Prompt: Loosely inspired by Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, this AU reimagines the Clover Kingdom as a den of zealots—a place where those who defy the norm suffer dearly for it.
—
The Clover Kingdom was holy. That's what they always said.
A land guided by divine order, blessed by mana, ruled by scripture and kings.
Magic wasn't just power—it was righteousness. Proof of your worth. Your place in the world.
And those who lacked it?
Those who strayed from perfection?
Abominations.
The priests called them Hereticborn.
The nobles had kinder names. Like trash.
The townspeople didn't bother naming them at all.
They were simply beaten. Ignored. Left in the alleys to rot.
Asta didn't understand any of that.
Not when he was five, running barefoot through Hage's frostbitten fields, smiling like a fool.
Not when Sister Lily flinched every time she touched his skin.
Not when the prayers over his bed grew longer. Desperate. As if they could pray the curse away.
He never had magic.
Not a flicker. Not a spark.
Just a loud voice, a stronger body than the others, and a smile that refused to die.
They hated that the most.
Why do you grin like that?
Do you not feel shame?
He didn't know what to say.
He just wanted to be loved.
And far away, in a palace of gold and marble, a little girl cried behind closed doors.
Noelle Silva. A royal. Born with everything.
Except control.
No matter how hard she trained, her magic lashed out—wild, hateful, unpredictable.
The maids whispered that she was cursed.
Her siblings didn't whisper. They shouted.
Disgrace. Useless. Heretic. Demon.
Every birthday, she lit the candles alone.
Her father wouldn't look at her. Her mother was gone. Her siblings sent silence for gifts.
She broke mirrors trying to see what was wrong with her.
She stopped asking for help when the tutors started beating her for failure.
Noelle learned to cry without sound.
To scream into pillows and pretend she was fine.
She wanted to disappear. Just fade into the silk sheets and be gone.
But then her powers flared during a temple visit.
She was six.
The nuns screamed.
A holy statue shattered.
And that was it.
They came for her the next morning.
White-robed inquisitors. Iron gloves. Crosses carved into their chests.
Her family didn't fight them. Didn't question.
Take her, Nozel said. She's not one of us.
Asta didn't even get that much ceremony.
He was dragged out of his bed at night, the priest's nails digging into his skin.
You've had long enough, they told Sister Lily. Mercy was wasted on this one.
They were taken to the capital. Separately. Days apart. Alone.
Neither knew the other existed.
They were thrown into the depths of the Sanctum Penitentia.
A dungeon beneath the royal cathedral. Hidden. Silent. Forgotten.
Its walls were stone and rot. Its air thick with suffering.
Chains lined the halls like decorations. Prayers were etched into the floors in dried blood.
Most prisoners were adults—murderers, rebels, failed exorcists, beasts.
And then, two children.
Noelle was locked in a cage no bigger than a closet.
She couldn't stand. Couldn't stretch.
Her dress, once white and gold, turned to rags within a week.
Asta was chained to the far wall of a cell with twenty others.
He was the smallest. The only one who didn't speak.
He learned quickly not to make noise. It invited fists. Or worse.
The guards liked to remind them of God's will.
Every whipping came with a prayer.
Every withheld meal came with scripture.
Obedience brings redemption. Pain cleanses the soul.
They were taught to kneel until their knees bled.
Taught to pray until their tongues cracked.
Taught to stop crying. It offended the divine.
Some days they were given bread. Some days just water. Some days nothing.
But they never died.
That was the point.
Let them suffer. Let them learn. Let them repent.
The dungeons were not punishment.
They were penance.
Noelle stopped speaking by her third week.
She learned to curl inwards. To sleep with one eye open. To bite her tongue and swallow her screams.
Asta refused at first. He screamed. He begged.
They beat it out of him.
By the time a month passed, he forgot what sunlight looked like.
Neither remembered what warmth felt like.
They didn't even know each other's names yet.
But sometimes, late at night, when the guards were too drunk to patrol…
She would hear him.
"I'm still alive."
A whisper. Barely more than a breath. Always the same words.
And she whispered back.
"So am I."
They didn't know why. They just did.
And in a place built to crush them…
That was how they began.
—
They weren't supposed to see each other.
Cells were staggered. Darkness was constant.
But one day, the light flickered.
A torch flared during cleaning. Brief. Unintended.
That's when Noelle saw him.
Curled near the bars of the opposite cell, skin pale, hair filthy, cheeks sunken—but alive.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke.
They just stared.
Asta blinked first. Then grinned.
It was a pathetic thing. All gums, no strength. But it was real.
Noelle hadn't seen a smile in months. She didn't know what to do with it.
So she looked away.
The next day, the torch flared again. It always did, right before the beatings.
That time, she whispered something.
"Why do you smile?"
He blinked. Swallowed. Shrugged.
"Because I'm not dead yet."
It wasn't a good answer.
But it stayed with her.
The guards liked hurting them most when they were quiet. Obedient. Accepting.
So they stopped being quiet.
Not loud enough to provoke punishment—just… enough.
A word here. A glance. A shared look when no one was watching.
Little things.
She tossed a scrap of crust across the hall one night.
It missed. Fell short. He reached anyway.
The next night, he tossed a half-squished insect he found in his water bucket.
She pretended it was food. Ate it without blinking.
They didn't laugh. Not really.
But something sparked. Something small.
A flicker.
When Asta was dragged out for "cleansing," she counted the hours until he returned.
When Noelle came back with fresh welts, he made a game out of guessing how many.
They started whispering their names through the bars at night.
Just once each, so no one could hear.
"Noelle."
"Asta."
And that was sacred.
In a place where even names were stripped from you—where guards called you "it"—having someone say your name…
It mattered.
It made them real.
He told her about the outside. About a church and an old priest and a nun who smiled but didn't mean it.
She told him about marble halls, endless stairs, and siblings who hated her so much they wouldn't say why.
"We're different," she said one night.
"No," he whispered. "We're the same."
There were no clocks. No calendars. No way to tell time.
But the seasons still found them. The dungeon grew colder.
The air bit.
Noelle trembled so hard she couldn't sleep.
The floor was stone. Her skin was bruised.
She started coughing. Then choking.
One night, she couldn't stop.
The guards ignored her.
Asta didn't.
He ripped the sleeve off his shirt, balled it up, and shoved it through the bars. Reached as far as his tiny arm would go.
"Take it," he hissed.
She dragged herself forward, coughing blood now.
She reached. Missed. Reached again.
Got it.
The cloth was filthy. Torn. But it was warm.
She clung to it like a child clings to a stuffed toy.
It didn't stop the pain. But it gave her something to hold.
The next day, she whispered "thank you."
The day after that, she shared half her water.
No one noticed. No one ever did.
Not until they started humming.
Soft. Broken. Off-key.
It was a lullaby she remembered from the palace. He learned the tune.
They hummed together in the dark.
Other prisoners cursed them. Threw things. Told them to shut up.
They didn't care.
It gave them rhythm. A reason.
Something human.
And when the guards dragged Asta out for punishment, she hummed louder.
He came back bloody. Eyes swollen shut. But when he heard the tune, he smiled.
She pressed her fingers to the bars and whispered, "Still alive?"
He coughed up blood, then said, "Barely."
They called it faith. The guards. The priests. The inquisitors.
But it wasn't faith.
It was cruelty.
Dogma twisted into chains.
Punishment masked as prayer.
Noelle started calling it the cage of gods.
Asta just called it hell.
Still, they clung to each other.
One night, an older prisoner tried to grab Noelle through the bars.
She was too slow. He caught her arm.
She screamed.
Asta snapped.
He didn't think. He didn't weigh the consequences.
He ripped a shard of stone from the floor, ran to the bars, and jammed it into the man's hand.
The screams echoed for hours.
The guards broke his legs for that.
But when he crawled back to the bars, Noelle was waiting.
She held his hand through the space between the cells.
Didn't say a word.
He didn't need her to.
That was the night the plan began.
They didn't know if they could escape.
But they had to try.
Because now, they had something worth saving.
Each other.
—
The plan wasn't good.
They knew that.
But it was something.
Asta started it.
He whispered through the bars, "We can't stay here."
Noelle nodded. "We won't last another winter."
Neither said the word die, but it hovered.
They watched.
Listened.
Learned.
The guards were brutal, but lazy.
Always followed the same routine. Same patrol paths. Same shift changes.
At least once a week, a noble or inquisitor came to "observe the cursed."
They always brought food.
Not for the prisoners.
For themselves.
They ate while staring at the children behind bars.
Sometimes they threw scraps.
One day, Asta caught a chicken bone.
He sharpened it against the wall until it had a jagged point.
Noelle found a nail.
It had rust. Splinters. It hurt to hold—but it was a weapon.
They weren't strong.
They weren't fast.
But they were small.
Forgettable.
Everyone saw them as pathetic.
They used that.
One night, they whispered to a man three cells down.
He was mad.
Murdered ten people. Drank their blood.
But he still listened.
They told him lies. That the guards had magic-stifling drugs in the armory. That the nobles were planning mass executions. That the food was poisoned.
They whispered to others too.
Told them the guards laughed behind their backs.
Called them animals. Said they'd never be free.
The dungeon was a barrel of dry oil.
They just lit the match.
It started with a scream.
Then a laugh.
Then magic—raw, unstable, furious—blasted the cell doors.
Bars bent.
Stone cracked.
Asta reached through the smoke and grabbed Noelle's hand.
"Now!"
They ran.
Not fast. Not clean.
But they moved.
Prisoners surged toward the guards, teeth bared, fists raised.
Spells collided in the air. Fire caught the rafters.
Chaos. Screams. Blood.
Noelle stumbled. Asta dragged her up.
They ducked under collapsing beams, darted past twisted bodies.
The stairs. There were stairs.
Neither had seen stairs in years.
The first step almost broke their legs.
But they didn't stop.
Up.
And up.
And up.
They saw light.
Not a torch.
Sunlight.
Filtered through a crack in a shattered wall. Gold. Warm. Real.
Asta gasped.
Noelle stopped walking.
They stared.
For a second, everything else vanished.
The stink of blood. The screams below. The pain in their ribs.
Just the sun.
"It's real," Noelle whispered.
"We made it," Asta said.
They didn't.
The sound came next.
Boots.
Not sloppy dungeon guards. These were trained. Silent. Fast.
Inquisitors.
Ten of them.
Then twenty.
White robes. Magic-circles already glowing.
One spoke.
"Seize the heretics."
They ran.
Of course they ran.
But children don't outrun holy knights.
The first spell hit Asta in the back.
He screamed. Hit the wall. Didn't get up.
Noelle turned. Eyes wild.
She screamed, too.
Her magic flared—wild, out of control.
A water blast lashed out. Took two guards with it.
Then it backfired.
It always did.
Her legs collapsed.
They fell together.
Dragged down. Shackled. Beaten.
But they didn't cry.
Not once.
Not when their blood pooled on the stones.
Not when they were kicked. Spit on. Called monsters.
They just looked at each other.
Asta's eye was swollen shut.
Noelle's lip was torn.
But they smiled.
"We almost made it," he whispered.
She nodded, dazed. "We saw the sun."
The inquisitor leaned in. Cold eyes. Cruel voice.
"You orchestrated this chaos."
Neither answered.
"You corrupted the damned."
Still silent.
He backhanded Noelle.
Asta lunged and was kicked again.
"Execution," the inquisitor said. "One week."
They didn't flinch.
Noelle reached across the floor, fingers trembling.
Asta found her hand.
They held on.
Tight.
Tighter.
Because it wasn't over.
Not yet.
But it would be.
Soon.
—
The cell was smaller now.
Or maybe they were just older.
Seven years old.
Not much, but enough to notice how the walls had closed in.
The chains were tighter. The food was gone. No more scraps.
After the escape, they stopped pretending.
No more water bowls.
Just what they could lick off the stones when it rained.
Asta coughed blood.
Noelle's legs barely moved.
But they were still here.
Still together.
That was enough.
The interrogations came next.
One by one, the inquisitors entered.
Asked questions they already knew the answers to.
"Who helped you?"
"Who gave you weapons?"
"Did the devil speak to you?"
Noelle didn't reply.
Neither did Asta.
They were beaten for it.
Starved for it.
Left out in the cold.
But still… they said nothing.
The priests said they were cursed.
Abominations.
Witches reborn.
Asta laughed once. Not loud. Just a wheeze.
Noelle smiled.
"Maybe we are."
The execution was scheduled for sunrise.
Seven days after the riot.
The whole capital was invited.
A public event. A warning.
"This is what happens to those who defy the faith."
The guards tried to separate them.
Didn't work.
Noelle screamed until they gave in.
Asta bit one of them.
They were thrown back into the same cell.
Chained tighter.
But together.
They spent their final days like the first.
Sharing warmth.
Whispering stories.
Dreaming.
They talked about what came next.
Not Heaven.
They didn't believe in that anymore.
Not after what they saw.
But maybe something better.
A field.
A sky.
A place with no chains. No guards. No screams.
They didn't need wings or halos.
Just each other.
"If you go first," Asta said, "wait for me."
"You won't be far behind," Noelle whispered.
The night before execution, it rained.
They huddled in the corner, curled around each other.
Cold. Shivering.
But not afraid.
Not anymore.
Morning came.
Fast.
Too fast.
The door slammed open.
Two paladins. One priest.
"On your feet."
Noelle stumbled.
Asta caught her.
Their wrists were bound.
Their ankles, too.
They couldn't walk right.
Didn't matter.
They were led through the capital.
Crowds lined the street.
Children threw rocks.
Mothers spat.
Priests chanted.
Asta didn't hear them.
Noelle didn't see them.
Their eyes were on each other.
The guillotine stood tall in the courtyard.
Black wood. Silver blade. Bloodstained.
A crowd of thousands.
Cheering.
Not for justice.
For death.
The High Cardinal stepped forward.
Raised his staff.
"Today, we purge heresy. Today, the light of the gods cleanses impurity."
Asta blinked up at the sky.
No clouds.
No smoke.
Just blue.
It was beautiful.
Noelle squeezed his hand.
He looked at her.
She smiled.
Her teeth were broken. Her lip still bleeding.
But it was the prettiest smile in the world.
"Wherever we go…" she whispered.
He nodded.
"…it'll be better than here."
They knelt.
Side by side.
Two heretics.
Two children.
No regrets.
No tears.
Just peace.
The crowd jeered.
The priest shouted.
The blade rose.
They looked at each other.
Held on.
Smiled.
And the world went quiet.
—
The crowd roared.
The blade dropped.
And the world ended.
For them.
For now.
There was no pain.
No scream.
Just… silence.
Stillness.
Then light.
Not blinding.
Not holy.
Just soft.
Like the sun filtered through water.
No chains.
No cold.
No screaming priests.
Just grass.
Wind.
Sky.
And her.
Noelle sat up first.
Her dress wasn't rags anymore.
White. Flowing. Simple.
She touched her arms—no bruises.
No cuts.
No blood.
Then she saw him.
Asta stood barefoot in the grass.
Wearing the same smile he always had.
That stupid grin.
Like everything would be fine.
She ran.
He caught her.
Held her tight.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
They were here.
Together.
Maybe this is death.
Maybe it's something else.
Didn't matter.
No more cages.
No more sermons.
No more pain.
Just a field with no end.
A sky that stretched forever.
Somewhere far away, a bell tolled.
Soft. Gentle.
Like a lullaby.
They walked through the field.
Hand in hand.
The breeze played with her hair.
His laugh echoed.
She smiled.
They were kids again.
But not broken.
Not starving.
Just alive.
Somewhere else—back in the kingdom—they buried two bodies.
No names.
No flowers.
Just two forgotten graves near the execution square.
The people went home.
The priests gave sermons.
The guards drank and bragged.
Life moved on.
No one remembered the two children who smiled at death.
No one… except a boy in the crowd.
Small. Quiet. Aqua hair.
He watched everything.
Didn't cheer.
Didn't blink.
He went home and drew a picture.
Two kids in a field of white flowers.
Holding hands.
Smiling.
He didn't know why.
But it felt… right.
Years later, when the kingdom fell to plague and famine,
when the priests were cast down,
when people started to question everything,
they found that drawing in a broken chapel.
Pinned to a wall.
Two children.
No names.
No words.
Just peace.
May they rest in peace… together.