The Garden of Peace🕊️✨

In a land where the mountains kissed the sky and rivers hummed lullabies, there was a village called Serenia. It was a place untouched by time, where the air smelled of jasmine and the earth was always warm beneath bare feet. The people of Serenia lived simply, tending to their gardens, sharing stories under the stars, and weaving melodies into the wind.

But Serenia was not always so tranquil. Many years before, the village had been divided—split into two by an invisible line drawn from fear. On one side lived the people of the Sun, who worshipped the daylight and painted their homes in gold. On the other side lived the people of the Moon, who whispered secrets to the night and adorned their walls in silver.

For generations, the two sides had lived in suspicion, each believing the other to be the cause of their misfortunes. If crops failed, they blamed the other. If a child fell ill, they accused the other of curses. The elders spoke in hushed tones of past conflicts, and the children were taught to never cross the line.

### **The Girl Who Walked Between**

One evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the first stars blinked awake, a little girl named Liora stood at the edge of the invisible line. She was neither of the Sun nor the Moon, for she had been born at the exact moment of twilight, when the sky was neither day nor night.

Liora had always felt the divide more deeply than others. She saw how it made her mother sigh and her father clench his fists when someone from the other side passed by. But Liora did not understand why.

That night, she did something forbidden.

She stepped over the line.

The soil felt no different. The air smelled the same. Yet when she looked up, she saw a boy—around her age—sitting beneath a willow tree, plucking the strings of a small wooden lyre. His music was soft, like rain on petals.

The boy saw her and froze.

"You're from the Sun side," he whispered.

Liora nodded. "And you're from the Moon side."

For a long moment, neither moved. Then, the boy smiled. "I'm Elias."

"I'm Liora."

Elias held out his lyre. "Do you want to hear a song?"

And just like that, the divide between them vanished.

### **The Ripple of a Melody**

Liora returned to her side that night, humming Elias’s tune. Her mother frowned. "Where did you hear that song?"

Liora hesitated. "From a boy… on the other side."

Her parents exchanged worried glances, but Liora only smiled. "He’s nice. And his music is beautiful."

The next evening, she returned. And the next. Each time, she and Elias shared stories—how the Sun people celebrated the solstice with fire dances, how the Moon people painted constellations on their ceilings. They laughed over silly things, like how Elias was afraid of butterflies and how Liora couldn’t eat a mango without getting juice everywhere.

One day, Elias sighed. "I wish our villages weren’t so far apart."

Liora’s eyes sparkled. "Then let’s bring them together."

### **The Blossoming of Peace**

The two children began their mission quietly. Liora brought Elias a sunflower from her garden, and he planted it on his side. Elias gave Liora a silver bell, and she hung it outside her home. Slowly, others noticed.

A Sun woman saw the sunflower and asked about it. When she learned it was from the Moon side, she hesitated—then planted one of her own next to it.

A Moon elder heard the silver bell’s chime and remembered an old story about harmony. He hummed along.

Then, one evening, as the sky turned violet, Liora and Elias stood in the center of the village, where the invisible line had once been. They held hands and sang—a song neither of the Sun nor the Moon, but of the Twilight.

One by one, people gathered.

First, the curious children. Then, the hesitant parents. Finally, even the elders, their faces lined with years of distrust, stepped forward.

No one spoke. They simply listened.

And in that silence, something miraculous happened.

The line faded.

### **The Garden That Grew**

Years passed. The village of Serenia became whole again. The people of the Sun and the Moon built a great garden where the divide had been, planting flowers that bloomed in both daylight and starlight. They called it the Garden of Peace.

Liora and Elias, now grown, still sat beneath the willow tree, playing music as the wind carried their songs across the valley.

And when travelers asked how such harmony had been achieved, the villagers would smile and say:

"Peace begins with a single step across the line. And then another. And another. Until the line disappears altogether."

And so, in a land where the mountains kissed the sky and rivers hummed lullabies, there was a village called Serenia—where peace was not just a dream, but a way of life.

**The End.**