Author's Note: This story is dedicated to anyone who is hurting over the ending of Volume 3. You aren't alone, and I hope this helps give you closure in some fashion. I've tried to make this as gender/character neutral as possible to allow anyone to play the role here, but it's the first time I've tried to do so, and I'm not sure I'm completely happy with it.
It hurt.
Hurt to think. Hurt to breath. Hurt to simply exist. Your heart throbbed painfully with every beat. Nothing could heal it, but you couldn't hurt it further, damage it so irreversibly that it simply ceased to function. After all, that would be what she wanted, wouldn't it?
What Cinder Fall wanted.
You thought revenge would bring the sweet release from your sorrow, thought bloodying your hands would be enough to move on, but it didn't. It just left you without purpose. She was gone, and now so was her killer.
It didn't bring Pyrrha back.
You tried to drown yourself in drink, coming home to an empty house in a drunken stupor, waking up the next morning only to remember that she wasn't coming back. You tried to fill the void with another, but it never held, never lasted. Your friends tried to console you, tried to help you move on like they had after a time, but they weren't the ones who Pyrrha spent her last moments with. You still felt the warmth of her lips, how shaken she was, trembling even as she embraced you. Her last words to a friend still haunted you every night.
"I'm sorry."
You hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. Here you were, years after all was said and done, a broken shell of a being sitting at the bar, a drink strong enough to kill a man in hand, the liquor burning your throat as it went down, and you hadn't even been strong enough to tell her how you felt.
Maybe it was the booze, maybe your sanity was finally cracking under the pressure, but out the corner of your eye you could have sworn you saw hair as red as a leaf in the fall, bright green eyes that carried a mysterious allure to them. A blink of your eyes and that ghost of the past was gone, though it left behind a door that had been ajar just moments before.
It was insane, you told yourself, she's been dead for years, just go back to your drink before you set yourself up for more pain.
You paid for your drink and left it unfinished on the bar, following that ghost anyway.
As your feet carried you along the gravel path that lead back to the road, you saw her again. Hiding between the trees, you almost missed her, but this time, there was no mistaking it. It was her. Pyrrha was beckoning for you to follow her into the woods, and before you could open your mouth to call out to her, she was gone once more.
You took a few steps forward, stumbled, and began to run, a desperate, uncoordinated act, nearly tripping yourself more than once in the process, your mind screaming that this wasn't real, but you refused to listen, you didn't want to listen. She was alive!
Following the ghostly figure, you ran fast, faster than you had ever run in your life, branches scratching at your skin, drawing blood, but your eyes were locked on the ever receding figure ahead of you. You nearly fell into the pond when the trees gave way to a clearing.
Gasping for air, you looked about frantically, searching for her, only to find her, sitting quietly with her back against a willow tree, it's leaves hanging like curtains. Slowly, quietly, as if afraid that even the slightest movement would shatter the illusion, would make her disappear, you stepped forward, getting to within a few paces of Pyrrha and falling to your knees. You thought you had no more tears left to shed by now, but the sorrow running down your cheeks seemed to prove otherwise.
"Hello." It had been so long since you had heard that voice, that strong yet soothing voice, you had almost forgotten how she had sounded. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?" She asked, gazing quietly at you.
You stammer your response, questioning how she was sat there in front of you, why she hadn't shown herself sooner. If this was even real.
"I wanted to, believe me I did. But I wanted to believe you would heal on your own, move on and find happiness without me." She hesitates, and you can hear the trepidation in her voice. "I wanted to believe you would let me go." She continued, and you realize she's been holding her hand in front of her chest the entire time, and is only now moving it out of the way.
The wound was still there, fresh as anything. There was no blood, and you could see very little of the damage the arrow had done due to the arrowhead still being lodged in her chest. How…?
"But you never did. You've kept me on this Earth for years, unable to leave because you were too damn stubborn." She curses quietly, and you can tell this has hurt her as much as it hurt, and still hurts, you. She goes silent, letting you process what she has said, and slowly it dawn upon you.
Pyrrha was still dead. But her spirit had become trapped, unable to move on because you refused to move on. You bit your lip, tears welling up in your eyes.
"Please… You have to let me go…" She begs of you. You want to be selfish, you want to keep her here until the day you die and join her, you want to fall on your sword here and now and join her that way. But you know it isn't your time, and Pyrrha needs to find peace.
So you do the only thing you can do.
"I love you Pyrrha… Goodbye…" You whisper, and those emerald green pools light up, a smile on her face as tears streak down her cheeks.
"Thank you. Don't worry, we'll meet again someday. I promise." She whispers, before fading away, leaving you alone underneath the old willow tree.
It hurts… but you can feel your heart beginning to heal. For the first time in a very, very long time, you smile.
"I'll hold you to that."