The next day, Fox took his partner's advice and stayed away from all classes that the rest of his team had. Coco wanted to join Fox, but Velvet and Yatsuhashi reminded her that she didn't come back from the dead yesterday. She reluctantly agreed, but also told the team that everyone gets that luxury if that happens to them. He spent the first few hours of the day resting - between the time he touched the Parchment and when he became conscious again, his brain was constantly working and as such it felt like it was never truly asleep - and after that he set out to go relax in the park once more. The weather today was not as nice as it was before he died, but it was still pleasant enough to warrant him staying there. His mind focussed on nothing in particular; if he wanted to listen to water flowing in and around the pond he would, if he'd rather pay attention to the birds flying overhead he could. He could take in the breeze flowing through the leaves of the tree he sat under, or the light footsteps approaching him, or the...
'Great, who is it this time?' "Hey, if you want to..." before he even had a chance to continue the feet started hitting the ground much heavier and faster than earlier, clearly running away from his position. The boy took a whiff of the air to see if he could tell who it was from their scent as he didn't really feel like using his semblance to see. Vanilla. Not much else to go on really. He just shrugged and went back to relaxing.
The rest of the day and the following day consisted mostly of the same thing, although less sleeping, less relaxing and slightly more training, plus note taking nearer the end of the day. There also seemed to be that smell of vanilla every once in a while when he was outside of Beacon, but by the time he'd reacted and activated his semblance long enough to see its source the culprit and the main bulk of the scent scattered.
The third and final day he was going to be off before re-joining his team in classes he travelled out to an old training ground of his. The Cliffside was far beyond the Emerald Forest. It was precarious going there due to the high concentration of Nevermores that nested by the cliffs, the eroding battleground and, his favourite, rockslides. But that is truly why enjoyed going there; the uncertainty of the landscape meant he had to focus extra hard on his surroundings so that he didn't end up crushed by falling rocks. Three times is two times too many - he didn't know about them the first time so he always let himself off with that one. His first port of call was always sitting down in the middle of his training grounds and quickly getting a feel of the land, and this time was no exception. Only when he wandered to the spot he normally used to sit and feel out the land, the ground crumbled underneath him and Fox struggled ever so slightly to stop himself from falling off the newly moved cliff face 80m to his death.
"Guess the weather finely got to you, eh?" His training ground used to be about 50m from the smaller cliff face and entrance to his safe-ish space behind him to the definitely not safe drop to impending death that was the edge. Now, after a fairly lengthy and powerful storm Vale was hit with a fortnight before, the main cliff seemed to have crumbled away and left only 35m between the back wall and deadly fall. Still plenty of space.
After a gruelling thirty minutes of intense workout by Fox to get his stamina and reflexes up to a similar level they were at a week ago, the pained cry of a Nevermore rang through his ears. A Nevermore Alpha, at that. He normally would ignore the grunts and roars of any type of Grimm unless it was right near him; the small archways that separated his own private cliff ledge and the treeline of the Emerald Forest could generally only fit a Boarbatusk or a younger Beowolf and nothing bigger though not many of them have had the sense to climb up the rocks on their side over the top and drop down on him, but hey - Grimm aren't known for having the most tactical of minds. This time however, he felt like he needed to focus on this one. He hadn't heard it swooping past him at all before, maybe due to his mind being so focussed on one thing he'd zoned out on everything else.
'Didn't you learn your lesson Fox?' he berated himself on the fact. 'Don't lose focus on the larger picture.' But now, he burst his Aura out to better use his semblance. He used the sphere like radar and tried to hone in on any spots of flying darkness. He found the one he was looking for and...
"Oh shit!" His blank eyes widened in horror as he jumped out of the way, narrowly missing the slowly eroding carcass of the now-deceased flying Grimm crashing into the cliff behind him. Despite being dead, the body still made enough of an impact to cause an impromptu rockslide. Fox used the opportunity to make his way out. He dodged the first smaller rocks and fast moving pebbles that fell on him, then shifted his attention to the larger boulders that would inevitably start falling. The first three came down heavy, one being flung out much further away from the cliff than the others.
Great, a challenge.
Fox leapt onto the side of lowest one, then sprung to the one that was next to it. From that, he back flipped onto the furthest boulder before shooting himself almost directly upwards. The remaining six giant boulders that fell on his assent of the cliff made great moving stepping stones for the student, working on both his quicker, more instinctive decisions rather than pre-planned ones and to highlight the threat of making a huge mistake and plummeting to your doom or being crushed by rock. He admitted, he wasn't expecting those things to always be present at all times during his life, but it worked in the moment. As he landed on the top cliff face, rolling forward to lessen the impact on his legs even more than just letting his Aura soak the damage, Fox's ears heard a new sound for him. It wasn't a natural sound, nor was it mechanical. No it sounded like... rustling? His head looked up as he followed the sound roughly back to its source. After a minute, the sound reached his level and stopped, followed by three short footsteps to slow their movement to a halt and a decent smell of...
"Vanilla. So you've been following me the past couple of days?" Neo grinned at the boy, closing the parasol she so graciously floated down to the ground with.
'Of course it's me. We needed to talk.' She tested the water with that question, hoping he'd give a decent answer.
"Why?" Her grin dropped slightly; that was very generic and could have been a continuation of his own question. She needed a question that would give a really weird answer so that she knew he could hear her, the one she'd been using on everybody she dared to get close to in the past few days.
'What question did I ask people again?'
"I'm not sure. Why were you asking other people?"
'It was so I can get them to answer very specifically so that I knew I wasn't going... oh... so you definitely can hear me then?'
"Yeah. Wait, Neo?"
'Surprise, I guess...'
"So, you are completely mute right. I'm not just some special case where you are just talking to me and not everyone else."
'Fox, you were there at the Hospital and know that's not the case - no one else could hear my thoughts but you.'
"Hold on; your thoughts?"
'Uh huh. In comparison to ever other sound you hear, how does my voice sound?'
"I dunno. Sounds a little bit echo-y. Like you're actually inside my head."
'Maybe because we are.' Fox's eyebrows arched at the statement as he attempted to walk towards her. 'No, no. I'll come to you - the rock's not exactly the most stable over here.'
"Well, that might be because of the Nevermore Alpha you send crashing into the cliff."
'Sorry. I wanted to get your attention.'
"And you couldn't have done that in a normal way? Why didn't you just call my name to get my attention?" Neo placed her hands on her hips as the boy realised his mistake. "Sorry."
'It's fine, your bunny rabbit forgot as well.' The woman walked towards the boy and something happened that neither of them expected right as she reached where he stood. They felt... complete. Like the pair of them being apart from one another was suddenly the worst thing that ever happened to them, despite the fact they've known of each other for five days now. Neo threw her parasol down and suddenly tackled Fox in a passionate embrace that knocked him to the floor and brought her down with him.
This felt right, their bodies connected in this intimate moment. Their lips met and in that moment there was absolutely nowhere either would rather be - a glorious, cloudless Mid-Spring day on a Vale clifftop passionately making out with the person they felt complete with. Neo's arms wrapped around the taller boy's chest and under his arms, her hands rubbing against the scars on his back - the uneven skin feeling so inviting to her. Fox's arms hugged Neo's shoulders and one cupped the back of her head in the heat of passion bringing her closer to him. The intensity rose as the time progressed, lips parting so that tongues could meet as well, her hands moving ever closer to areas that no one else had ever touched before.
And just as suddenly as the impulses came, they vanished. Both party's eyes opened in horror at the scene that greeted them and they screamed - one externally and the other internally but both still loud in their ears - as they flew apart from one another as fast as their bodies would allow them.
"What the hell was that about?" Fox cried.
'You think I know?' Neo thought, her confusion evident in the voice she had inside her head that Fox could hear. 'I don't know what happened any more than you do.'
"That's your excuse? You threw yourself on top of me, started making out with me and you expect saying 'I don't know' is going to fool me?"
'I'm sorry, but you were making out with me pretty heavily too! That was a two sided thing there, Fox!' Her thoughts were manifesting in mental shouts that the boy could very clearly hear.
"If that was your reason for coming out here, then you are a sick and twisted little woman!" And Fox turned to leave, lowering his stance to run off.
'Fox, no! That wasn't the reason I-'
"Well whatever it was, you blew your chance to say it! Stay away from me!" Fox pushed off hard with his right foot, took three powerful steps and flung himself into the nearest treetop, hopping from one to the other at breakneck speeds to get as far away from the cliff as fast as he could.
Neo fell to her knees, on the brink of defeat. She'd lost those she'd deemed her friends earlier this week and now something happened that had destroyed any chance of making new ones. The duel haired woman slammed her hands on the ground multiple times in sheer rage, cracking the rocks underneath the grass due to the immense forces rapidly applied on those two particular areas in the last few seconds. Tears streamed from her eyes of pink and brown. If she could do so, she would have screamed. Doing what she was doing was likely to attract Grimm to here anyway, so there wasn't much point of hiding her feelings. She found strength to lift herself off the ground and walk to her parasol. She picked it up and looked at it, then unsheathed the blade and drove it down into the rocks. Finally, she walked straight to the edge of the cliff. The rocks made uncomfortable noises; noises that most people would turn away from for fear that the ground underneath would give way. Neo was done, so she hoped that would be the case. She shuffled forward so that the tips of her boots hovered over the edge, her centre of balance sitting right behind the edge. As one final tear escaped from her eyes, she shut them and leaned. Once the deed was past the point of no return, her eyes opened and she gasped despite the fact no sound accompanied it, and fell.
{END OF PART 1}
This has been so much fun writing, I cannot even begin to describe it. I really enjoyed fleshing them out in these first nine chapters, it helps make them feel a lot more real than stories before because we've spent a lot of time with them first before their inevitable hooking up later down the line (spoilers, if the tags for the story weren't enough of a hint)
Y'all might notice something different at the start of the next chapter, just keep an eye out for it.
As always, feedback - good or bad - is most appreciated
