Empire of Bones|| ONC 2024

three| the past

*.*.*.*.*.
Year 117

They hadn't always been best friends. There was a time at some point in their life that she hadn't even known that there was a blue eyed boy named Killian Cursebreaker.

She didn't know had she had survived up to that point without knowing who he was. Without seeing his face everyday and hearing him talk about how he wanted to travel the world even though it was forbidden. How she had survived without counting his freckles anytime she found herself unable to control her powers.

They hadn't always been best friends. They didn't even know each other until she had already turned nine. Nerezza had first met the Cursebreaker when she had gotten lost while trying to create little fires in each home in the square that hard winter.

She had been in the middle of sneaking back out of a home when she realised that she didn't know where she was and that she recognised the place as the Immundus Part of Ossium, the part where criminals flooded and the poorest lived.

She almost screamed for help but then remembered that her mother had told to never scream for help in the Immundus.

"Instead of help, monsters would come." Mother had said.

She begun to wander, trying to trace back her steps to where she had started. Unbeknownst to her, she was going round in circles and didn't know that a young boy had been watching her, wondering what a rich outsider was doing in that part of the town.

Soon, when he got tired of watching her bite her lips in concentration and scar herself in frustration, he stepped out of his home to meet her.

"Hello." He greeted, his voice getting higher when she turned to him.

She had wrinkled her nose at him and Killian had thought, if she wasn't so pretty, I would've left her here.

"What?" She muttered.

Two strikes, Killian thought. One more and he would leave her.

He swore on Öęzliñ's name, pretty or not.

Nerezza must have noticed that he was getting annoyed at her countenance because she switched to apologising.

"Uh, can you help me?"

"With what?" Killian said as he watched the shadows.

He had an hour left before his parents came back. Before every adult in the Immundus would come back. He knew that if the girl didn't leave within that hour, she would never return to her home.

Selfishly, Killian didn't want her to leave.

He didn't know why he was so drawn to her but he was and it was both confusing for the ten year old and exciting. After all, it was the first time he was feeling this emotion, whatever it was.

He had never felt neither this happy nor nervous before. He would probably not complain if the nervousness left him though. It was embarrassing that he had to spit the words out because he couldn't stop staring at her.

"Going home."

"Where's your home?" He looked back at her and startled.

Tears were building up in her eyes. Neuken. He didn't know how to deal with crying girls. When it was his three year old sister, Daįyändrå, all he had to do was kiss her cheeks and hug her.

He blushed. He knew he would have no problem with hugging her. They were the same height after all. But kissing her? He could feel his ears turning red.

"I know the way to it if I can find my way to the main square." She replied.

"Let's get you home, then." He smiled at her.