Ep 8 - To Fly Beside The Sun

"Look there it is again!" Maka exclaimed pointing in the distance to the looming shape of the London Eye, that massive white Ferris-Wheel accenting the London Skyline.

Pierre had noted her interest in the thing the last few days and begun to wonder how long it would be until Maka demanded a closer look;
"Yup still there where we left it. You know I really doubt it's going to roll away when we aren't looking."
Pierre jeered coyly.

Maka's face pouted, "Haha, very funny wise guy." 

Pierre laughed lightly at his companion's embarrassment.
They were making their way down one of the many shop lined streets of the city - The type that in a smaller town might of been a main-street, walled with smart looking business-fronts and their pinstriped canopies - As throngs of people made their way up and down - Though by London standards it was little more than a wide alleyway.

They rounded a corner with coffees in hand as though it was second nature, automatically making it to the same old park they regularly frequented - The one with the circular gravel path which on a bright, clear-skied afternoon like today was filled with joggers and dog walkers.

As always there was the faint smell of fried foods coming from the ever-present chip van - And to either side of it was the same two benches as always, although today no one sat on the bench in the shade of the old beech-tree.

As they took their usual spot on the one to the left of the van, Maka struck up a new direction for the conversation;
"So listen, I've been reading those books I found in your storeroom--"

Pierre groaned audibly, "I told you it's all fiction..."

"Yes well that's nice and all but I have questions."

"No surprises there." Pierre grinned, "But haven't you ever heard of 'Death of the Author'? Your not meant to ask questions about a text you know." 

Maka frowned, "There will be a death of this author right in-front of me if you don't stop teasing." 

"Fair-point. What was your question?"
Pierre retorted with hands raising in foe-surrender.

Maka nodded, pleased to get back on track - "The character who is quite clearly meant to be you, when you were still a knight, still my-- I mean 'Your Lady.Aardig's' companion - Is he meant to seem so.... so lonely and inadequate?" 

Pierre nearly chocked on the cup of coffee he had been drinking from;
"I, ah-- That's quite the loaded question. Well, characters need arcs you know - To keep the story interesting."

"So that part isn't based on you?" Maka replied with hope.

"Well...." Pierre half-mumbled, casting his eyes aside.
For a few seconds it seemed he would try to change the subject but then he continued, much to Maka's joy at seeing her friend open up to her more often as of late;

"I guess when I was a kid I thought I was hot stuff.
I mean a boy like me, from the slums of the capital getting to become a Royal-Knight, that's a pretty big deal.
It was my Father's doing really, he was a regular old pikeman in the army but one day he saved his commander - Some noble lord, a Barren or Duke I think."

"Anyway as reward the noble offered father a knightship but he turned it down and instead asked the lord to make me one. So there I was, little 5 or 6 years old Gem, shipped off to be a Page - A knight in training.
And I was good at it to, I had grown up knowing what not having enough food on the table felt like, I would go home on leave from training - Only to find half the village had died of plague.
That sort of life hardens you more than being some nobleman's son."

"And so I rose through the ranks like a meteor across the sky! That annoyed alot of actual nobleman's offspring and let me tell you, getting into fights with those makes for great practical training!"
He grinned before cringing with a sigh;

"But in reality I was just a very big fish in a very small pond.
A couple years from finishing my training I got made your-- Aardig's bodyguard and tutor. Everyone knew why, the King thought a commoner like me would slack off - He didn't actually want his child to wield a sword."

"But you did the training with all you had!" Maka added.

Pierre laughed heartily, "Like I had a choice, young Aardig was a downright Diva! 
'The Tomboy Princess' - Hair cut short, dressing in boys clothing and badgering her father into getting her sword lessons.
Trust me she didn't give me any option but to teach her everything I knew.

Then again she was an amazing student..."

Maka watched as Pierre's face clouded, as he remembered a long forgotten history.

A memory of two teenagers sparing with wooden swords - The boy with a cocky grin on his young face and a hand held behind his back, the girl (If she could even be confidently identified as one) drenched in sweat as her short brown bob flowed to and fro as she desperately tried to best her teacher.

"I said before that I believe Aardig had a photographic memory but maybe it was more than that.
She learned with a ferocious pace, in weeks she had mastered basic sword forms and by the time I was ordained an official Knight of the realm - In just those short years she had already caught up to me, learned everything I'd spent the better part of 15 years on, in barely 2 years with me."

The memory moved, no longer a teenager but instead a young man sparred - Now with blunted metal swords, the wooden ones long since shattered.
Now it was him who's rough, poorly shaven face was covered with sweat, as the seemingly un-ageing young girl pressed a relentless, swirling, flurry of an attack against her sparring partner and former tutor.

"That was the thing I learned, that I was nothing more then a meteor passing by - A brief spark of nothingness - But Aardig, she was the sun! A blinding hot white supernova of a person.
A demi-God amongst humanity, destined to change the world forever and be remembered for all history.
The NTME proves it, even thousands of years after her death she is still remembered on the biggest feast day of the year. Her Empire marked the turning of the First-Age, into the Second - She changed the course of history itself!!"
Pierre finished, a mix of sorrow and awe plastered across his face.

Maka shuffled a little uncomfortably beside him, whether he accepted it or not she still claimed to be that very same Aardig, if a bit younger - Making Pierre's speech quite the embarrassing one for her to listen to.

"So you.... you really felt that lonely back then, when we adventured together?"

"Hmmmm? Oh no not at all, I was the one everyone treated normally. A sword-master with the power to detect changes in the weather!" Pierre said laughing at his own ability's absurdity.

"But your power was useful and... And you stuck by her side more then anyone else right?"

Pierre smirked, "Maka I watched Aardig repel entire armies single handed with the use of her battalion of flying swords. The best my magi powers could do was to make sure everyone always knew when to carry an umbrella."

Maka did her best to suppress a smirk at this last comment, which caused Pierre to start laughing again;
"Barometric pressures is something they have studied here on Earth.
I believe that's what my ability is, like cows or dogs I can sense when a storm or Earthquake is coming.
Not entirely useless in daily life but certainly not much compared to Aardig."

Maka frowned unable to properly think of a counter-argument to Pierre's logic.
She wanted to say all powers and warriors had their place and were important to a team of adventurers but struggled to find the right phrasing.

She had noticed this often about Pierre since that night when he had broken down in her arms - He was certainly more open with her now, about his past and feelings which she felt was a good thing - But that openness brought with it a great deal of sour memories and sorrowful thoughts, things Pierre had kept to himself for a long time, expressing his feelings only cryptically through his writing.

'I shall have to work on this deep-held sadness before Valentine's Day gets here' - Maka lamented internally but even as she did Pierre had started off on more reminiscing;

"Don't get me wrong though, I don't begrudge her or anything, that's just the way of the world.
You can be someone important, maybe a famous hero who slays a great monster - One who gets remembered for generations to come but eventually even that will fade.
Ha! You can hardly expect the world to remember everyone who ever lived now can you?
No only a select few get remembered forever, like Aardig."

"If anything my biggest regret is probably being made to leave her behind...
I know it sounds arrogant, I mean look up at the sun. Can you relate to the sun? Empathise with it, ever hope to burn a fraction as brightly as it does?
Of course not, but a part of me was content back then to atleast be there to catch Aardig when she used her power too much - That I could atleast make sure she never got caught out in the rain.
Silly really I know, the sun doesn't need a passing meteor's kindness and yet she always seemed so lonely to me..."

Maka watched with a deep sadness of her own as Pierre continued to vent, he sat staring up at the clouds - His hand laid flat against the surface of the bench.
She slowly reached her hand out to his, suddenly filled with a deep-seeded urge to join with him;

"But you were important, you were the reason I wasn't lonely. The most important perso--"

Pierre hopped up from the bench with a start, clearly not having heard what Maka had been mumbling under her breath and inadvertently missing her hand reaching for his.

"Enough of this depressing talk, makes me sound like some old man on his death-bed!"
Pierre proclaimed stretching his stiff shoulders, "I fancy chips, oh and a battered sausage eh, healthy eating be damned?! What about you Maka?"

Maka sighed and pushed herself out of the seat before offering a wolfish smile;
"Sure but your paying, take it as punishment for that missed opportunity at happiness just now."

"I always pay! And what missed opportunity?"

"Hmph, If you miss what's right in front of your eyes, you have no one to blame but yourself." She jeered gleefully, smirking as she skipped ahead of Pierre - Her white head of head blowing gently in the cold February breeze.

Pierre smiled as he followed after her, the cost of a meal was certainly a small one to pay for this type of happiness, even if he didn't wholly understand Maka's meaning.