Akashic

The sky was still blue when Arthur opened his eyes, squinting as the leaves of the tree above him swayed in the wind, letting the sun crack through it, seeming targeting his eyes specifically.

Luckily he soon found the light blocked as a figure blocked it, "You really should be more careful with how you use your semblance" Pyrrha said, her head leaning over Arthur, looking down at him.

Blinking a few times, Arthur realized that his head felt as if he were laying atop a soft pillow, putting two and two together, his eyes quickly bolted open as he raised himself with a start, but soon finding his body wobbling from the sudden jerk, combined with his still lacking aura deposit.

"Just lie down, it helps" Pyrrha said, gently putting her hands on Arthur's shoulders and pulling him back onto her l.a.p, "Really, it's your first time passing out from aura overexertion, you really should rest for a while longer" she said, her hands holding Arthur down.

"Sorry, I was just surprised" Arthur replied, calming down after seeing her nonchalance at the intimate gesture.

"It is all right" Pyrrha said, releasing her hands from Arthur's shoulder, on-going to prop her body up as she leaned a little to the side, her other going to Arthur's head, causing him to begin to rapidly blink, trying to figure out just how this had happened.

"So, uh, why the lap-pillow?" he questioned, scratching his cheek in awkwardness.

"Well, the ground on the cliff is very and hard, the only real soft spots being the grass around the trees, and I didn't think it would be appropriate to just let someone who had just fainted lying on the ground, and I knew you would be waking up sooner rather than later. Why, should I not have done it?" she asked, worried that she might have done something wrong.

At first, Arthur was left speechless, but he soon found a small smile forming, "No, it's fine, I just wasn't expecting it, normally where I'm from, l.a.p pillows are considered quite an intimate thing often done between couples" he explained, his words causing a light flush to flow over Pyrrha's face as she attempted to keep her expression as neutral as she could, yet not making any actions to change anything.

Seeing the very slight flush on her cheeks and how she seemed to remain calm after what he said, Arthur let out a deep breath, letting his tension drain away as he stared up into the canopy of the tree, mesmerized by the gentle swaying of the leaves which regularly blew in such a way that it revealed the deep blue sky through them, often intertwined the white clouds floating across the sky.

"I forgot how calming it is to just lie down surrounded by nature…" Arthur muttered his voice turning sad and sombre as his eyes closing as he began to think back to his latest memory of just resting amidst the gentle breeze of the forests, floating belly up in a lake just staring at the sky like he was now, only difference being that at the time he was just four and a half and his sister was there, trying to get him to stop running off into the forest or wherever they had gone on for a trip.

Hearing this Pyrrha looked to Arthur, seeing his eyes shut, his hair gently waving in the wind, the serenity of the scene softening her expression, as she found her hand soon gently stroking his hair.

"I know what you mean" she replied, "Back in Argus when I attended Sanctum, whenever I found myself stressed out due to my training I would just take a walk to the top of the one of the cliff faces overlooking the city, I used to just sit there, staring across the vast, vast, expanse of ocean that the cliffs also overlooked" she said, her eyes also shutting as she began to relay the vivid image of her home town.

"I used to sit on this small, rickety wooden bench just a few feet away from the edge, every time you sat down it'd give this strand creak and w.h.i.n.e as if it was ready to snap under you" she chuckled, "The sea, oh the sea was simply the most beautiful thing you could imagine, we had dark blue waters which on a particularly sunny day sparkled every shade of blue you could imagine. The sky just a slight shade lighter than the ocean, speckled with giant and beautiful clouds that swam through the sky. The sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs, the wind that blew so hard they sounded like waves of their own, the occasional bird chirping in the distance even the odd chatter that somehow made its way up from the city below, if you listened ever so closely you could even hear a light, beep… beep… beep, from the support tower" Arthur began to feel as if he was there sitting next to her own the rickety wood Bench.

"Even at night, everything just seemed to become even gentler, the ocean sparkling from the moons light, the stars dancing overhead, breaking through the cloud. The salty smell of the ocean just became even more refreshing as the whole city cooled down in the darkness, the only illumination being the light of the city and the shine the moon gave off" her smile began to get even wider as she rested her head against the tree.

"It was the most peaceful place you could go and yet somehow barely anyone went there except for this old, old woman, old enough that she had witnessed the Great War. She used to tell me stories about a boy she had fallen in love with before the fighting, he was a few years older than her, and yet she couldn't stop talking about him, they met when Argus was first being settled she had come over on her sixteenth birthday after she had offered to become one of the first settlers hailing from Mistral, on the single condition that her family got the money that was meant to go to her to help alleviate any burdens she may have of not having a proper job until the city was built" she said, reminiscing about the bright eyed old lady she had always seen staring across the ocean.

"And the man she fell in love with, he was a carpenter" she began to chuckle "The lady told me 'he always used to say 'I pride myself at being the first man to build a house here' while beating on his c.h.e.s.t like a gorilla, the fool!' all while happily laughing at the memories she had of him"

"I later learned that he had been conscripted during the third year of the Great War, coming back just a year before it ended, having been allowed to return home after he'd survived an explosion, leaving him permanently limping with chronic pain in his right arm and both his legs. That's also when I'd learnt of where that bench had come from, he had built it just a few months before he'd been conscripted, he built a bench overlooking the city that was his pride and joy, and yet, the only thing he could look at was her, she used to describe every feature of his, his kind sparkling blue eyes, his bright, almost obnoxiously bright blonde hair, the loving smile that told her and, I quote 'The city can go f itself'" she giggleed, along with Arthur who also gave a snort.

"She wasn't the most clean mouthed old lady" she added with another giggle as she took a breath to calm herself, "That's also where he proposed to her, the first day he brought her up there he went to a single knee and brought out this, shoddy, but exquisite maple wood ring, and spoke this terrible poem he wrote, and asked her if she would marry him"

With another chuckle she continued, "She of course said, 'Not in a billion years, you gorilla' while also throwing herself into his arms and kissing him", coughing into her fist she felt her face turn red, "She, uh, she then began to explain in detail about his… uh… 'bed'?" she seemed to ask unsure of how she should, "She, she had a tendency of talking a little too much…" she said, going silent for a bit, her eyes peaking open slightly to see Arthur, cheeks dyed red, not due to embarrassment but due to the wide ear to ear grin on his face that was causing his face to hurt.

"She sounds like a fun woman to listen to" he replied, taking a few deep breaths to calm the smile down.

"She was, she was" Pyrrha said as she closed her eyes again, letting the almost oceanic sound of the leaves rustling from the forest beneath and the breeze blowing against her skin fill her mind and remind her of her little sanctuary away from Sanctuary.

"Her husband died many years after the great war ended, they had had a small family in that time raised three children, soon expecting their own grandchildren, apparently his wounds had been more severe than anyone thought, as just a few weeks before his first grandson was borne he passed, he sat atop the bench he had built, next to the woman he loved, his head resting against her, awaiting the inevitable" Pyrrha's voice soon begin to turn sadder and sadder as she spoke "Whenever she got to this part you could always see a bright smile on her face as tears ran down her cheeks" Pyrrha said, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve.

"She always recited every word he said that day, 'My dearest loaf of bread, my stale slice of rye, my freshly baked, somehow explosive bun, I know this poem is pathetic, honestly I ran out of ideas before writing the first word, but I just thought screw it, will you marry me?' and she would always finish with, 'Not in a billion years, you gorilla'" she began to choke on her words, "He passed away resting on the woman he loved. I could never stop crying whenever I heard the story, every single time, I had heard it dozens of times and yet, it never got old, it just stuck in my head, how can someone have a love so pure that it spans decades, injury and a war? It just stuck with me, whenever I went up there, after she also passed away I would always just imagine her sitting there next to me, a single small, yellow flower clutched in her hands which she would throw off the cliff face when she finished her story" Arthur felt a small drip on his cheek, causing him to open his eyes, only to see a wet trail of tears running down her cheeks.

"Except the last time, she told me her story, and asked me if I could do it for her, she said her 'hands weren't as steady as they used to be anymore', which I found odd at the time as just a few days earlier she had done it, but I didn't really think twice, I picked up the flower from her, stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff, and slowly let the flower fall from my hands, yet, when it left my hands a sudden breeze came out of nowhere, dragging the flower into the air, I couldn't take my eyes off it, but then out of nowhere another flower appeared a small pink lewisia had floated up next to it, both gently hovering in the breeze before slowly drifting down the cliff into the ocean" she began to sniff.

"When I turned around there she was, the gentlest smile on her face, eyes shut, head tilted to the side as if resting on her husband's shoulders, on the bench he'd made for her, atop the cliff that overlooked the home of his children and the woman he loved. Surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of the same small pink and yellow flowers that grew on the cliff" Her voice now cracking.

"I remember crying the hardest I had in my entire life that day, for a simple old lady who had told me her story over and over again, I even remember weeping into her granddaughters shoulder, as she along with the rest of her family, her brother and his children along with her own as well as their parents and their two siblings along with their husbands, wives, daughters and sons, everyone from their entire family, all watching as she told me her story one last time, not a single one of them uttering a sound" she went quiet, a happy smile on her face, incongruous with the trails of tears running down her face.

Sniffing, Pyrrha began to wipe her eyes and cheeks with her sleeve, "Sorry, I sort of went on a trip there" she said, wiping her tears away, but not being able to stop them from returning.

Seeing this Arthur gained a soft smile as he pushed himself up, lightly crawling his way to her side where he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her onto his, not saying a word as he just let Pyrrha work her way through her tears.

Once Pyrrha's tears stopped, she began to take deep breaths and calm herself down, to return herself to her regular disciplined disposition, where she then gave Arthur a grateful smile and 'thank you'.

Both stared silently off the cliff for a few minutes, the sun having long since begun to set, "Shall… .we get something to eat?" Arthur asked, breaking the silence after what felt like nearly an hour of silence between them.

"That would be great" Pyrrha responded.

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Alternate Chapter names: [The lady of the cliff] [A story of tears] [Rickety old bench] [Not in a billion years, you gorilla]

My eyes are burning because of tears! And… because its 4:30am, god this is not good for my health…

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