Weeks had past and Aisha and Arthur had begun seeking each other's company more often. They had treated each other's company as a wonderful excuse to escape the stressful atmosphere of their jobs.  Being together somehow relieved unwanted mental tensions and relaxed their bodies.  The other day, they had decided to go visit an ancient relic of the past—a large open field, wherein buried under its earth, the countless Gaian soldiers who fought heroically during decisive battles in history. Many graves could be dated back to three hundred years, while the earliest ones were around eight years.  It was Aisha who suggested they'd go here as she wanted to see the heroes of Branch.

Arthur, on the other hand, was completely opposed to this, as if there was something he didn't want to see. During their quiet stroll in this strangely serene graveyard, while Arthur browsed the names of famous generals, Aisha had separated from him and went on to look at graves of people with lesser names.

"This one' so young," Aisha morosely said, looking at a grave's tombstone. "Cast Shadow group? What could this be?"

"What are you doing?"

Aisha jerked, unwittingly stunned at Arthur who appeared out of nowhere.

"You left me alone," he said, approaching near, "and I find you here earnestly looking at a dead man's tomb, what a shame." Arthur chuckled amiably.

Aisha cutely pursed her lips in disagreement, "Correction," she said, averting her gaze, and crossing her arms to her chest, "it's a 'she', and please don't say it's a shame. To be honest I'm here for an important business, I'm looking for someone's grave."

"Someone's grave? You know a Gaian soldier?"

"Not exactly," Aisha said, looking down with her cheeks turning red in embarassment. "It was someone I met eight years ago, when I was still fifteen."

"Oh?" reacted Arthur. "How did it happen? Tell me, I'm curious."

"Well, remember the buzz about that dark organization eight years ago? I was actually kidnapped by them, and then this Gaian agent swooped in to save me, I never got his real name, all I know is that people call him, Wisp. I've got sources telling me he died long ago and I was hoping I could pay tribute to him, supposing his body would be buried here; however—"

"You haven't found him?" asked Arthur, reading the tomb stone bearing the name, Lily. "This girl right here, she's his ally for sure."

"What? How can you be so sure?"

"Cast Shadow," said Arthur, turning his back on Aisha and walking away. "Even a layman could deduce that they're on the same team. You said the guy was a Cast Shadow right? It's not too difficult to put two and two together."

"But—" Aisha followed after Arthur in a daze. 'I did not tell you,' she thought, 'that he was a Cast Shadow'.

Aisha could see Arthur clenching his fist with force; she could feel something akin to frustration in Arthur's demeanor.

"He's dead," added Arthur. "I'm sure people buried him where no one else could find him, so don't go looking for his grave."

"How do you know he's buried somewhere else?" asked Aisha catching up to Arthur's side.

"I'm a police man, I should know."

***

After the graveyard, Arthur invited Aisha to a nearby river, he said that the air there was refreshing, Aisha agreed immediately and followed after him.

While at the river-side, the two happily talked about a bunch of interesting stuff, half-way through their conversation Arthur stopped talking and looked at Aisha intensely.

'Eh?' she thought, 'what's wrong with him?'

Looking at Arthur, Aisha could feel her cheeks tingling; she began blushing as she stared at Arthur's face. Arthur probably had  the face of an average man. To say it correctly, he wasn't ugly, but he wasn't a one-in-a-thousand handsome kind of a guy at the same time. He was handsome, yes, but it was merely average. Yet somehow, at this moment, Aisha felt as though Arthur had become the handsomest man on the planet, and her chest started beating fast. Her face kept getting redder and redder and her movements became more and more awkward until—

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Arthur reached his hand to her face. Her immediate reaction was to briskly lean backwards, avoiding his hand. But it was all futile, she felt Arthur's hand land on her head. Getting too embarrassed, she closed her eyes, hoping Arthur didn't notice the strange reaction she was experiencing.

"It's a spider," Arthur calmly blurted, flicking the spider with his thumb and fore-finger. "It's gone now, no worries."

Suddenly, Aisha began calming down. She heaved a sigh of relief. 'What was that just now?' she thought to herself. 'All that for a spider?'

"Please," Aisha said, averting her gaze and awkwardly playing with her hair, "don't ever do that again."

"Why what's wrong?"

"It makes me uncomfortable," Aisha replied, pouting. "It made me feel strange, okay?"

Arthur laughed, "You look cute like that you know; maybe I'll do it again to get another reaction like this from you."

"As if," said Aisha, walking away, "you'll never catch me off guard again.

To Aisha, although she would not admit it, Arthur had become someone she could talk to without stiffness. Usually, whenever she talked with the people around her, under her 'special circumstances', she'd have to be rather careful; to Arthur, however, she could simply be casual.

Unbeknownst to her, Arthur hid his own embarassment. The moment he flicked the spider earlier he had realized he was too close to her and felt a feeling of daze. His pulse beat fast; and he started sweating profusely. Aisha seemed to him as a fragile creature, one who needs to be protected. Such feelings of nearness made him rather awkward; and the smell of her perfume made his heart beat faster even more. However, unlike Aisha, he masterfully hid his reaction.

***

"Do you get it now?" asked Aisha, confirming if Arthur had understood her explanation.

They had already left the graveyard and was now walking towards the bus station. Arthur had been meaning to ask how magic worked, he'd always been curious about it so he had tried asking Aisha to tell him but it took a while before she gave her consent. Magic is a classified art, but Arthur convinced her he only wanted to know the basics and thus teaching him about it wasn't really a problem.

Aisha asked him why he wanted to know an art he couldn't hope to practice, and he replied that if he were to continue working as a Light Tower police man, he had to at least know something of the other side. Seeing the logic to his argument, Aisha finally agreed.

"So basically," Arthur uttered, looking into the distance while digging his memory for the right response, "the original source of energy that flows through the universe called aether is where mana is derived from, and this mana determines the existence of an object?"

"Exactly," told Aisha coolly, pointing two fingers up. "There are two types of mana: fundamental mana and formal mana. Formal mana is mana that has taken shape, like a tree, a chair, a human being and etc. Since it has taken shape, it is called a 'proper object' or to put it simply: a material object. Magic on the other hand uses fundamental mana that all Aetherean's produce from their body to cast 'spells'. By means of spells, Aetherean's can give form to this formless mana or fundamental mana for a temporary period."

Aisha took her wand and began casting magic, "Burn," she commanded. A small fire suddenly appeared on her wand's tip.

"This fire is called projected fire," she continued explaining. "It's a fire I've produced from my fundamental mana. Currently, it keeps consuming my mana, if I stop feeding it the fire would disappear. Unlike a real fire, it doesn't use flammable objects to fuel itself, it uses my mana. Although it can burn objects, it's merely because it shares properties with a real fire.  Projected objects are objects that temporarily exists because of a mage's will, but they cannot exist independent of its caster—the source of mana."

"Is that so?" asked Arthur, a bit confused. "But I hear Cloud Kingdom is protected by a spell cast by a mage who died a century ago, how come it has outlived its caster?"

"As I've said, a projected object cannot be independent of its caster as the source of mana, but if you were to replace the source with  another source then it's possible to sustain a spell for longer periods. For example: if a mage is strong enough to bind a spell to nature, then nature itself will provide the mana to sustain the spell until a point where the written incantations get rusty and disappear."

"That is amazing!"

"This is just the basics," Aisha said, looking at the enthusiastic face of Arthur, "I can't give you an in-depth explanation regarding the use of magic—"

Out of a sudden, Aisha slipped on a small puddle on the broken part of the road's pavement; but before she could hit the ground, she felt two sturdy arms and a broad shoulder catch her and envelop her body.  Her heart started racing immediately.

"Be careful will you?" Arthur nonchalantly said, averting his gaze while slightly blushing; other than this small indication of embarassment, he was once again successful at hiding his frantically swaying emotions.

Aisha on the other hand rattled frantically, hence, her awkward efforts to quickly get off of Arthur.

"Why did you do that?" she said, "I said don't do something like that again!"

"Shut up!" Arthur responded, scratching his nose. "You're a lady, how can I be so dumb as to allow you to fall?"

Those words caused a flurry of emotions to explode in Aisha's heart.  Of course this wasn't the only time this would happen. Later on in their friendly dates, she would experience it more often.

Arthur and Aisha continued their friendly dates and felt happy with each other's company. They could not explain it, and each of them could not be honest to one another, hence, adorably awkward moments weren't unexpected. Slowly, days passed, then months, and they'd realize—

That they had fallen in love.