EPILOGUE — THE LUNOX TRILOGY

HELD. ALTERED. UNDENIABLE.

Three chapters, each built to hold its own shape: distance in one, warmth in another, tension refusing to resolve in the third, for as long as that arrangement could reasonably be expected to last.

It didn't last. Control that's held for long enough starts to feel less like restraint and more like something waiting for a reason to give, and eventually a reason turns up.
Distance stops working as a boundary the moment someone decides they'd rather not respect it anymore. Whatever got pushed away for the sake of keeping things simple has a way of finding its way back in regardless, usually right when everyone involved has stopped expecting it.

None of these candles were ever really telling three different stories. They were telling one story from three different distances, and putting them next to each other is what finally lets you see the whole shape of it, the parts that only make sense once you can smell all three at once.