5-Nua, 9th, 1523

Aeron was woken up from his sleep.

"Dear, you should get up now, the rest are already having breakfast." He heard a motherly voice from above him.

He opened his eyes blearily, yawning as he sat up.

"Okay..." He got off his bed and took the hand the nice grandma who woke him up held out, leading him to the dining area.

As they arrived, he was guided to his seat, his food still warm.

He absentmindedly ate, he still wasn't used to everything, all his life he was fed food scraps, sometimes even nothing for days.

Sometimes it felt like a dream, how he was saved, how he was getting food, clothing, and even other kids like him to play with.

When he woke up in a tent, the big man that saved him was nowhere to be found, and when he gathered his courage to ask one of the ladies where the big man went, they just said he would come back.

It had been a couple days since then, and he still wasn't back, even the lady she asked was also gone.

"Psst, hey!" A whisper broke him out of his thoughts, and he looked to his side.

"My name's Louvelle!" The girl beside him whispered as she leaned over, "What's yours?"

"Uh..." He fidgeted, before slightly leaning towards her ear, "I'm Aeron."

"Okay Aeron, we are friends now!" Louvelle flashed him a big dumb grin, and he couldn't help but smile although he wanted to ask something.

"What do you mean friends? Is it food?" He whispered to her.

Louvelle's eyes squinted for a fraction of a second, before going back to normal.

"No, dummy, friends are when two people meet each other and get along!" She explained.

"Oh... Okay, we're friends then!" He nodded, smiling back at her.

The two would start to bond, Louvelle teaching Aeron things he could never fathom knowing about mere days earlier.

They would stay up well into the late hours of the night, chatting happily around dozens of books that they may or may not have had taken from the library with no permission.

This would not go unnoticed by the caretakers, but they would let it go. After all, these kids deserved every bit of happiness they recieved.

5-Nua, 11th, 1523

Aeron and Louvelle were in the garden, the two were once again, surrounded by books, this time borrowed with permission from the librarian.

Louvelle would teach Aeron numerous things, things like the alphabet, writing, and much more.

Stolen novel; please report.

Aeron would devour the information greedily, performing the tasks Louvelle would find in the books in speeds not possible for a child his age.

"You know," Louvelle started, "you're pretty smart, like, smart as me." She raised an eyebrow.

"Are you some kinda super secret prodigy or something?"

Aeron's face was of confusion as he stared at her.

"What do you mean?" He put down the quill he was holding, letting it rest on the holder it came with.

"I've noticed you blaze through the things we study, and not like I mind, I blaze through them as fast as you too, but most of the time I spent my studying alone since the other kids in my village couldn't keep up and would bully me for being too smart, which is stupid." She rambled, and Aeron could kind of agree that the reason for her getting bullied was stupid.

"My point is, you're eerily smart like me, so I'm wondering if you're from some kind of noble family." She concluded.

"No, uhm..." He shut his mouth and thought for a few seconds if he should actually tell her. He thought back how she said that friends would get along, and they were friends, so he decided that he would just tell her, "You see, I was... a slave. I don't know my mom or my dad." He muttered.

Louvelle stayed silent, shocked at the revelation.

"So... you mean to tell me," She whispered, "you have no prior knowledge about the stuff we study, and you still can keep up with me?"

She squeeled, "That's so cool! That makes you far smarter than me!"

He involuntarily blushed at her compliment, "Why does that make me smarter than you?"

"Because I was already given the basics before I got here! You didn't and pretty much are on par with me!"

"I still don't ge-", Before Aeron could reply, one of the nice caretaker ladies walked over to them.

"Aeron, Louvelle, can you guys come with me for a minute?" She smiled at them.

"Uhm, can we ask why?" Louvelle raised her hand as if in a classroom.

The nice lady giggled, "Nothing bad, dears, it's just that the Seraphims are coming back, and word carried by the wind is that, they'll be visiting here!"

"Seraphims?" The two asked in unison.

"They're the ones who saved you, remember?"

Louvelle and Aeron both blurted out, "Is the big man with the weird eyes there?"

They looked at each other, shock on their faces as they realized they were saved by the same person.

They high-fived each other as the lady smiled and said, "If by weird eyes, you mean Seraphim Mikael, then yes, he would be there. Now, lets go, shall we?" She extended both her hands out as the children held on and walked with her.

Mikael was doing everything he could to delay the meeting with the Archpriest, and just in time, he remembered Aeron, so off he went.

He took charge in taking the orphaned children to the building where they would stay, pointedly ignoring the glare that Gwynne sent him before she stomped towards the Church.

As he arrived, he was greeted by the caretakers, including the head.

"Blessed be unto Magta-Hei, Seraphim MIkael." They all bowed in unison.

"Blessed be unto Magta-Hei, sisters, and please, raise your head." He waved at them as they expressed their thanks.

Sorting out the transferring of the children, he turned around to Aeron holding the hands of one of the caretakers.

"Ah, Aeron, how are you doing?" He asked the child who now seemed to be more free, more happy.

"I... uhm, I made a friend!" He exclaimed, pointing towards the girl who was holding the caretakers other hand.

Hair as white as snow, flame-like orange eyes, it was creepily familiar, and it gave him a feeling of deja vu.

"Oh really? Could you introduce me to your friend?" He tilted his head, his eyes shifted as he heard him say his friend's name.

"Her name's Louvelle!" Aeron gave him an ear-to-ear grin.

All of a sudden, pulses of memories came.

A blazing white flame that stood firm against the uncaring, ever consuming darkness, raging and burning it as it tried to crawl and writhe its way past.

A bastion against evil, a shield that would hold until the end of time.

A lone woman, standing her ground against insurmountable odds.

Outmatched and outnumbered, but not outskilled, she would hold back the tide of evil, she would die, yes, but she would not fail.

His heart ached from the memories of another him, of another time, who witnessed and lived through it all.

His eye shifted again as he looked at her, his earlier thoughts unknown to them.

"I remember you, child, you were quite talkative." He laughed lightly as Louvelle's ears turned red like tomatoes.

Patting the children on their heads, he thanked the caretaker for bringing them to him, which was responded with a bow, and he then told the children that he would visit them tomorrow, as he still had a meeting to do.

The two children waved him goodbye, turning around as they entered the doors of the building.

Looking at the Church from where he was at, he rubbed his eyes and muttered, "This is gonna be a pain in the ass."