Love does not ask for flags.

The world had been divided for decades. Virelia and Thandor—two neighboring nations—once shared rivers, trade, and kin. But now, they shared only hatred.

The borderlands were the worst. Forests once filled with birdsong now echoed with gunfire. Old bridges had been destroyed. Villages vanished under the smoke of artillery. Generations grew up knowing only one thing: the other side was the enemy.

But amid all this, fate did something strange.

In the northern highlands, just beyond the no-man’s land between the two countries, there was a quiet stream. Soldiers avoided it because of the exposed terrain. But one evening, two people happened to be there.

Aerin was a Thandorian scout. Careful, fast, and sharp-eyed. She was tasked with mapping Virelian territory. Rowan was a Virelian medic, gathering herbs for injured soldiers hidden in the woods nearby.

They spotted each other across the stream.

Both froze.

Hands twitched near weapons. But something odd happened: neither moved to draw.

Aerin slowly raised both palms in a sign of no threat. Rowan hesitated, then did the same.

They didn’t speak. The water between them carried the only sound.

A week later, they saw each other again. And the week after.

Neither knew why they returned. It was foolish—dangerous—but neither told anyone.

Eventually, they spoke.

“Why are you really here?” Aerin asked across the stream.

Rowan smiled faintly. “To remind myself not everything has to be destroyed.”

She didn’t respond, but she came back again.

Over weeks, they shared stories—childhood memories, books they once read, the taste of bread before rationing began. They never crossed the stream. They never asked about battles or strategy.

In that sliver of land, between two enemies, they were just Aerin and Rowan—not Thandor and Virelia.

As winter neared, the war grew louder. Both sides were preparing for a massive push. The no-man’s land would no longer be safe.

Their last meeting came on a cloudy morning.

“I won’t be back,” Aerin said.

Rowan nodded. “They’re moving troops. This place won’t be quiet anymore.”

A long silence.

“You know,” Aerin said, “they’d hang me if they knew I spoke to you.”

“They’d do the same to me.”

Another pause.

“Then why did you keep coming?” Rowan asked.

Aerin’s eyes dropped to the water. “Because for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like just a weapon.”

Rowan exhaled. “Neither did I.”

They looked at each other. There was no promise. No plan. Just a shared understanding deeper than words.

She turned to leave, then stopped. “Be safe, Rowan.”

“You too, Aerin.”

And that was the last time they saw each other.

Years passed. The war ended, not with victory, but collapse. Both nations were tired—economies broken, cities ruined, and leaders gone. Borders opened slowly, carefully. New generations asked questions their parents never had the courage to.

Among the rebuilding, memorials were erected—thousands of names carved into stone. But some names never made it. Some stories, like the one by the quiet stream, lived only in memory.

One day, a young teacher from Virelia led her students on a field trip to the old northern highlands. The forest was quiet again. She showed them where the soldiers once camped, where trenches had scarred the earth.

One child wandered off and found a stone near the stream, half-buried in moss.

It read:

> “Here once stood two enemies who never hated.

May their silence speak louder than all the war drums.”

No one knew who placed it there.

Some said it was a soldier who survived. Others believed it was left by one of the lovers.

The teacher left it untouched.

The stone became something sacred—not a monument to war, but to the idea that peace can bloom even in the darkest soil

Moral:

Even in war, the heart can see past borders. Love, in its purest form, asks no allegiance but truth.