*Chapter One: Abandonment*
*The sky had gone too still.*
Not quiet—*dead*.
The kind of stillness that makes grief echo.
Like the world had stopped breathing after witnessing something it wasn't meant to see.
Noru sat in *ashes* that used to be his mother's garden.
*His back ached* from sleeping in dirt.
*His throat burned* from holding in screams.
His heart—
*his heart was not even a heart anymore.*
It was just a place where names echoed and never came back.
He hadn't cried.
*Not since the Kharôn came.*
He just stayed.
Among the burnt leaves.
*Among the silence.*
"If I cry…"
his voice cracked like dry wood,
*"…I might drown in it."*
*he remembered
*The memory.*
Raw. Unfinished. *Rotten at the edges.*
His mother's eyes…
*had gone too wide*. Too bright.
Like something inside her was trying to claw out through them.
She had whispered things
names Noru didn't know.
*Songs that twisted into screams.*
And his father—strong, proud, unbreakable—
*had clawed at his own chest*,
tearing at skin, shouting at shadows no one else saw.
"They're inside me—Nuru—*don't listen!* DON'T—" *And then silence.*
Their bodies hadn't burned from fire.
*They burned from inside.*
The *Whisperspawn* had taken root.
Fed on *everything they buried*.
Their grief. Their longing. Their rage.
Until their souls *fractured*, then ignited.
He had watched them go—not with flame—
*but with light.*
As he remembered his heart sink even more
Then he said in a silent voice not that his voice was loud anyways maybe it's better
This way maybe I should accept the whisper of death maybe….
Just Then the sky tore.
*A wound of light.*
No thunder.
Just brilliance.
And something fell.
Not a star.
Not a spirit.
A *boy*.
Noru froze.
The light vanished the moment he hit the ground.
No crater.
No sound.
Just… a stillness so heavy it made Nuru's chest tighten.
He stepped toward the fallen figure, legs unsteady, vision swimming.
The boy lay on his side—small, still, barefoot.
*His skin was deep brown, rich and soft like dusk before the stars come.*
His *hair, wild and white*, curled tightly like a crown of frozen clouds.
And when he moved—just slightly—
the light touched his face.
And *Nuru stopped breathing*.
*Eyes.*
Unreal.
*Blue. Vivid. Deep as oceans he'd only seen in dreams.*
Eyes that didn't blink.
Eyes that didn't cry.
Eyes that looked like they'd forgotten what it meant to *feel*.
Shattered pieces of a golden halo lay around him, dull and rusting.
They glowed for a second… then faded, like breath on a mirror.
The boy turned his face upward.
What happend?
Looking at his own hands he asked:
"Who… am I?"
His voice was soft. Too soft.
*Like a secret not meant to be spoken.*
Noru lips parted.
Something inside him stirred—fear, awe, recognition.
"You… don't remember anything?"
You just f… he stopped before finishing the word
The boy blinked slowly, then shook his head.
Noru's voice came out in a whisper, broken and uncertain:
*"Then you're like me."*
That night, they sat in silence.
Noru was a little bit worried, surprised,or rather a little bit scared about the mysterious boy.
but his grief overshadowed every question in his heart
Noru watched the sky with bitterness.
Asa—Noru had named him asa—watched it like it was *home*.
Asa's fingers were always twitching, as if searching for something that wasn't there.
"Why do you watch the stars like that?" Asa asked, not turning.
noru's voice dropped. *Low. Quiet. Almost hateful.*
"Because they were the last thing my mother looked at. Before the Kharôn… touched her."
Asa turned his head slowly.
There was sorrow in his gaze. But it didn't feel new.
"I think I fell because I remembered something I shouldn't have."
"Now… I remember nothing at all."
Noru's voice dropped even lower:
*"Then we're both leftovers."*
They didn't speak again.
But the air between them began to change.
Heavier.
Thicker.
Like something was waking.
--
That night, when the wind screamed and the fire died,
Noru clutched his knees to his chest. His body trembled.
He didn't want to cry.
He didn't want to remember.
*He just wanted to disappear.*
"I can't feel anymore," he whispered. *"If I feel again, I'll burn alive."*
Asa didn't answer at first.
Then he stood, slowly. Calm. Certain.
He reached out a hand—palm glowing faint silver.
"Then don't feel it," he said, voice… *too calm*.
"*Catch it.*"
Noru looked up, confused and scared.
"What are you talking about?"
Asa walked closer, eyes glowing just slightly.
The wind changed. The earth trembled.
"You don't have to hold your pain inside.
There's a way to catch it.
Like catching a falling star.
But only if you're willing."
Noru stood. Barely. Legs shaking.
"Is this magic?" he asked, voice weak.
asa smiled.
*Not kindly. Not cruelly.*
*Sadly.*
"No.
*Worse.*
It's memory."
---
Then asa lifted both their hands to the sky.
The stars pulsed once.
Noru breath hitched.
The wind stopped moving.
The air cracked with pressure.
"What… are you doing?" he whispered.
"It's a forbidden art," asa said, voice low and haunted.
"One I shouldn't remember. But I do."
"Why is it forbidden?"
Asa looked at him—his blue eyes *burning* now, almost blinding.
*"Because if you do it wrong, the sky remembers you."* (veilrealm)
*"And it doesn't forgive."*
Noru wanted to pull away.
His heart thundered. His veins screamed.
But something in him—*something buried*—longed to know.
So he let asa guide his hand.
Together, they reached.
And something fell.
A piece of light.
Slow. Soft.
*Like the soul of someone dying in peace.*
It brushed Noru's palm—
—and *he shattered.*
---
*He saw them*
His mother and father
Not the madness.
Not the stillness.
But their smile
Before.
**their voice
Their song
Their story
It was only a second—
But it carved him open like a knife dipped in memory.
"M-Mama—" dadd
His breath collapsed into sobs.
He fell to his knees.
Asa caught him.
"You caught them ," asa said, *his own voice shaking now*.
"You remembered without breaking. That's rare."
"That—was that real?"
"Was that—them ?
Asa nodded slowly.
"A piece of them What the stars remember."
Noru wept.
Violently.
Softly.
And asa held him.
Trembling too.
"Someone once caught one for me," he whispered.
"But I can't remember their name.
Only that
they let go."
---
That night, under the sky that watched in silence,
two broken boys caught a star together.
And the world watched.
And the *Kharôn stirred*.
Because the forbidden had been touched.
And *the sky never forgets.