.

Together, they sat on the forest floor and made a pact:

“No bindings.
No expectations.
Only this:
If we burn, we burn gently —
Not to own, but to warm.”

In the early days, they shared only silence and soup. 🍲
One lit a candle each dusk. 🕯️
The other made sure it was never left unattended.

It was not romance.
It was not friendship.
It was something softer, stranger — a tether made of choice, not need.

One solstice, a storm split their shelter. 🌩️
The fire went out.

The witch of the never-dimmed flame panicked, ready to rebuild, reignite, rescue.

But the other witch said:

“Let it be cold. Let us learn what remains when the fire is gone.”

So they sat in the dark.

And discovered that even without flame, they still reached for one another.

Not for warmth.
For presence.

Later, when they lit the flame again, it burned lower. Steadier. 🕯️
They did not return to what was.

They made a new kind of fire — one that flickered with permission.
A fire that asked nothing, but welcomed everything. 🔥

They called it “the gentle flame.”

And others, sensing the calm in their hearth, came to sit by it.
Not to stay. Just to be. 🧘♀️

The witches never broke their pact.

Not because they were perfect.

But because they understood:

True flame does not demand.
It offers. ✨

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🔥 For those who choose warmth without possession, and presence without chains.