Once upon a time there was beautiful and brave princess who fought a giant Monster Raven that had come to ravage her Kingdom. The Raven was too powerful however, for no matter how hard the princess and her people fought, they could not defeat the Raven or his followers. Even her bravest Knight fell, sliced in half by a raven's claw. Eventually, in order to protect everyone, the princess used her magic to tear out her own heart and shatter it into pieces which she used to seal away the Monster Raven. As long as her heart remained shattered, the Monster Raven could do nothing, but the Princess would not only lose all of her memories of who she was but also all of her emotions. This was the story of the Princess and the Raven. A story that was never finished because the story teller died.... or at least, that's what everyone thought.
Hundreds of years later, in Kinkan Town, a small girl named Ahiru was born with an odd birthmark that looked like giant claw marks. She loved stories and fairy tales from a very young age, especially the story of the Princess and the Raven. Her favorite character was the princess's brave lady knight. She even started to write stories herself sometimes, and this is how she discovered that her stories some how could come true. She was quite delighted by this at first, but one day, something happened that really changed her mind. When she was five years old, a flock of Ravens attacked the village. Ahiru decided to try and help by writing a story where the Ravens came to her house where she would become a knight like the one in her favorite story and slay all the Ravens, but when they arrived, her parents got in the way. By the end of the day, though the ravens finally leave, both of her parents were dead and Ahriu was taken to live with a friend of her parents. a blacksmith named Charon who specialized in weapons making. Ahiru blocked the memory of how her parents died and her knowledge of her powers from her mind from then on and eventually forgot both as she grew older. To try and help her feel strong, Charon told her that he believed her birthmark meant that she was the reincarnation of the Knight from the story of the Princess and the Raven.
Eventually, when Ahiru got older, she found an older girl in rags passed out on the street one day and brought her home to Charon to take care of. Charon recognized her for the Princess from the story and was shocked. The girl had no memories, but gave her name as Rue, the name given to her by the boy called Mytho whom she'd met earlier (unknown to Ahiru, during the incident where the Raven's attacked Kinkan a few years earlier).

Ahiru instantly became attached to Rue, fascinated by the possibility that Rue really was the Princess of her favorite story. They often went places together and over time, Ahiru began to realize that Rue, in spite of having no emotions and there for no personality and hardly a will of her own and also because of it, was a danger to herself more than anything else. In spite of her lack of emotions, she still felt the need to protect others smaller and weaker than herself. One day she even ran straight into a burning building to save a bird still trapped in it's cage. She managed to survive this incident and save the bird, but from then on Ahiru vowed that she would do everything in her power to protect Rue.
When Ahiru got old enough she decided to enter herself and Rue in Kinkan Town's Dance Academy, because she had discovered early on that Rue seemed to like to dance, even though Ahiru had always been clumsy and didn't think she would do well as a dancer. There, Rue quickly made it into advanced classes while Ahiru was still in the beginner class, but that was okay with Ahiru. As long as Rue was "happy" and stayed out of trouble, Ahiru was happy. There were many boys at the academy who saw how pretty Rue was and developed crushes on her, but Ahiru was well aware of how easily Rue could be taken advantage of because of her lack of will and chased all suitors away, except one. Mytho was a fairly nice boy, if withdrawn at times and Ahiru trusted him enough that she would allow him near Rue, mostly due to the fact that she and Rue had both known him before the academy. This didn't mean that Ahiru didn't still watch them like a hawk most of the time. Many, especially plenty of jealous students of both genders, came to see Rue and Mytho has girlfriend and boyfriend and many but the most stubborn boys tended to stay away from Rue because of this. Everything in Ahiru's life seemed to be going great.
Then one day, Ahriu met a strange boy named Fakir and that peace flew straight out the window.
 
Fakir was in the beginners class with Ahiru and had been since she started attending, though he was slightly older than her. He could be a bit clumsy himself sometimes, but he was a better dancer than Ahiru, though most people were. He seemed nice enough, if rather quiet, but something about him didn't seem right somehow. Ahiru didn't realize it at the time, but she was subconsciously sensing the fact that Fakir had not always been a student at Kinkan Academy, or even a citizen of Kinkan Town. That he wasn't even really human. As far as she was concerned, something about him rubbed her the wrong way and even though he didn't seem to have a crush on Rue like most of the other boys, at first anyway, he did show a lot of interest in her. This lead to her being quite rude to him the first time she actually spoke to him. Even more so than most of the boys who had tried to speak to Rue, especially since Mytho became her boyfriend.
Any time she caught Fakir talking to Rue, Ahiru would interrupt and drag Rue away, telling her friend to "stay away from that weird Fakir." Of course, Fakir was persistent and he wasn't the only problem. All sorts of weird and dangerous things began to happen, most of it centered around another figure from the story of the Princess and the Raven.
In the story, there was a brave and wise prince who had fallen in love with the princess, but their fates were not connected so when he told the princess his true feelings, he disappeared in a flash of light. That same Prince had begun to appear around town. Rue had seen him herself a few times and had told Ahiru about it. On top of that, Rue had begun to regain her emotions. This frightened Ahiru, who knew that if Rue's heart was to be completely restored the Monster Raven would be set free and Rue would have to fight it all over again and might be killed. Ahiru tried to discourage Rue from going near the Prince, but as Rue's heart was restored piece by piece, her will started to return to her as well and she eventually told Ahiru that she wanted her heart restored.
At around that time, the mysterious Raven Prince began to appear. The Raven Prince didn't want Rue's heart to be restored either. He wanted to take Rue as his princess as she was and keep her all to himself and he was willing to use any means necessary to do so. Ahiru managed to stop him from doing this during their first confrontation and the second time they met, with the unwanted help of the Prince. During these events Ahiru eventually discovered that Fakir was the Prince, much to her shock. Then the heart shard of Love was found. The Raven Prince came again this time and stole away both the shard and Rue before either Ahiru or Fakir could stop him.
Ahiru had failed to stop her Princess from being taken away, but she wasn't about to give up. With Edel to point the way, Ahiru and Fakir, who had decided to put aside their differences for Rue's sake, went down into the catacombs below Kinkan, where they found a mysterious underground lake where the Raven Prince waited for them.
Ahiru decided to fight first, taking on a small army of Ravens as the Prince was forced to watch, unable to help. She fought bravely and did well in spite of the odds and her lack of real skill, but trickery made the battle too difficult and she fell. She didn't stay down for long though. Though badly injured, she managed to get back up one more time and shattered the sword that could shatter the princess's heart so that the Raven Prince couldn't use it to destroy her heart shard of Love. Leaving her princess's fate in Fakir's hands, she fell into the lake...

And woke up in Econtra