A/N: This story is related to and takes place in the Curses au. If you're unfamiliar with you can read that story on my Profile.
Noelle is falling in darkness.
She doesn't know where she is or how she got here.
Everything feels like a dream.
The darkness surrounding her does not frighten her.
It's different from the cold darkness of her childhood, the kind that had felt isolating and dangerous...this feels almost safe and warm...like an embrace.
She feels like she's falling.
Not fast but slow and sluggish, like she's sinking into the depths of the ocean.
It is calming.
She closes her eyes and allows herself to sink further and further down.
Until someone's hand finds her own.
Their hand, calloused and large, gently intertwines itself with hers, much like this place she doesn't recognize the touch.
Shs is yanked suddenly upwards, her descent halted, and the darkness shattered like a pool of water.
She blinks confused.
She still doesn't know where she is, it doesn't look like she's anywhere.
A sea of vast red nothingness, a void empty and luminal.
"Noelle?"
Does she know that voice?
She doesn't think so...so why does it pull at her heart strings.
"What are you doing here?"
She looks behind her to find the source of the voice, the source of the hand who had freed her from the darkness and brought her to this strange place.
She meets eyes with a boy she doesn't know.
Short and lean, messy ash blonde hair, and eyes of green.
No...that's not right...she knows this boy...she's just never seen him like this before.
"Asta?" Noelle questions in disbelief watching him wide eyed and wary.
He blinks at her, either confused by her questioning tone or the fact that she even recognized him at all.
He's nothing like how Noelle remembers him.
There's no towering frame, no body made of shadow, no beast-like teeth, no glassy dead eyes.
There's just a boy.
A human boy.
"Hello." he smiles at her, and Noelle feels her heart constrict.
This was his voice.
This was Asta's voice.
"H-how?" her right hand finds his cheek as she continues to stare at him in utter disbelief, "How is this possible?"
"I don't know," Asta tilts his head, "I thought only Yuno could come here."
"Wha-" Noelle mutters, stunned.
Her eyes wander around the void, wondering how it was possible for her squadmate to wind up in a place like this and neglect to mention it? Moreover, how was it possible for Yuno to see Asta like this - whole and alive - and simply not say anything?
"You're alive." Noelle eventually gets her voice to work, turning her gaze back to Asta, her thumb still resting on his cheek gently brushes under his eye.
YOU ARE READING
Astelle Week 2023
FanfictionA series of one shots created for Astelle Week of 2023!
