Grave Visiting of the Former Maiden
"Hey, Sun?" Jaune said.
"What's up, buddy?" Sun responded.
"Remember how I used to keep telling you not to see the world upside-down too much or else you might give yourself a headache?" Jaune asked if he remembers saying that some time ago.
"Yeah, I remember." Sun nodded.
"Well, it turns out you had nothing to worry about this entire time because… I'm the one with the major headache." Jaune exclaimed with his face is looking like he's about to either throw up or pass out, or maybe both.
"I knew you couldn't handle it." Sun chuckled.
Jaune and Sun are doing a little something fun since they don't have any training today with the girls and the other warriors, and the blonde monkey boy decided to make them do a little dare to see which of them can last the longest hanging upside-down on a tree branch and looking at the tower of the city.
"D-Damn it… How did I let you talk me into this?" Jaune asked groaning.
"Hey, you were the one who said, "I got nothing better to do" and decided to come with me on this challenge. In other words, you did this to yourself." Sun pointed out with a chuckle.
"…I hate it when you pointed out like that." Jaune growled a bit, and starting to feel the blood rushing to his brain and the headache felt worsen.
"You know, you can always drop now if you can't handle this longer." Sun said.
"I know it's never been easy for you to handle difficult things like this, and you can always say no to them too." Sun pointed out.
"Yeah, yeah, I know… It just you're my best friend I didn't want to make you feel alone when no one else has the time to hang out with you." Jaune explained his reason for doing crazy things like this.
Sun smile knowing to have a great best friend like him since the first time they met when they were in the fourth grade, he even remembers how Jaune used to be all alone with no friends when they were put in the same class and thought of becoming his friends. And he is glad to have done that being friends with this cool Arc dude.
Despite some of the fun things they do were most of his ideas and most likely crazy that lead them into trouble with parents and other people, but their friendship has always remained strong throughout the years and not once betrayed each other in anyway. Maybe once or twice, but they made up.
"Okay, I think it's time get down now." Sun chuckled before unfolding his tail and landed onto the ground.
"Oh, good…" Jaune relieved dizzy and unfold his legs unknowingly making himself fall.
Jaune would've gotten himself a serious head injury if Sun didn't catch him in arms and set him down gently.
"So, still think it's easy to hang upside-down like a monkey?" Sun asked smirking.
"Oh, shut up… you." Jaune said before falling over with his legs up for a second.
(With Elder Maria)
"Alright, got everything I need." Maria said to herself and adjusting her machine-like glasses a bit.
"Well, time for that yearly visit again." Maria exclaimed smiling and got her cane.
The Elder of Golden Beacon left her home to make her way for one specific location she has to go to as she always goes there every year, and she hopes that there will be no last-minute work coming to her because she really needed this right now.
"Hello Elder Maria, are you going somewhere?" Sienna asked as she walks up to her.
"Just heading out to the usual place today, feels like I may need the comfort if you know what I mean." Maria smiled.
"Ah yes, I seem to recall you two have always been close friends despite being totally opposite with each other." Sienna nodded knowing what the Elder is doing today.
"I wish you many happy moments during your time there, Elder Maria." Sienna bowed.
"Thank you, I always knew you're the cat woman who can help put this old woman at ease whenever I need a little cheering up." Maria smiled.
"I'm just doing what I was raised to do in treating my elders, or else I'll get smack in the head by their cane." Sienna chuckled.
"You darn right, I would do that!" Maria laughed a little before walking away and waving goodbye to Sienna who waves back.
Maria makes her way through a busy street seeing five little kids playing ball with only their heads and not any of their body parts, but it's a very hard ballgame to do though the kids don't mind when they are smiling and laughing together which gave the old woman a reminder of her youth.
"And I'm telling you Renny that the web show we've been seeing does have real science in them! How else are we supposed to know how awesome and strong those characters are when they fight to the death?" Nora complained to her childhood friend.
This caught Maria's attention she turns to her right seeing Nora and Ren walking together with grocery bags telling her that they just went through the market.
"Like going to the actual school, we went through and remembering all the studies we went through." Ren pointed out.
"Sure, if you want to do the boring and realistic way." Nora rolled her eyes.
"Well, guess I'll be preparing my health juice then." Ren grinned.
"No! Please don't!" Nora begged freaking out.
Maria chuckles of seeing those two best friends brought back some memories of her youth walking together and having a cool friend to have around, and then she looks sad again.
Maria continues her walking around the ancient city again to make her way to that place hoping that nothing would distract her, though she doesn't mind a little of seeing some old memories.
"Now, just a crossing of this street and I should be there in no time." Maria smiled as she seems to be making good timing.
"SOMEONE! HELP?!" Jaune screamed.
"What in the world? Was that from Jaune, or was it from Sun?" Maria wondered guessing that some boys' voices sound the same to her.
"CLEAR THE WAY?!" Sun shouted as well.
Maria turns to where the voice is coming from and gasp with her jaws drop upon seeing something so unexpected over the past 100 years of her life that she never seen things quite like this one.
"How do you stop these crazy things?" Jaune asked panicking.
Sun is currently riding on a pair of roller blades along with four rockets on each shoe as he got this idea from Yang's fiery hair and Neon's awesome skating, combining those things have given him an idea of wanting to skate really fast. So, he grabs the skates and rockets then made it into a reality.
But now he is experiencing that the idea have worked too well and he is going around out of control on the rocket skates he created.
And the reason Jaune is on his back holding to dear life like he's about to die at any moment is because he tried to stop Sun from going through with his crazy plan only end up being brag along just like he always is every time.
"Why did you have to do these sorts of crazy things if it means getting yourself kill!" Jaune shouted.
"Well, that's what you get for not trying to stop me harder!" Sun pointed the blame on Jaune.
"What's next, dragging another innocent person into this?" Jaune worried, and unknowingly jinx himself and Sun.
Maria saw the boys were coming there way fast and was about to jump away from the spot, but unfortunately, she reacted too slow to dodge and is suddenly carried away with the Guardians.
"Looks like we got ourselves an extra package." Sun surprised.
"What in Beacon's name are you boys doing this time!" Maria screamed angry at them.
"Believe me, ma'am, I've been asking myself that very question." Jaune gulped.
"Well, at least you can enjoy the fast ride with us." Sun chuckled only to get whacked on the head by the skull of Maria's cane.
"You fool! I was supposed to be somewhere when I was crossing the street, but now you took me away from it!" Maria angered.
"Then we'll have to make a U-turn." Sun suggested.
"How are we supposed to do that?" Jaune asked.
"Like this!" Sun stretched out his tail grabbing onto a light pole causing the three to spin around and around going faster as well.
After a moment or two on that light pole, Sun finally let's go and they are launched into one direction heading for a long-curved ram that some kids are using it for their skateboarding and such, and the three were launched high into the sky amazing the kids with two of them recording this.
"Wow, you kids sure know to do crazy things!" Maria laughed, almost forgetting that she was mad at them.
"Yeah, kind of happen to us a lot." Jaune said, still freaking out.
"Good thing these aren't the exploding rockets!" Sun said.
Unfortunately, Sun has been proven wrong when the rockets exploded on the three covering them in black ash-like dusts and they hang in the air for two seconds before falling from the sky and crashes down onto the ground.
But Jaune and Sun were able to protect Maria by using their bodies to cushion her fall.
"Well, that was a short ride of fun." Maria said looking a little disappointed.
"Sorry about that, were you heading to somewhere special?" Jaune asked.
"Yeah, just to visit the city's graveyard for an old friend." Maria answered sighing.
"So, are all these tombstones here mean this is the graveyard?" Sun asked as they look around seeing they are indeed within the Golden Beacon graveyard.
"Oh, well, would you look at that." Maria smiled.
"My friend's grave is close by too, thanks for dropping me off." Maria thanked as she walks away.
"You're welcome! Now time to get back with the rocket skates!" Sun excited.
"They exploded, remember?" Jaune reminded his best friend.
"Or we can just hang out with Elder Maria!" Sun turned around and ran after the short elderly with Jaune following.
Maria is standing in front of a tombstone with the words Fria Frost on it with the words below saying the "Coldest Winter Maiden with the Warmest Heart" making the old woman giggle, she looks down seeing the picture of Fria being an old woman with short, spiky whit hair and blue eyes.
"If you were here right now, you would surely laugh at that." Maria said.
"Sounds like this woman had a sense of humor." Sun commented.
"You could say she was "cooler" than you could ever imagine." Maria chuckled, but she became shocked as she turns around seeing Jaune and Sun behind her.
"What are you two even doing here? I thought you would've gone back to doing some more stunts." Maria asked.
"That's more of Sun's thing and I try my best to stop him which only works 15-20% of the time." Jaune sighed.
"So, this friend of yours was the Winter Maiden before Winter?" Sun asked curiously as he looks at the picture of old Fria.
"That's right, this woman was Winter's predecessor, and she was hell of a gal to have around bringing the fun with the snow and even doing some crazy stunts of her own like snowboarding down from the temple." Maria laughed of the memories.
"Well, at least she had more dignity to keep herself from getting into big trouble unlike you." Another short old woman walked up to them.
"Should've known you would be here, Caroline." Maria sighed and glare at the woman.
"Well, I do want to visit here as much as you do despite our busy times." Caroline pointed out with a glare of her own.
Cordovin is a short, elderly woman with short silver hair and brown eyes. She wears an white uniform with black gloves and a dark gray belt.
"Hello there." Jaune greeted.
"Nice to meet you." Sun greeted as well.
"Ah, the famous Two Guardians of Golden Beacon. So, I finally get to meet you two face-to-face and no doubt Maria doesn't want me to meet you because she still thinks I'm boring." Caroline rolled her eyes.
"Maybe when you get over that stupid ego of yours." Maria mocked.
"How dare you! I, Caroline Cordovin, have always done my best to make sure our city is safe even when we had no guardian at the time!" Caroline angered.
"Yeah, nothing screams safety like putting people on the watch list just for bringing canned food in the mines." Maria remembered that one time.
"Because Grimms have high senses of smell that could track any scent like that stupid food that brat brought!" Caroline pointed out.
"Wasn't that brat your nephew?" Maria asked as she tries to remember that.
"He is." Caroline shouted and the two elders butted their heads against each other.
But not wanting to see these ladies get into a fight right when they're visiting a friend's grave feeling that it might upset the dead girl, Sun grabs Maria and Jaune grabs Caroline to pull them apart from each other before things get messy.
"Easy ladies, we know that friends fight each other most of the time." Sun said.
"But don't you think you should at least get along while you're visiting Fria's grave today?" Jaune asked as he points at the grave.
Maria and Caroline look at Fria's picture for a moment as they start to calm down knowing that these boys are right, they needed to be strong and at least not try to go after each other's throat on this important day about their dead friend.
"You know, this reminds me of how Fria would always stop us from fighting." Caroline sighed.
"Yeah, the girl never like to see us fight like this and always believe in the friendship we hold dear to each other." Maria mentioned.
"I bet she still does even from beyond the grave." A tall old woman believed as she walks up to them.
"Summer!" Maria and Caroline surprised to see a familiar face here.
"Hello girls, I'm glad to see you two still have that bursting energy as ever!" The old woman now revealed as Summer giggled.
Summer is an old woman with long grayish magenta hair and normal magenta eyes. She wears a pale red shirt with slightly puff sleeves and tiny yellow lines, blue jeans, and orange shoes.
"Hey, I remember seeing you walking close to the edge of the forest the other day." Sun recalled.
"I'm glad you still remember me, Sun Wukong. I also saw how you and Jaune Arc were kindly escorting Maria to the graveyard." Summer teased making the boys blush of embarrassment.
Summer went up to the tombstone setting down a popsicle on a plate and a pale white, blue flower in front of the picture.
"Icy Snow Drop. Her favorite flavor." Caroline smiled.
"She always loved to eat things cold, but she was never afraid to eat hot food too." Summer explained.
"Like eating some spicy chili peppers?" Sun asked.
"Boy, if you were there at the same when Fria ate twenty chili peppers then you could have seen how hot her breath was that she breathed fire!" Maria laughed.
"Actually, Maria, I do believe it was 40 spicy chili peppers." Summer said.
"I swear, that woman love doing the extreme too much for her own good even when she used to train Winter." Caroline mentioned.
"Yes, those were the memories I will never forget." Winter said as she and Penny walk up to them.
"You guys visiting her too?" Jaune asked.
"Yes, I was a candidate like Penny before I became the Winter Maiden. She was always there for me whenever I feel sad and angry, like a grandmother to me and she would even help me calm things down between me and my mother." Winter explained smiling.
"I never got to meet her, but hearing Winter's stories about Fria makes me feel closer to her." Penny believed.
"Fria was always the Maiden who kept being there for others even when she wasn't needed, always warming our hearts despite having ice powers." Summer smiled.
"I wonder how she would feel about us?" Jaune asked.
"No doubt welcoming you with open arms and perhaps go snowboarding with her." Summer believed.
"By the way, how is the Summer Maiden doing?" Maria asked.
"She's doing wonderful, getting better with her powers now." Summer answered.
Sun and Jaune look at the picture of Fria thinking she would've been an awesome woman to meet if she was still alive.
KO a new chapter is done and hope you all enjoy it!
Sun and Jaune have learned more about Elder Maria such as being friends with the Winter Maiden before Winter herself, and even meeting some old friends who are still around to share in the moment with her though one can get on Maria's nerves some time.
KO comment, favorite, and follow through of how this story will go!