Stand Strong Speck Of Stardust

Red on black is a striking color contrast common in the fashion of Fiore citizens, and in the dark stone back alleys of Crocus it is a common coloration of the street. Two young adults lay slumped together on the ground, the pool of their shared lifeblood unifying them in death as their oaths had in life created a scene equally morbid as it was serene. A Rune Knight patrolman and his partner approached, their light lacrimas illuminating the bodies against the night. There was no sign of the cause, the culprit, if there even was one, would never be caught. The patrolman would spend no small amount of time searching for the truth of what happened that night, but he would never find it. His only clue would be found then and there as a soft cry begin to reach out from underneath the bodies, the patrolman's partner covered their mouth in shock as the implication reached them. Pulled from under his parent's bodies an infant's life as an orphan began in the hands of the Rune Knight who found him.


Orphanage to orphanage he would bounce, apparently he had a certain knack for getting in trouble. A small child with unnatural silver hair and a penchant for mischief, no family was going to welcome him and no teacher was going to come forward to see his potential. His fate was a childhood without love, without hope, completely devoid of joy or purpose. It would come as a surprise to no one if this boy would grow into a most twisted person, maybe the kind who would take more after his parent's killer than his parents themselves. In these years of misery as the boy was no more than six years old our story begins in earnest.


The boy was running away, tired of the teasing of his peers and the commands of the adults running the orphanage, he left with the hope of being found by a more benevolent caretaker. Instead he would a cruel joke of fate as he hurried down the streets of Fiore's capital. With no destination in mind destiny guided his steps around an unfamiliar corner into a back alley, the most important back alley of his life. Here, unbeknownst to him, four years ago his parents died in the same spot where he now saw a Rune Knight patrol men holding a knife to the throat of a beggar with their back to a wall. The irony was not lost on the boy, he knew his life began with a Rune Knight saving him in a back alley, and now here was another threatening to end another life in a back alley. He knew the danger of witnessing a crime, especially when a Rune Knight committed it, the perpetrator would want to control the evidence and sure enough he tried. Wasting no time the knight slit his victims throat and started after the boy in a frenzy, eager to clean up the newly apparent loose end. Naturally the boy turned to run.


He would not get very far.

A brick, ever so unfortunately protruding from the street, would trip the boy mere seconds after he turned the corner. He turned to look back to see the grim faced Rune Knight pointing an open palm at him, a bright red light launched from the outstretched hand sentencing its victim to die. But the bolt would never hit its target, it abruptly fizzled out as if it had crashed into the air itself. The sound of a pair of clicking heels filled the alley as confusion and panic filled the face of the knight. He fired again, but it too fizzled out in vain. But that time the boy saw it, just a glimpse, but in the light of the spell a thick wall of dust dividing the two was illuminated. Then, he appeared.

From out of the darkness behind the Rune Knight stepped an elderly gentleman clad in a maroon velvet suit. He placed his hand on the Knight's shoulder and with no more effort than that: the boys assailant disintegrated into a shining cloud of red dust.