~Parallel Days~
It starts with a dream.
Prologue
Once upon a time, in a certain world, there was a boy and a girl in a tower.
In that world, the boy and girl were just two slaves among countless others. And yet, they had friends who shared their wishes and dreams of a better life.
In that world, the boy gave the girl a name. The boy gave the girl a promise.
In that world, the boy and the girl and their friends tried to escape the tower, hoping for freedom. The girl was captured and taken away. The boy tried to rescue the girl, who had been tortured and lost her eye, and told her they had to fight. But the boy was taken away in the girl's place. So the girl returned to her friends, remembered what the boy had said, and stood up.
In that world, they fought. They fought for the sake of their freedom, as well as to save the boy. And the girl began to believe in herself, in the existence of magic, and that she could coexist with everything in nature. She used her magic, believing she could save the boy with her power. And during all this, a voice whispered to the boy, trying to fill him with hate and lies and tales of a false world called 'heaven'.
In that world, the boy could not help but listen, and changed, and when the girl found the boy, he was not the boy she had known anymore.
In that world, the girl reached her hand out to the boy she had once known.
In that world, he did not take it.
Instead, the boy banished her alone from the tower to what he called her "fleeting freedom", hanging the lives of his once-friends over her head as payment, and the girl was heartbroken at the loss of the boy and those friends. But eventually, the girl joined a guild where they asked her if fairies had tails, and slowly, slowly, her heart began to heal. Her new family, her new friends, they all supported her and loved her like no one except the boy and her old friends had before. But she shut her heart in armor, unwilling to let anyone hurt her ever again like the boy once had.
In that world, eight years passed. Through a series of unfortunate events, the girl met the boy again at the top of the same tower, and for the girl, her heart was breaking all over again. The boy and the girl fought, the boy took the life of one of the girl's old friends, the girl was saved by one of her new friends, and the boy was eventually defeated.
In that world, the boy finally remembered who he used to be, what the girl meant to him, and woke up. The girl tried to sacrifice herself for her new friends only to be stopped by the boy, who took her place once and again. And the girl learned not to die for her friends, but to live for them.
In that world, the girl sadly accepted the loss of the boy, simply grateful that he had returned to being the boy she had once known.
But the boy was not dead.
In that world, the girl met the boy again at yet another battlefield, and the boy did not remember the girl. The boy did not remember his promise. Despite the forgotten memories, they fought together this time, side by side, for something else. And when that battle was over, the boy had to be taken away to pay for his crimes at the tower, and the girl had to lose the boy all over again. But by then, the boy had remembered the girl's name and the promise he had given her.
And the girl cried at a scarlet sky.
The world did not stop despite her grief, and the girl moved on by wistfully keeping the memory of the boy close to her heart. She continued on with her life, finding comfort in her family until one day, she and her new-old friends were put to sleep for seven years.
When she woke up, the boy was waiting for her.
In that world, there finally came a time where the boy was not a boy and the girl was not a girl, but a young man and a young woman, and they were able to look back at that night, hoping they could smile for real.
They had found their answer.
.
.
.
That is not the story of what happened in this world.
In this world, they did not find their answer, because they always had it.
In this world, the boy was not taken away to pay for his crimes at the tower, because there were no crimes to pay for.
In this world, the boy remembered the girl, because he had never forgotten her.
In this world, the girl did not try to sacrifice herself for her new friends, because she had not joined a guild where they asked her if fairies had tails. She did not know them, and there was nothing to sacrifice.
In this world, there was still a boy and a girl in a tower. They were still only two slaves among countless others, and they still had friends despite that.
In this world, the boy still gave the girl a name and a promise.
They still tried to escape, the girl was still captured and tortured and still lost an eye, the boy still tried to rescue her and still told her they had to fight. The boy was still taken away, the girl still returned to her friends and remembered what the boy had said, and still stood up and fought.
In this world, a voice still whispered to the boy, trying to fill him with hate and lies and tales of a false world called 'heaven'.
In this world, the boy was just a little wiser, a little stronger, a little more cynical, and told the voice to go fuck off.
In this world, the girl still believed in herself, in the existence of magic, and that she could coexist with everything in nature. She still used her magic, still believed she could save the boy with her power, and she still found him.
In this world, the girl reached her hand out to the boy she still knew.
In this world, he took it.
.
.
.
A/N: My first multi-chapter project. The writing style for the prologue is a bit different from what I usually do and probably kind of weird, but the actual story will be in a more conventional style. Also the summary, "Canon AU", is exactly that. And no, it doesn't mean Edolas. If that's still confusing, it'll be clearer in later chapters. I guess you can call it somewhat of a "fix-fic".
I hope I've sparked people's interest. I'm a pretty slow writer and additionally I'm beta-reading someone else's story at the moment, so updates will be slow too, although I'll try to at least get the next chapter up within a week. Thanks for reading so far.