So it is done

Family by soul

Nora had no memory of her parents. It was perfectly normal, abandoned at an age when children are not yet ready to attend school, it was perfectly normal that Nora had no memory of her parents. No notes, no acquaintances, not even a memory.

The very first memory Nora remembered was... Probably the time she managed to steal a pancake that had fallen out of some woman's breakfast plate.

It had fallen to the ground by accident, soiled by the dust, so the woman would probably not have bothered picking it up – but Nora did not dare risk it. After watching her surroundings for any cop from the corner of a nearby house, she rushed forward and then, grabbing her loot, rushed to escape.

Nora could talk and run pretty well then, she was a big enough child, but Nora didn't remember exactly how old she was then. Four years old? Probably something like that.

What had happened to Nora in the past that had made her an orphan? She couldn't have been born already at the age of four, could she? She must have spent her earliest childhood somewhere, she must have had parents, maybe even acquaintances or a social circle in the past... But nothing. There were nothing, no memories, no faces appeared in her mind. It was as if someone had erased those memories from Nora's memory...

Or maybe she didn't want to remember it herself.

In any case, from that moment on, Nora remembered her life, not very clearly – which was to be expected of a young child, her memories would blur together periodically. Recollections would pop up of unexpectedly bright moments before ending again, interspersed with lapses in her memory. Quite natural lapses, not something like amnesia, but simply due to the normal patterns of thinking and memory in children. Memories that seem insignificant to Nora now, but important to her then.

Her memories were mostly of the dumps she trawled, of the food she either found, stolen, or obtained by other means as Nora figured out the principles of hunting small fish or squirrels quickly enough. Anything a child her age could figure out.

The recollections alternated with one another – either of the compassionate family who took her in for the winter, accidentally finding her in the street one day, followed by tragedies. As the winter wore on, her settlement was destroyed by the Grimm in spring, the family who cared for her dead...

Or maybe they ran away somewhere? Or were they separated? Nora would like to believe that.

The caravan of survivors had gone to another settlement, with Nora along for the ride, not that they had many options. Someone had known about Kuroyuri, and people had gone there thinking that their chances in the wild were almost nil.

Nora was taken along with everyone else, for a short time she had protection, food, a chance to sleep on a bed again...

But then, when the caravan of men and of those who had survived the crossing, arrived at Kuroyuri – Nora was once again abandoned, nobody was willing to adopt a mouth to feed, one that cannot work.

Nora could think about it now, about whether these people had done the right thing or not, reasoning, but it didn't seem wrong or strange to her then. She was used to being alone. Settling down for the night in basements that someone in the building had forgotten to close, dressing in what she found in the nearest dumpster, or eating what she managed to catch with her hands. She was used to it.

So when, in a trembling voice, one of the refugees suggested that Nora step away and play in the undergrowth, then walked away, Nora wasn't offended – she didn't even pay much attention to it. She just shrugged her shoulders and went back to the normal life she knew, to what seemed normal to her at least.