#i’m on grimm reality again and i’m having a blast though

[melbush]

i’ve been re-reading every eda in order since jan 2023 and i’m slowing down so much rn because i don’t wanna finish.

it makes me sad (i can just read them again from the beginning. i’m overdramatic)

[raistorm]

“Love’s Seeping From the Guns”

——————————————————————

All Yang could hear was ringing, a deafening ringing in her ears.

The world blurred in and out, spinning and spinning, and she grasped at the singed earth, trying to make the horizon level once more.

She could barely make out the writhing forms of Juane, Ren, and Oscar beside her, similarly afflicted by the aftermath of the explosion. Winter and the Ace Ops indeed dropped the payload just as they managed to rescue Oscar. They were approaching the opening of the whale’s mouth when it hit, and Oscar’s (rather, Ozpin’s) semblance activated, causing time to slow down.

They’d managed to run far enough from the beast to save their lives before Oscar’s aura depleted completely. But they were still caught in a devastating blast.

Yang, on her hands and knees, only registered warm liquid pouring down the side of her face when she saw the blood pooled on the ground in front of her. She fell to her elbows. If the ground would just stop moving she could get up. Get up, the voice inside her yelled. Back and white forms roiled around her as the Grimm and Atlesian army battled on, forcing her to retain a sense of urgency, to stay conscious.

She pushed up from an elbow, willing her muscles to cooperate, but they felt like jelly. Exhaustion settled over her body, tempting her eyes closed, to rest, to let go. It would be easy. To just sleep. She was equal parts weightless and heavy.

But sounds began to come back.

Growling, snarling, guns blasting, shouting, scuffling.

A voice, familiar, started far off but came closer and closer as she kept trying to push her body up, using arms that just wouldn’t listen to her.

“Yang!”

It was Blake.

A solid pair of arms wrapped around her. The metallic click of weapons unfurling, the sickening crunch of bones, and more familiar voices told her Ruby and Weiss had begun to fend off the Grimm around them.

Relief overcame her and she sunk into the embrace. Blake was crying, begging her to stay awake, to “stay with me, Yang, stay with me… open your eyes, we have to get out of here!”

Yang drifted deeper into trance, partly comforted by Blake’s presence and partly helpless to the sweet temptation of unconsciousness by now. She’d been fighting for so long…

Blake shook her shoulders and said loudly and firmly, “Yang. Wake up.”

Light seared through her half-lidded eyes as Blake’s golden, tear-filled gaze blinked into view. Is time still moving in slow motion? She thought. I really wish Blake would stop crying.

From the corner of her dimming periphery, she could see her own metal hand reaching up to cup Blake’s cheek before she could even remember commanding it to do so, so she allowed her fingers to brush Blake’s tears away.

She wanted to say she was trying; she wanted to tell her that it was all going to be okay, that…

Lips pressed against her own.

Blake was kissing her.

Yang’s eyes flew open as a new rush of adrenaline roared through her veins. She pulled in a sharp breath, energy surging through her like lightning. Suddenly, she had command of her body again, and she grasped Blake’s face like a lifeline, returning the searing kiss.

Blake pulled away to release a ragged sobbing breath. “You idiot,” she said, before surging forward to recapture Yang’s lips.

Yang half-laughed, half-sobbed, and pulled Blake in by her shoulders, wrapping her arms all the way around her torso. Fire ignited under her skin as they shuddered between kisses, the sobs gently subsiding as they both rediscovered solid ground in each other.

Still dizzy and reeling from almost passing out and being suddenly reinvigorated, Yang pulled away to refocus on the golden eyes of her partner. Blake’s watery smile became her anchor to reality.

“You scared the hell out of me, Yang,” she said, voice cracking, a bit of Yang’s blood smudged on the corner of her lip. Yang wiped it away with the pad of her thumb.

“Baby…”

Weiss’s voice cut through their little world, “As happy as we all are for you two, we have to go! I don’t care if we have to carry you, but we can’t keep holding off the Grimm!”

Blake whispered soft assurances in Yang’s ear as she helped the blonde stand up on wobbling legs. The gravity of their situation finally registered to Yang as the hordes of Grimm seemed to converge slowly around them. Behind her, Ruby and May struggled to support a deeply wounded Ren and an unconscious Oscar. Juane was standing, but was ghostly pale, blood and bruises covering his face.

How were they going to get off the battlefield? Half of them could barely walk, much less run. How was time still moving so slow, but so fast?

As if on cue, an airship whirred to a stop in front of them. The doors opened to reveal Qrow and Robyn, their disheveled and ragged forms echoed the appearances of the younger huntsman and huntresses. None of them got out unscathed these past forty-eight hours.

“Kids, come on. There’s nothing else we can do here,” Qrow rasped, wind whipping his matted hair. His eyes were more gaunt than usual.

“We have to go back to Weiss’s place to get everyone else,” Ruby said as she and May gingerly lifted Oscar onto the platform.

“Roger,” said Qrow, hopping down to lift Ren onto the ship.

With great effort and the help of Blake’s steady hands, Yang hoisted herself up and collapsed near the back wall, breathing heavily, blood still pouring from the gash on her forehead. She began to wonder if her disorientation was a side effect of Oscar’s time dilation. Events were moving quickly in retrospection but so slowly in the moment.

Suddenly Blake was by her side, fussing over the wound and searching for more. Yang watched her worry her lip as her hands passed over every inch of Yang’s form, gently, but frantic. Yang grabbed her hands and Blake’s eyes shot up to meet hers.

“I’ll be okay. I’m mostly tired and… rattled.”

“That’s a lot of blood, Yang,” she said, insistent.

Years of a rough and tumble lifestyle taught Yang that shallow gashes on the head were often more bark than bite, and bled a lot even if they weren’t life threatening. She relayed this to her partner, who nodded, though with a small look of disbelief on her face, and shifted to dress her head wound rather than keep looking for other wounds.

Soft murmurs around her indicated that the others were being looked after as well, and Yang began to slowly let herself relax, to feel safe for a moment, to be okay with the idea that while her friends may be hurt, they were alive, protected. When Blake was handed the first aid kit, Yang watched her expression tense in concentration as she wiped the blood from her face. Yang couldn’t help it, she gazed adoringly at her partner.

“I can feel you staring,” Blake said, the corner of her mouth quirking up in a smirk as she began the process of wrapping gauze around her forehead.

“I dunno, it feels like this is allowed now,” Yang rasped, the exhaustion in her voice even startling herself.

Blake’s eyes softened as she reached up to touch Yang’s jaw. The warmth of Blakes touch anchored Yang to something stable in a sea of disorientation and shock.

“It is,” she smiled mischievously, “but I seem to recall you staring at me like that a few times before… just… usually when you thought I wasn’t paying attention.”

Despite herself, Yang blushed, but was too tired to keep up the banter. “…Guilty.”

Concern flooded Blake’s expression again, but before she could speak, the airship landed.

“Stay here, I’m going to help carry the others back to the ship,” Blake said, and hesitated before leaning in and kissing her softly. It was just a quick brush of lips, but it was unexpected and sent Yang’s heart aflutter. Admiration and love filled Yang as she watched Blake hop off the ship. She couldn’t believe this was happening, briefly wondering if this was all a dream. Everything felt surreal. She looked at her hands and flexed her fingers, finding herself dying to touch Blake again already.

A forced cough made her look up to the raised eyebrow of her uncle and the shocked expression of Juane. Yang huffed in embarrassment and looked away, but didn’t have the energy to retort.

“Oh,” Juane said, mostly to himself, “that’s what she meant back at the cabin…”

Qrow chuckled and turned to look out at the night sky. “Good for you, kiddo.”

Yang let her head fall back against the cool metal wall of the ship before lolling it back over to Qrow. “Ha… yeah it’s… it just…” she began before a different thought crossed her mind. “Wait, where are we going? What happened… with everything?” It was still hard to form full sentences.

Qrow sighed and ran a hand through his hair before glancing at Robyn, who was sitting in the pilot’s seat.

“The whale isn’t dead, but Ironwood almost killed you anyway,” he said, malice seeping from his voice like icicles. “It’s just… out of commission for a while. Salem will have it nipping at the heels of every major city in Remnant before the week’s up.”

Robyn turned around. “We’re going to find a place to lay low for a few days to recover. Half of you kids are in bad shape.”

Yang sighed but couldn’t argue, “Ruby won’t be happy about that.”

“Yeah, but there isn’t much of a choice at the moment,” Qrow said, coming over to rest a hand on her shoulder. “Speaking of, you get some rest, Yang. You’ve done more than enough. I’m… I’m so proud of you. And I’m glad you’re okay. We all.. feared the worst for a moment.”

Tears welled up in Yang’s eyes before she said thank you, and allowed herself to shift into a somewhat comfortable position as Qrow went to open the door of the ship. Sounds began to drift back out of her consciousness, but she could hear the soft rustling of clothes as the others were lifted onto the ship, hushed whispers only lulled her closer to the edge of sleep.

She barely registered Blake’s warm body settle in next to hers as the engine of the airship whirred back to life, but she forced her eyes open once more.

“Yang…” Blake said, “It’s okay, you can go to slee—”

“—I love you,” Yang said, unable to hold it inside any longer. “Blake, I love you.”

Blake couldn’t hide a small gasp. There was a beat of silence.

Then Yang felt cool hands gingerly turn her face to meet warm golden eyes. Yang didn’t realize she was crying until Blake was wiping her tears way.

“I could’ve died today,” Yang whimpered, the reality hitting her like bricks. It made her blood run cold. “I would’ve never told you. I need to tell you now. I have to—“

Blake cut her off with a kiss, pulling her in deeply. When she pulled away she whispered, “Yang, I love you, too.” Blake kissed her again and Yang could only focus on her lips. “I love you.”

Tears streamed down both of their faces as they savored being alive and together and in love. There was so much more to say, so much more to talk about, but the preciousness of the moment transcended everything else. The truth was more glaring than ever, that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, they only had now. They had each other right now.

They fell asleep in each others’ arms, preparing to face an uncertain tomorrow.

Together.

[moondrop04]

RWBY VOLUME 8 EPISODE 10 SPECULATION AFTERMATH!!!

SPOILERS!!!

SPOILERS!!!

SPOILERS!!!

Ugh!!! 😩 Do you know how much of a pain it is to work around trying to watch a RWBY episode when it comes out and manage a job with a 12 hour shift?? It SUCKS!!! I wasn’t able to watch the episode until late late Saturday night because I was too exhausted to stay awake to watch it and then had to go back to work the next few days!!! Sigh.....it doesn’t matter......BECAUSE THIS EPISODE WAS SO AMAZING AND STUNNING THAT NOW I DONT GIVE A S*** ABOUT THE LONG HOURS!!! 😆 Welp....enough about my lack of sleep, let’s get right into the Aftermath!!!

-(When The TinMan Loses “Heart”) Well I’m glad I got this portion of the episode somewhat right from my speculation 😏. I’m glad we are finally getting a continuation of Qrow and Robyn’s story arc for this volume and it looks like it’s heading towards its climax when they finally meet the general.

Speaking of which......Sweet Cream On A Ice Cream Sandwich 😆 Whoever directed those portion of Ironwoods scenes deserves an award because those were GOOD!!! The tension in the air when he speaks, the dread of wondering what he is about to do, the conveniently placed light shining down upon him as he delivers his ultimatum, all of it had me at the edge of my seat when I was watching it and I loved it! Now unfortunately I know that there are fans of Ironwood that are disappointed with how things are going for him so I just want to say my piece and my stance on his character so there won’t be any confusion in the future. When Ironwood was introduced in the series back in volume 2 I have always assumed that he would eventually become an “antagonist” to Team RWBY. CRWBY has conveyed that well enough for me through out the series that seeing what’s transpiring right now is of no surprise to me. Now it’s important to note that I am not going to call Ironwood a “villain”, but instead an “antagonist”, because the writing back in volume 7 has made me believe that there is chance of him being redeemed in the future. His character for me has always been of someone that fully believes that to get through a situation that they must do it “their way” and that there in no other alternatives. After coming face to face with the reality of Salem and her immortality he is now walking the same path as headmaster Leonardo did and that Fear is gripping him from listening to others. But after watching volume 7 I believe that there may be chance to get through to him and make him see reason because he is a good man under all that metal. Words alone were enough to make him understand before Salem’s arrival but now knocking some since into him is the only way to make him see reason.....and I believe Qrow may be the one to do it. Question now is.....will he knock some sense into the tin-man before vengeance grips his mind and ends up killing him instead? We will have to see......

-(“A few more Tricks Up Its Sleeve”) Ok....In my speculation post I made a prediction of how the story would continue after Oscar releasing the Long-Memory’s power because I thought it would be just destroying Salem and Hazel only. BUT Apparently it was enough power to create a huge blast to destroy not only Salem and Hazel, but the Whale and surrounding Grimm!?!? 😳 HOLY S***!!!! That whole sequence was honestly amazing and yet another part of the episode that I found aesthetically pleasing!!! Not only that but the aftermath with the fog and debris after the explosion surrounding the city as the sun rises was great as well. Oz wasn’t kidding when he said that the cane had a few tricks up it’s sleeve and to finally know that it can store up “kinetic energy” is an interesting way for CRWBY to put about it. I am disappointed that my prediction was wrong but it’s given me new things to think about for the story to go forward with so I admit defeat yet again with my tin foil hat on and a smile on my face 😁.

-(A Remedy For A Bloody Migraine) This Scene was Amazing and much needed after dealing with Cinder’s shortcomings after Beacon for so long. Christopher Sabat will always be a win for me to when a voice actor conveys anger and sarcasm at the same time in a character they are playing. I was honestly expecting Cinder to drop Watts to his death after his rant but seeing her drag him back and tearfully accept the truth of his words has boldend my view of her characters growth as a villain going forward. The “Power trip” and presence of her believing she’s better then everyone has become a crutch in her character for some time and now there is finally someone telling her straight up of her failures to her face and I’m honestly quite glad it’s Watts. These two has always had disdain between each other since volume 4, so to see how this scene plays out has me wondering if we may see a change in not only Cinder going forward as a villain but in also how Watts works with her in future volumes. 😊Also I gotta love the short scene involving Neo texting Cinder about the lamp. Neo is a loveable little s*** but it’s funny to know that Cinder is the same when taking pictures of someone, just to make a contact profile for them lmao 😆.

-(Reunion) After being separated from each other since episode 1 of the volume, it is really nice to see them back together again. I also loved the music in the background when the scene was playing out, especially when the chorus hit during the bumblebee scene. I am bit disappointed that no one commented on Oscar’s terrible condition yet but seeing Emerald all of a sudden pop up is understandably a good reason to pause rational thinking lol. I will say though that I have a pretty good feeling that the next episode will address about Oscar and many other things between certain characters that I have been waiting for, so I am excited about that.

-(Ultiamtum) With Salem momentarily gone it is now time to deal with Ironwood and to what eventually I believe will lead to the staff of creation. Things are now heading towards the climax of the volume and Ironwoods “ultimatum” may resurface some issues that were addressed back in episode 1. There is no doubt the heroes will have to make a tough choice between saving thousands of lives or saving one friend and whatever they choose to do I believe will form more division between the heroes. To whom ever will be conflicting about the ultimatum will undoubtably make us the audience have issues going forward in the story on whose in the “right”........so yeah be prepared for that upcoming storm of emotions lol 😓

Episode 10 of Volume 8 is by far the most aesthetically pleasing in the story and it has built up some interesting plot points for us to wonder about going forward. So Until The Next Episode......BUH-BYE!!! 😆😆😆😆

[mintaero]

I’LL SAVE HIM 

Listen to this fic’s playlist here 

Read it on Ao3!

“It’s your turn.” Simon’s voice is heavy. A chill runs through my spine. 

“My turn to do what?”

“To save me.”

first nova.

That’s it.

I’m going to have to spell this imbecile back to bed if it’s the last thing I do.

The digital clock on the nightstand reads 02:58, and I nearly groan. He’s been doing this twice as often lately; getting up at a ridiculous time and never coming back to bed. I’ll find him the next morning, sitting on the couch with a bowl full of butter in his lap and his eyes closed, head tipped back, snoring softly. Once, I even found him on the floor, on his stomach, listening to music in his earbuds so loudly that I could hear it from down the hall.

I wonder which it’s going to be tonight.

Simon hasn’t been sleeping well these past few weeks. I tried to get him to take some melatonin tablets, but he refused. He said he was “never taught how to swallow pills”. I told him we could buy the chewable kind, but he shook his head.

“It wouldn’t help, Baz.” He’d said, not meeting my eyes. That’s another thing he’s been doing often; not meeting my eyes.

“It’s better than restlessness. At least you’ll be able to relax, Snow.” I tried to say it gently, but it came out traced with accusation.

“It wouldn’t help, though.” He said again, crossing his arms. I didn’t respond, merely sighed and went to the bathroom for a shower.

It wouldn’t help, Baz.

Nothing ever seems to.

Grimacing, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up, pulling back the curtains in front of the window. There’s no moon. There’s hardly ever a moon, it feels like, but I know that’s irrational. I know that’s irrational. I let the curtain fall back into place.

There’s no music blasting down the hall. Which is good, but also not. I might find him sprawled out on the on the loveseat with cereal crumbs in his hair, eyes darting around at every creak and groan the house makes. (I found him like that once. I had to step out for a few minutes and regain my composure.) (Seeing him like that was…too much.)

There’s no moon out, but there are stars. Brighter than city lights. There are three windows in the hall to our rooms, and each one of them has been opened by Snow and his constant need to have an outpouring of natural light. Tonight, I don’t mind. The windows are the only thing keeping me in the present instead of in that damned coffin.

I check everywhere. He isn’t in the living room. Or the family room. Or the dining room. I even think about going outside and looking for him, but it’s too bloody cold out for a “late-night stroll”, and I know that Simon hates being cold.

There’s rustling from the kitchen.

Fuck. How could I have forgotten about the kitchen?

I’m blaming it on being 3 in the morning.

“Snow?” I call, stopping in the doorway. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust, which is unusual since the kitchen normally has the most light coming through the windows above the stove. It’s just so abnormally dark in the flat. I’m used to waking up with Simon radiating warmth, to seeing him exude his magic without ever meaning to. To look at him smiling and feel the world around us glow.

It all got a bit more complicated when he gained his wings and lost his magic.

“Snow, are you—” Then, my eyes focus.

He’s a silhouette against the darkness. Hunched over the sink, hands clutching the rim like it’s the only thing tethering him to reality. He’s shirtless, as usual, but his skin doesn’t glow like it used to, and his wings dip further down with every breath he takes. He’s staring down at the garbage disposal.

Something’s not right.

“Simon,” It’s barely above a whisper. “What’s going on?” I step closer.

He looks at me with wide, wild eyes. His hair is parted in chunks where his fingers have raked through it, and his bottom lip looks dark. Bloodied, I realise, where he’s been biting it. He looks mental.

He blinks. Panicked. “Nothing.”  

Then I see it.

Red. Around his eyes. Brimming them.

He’s been crying.

I cross the kitchen in a flash. He’s backing himself into the wall, his arms outstretched to stop me from touching him.

Stopping me from touching him.

It hits me like a bullet train. I stop walking, the energy making me sway forward slightly. “It’s—It’s me?” Fuck. I don’t mean to say it like that. To sound…hurt. Even a little.

His eyes widen as it slowly dawns on him. “What?”

“It’s me,” I say slowly. Calculated. Careful not to tip the waters. “You’re afraid of me.”

“Baz,” He’s saying all of his words fervently like they hold a thousand meanings within themselves. “No. That’s—Crowley, Baz, no. It’s not about that. It’s not even about you, it’s—it’s—”

“Answer my question: are you afraid of me?” Fucking hell. My voice cracks.

“No,” He growls. It makes the hairs on my arms stand up. “Never. It’s in my head. It’s all in my head. It’s nothing, Baz. Just—” He rakes another hand through his hair, and his next words sound like someone took a butter knife and carved into his vocal chords. “��go back to sleep.”

Ouch. Another blow to the vampire with the stilled heart.

“What’s in your head, Snow?”  

“Nothing,” One word, two syllables. Vehemently. Desperate. Pleading. It’s horrible how it makes my heart go from already cracked to crumbled. Smashed. It’s too dark in the room to see him clearly, but I can see the slight twitch in his eyes, the small crease forming between his eyebrows. He looks dreadful.  “I’m serious.”

There’s no heat beneath his skin, no fire or match ready to be lit. No pulsing air around him. It’s quiet, now. Simon Snow is a bloody uncertainty, no matter how well you think you know him. A bomb that you can’t tell is defused or not.  

And suddenly the dark becomes all too real. Seeping into me like a sponge soaking up water.

Simon Snow, are you defused?

He stands there. He’d gradually regained his posture (although it’s horrid, it’s still better than a slump), and pressed his forehead against mine. (That means that I’m the one having to slump to meet his height.) I try to feel for any indication of a fever, but there’s none. His skin is nearly as cold as mine.

“You should go back to bed,” he breathes.

I close my eyes. Move my hands to cup his face. Wipe the wetness off his cheeks.

“Good-night, Simon.”

__

the morning

“Simon,”

There’s sunlight streaming through the window and blanketing itself over the sheets. Simon’s face is smushed into the pillow, his hair spread out, damp from sweating off his nightmares.

I don’t remember him coming back to bed last night. He must’ve slipped in just after I had passed out.

I brush the pad of my thumb on his jaw. His eyelids flutter but don’t open.

It’s early. Not early enough for it to still be dark outside, but earlier than when I normally wake up. Simon’s usually up two hours from now, carrying a box of cereal and bumbling around the flat like a half-starved idiot.

“Love, wake up,” I say softly, tracing circles on his cheek.

“I don’t need to,” he replies, rolling his shoulders back, “there’s nothing waiting for me.”

I don’t know how to respond. That seems to happen more often; Simon will say something completely true and I just sit there, totally caught off-guard by his insensitivity.

He’s right. There is nothing waiting for him anymore. I don’t prepare extravagant Watford-esque breakfasts or send horrific dark creatures to greet him on his way out. We aren’t waiting for the day where we’re destined to be killed or kill each other, and I’m certainly not waiting for the day that he figures out that there’s nothing waiting for him anymore.

“I’m not a 1950’s housewife waiting at your beck and call, Snow,” I shift slightly away from him, shoving my pillow between us.

I had meant to be nicer this morning. Softer, because of what happened last night. I wanted to wake up and run my hands through his hair and kiss every part of his body except his lips just to remind him that I’ll always be hopelessly in love with him, but the truth is that I’ve never been good at comfort. I’m not accustomed to it. I aggravate. I’m used to aggravating people. I push people past the point of frustration to where they blow, and comfort isn’t one of my strong suits.

Comfort takes something else. It takes humility and understanding and everything I do have, but I’ve worked so hard to make it not visible on the surface.

“It’s a weakness,” Father would say, “and weaknesses have no place in the Grimm-Pitch family.”

Simon Snow is my weakness. Father knows that, of course, and even though he tries his hardest not to use it against me, I know he resents the fact that the Mage’s Heir has such power over me. But that's the way it goes with my family and the people we love, I think: my mother was his weakness.

“I know,” Simon says, rubbing his eyes open. “I don’t mean it like there will be nothing waiting for me, ever. I just mean—You know. Why wake up when there’s nothing waiting for me?”

“Because why would anyone wake up with that thought process?” I snap. “People can’t go around thinking, ‘I’m not going to do anything because there’s nothing worth my time’. Do you know how inhumane that is? Narcissistic?”

“I—I just—I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant—I just—Just—”

“Just what, Snow?”

“Came out wrong.”

“Actually,” I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I think it came out the exact way you intended.”

I turn and almost make it off the bed before a solid arm snakes its way across my torso, holding me back.

Keeping me there.

Holding me.

He warm breath on my skin makes the hair on my arms stand up.

“I’m sorry,” I feel his face press into my lower back. After a few seconds, after I realise that he’s got me right where he wants me, he says, “You’re the only thing worth waiting for. I’ll wait for you.”

He should. I spent nearly half my life waiting for him, so the least he can give me is a few minutes wait. A few minutes where I get to see Simon pine. For me, no less. I wonder what he’d look like? He’s not much of a sulker, but I know he thinks a lot, even if he says he doesn’t. (I wonder if he said that just because he didn’t want me to ask what he thinks about.) (I wonder if it’s me.) I should make him wait.

I should.

But I won’t. (Can’t, rather, but I’d never properly admit it to myself.)

Making—Crowley, seeing—Simon wait would be like Watford years all over again. Silently pining and then scampering off. I can’t go through Watford like that again. Like a fucking damsel stuck in a tower and looking down at the world beneath, at everything they can’t touch.

I glance back and down at him. His legs are pulled up, his back straight, and he’s lying vertically across the bed to get to me. His eyes are closed, and I can feel his hot breath against my skin where my shirt had ridden up.

Merlin and Morgana, he shouldn’t have this kind of hold over me.

“You also wait for scones in the oven to bake,” I skin my fingertips over his curls, dragging until the base of his neck. “So, I don’t take that as a compliment.”

“Mm, s’pose I do,” I’m not sure he hasn’t fallen back asleep. It is devastatingly early for both of us, and I’m nearly positive he just wants me to stop talking and lie back down with him.

It’s a bit awkward, but I do. His arm is still wrapped around my waist and his head is directly behind me, so I have to twist uncomfortably to avoid crushing him. He rotates his body so that he’s lying parallel to me. I grab at the sheets and pull them over us. My pillow is still shoved between us, so I shove it back under our heads.

He’s practically snoring by the time I get situated across him. Mouth open, eyes still, face void of his usual creases.

I let myself look at him. I let myself enjoy it for a little bit, the way that he breathes like he’s trying to not take everyone’s breath away. I consider counting the moles on his face, and then I reconsider counting his freckles if that means I get to look at him longer. It almost feels like back in Watford when I would watch him needlessly when he was asleep, when I felt the most distanced from him.

“I’m always waiting for you, y’know,” Simon mumbles, bringing his arm over his head and letting it rest there. It scares the shit out of me because I’m not expecting it.  

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, like, waiting for you to stop feeling bad for me. Or leave. There’s nothing interesting that’s going to happen now, since I’m not the chosen one anymore. I’m just—Just a one.” His morning speech is slurred with sleep. He grazes over h’s and cuts of vowels when he’s tired.

I remember the night of our Leavers Ball when Simon had said the exact same thing.

“Hey,” I nudge his chin with my thumb. “Simon Snow, I chose you. I’m never going to stop choosing you. That isn’t how choice works. Or love, for Crowley’s sake. I’m with you, to have and hold, for richer and poorer, through thick and thin, in sickness and health, for better or worse.”

Simon cracks open an eye. “Are those wedding vows?”

I sneer halfheartedly. “Irrelevant.”

He’s grinning. It’s not the kind that you see when you’ve just won a football match, but rather the one that you do when you’re thinking about a bittersweet memory.

“It won’t be,” he mutters, lifting his arm from over his head and draping it around my waist, tugging me closer.

“For now, then,” I say.

“Hm?”

“For now. We’ll think about the now and leave the rest for later.” I press into him, feeling his hands skim over my skin. Tracing words I’ll never get to hear, patterns I’ll never get to see. It sends shivers down my spine.

He moves until we’re nose to nose, and I can feel his heart beating in my chest. “Tell me what we’ll do now.”

“Now?” I swallow, and it must be a whole scene because he glances down at my throat. “Now, we’ll kiss.”

He’s still grinning. It’s a marvellous sight. “Yeah?”

“Yes.”

And then I take him by the back of his neck.

__

second nova.

It’s a week later when the second nova happens. He’s sitting on the floor before the fireplace, staring at the dying embers. Looking. Searching.

I’ve just gotten back from a late-night business class Father is forcing me to undergo. It’s horribly tedious, and I know he only wants me to do it for bragging rights to the Old Families, but I do it anyways to take my mind off whatever funk Simon and I have been going through.

But, that also means that most days I’m up early and back home late. Out the door before dawn and back after nightfall. On the nights that I find Simon still awake on his phone in the middle of the loveseat, those are the nights that we sit together, not talking, and get as close together as we can. His hips on mine. My hands running down his back. His face in the crook of my neck. It’s never enough, though. No matter how close, it could always be closer. Could always be worse.

Not any worse than tonight.

“I can still smell the fire,” he says softly. Gently. Like it’s a weapon that he’s using to protect someone with. Like the wind blowing on your face. Simon never uses his words like this. Carefully.

It scares the shit out of me.

“It’s long died out.” A whisper.

I sit beside him and push the hair off of his forehead. His face is hot like he’s running a fever. There’re horrible bags under his eyes, and the shadows dancing on his face made it seem like they were bruised.

That’s the funny thing about shadows; everyone expects them to be cold, and when they aren’t, it isn’t really called a shadow, now is it?

“Your eyes look burnt,” And teary, I almost add, but I don’t. I don’t want to know why. The whole room smells like fire. “Simon. Look at me.” I don’t want him to look at me.

He looks at me.

Shell.

That’s what he is.

A shell. Nothing like the boy I knew days before, plagued with unrelenting paranoia. A desolate shell. The hollow remains of something once filled.

I can’t look him in the eye. Instead, I cup his cheeks in my palms and blink back the tears brimming my eyes and push down the tightness in my throat that’s threatening to suffocate me. Of all things, of course, it had to be my love for Simon Snow that would kill me.

“It’s your turn,” Simon says, closing his eyes and leaning his head into my palm.

“My turn to do what?”

“To save me.”

I sneer, but it’s useless. He can’t see me. This is what my walls coming down feels like.

The fire flickers and cracks, and in the silence, it sounds like far-off thunder on a calm night. Thunder that could shake the earth. His shadows grow more solemn with every second that passes when I don’t answer.

“We’re going to manage, Snow,” I never had this quite happen to me before. Where my voice sounds distant and unlike my own. Crowley, he’s really crawled beneath my skin. “Somehow. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”

Simon nods his head slowly, and slowly his curls find their place back on his forehead. Everything finds it’s way back into its place.

“I’m not—I’m not a…--mage. There’s no reason for you to love me anymore.”

To fucking shit with that. I had heard that line so many times before, and never once did it cease to anger me. Stop loving Simon Snow? Simon fucking Snow? I couldn’t stop loving him even if I tried. To fucking shit with that.

“Simon,” I hold his jaw, just like the way he held mine when we were in the forest. There’s some jagged stubble scattered around his chin, and it rubs against my fingers like sandpaper. I don’t let go, though. “I chose you. I’m never going to stop choosing you. That isn’t how love works. And if it is—Well, if it is, then I’m going to change love.”

Simon opens his eyes. They’re full of blue and hurt and pain. If I were Simon, I’d growl. If I were Simon, I’d do something spontaneous and show him just how much I fell for him. If I were Simon…well, I’m not Simon.

“You can’t do that, Baz,” he says.

“I can.”

“You can’t.”

“I will.”

“You won’t.”

“I have.”

“How?”

I imagine telling him about the nights where I would lay in bed and watch him fall asleep and feel myself fall more in love. Or about the time when I figured out I loved him, and I knew it would end in some sort of catastrophe, but I couldn’t help it. For Crowley’s sake, I imagine telling him that my whole life is built off of me changing my love.

“Snow,” I say instead. (I never quite do what I imagine.)

“You’re going to be okay,” I say. “I’m…--" I choke out the word that’s been hardest to say, even think, with Simon around. “--sorry.”

I don’t know if I believe it.

I don’t know if he does, either.

“Don’t say sorry,” His breath is hot against my wrist, but it’s stabilising. It reminds me that he’s still alive, he’s still Simon Snow, he’s more than I’ll ever be.  

He leans his face into my hand and closes his eyes, swaying slightly. His hair is on fire tonight, burning with the inescapable capabilities that the night held, but I can see that it’s slowly flickering out. Just like the embers in the fireplace, Simon Snow is running out of ways to combust.

He, too, is steadily dying.

And that fact is burning me alive.

__

the violin.

“Darling,”

I stop cold, my bow hovering over the strings.

Simon Snow has never called me darling.  

I turn, and he’s right there behind me, a hesitant smile on his lips. I could drop my violin right now, watch it shatter on the ground as I pull him to me and kiss him senseless. Take him by the shoulders and never let go.

“Play me something.”

“What do you propose, Snow?”

He smiles, and I want to set the whole place on fire. “Something that only I’ll hear.”

My fingers are suspended in the air, waiting to start playing, but my mind’s drawing a blank. Any Sonata wouldn’t be enough. Kiddy songs? Simple lullabies, common melodies? Out of the question. I know that he’s never going to ask for this, for me like this, or to play him something that only he’ll hear. It has to be utterly perfect.

I remember a song from my childhood. It was my grandfather’s before he passed away. He would take me into the library and teach me each measure of each line, day after day, no matter how beyond my experience level it was, until it was burned into my brain. He taught me how to play. He let me fall in love with the instrument and the pain of playing it. My grandfather was a worn, exuberant person who loved ideas and concepts much more than reality itself. He told me that I was his confidant.

“Tyrannus, you’re my confidant. When you’re old enough, you’ll give this song to your own confidant. Share it with them as though you would a secret because that’s what this song is, Tyrannus; a secret.”

I played it at his funeral.

I haven’t played that song in years. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of it was from muscle memory, from all the times I had stayed up past my bedtime practising. Practising until the tips of my fingers were bleeding and my wrist felt fragile enough to snap off with one wrong move.

It’s a lovely song, one that I would have more confidence in playing if he had given me a warning beforehand. I’m not quite there with the vibrato, so I try to accentuate each note with the sudden fortissimos or pianissimos.

And all throughout, I’m looking at him. Gauging his reaction. Taking in how his eyes dip when there’s a lull and then opening suddenly when I press down harder on my strings. I relish the feeling.

When the last note sounds, I make sure to hold my bow far over the fingerboard for a dream-like sound and lift up slowly so that the note resonates in the air for a few more seconds.

I make sure to pronounce my words carefully, “I haven’t played that song in years.”

“It sounded…great.”

“Glad to know that I pass as mediocre.”

Crowley, I’ve never seen Snow transfixed before. He’s actually gawking at me. Mouth open, wandering type of look in his eyes. I could do it. I could lose all inhabitants and kiss him right here and make an utter buffoon of myself.

“No, not—not great great. Brilliant. You’re brilliant,” he breathes, saying the words as if he can’t help it. “Do you play like that all the time?”

“No, Simon,” I drop my violin from my chin. “Just when you ask me to.”

“I’m being serious.” The right and foul git. I think he means it. He shakes his head, his curls shaking along with him. “That was brilliant.”

It wasn’t, not really. I nearly went sharp a few notes, and I rushed an entire section. Simon will never know that, of course, but I��ll have to live with the fact that I didn’t play as well as I could have. “Thank you.”

I set my violin back in its case and begin to untighten the bowhairs from my bow.

He walks over to me and pushes the bow down lower and lower until I’m forced to look at him.

“Baz,” I meet his eyes. “I mean it. You’re completely wicked.”

“Plotting vampire, is it?” I cock an eyebrow. His hands are still on mine, and they’re not as warm as they were before.

“What? No. You’re just—Just simply brilliant.” And then he gives me one of his sincere, toothy grins that pushes his cheeks up all the way to the crinkles around his eyes. “I’m speechless.”

“That isn’t far from usual.”

“Sod off,” he lightly shoves my shoulder. “I’m trying to give you a compliment.”

I fall towards him, my eyes dipping.

“I know,” Softer than I intended. Sweeter than I knew I could be. “I know. It’s a bit hard to take a compliment from the only person who gives you feedback.”

“Everyone should hear that song.”

“Maybe they will.”

“They should.”

“They won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because, my love,” I dip forwards, my lips brushing the shell of his ear, whispering, “You’re my confidant.”

__

third nova.

“He wasn’t in the apartment when I came home,” I switch the phone to my other ear and hold it there with my shoulder, typing furiously on the computer about what to do about a missing person.

“He’s not a child, Baz. He’s probably just gone out for a meal or a drink or something.” Bunce’s voice rings through the receiver, raspy and thick with sleep. I feel a bit guilty, then, for waking her up, but it’s an emergency. Penelope Bunce has dealt with worse matters.

“He would’ve told me. Left a note or sent a text. He wouldn’t just leave.” All the Google searches say the same thing: it isn’t considered a “missing person case” until after 48 hours, and it’s only been a few minutes. But none of the Google searches knows Simon like I do, they don’t know that this isn’t something he would do.

“Have you tried calling him? He’s not the best with answering but he’ll pick up if it’s you.”

His phone was in the bowl by the front door, piled underneath other things like car keys, keychains, gum wrappers. I saw it right when I came in. That’s when I knew something was wrong. “Do not categorise me as an imbecile.”

“Maybe he was summoned by the Humdrum,” Bunce teases, and I nearly chuck my phone at the wall.

“Bunce,” I say through gritted teeth, “not the time for insensitive jokes.”

She sighs, and I can almost see her condescending face right now. You’re being paranoid. “I wasn’t being insensitive, Baz. I’m sure he’s fine. Cast Scooby-Doo, where are you if you’re so worried.”

“I can’t. You know that that spell always leaves a trail.” I consider it, though. Following the trail of magic to him. It’s tempting but highly dangerous and almost 100 per cent certain to expose the magick world to the Normals. I can’t risk it.

“Well,” Penelope says now, her voice cutting through my thoughts. “There are other spells than that one that don’t leave trails. There’s probably something in Spanish that Micah taught me that could help. I could teach you some Spanish spells if you’d like—”

“Penelope,” All four syllables. I don’t mean to sound so desperate, so needy, but—as much as I hate to admit it—I need help. And I’m willing to stoop so low as to ask for it from Penelope Bunce. “Please.” I glance out the window across the room, silently pleading to see Snow walking outside, coming to tell me that he’s okay, he’s okay, there’s nothing wrong, he’s okay.

“Okay, Baz, fine.” I can practically hear her thinking out loud, mutter possibilities about where he might be. I catch words like “park” or “a few miles”, but she doesn’t continue onto a sentence with them. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him often. We Skype and text, but I don’t know about him anymore. You’re his boyfriend, shouldn’t you know where he’s most likely to run off to?”

I stay silent. I don’t have enough time to explain to her about the novas, or how Simon’s been increasingly worrisome the past few weeks. Telling her about Simon’s recent insomnia and mild PTSD episodes would only make her panic, and two people panicking in this situation wouldn’t result in progress being made.

“Baz? Are you still there?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Where do you think he could be?”

“Crowley, Bunce. If I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you, now would I?”

“Think, Baz.” She says. As if I haven’t been thinking the whole time we’ve been talking.

Simon’s mentioned that we’re only a few miles from his last home, and that passing by there makes his chest feel hollow. (He’s never said that, but the look on his face tells me more than I need to know.) There’s a park next to our flat, but I would’ve seen him out the window. Down the street, there’s an Indian place that he seems to enjoy thoroughly, but I severely doubt he’s gone at 01:47 for a late-night curry. A year ago, when I was visiting Bunce and him in their flat, he had taken me around the city for a “touring date”. He told me that sometimes he just liked to walk around and look at all the places he’ll never know.

“Bunce, I’ve got it.” Before she can say anything that’ll mess with my train of thought, I hang up, discarding my phone on the couch beside me.

I push my computer off my lap, distantly aware of it crashing to the floor, and narrowly avoid hitting my shin on the corner of the coffee table as I jump up and start rushing out the door, hastily slamming it behind me, and trying to let my mind catch up with the rest of my body.

The night is cold with ghosts deep in the shadows. I should tell them to fuck off. Or ask them to help me find Simon. (I wouldn’t, though. Ghosts are dodgy in the best of times.) I don’t bother going back and grabbing my jacket.

Nothing could warm me up now.

I walk along the abandoned pavement, watching the lamplight brighten and dim every time I pass underneath. There’s no breeze, nothing besides the ambivalent snow falling on the road. Christ, is it so cold that snow is able to fall? I hadn’t noticed.

I turn a corner into a dark alleyway, pausing to listen. It’s quiet. Simon once told me to never walk down an alley with noises I couldn’t explain, or little pinpricks of light that I didn’t know where they ended.

“You don’t want to meet the end of that cigar, Baz. And you definitely don’t want to know what’s behind those noises. Just—Just listen for a second.” He’d said.

Just listen for a second.

I keep walking, sure to keep looking over my shoulder. The floor is grimy and probably mucked up with whatever discards people have thrown out their windows, and my shoes keep making squelching noises whenever I lift my feet up. The two buildings beside me seem to be hunching towards each other, sagging with the weight of time. (Or the weight of the snow. The downfall has gotten increasingly substantial.)

I round out of the alley, turning a hard left and continuing down the street. There’s a woman sitting on the curb, either intoxicated or high, rocking back and forth and muttering things too low and too diluted for me to compartmentalise.

She looks up when I pass, fazed, but I’m already looking away.

I walk until the pavement starts to narrow and the windows on the buildings are shattered and boarded up with plywood, until the snowfall overhead coats my hair and eyelashes, until my thighs feel numb from the cold.

I tell myself that I’ll stop at the next bend of the road; the next lamppost; the next alleyway. I could have stopped at all of those places, but I don’t. I keep walking. Past a telephone booth with weeds growing in the inside. Past a traffic circle.

Then I stop.

And that’s when I see him.

Sitting in an abandoned bus stop, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He’s wearing three layers of sweatshirts, but from here I can see him shivering. His bony wings still stick out beneath all those layers, outlining them against his back, making him seem less like a human and more of a hastily put back together Frankenstein.

He’s okay, he’s okay, there’s nothing wrong, he’s okay.

He ducks his head and lets his fingers run through his hair.

He’s not okay.

“I don’t think this bus stop is in service anymore,” I say. Loud enough for him to hear, but not be startled by.

He jerks his head up, hands still in his hair. “I’m not planning on going anywhere.”

“That’s very counterproductive for the bus stop,” I hug my arms around myself; it feels like it’s just plummeted 20 degrees. “Snow.”

“Not if it’s not in service.” He drops his head back down. I take that as an invitation to join him on the bench, wiping the snow off the top of my head, and then his. His hair is deeply wet, probably with melted snow, and colder than the air around us.

The wind has picked up around us, though we can’t feel it. I can. Cutting through my clothes like a knife, pressing the blade against my throat. There’s a lamppost above the bus stop—how convenient—and it’s casting eerie yellow light through the transparent glass onto us.

“You could’ve been mugged, you know.”

He’s completely folded over on himself now, his curls nearly touching his knees. “Didn’t bring anything with me.”

“Killed, then.”

“I’m used to the risk.”

I sigh. It’s involuntary, obviously, but Simon doesn’t seem to know that. He turns his head to the side and glares at me. (Half-heartedly, but still. The intent is clear.) The yellow light makes his eyes turn a murky, underwater-type colour.

“Come home with me,” I say. I’m trying not to plead, but just a few minutes ago I thought that he was a candidate for a missing person case. “We can stop for something on the way back.”  

He sits up and rests his back, neck, head on the glass behind him. I want to reach over and run my thumb over his cheekbone, to press my nail into his skin until it leaves an indent of a crescent moon. To smooth the side of his hair down and let the snowflakes melt on my fingers.

“You don’t have to talk,” I say softly, watching him closely. He scowls. Either to me or the world, and I’m not sure they’re any different to him. It’s a horrible look on him. All dark shadows and sharp angles. “I’m not going to make you. If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about it. Crowley, I’ll leave if you want me to leave.”

There’s a silence that falls over us. I’m not unaccustomed to silences with Simon; they happen more often than not. I’ve learnt to find solace in these silences, the kind that you look for within grief and mourning to comfort your pain.

I let my palm rest on his thigh.

He stares at it, unflinching. A curl escapes his fingers and falls ever so elegantly on his forehead, springing back and forth for a moment before settling.

One second passes.

Five more.

Ten.

Slowly, he turns his head to look at me, not blinking and lets his own hand fall on top of mine. If anyone were watching, they’d be so curious as to why these two boys were doing everything in slow motion, handling each other like they’re fragile China.

He still isn’t blinking, and his neck has gone rather stiff. At first, I think it’s because of the cold, but if anything, the cold would only make him blink more.

That’s when I notice it.

There are tears in his eyes. Brimming his bottom eyelashes.

I’ve never seen Simon cry before, not when it’s really mattered. Not when it wasn’t an effect of something I had done. There used to be a time when one of my main intentions was to make Simon cry. To respond to him with sharp-edged comebacks that made him either tremble with anger or sob with hurt.

It always felt like a sucker-punch to the chest.

Now, it feels like a bullet to the gut.

“Snow,” It comes out harsher than I intend, but I move my hand out from under his and cup the side of his face. The skin is colder than my hands have ever been, but there’s a deeper sort of heat within. If I were to strip the first layer of his skin off, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his blood boiling underneath.

He leans his head into my palm, letting his eyes flutter shut.

‘It’s your turn.’

‘My turn to do what?’

‘To save me.’

“Snow,” I say, slightly more vehemently.

His eyebrows knit together, a seeming look of suppression. He still doesn’t open his eyes. “Stop reminding me.”

“Reminding you of what?”

He looks pinched, like those rats I drain late at night. “Who I am. Who I’m supposed to be.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I sneer, jerking my hand away. He flinches and opens his eyes. “You’re Simon bloody Snow. That’s your name. You’re not supposed to be anything besides Simon Snow.”

He growls. “But that’s just it!” A tear falls from his eye and trails down his cheek, stopping to hang from his chin. He doesn’t wipe it away. “I’m tied to it. Every prophecy was talking about me, Simon Snow, the saviour of the World of Mages. And I failed, Baz. I failed the only thing I was destined not to fail.” His voice breaks on the last word.

Yet again, he’s caught me off-guard.

I let my mouth hang open, breathing in the chilled air. A car drives past us on the road; I follow it with my eyes. It’s so bloody cold tonight, I’m not even sure why people would want to be driving in this kind of weather.

“You’re not a bloody prophecy, Simon,” I spit, suddenly coming to my senses. “You’re not a concept that has to be fulfilled. Merlin and Morgana, when did existing become too mundane? You stopped the Humdrum. You saved people from losing everything. You sacrificed your magic for the World of Mages. You did everything that was expected of you. What more do you have to prove?”

He looks at me, all heavy-lidded eyes and lips trembling from the cold.

He looks at me, and he doesn’t glow.

He looks at me, and I look back.  

And I nearly shatter from the weight of it.

Then it’s all happening in a blur: Simon’s in my lap, straddling me, nudging his face in the crook my neck; me, wrapping my arms around his waist and holding onto his shoulder blades; the world, trying to be still. A shudder racks through his body, so strong that it shakes mine along with him.

I run my hands up and down his back, to his shoulders down to his hips. It’s useless, though. It’s not like I can warm him up. His hands are clutching my shoulders, tangling in my hair, desperately trying to ground himself. He shivers, and I pull him closer to me. Every time he breathes, his chest pushes into mine. His breath gets in my mouth.

“It’s okay,” I rub my thumbs in little circles at the joints of his wings. He hasn’t stopped shaking, and there’s a wet patch where he’s sobbed into my shirt. I can clean it later. “Love, it’s alright. Somehow. You’ll be alright.”

I can’t tell who I’m telling that to.

Simon doesn’t respond, but I know it’s more of a can’t instead of won’t. I know that if he still had his magic, he’d be going off by now. Taking the whole town by storm. Obliterating everything in a five-yard radius except me and this bus stop.

It seems to stay like that for a while. His shaking dims to an occasional tremble, but I don’t trust myself to let go quite yet. This is the closest I’ve gotten to him in weeks—possibly even months, and I’m too vain to let him go. He used to tell me that he likes this, right here, right where he knows I’m not hurting anyone and no one is hurting me. (He told me that after a few drinks, the night after going to a gay bar. These pricks were staring at us—me—the whole night, and I couldn’t stop smelling Simon’s residual “about to go off” smell in the air.)

He’s staring at me.

He’s lifted his head from my neck, and now he’s staring at me. His eyes are rimmed with redness—either from his crying or the dry air—and he still looks pinched. Something in my stomach twists. It’s a long, slow twist, like my body thinks the pain is pleasurable when it’s really, really not.

“Baz,” He breathes. Like it pains him. “This isn’t—I’m not.” Exhale. “I’m sor—"

“Shh,” I move my arm, tugging the hair at the base of his neck.

“I just—” He rasps.

“Hush.”

“I worry—”

“Don’t.”

“But—”

“Simon,” I hold his chin. “Look at me.”

“Baz?”

“Here.”

I’ll save him.

[mewmewchann]

RWBY: Y.v.S - Resurrection

Ren, Nora, Jaune, Yang and Qrow decide to look in a long-abandoned city for Ruby, while another visitor in Mistral seems to have their own agenda. Meanwhile in Vale, Blake tries to help someone... Will it work?

(I’m so sorry that this chapter took so long, guys! I’ve been having a lot of writer’s block with one of the scenes, unfortunately.) (But it’s finally done! YAY!!!) (The rest of my fic is available on my blog!) (Oh, and I also want to see your reactions to some of the...Revelations in this chapter~~~~~~~)

“Are we getting any closer?” Jaune asked.

“I’ll let you know when we’re almost there.” Ren replied, keeping a steady walking pace.

It was early in the morning, but the sky had gone grey. After figuring out the destroyed city of Kuroyuri was a potential option as to where Ruby was, the group decided to set off for there immediately, with Ren at the front and Nora closely following behind him. Qrow was at the back of the group, Yang was in front of him, and Jaune was in front of her, constantly checking if Ren was going the right way.

“You shouldn’t keep nagging him, blondie.” Qrow said, gesturing to the map he had in his hand. “I’ve been checking, and your friend knows the way for sure.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yup. He’s following the directions to the letter.”

“Whoa.” Jaune was impressed. “Ren, how do you know the way to this city so well?”

Ren didn’t reply, so Nora stepped in.

“It’s kinda a sore subject.” She answered, without missing a beat.

“Oh, right.”

Ren briefly looked over to Nora with a smile, before continuing to lead the group. “Hopefully it won’t be too long until we get there.”

“Yeah.” Jaune seconded. “And hopefully we’ll find Ruby on the way.”

Ren nodded, as him, Jaune, Nora and Yang continued their journey.

Qrow, however, hung back a little, looking at the map.

According to the map, Kuroyuri was close to the city that Jaune had pointed out before; the one that Qrow had said Ruby definitely won’t be in.

The one with it’s name crossed out.

The one that Qrow had lied that Ruby definitely won’t be in.

He sighed, folding up the map and taking out his flask.

He knew that the city was called “Shinigami”.

He knew that Ruby would be there.

But he knew that he couldn’t go back.

Qrow started to unscrew the cap on his flask.

“Qrow Branwen, isn’t it?”

“Ah-!?” The voice shocked him so much that he nearly dropped the flask in his hand. Qrow quickly screwed the cap back on, shoved it into his pocket and turned around to the source of the voice. “Who’s there!?”

He couldn’t see him, but there was a boy underneath the shade of a nearby oak tree, leaning against the trunk with his arms folded. He looked like he was wearing a dark hoodie, but the shade from the tree made any other detail difficult to see.

“Answer the question.” The boy said sternly. “You’re Qrow Branwen, aren’t you?”

“And who the hell are you?” Qrow challenged, reaching for the hilt of the weapon on his back.

“Hey.” The boy reassured. “I don’t want to fight. Just answer my question. Are you Qrow Branwen or not?”

Qrow gave the boy a confused look, before moving his hand away from his weapon and sighing. “Yeah. You happy now?”

Even though Qrow couldn’t see his face from the shade of the tree, it looked like the boy was smiling. “Good.”

Qrow tutted. “It ain’t a good idea to go this way, pipsqueak.”

“Oh, no. I’m not headed for Kuroyuri.” The boy’s smile turned into a smirk. “I just want to ask you something.”

Qrow gave him a bewildered look. “What the hell do you want?”

The boy’s expression went cold, and he held out his hand expectantly.

“I want my cane back.”

A Nevermore slammed to the ground, it’s burning body starting to disintegrate.

Blake flinched back from the blast of heat, still not used to the destructive nature of Scarlet’s semblance.

Scarlet obviously noticed, prompting him to sheepishly put his hand down and turn away. “S-sorry...”

“Oh, n-no! It’s fine!” Blake quickly reassured. “You got rid of that Nevermore, that’s the main thing.”

Scarlet shrugged. “I guess...”

Blake had been trying to spend a lot more time with Scarlet since their talk the night Uranus first arrived in Vale. Despite Neptune’s constant insistence that his teammate was hiding something important from them, Blake didn’t want to force Scarlet to reveal anything.

However, she was admittedly starting to get a little worried about him.

“There’s probably more small Grimm further on.” Blake continued. “Or maybe something bigger, like a King Taijitu or a Deathstalker.”

“You think so?”

“Most likely. But we could head back if you-”

Scarlet raised a hand to stop her. “No. Let’s keep going.” He started walking forward ahead of her.

Blake was about to stop him, but decided to follow him anyway, quickly running over to his side. He didn’t have his jacket on, and his two weapons were sheathed on his belt – as he didn’t need to use them to take out the Nevermore he had defeated earlier.

Admittedly, Blake had been worried about Scarlet since what had happened at the tournament, but it only became more obvious recently, after hearing Neptune’s constant claims that he was hiding something. Maybe she had subconsciously started paying more attention to him because of it, and she had started to notice what Neptune was saying, but mainly that something wasn’t quite right with him.

“Are you...” Blake started to ask when she caught up with him. “...Okay?”

Scarlet didn’t respond. He just kept walking.

Blake continued. “It’s...Just that you seem a little...How do I put this…?” She thought for a moment. “You’ve just been a lot more closed-off since that time we talked with Uranus and Lucifer.”

Scarlet froze at the mention of Lucifer’s name.

He still couldn’t let go of what he said that day.

“You and I both know you’re hiding something.”

Those simple words had set him on edge ever since. How could Lucifer even tell that he was hiding something? Did he know what he was hiding? And if he did, how the hell does he even know?

All these questions flooded Scarlet’s mind like a torrential downpour.

It’s only when he noticed that Blake was trying to get his attention that he snapped back to reality.

“Scarlet? Hey, Scarlet?”

“Huh?”

“Oh good, you’re back. Must’ve zoned out for a minute...Are you-”

He waved his hand as if to dismiss her and continued walking. “I’m fine.”

Blake hovered where they had stopped for a minute, started to run over again, but then stopped.

I’ve been in his situation before. She thought. Our situations are probably completely different, but I think I know what it’s like. I should give him some space. It looks like he needs it right now.

She started walking again, but decided to leave a little bit of space between them rather than being next to him.

Blake was worried, but she knew not to press him for answers. Scarlet obviously didn’t seem comfortable with talking about whatever was wrong, so Blake knew the best thing to do was to give him some space for now. He might open up about it later on, she couldn’t force him into saying anything he didn’t want to say at the moment.

After a while of walking in silence, Blake decided to change the subject.

“Do you see any Grimm yet?”

Scarlet shook his head. “No, not yet.”

“O-okay...How do you think it’ll be long until we find one?”

He shrugged. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Oh...” Blake replied meekly, realising she had only made the situation more awkward than it already was. She was just about to say something else when…

“You know what? No.”

“Huh?” Blake said, confused by what Scarlet had just said.

“I’m answering that question you asked earlier.” He continued, without missing a beat. “No. I’m not.”

Blake had to cast her mind back a little before she realised what he was talking about.

“You mean...” She replied. “You’re...NOT okay?”

Scarlet paused, almost nervously, before replying.

“...Yeah. I’m not.”

“W-what!?” Blake stuttered.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, but...” He continued. “A lot has been happening recently. And...I don’t really know how to put this, but...I haven’t really been able to manage things, I guess.”

Blake slowly nodded in understanding. “...I guess I know how that feels...” She looked over to Scarlet supportively. “But I am here if you want to talk about things-”

“But that’s the thing.” He said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about it.”

“Yeah yeah, been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Heh...”

Scarlet sighed, and muttered “But this is completely different...”

Blake’s ears perked up under her bow. “Huh?”

“N-nothing...” Scarlet replied practically immediately.

Blake was just about to say something when Scarlet suddenly stopped walking.

“Found one.”

The large street they were walking on had been blocked by a Grimm. It was a smaller variation of a usually large one, as it’s golden-stinger-tipped tail barely towered over the tops of nearby buildings.

It was a Deathstalker.

Blake stopped, remembering what had happened the last time that she had seen Scarlet encounter one of these Grimm.

The small Deathstalker stopped clawing at a piece of rubble; it’s orange eyes focusing on the two students and it’s stinger looming towards them.

Scarlet froze and took a step back.

Oh no, Blake thought. It’s happening again...I have to do something!

Without a second thought as to what she was doing, she immediately readied Gambol Shroud and charged towards the Deathstalker.

Scarlet snapped back to reality as soon as she sped off.

“Blake, WAIT-!”

The Deathstalker noticed her speed towards him, and swung it’s tail towards her.

Blake leapt upwards – using her semblance to take the hit – threw Gambol Shroud around the Grimm’s tail and swung around it, before shooting at it once she had retrieved her weapon.

The shots missed completely.

It was at this moment that Blake realised that recklessly charging the Grimm was a very bad idea.

The Deathstalker slammed it’s tail into her before she got a chance to react, and sent her flying into the wall of a nearby building.

“AH-!” She slammed into the building’s hard wall and landed on the pavement with a painful thud. “Urgh...”

Blake didn’t know how much of her aura was left, but it likely wasn’t much, as her vision was blurry and a painful ringing noise was echoing through her head.

Because her vision hadn’t cleared up yet, the blurred shape of the Deathstalker only appeared as a vague shadow looming in front of her. It slowly moved closer as if to finish the job, when a painfully bright flash suddenly struck it at breakneck speed.

Blake still couldn’t see or hear what was happening; as her vision was still blurry and the painful ringing was still echoing in her ears, but the next thing she knew after who knows how much time had passed, someone was trying to shake her awake and someone was saying something, even though it felt like it was from far away.

“Blake, can you hear me? Hey!”

After a few seconds, she suddenly snapped back to reality and woke up.

“Ah-!?”

Scarlet was kneeling down in front of her. “Oh, good. I thought I lost you there.”

“Ugh...” Blake rubbed her hand against her head. “What happened? Where’s the-”

Looking behind where Scarlet was answered her second question.

The almost mutilated body of the Deathstalker was disintegrating behind him. And from looking at it for a bit longer, she noticed that there must have been many different attacks inflicted on it; as the Grimm was covered in slashes, burn scars, electrocution burn marks and some areas had even been frozen. Not only that, but one of the nearby buildings had also been badly damaged.

This was likely a result of Scarlet’s powers.

Blake gasped a little and put her hands to her mouth.

Scarlet sighed and started to stand up. “I...May have gone a bit overboard...”

Blake was about to comment on that maybe being an understatement, but since she didn’t see what happened, she decided to keep her mouth shut and pulled herself back onto her feet as her vision started to clear up.

But as it cleared up, she thought she saw something glowing or flashing where Scarlet’s right eye would normally be if his hair wasn’t covering it up, but it suddenly stopped when her vision returned to normal.

Must’ve been my imagination...She thought.

Scarlet must’ve noticed her staring. “...What is it?”

“Huh?”

“I just thought you were...” He started, before trailing off and looking away. “Never mind. Let’s just get back.”

Blake nodded as the two of them started walking. “Good call.”

The sky had turned a dark, almost night-like grey with clouds, and the air felt almost deathly cold.

Blake shivered a little due to the sudden chill, but started to get used to it as the two of them continued walking down the desolate street. She looked over to Scarlet to see how he was doing; he was trying to steady his breathing, but she couldn’t help but notice that he was walking a lot slower than usual and his breathing almost sounded...Strangled.

“Hey,” She said with a tone of slight concern. “Are you okay?”

Scarlet signalled her off with his hand again without even looking at her.

“I’m...Fine...” He replied, almost sounding like he was struggling to talk in order to get his breathing under control. “I just...Used a lot of energy, that’s all.”

Blake nodded, and turned back around to continue focusing on walking before quickly changing the subject.

“I hope we don’t run into any more Grimm on the way back.” She smirked a little to herself. “I’d rather not get slammed into a building again, that’s for sure. Heh...”

Scarlet didn’t reply, only continuing to try and control his breathing.

“I mean,” Blake continued. “We should just head back to the others and get some rest. I think we both need it.” She turned back around to look at him. “Right, Scarlet?”

Scarlet was just about to reply, when suddenly…

Blake had no idea what happened, but it was like some kind of pulse had suddenly jolted through his body.

“GH-!” He let out a strangled gasp before suddenly collapsing down to his knees on the ground.

“Scarlet!?” Blake panicked and immediately rushed over. “Are you-”

Scarlet’s right hand was over the right side of his face, and he raised his left hand as if to ward her off.

“I-i-it’s fine...” He stammered, his left arm shaking a little. “I-I’m okay, I just- AAH-!” Another pulse suddenly jolted through him. His left hand suddenly covered his mouth as his entire body shuddered from the pain of whatever had happened.

Blake knelt down in front of him and reached her hand over, as if about to put her hand on his shoulder.

“You don’t...O-oh god...” She started, in an almost panicked tone. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening to you, I-”

“I-I told you! I-it’s fine…!” He tried to say, attempting to lift his left hand up to ward her off again. It was almost like even talking was painful for him. “You...Don’t need to worry about-”

He suddenly let out a hacking cough, and blood splattered all over his left hand.

“Huh-!?” Blake suddenly recoiled back in shock.

He kept coughing, more blood splattering on his hand and onto the pavement below them, and near desperately struggled to get his strangled breathing back under control.

Blake put her hands to her mouth, as her eyes suddenly widened.

“...Scar...Let?”

Scarlet froze, as if just remembering that Blake was kneeling right in front of him. Still struggling to steady his breathing, he slowly started to look back up at her.

His one uncovered eye was wide, almost with fear, and a stream of blood was dripping from his mouth.

Blake moved her hands down from her mouth.

“What...The...Hell…!?” She started.

His shoulders were still shuddering a little. “...I’m-”

Realising the gravity of the situation, Blake suddenly grabbed Scarlet’s unnaturally thin shoulders and pulled him close.

“Are you okay!? Oh god, I have no idea what just happened...What even WAS that!?”

Blake continued questioning his wellbeing at rapidfire, before Scarlet suddenly came to his senses.

“Blake, I-” He forcefully pulled himself away from her grip.

“I have no idea what that was and-” She stammered in a panic.

“Hey, hey, hold on!”

Blake stopped and looked over to Scarlet. “Huh?”

Scarlet raised both his hands in an almost reassuring gesture, with the trickle of blood still dripping from his mouth.

“Okay, I know this looks bad, but trust me, I’m fi-”

“YOU ARE NOT FINE!!!”

“Yes, I...” Scarlet started, then sighed. “...Okay, I’m not. Just...” He struggled to pull himself back up. “Just don’t tell the others, okay…?”

“Wha-!?” Blake immediately shot back up. “I NEED to tell someone! You need help!”

“The others don’t need to know.” He said coldly, before starting to slowly walk away. “It’ll only make them worried about me. And they don’t need to worry about someone like me anyway...”

“Are you kidding!? It’s no wonder Neptune’s worried about you!”

Scarlet suddenly stopped walking, and turned back around, his wide uncovered eye focused on Blake.

“...What...Did you say…?”

It was at this moment that Blake had realised what she just said.

Oh, no…! She thought, stepping backwards. I wasn’t supposed to tell him about that!

“U-uh...” She stammered. “N-nothing...”

“No,” Scarlet started to walk back over to her. “You said something about Neptune.”

“Um...” Blake started to back up to a nearby building.

Scarlet had gotten closer. “You said, ‘it’s no wonder Neptune’s worried about you’. What was that supposed to mean?”

Blake didn’t reply.

“Well?” Scarlet continued. “Aren’t you going to- AAH-!” Another sudden pulse jolted through him, causing him to suddenly stumble backwards and fall back to the ground.

And in her shock, almost like some kind of automatic reflex, Blake suddenly said:

“NEPTUNE KNOWS THAT YOU’RE NOT HUMAN!”

Scarlet froze.

Blake realised she wasn’t supposed to say that, either. She looked at the ground sheepishly as Scarlet struggled to get back up.

“...What...Did...You...Just…!?”

She had to tell him now.

“I-I’m sorry, I just...” Blake said quickly, not looking up. “Neptune found out that you aren’t human and that you can see auras.”

Scarlet’s eyes widened and he took a step back. “W-what-!?”

“He’s started to get really suspicious and he told me everything, so I-”

Next thing she knew, Scarlet was pinning her to the wall.

“AH-!”

“Is that the only reason you’ve been talking to me, then!?” He said, his voice filled with unnatural rage. “Has he ordered you to so he could get information out of me!? IS THAT IT!?”

“Wh- no!” Blake started. “I was worried about you-!”

“Has he told anyone else? Does anyone else know!? ANSWER ME!!!”

“I DON’T KNOW! I don’t-”

Scarlet let go of her, letting her fall back down to the ground.

Blake didn’t look back up and continued.

“...I don’t know...” She whimpered. “I don’t know...You probably don’t believe me right now, but...I haven’t been spending time with you just to get information out of you...After hearing everything Neptune has been saying, I...I got really worried, and...” She looked back up at him.

Scarlet was looking back down at her, his eye wide with a mix of confusion and fear.

Tears were starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “...I’m sorry...”

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Scarlet’s almost cold gaze softened a little. “Blake-”

Blake immediately got back up. “I have to go.” She started to run off.

He stopped and started to reach after her. “WAIT-!”

“I’M SORRY!” She called out, as she ran off and disappeared from view.

Raven was up early. She never really felt she had a need for sleep, so she had a habit of waking up a lot earlier than the other members of the tribe.

She was kneeling outside of Ruby’s tent. She intended to wake her up soon, but she knew she still needed time for her wounds to heal.

“Is she doing okay?”

Raven just noticed Vernal walking over with Cadet in tow.

“She’s fine.” She replied. “I’ve just checked on her. She seems to be sleeping well.”

“That’s good.” Vernal said with a small smile. “She seemed to have taken a pretty bad hit before you found her.”

Raven nodded. “From what I saw, Yang shoved her into a Beowolf’s attack path during an argument.”

Cadet flinched back. “Jeez...”

“Wait, Yang?” Vernal asked. “I thought Yang was her-”

“Half-sister...Yes.” Raven replied.

“But then why would she do that?”

“Ruby said that she had been more quick-triggered ever since the Vytal Festival Tournament. Ruby must’ve said something that Yang took the wrong way, and...” She sighed.

“Hopefully Ruby will be okay...” Vernal said.

Cadet nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

Raven quickly changed the subject. “Is her new outfit almost done?”

“Almost.” Cadet replied. “I just need to add the finishing touches.”

Raven smiled. “Good.”

“Why, are you planning on giving her a mission or something?”

“I’m not sure-”

“I think it might be a good idea.” A voice suddenly said, prompting the three of them to suddenly turn around.

“Huh!?” Raven readied her sword. “Who’s there!?”

A boy was standing under the shade of some nearby trees, and made a reassuring gesture.

“Whoa! Hey! I don’t want to fight you!”

“Who the hell are you?” Cadet asked, getting into a fighting stance.

“How did you even get in!?” Vernal seconded, putting her hand on the handle of one of her weapons.

“I said I don’t want to fight you!” The boy repeated.

Raven pointed her sword in the boy’s direction. “You’d better give us some answers, intruder.”

“Oh for crying out- I just have a proposition for you, okay!? Put the weapons down!”

The three bandits looked over at each other.

“Should we hear him out?” Vernal asked quietly.

Cadet shrugged.

Raven turned back over to the boy, slightly lowering her sword. “What is your proposition?”

The boy raised his finger. “First of all,” he said calmly. “Is Ruby Rose here?”

Raven raised her sword again. “Why do you need to know?”

The boy’s voice went cold. “Put the weapon down, Raven.”

Raven froze.

“How...Do you know my name?”

“You’re the leader of a notorious bandit tribe.” The boy replied without missing a beat. “I would have to hear about you at some point.”

Cadet folded his arms while giving the boy a suspicious glance. “I wouldn’t say ‘notorious’...”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” The boy continued. “Is Ruby Rose here?”

Raven glared at him. “Why do you need to know?”

“This is mainly a proposition for her. Is she available to talk?”

Raven briefly looked over to Vernal, before lowering her sword and turning back over to their visitor.

“She was injured by a Grimm. She’s trying to rest right now. So yes, she’s here, but no, she can’t talk with you.”

The boy sighed, annoyed. “Of course...”

“Well?” Vernal said, reaching back over to her weapon. “You’ve got what you needed to know. Aren’t you going to leave?”

“Not quite.” The boy replied, before turning back over to Raven.

“Do you mind giving her a message when she wakes up?”

Raven’s gaze narrowed on him. “What message?”

“Tell her that I will be waiting for her at the Rogue Shot in Mistral’s city. I know she’s headed there, and I need to give her some information. Also, if you are wanting to send her on a mission...” He continued with a smirk.

“You might want to send her to Kuroyuri.”

“Wait a sec, Kuroyuri!?” Cadet objected. “But there’s a dangerous Grimm around there!”

“I know...” The boy continued. “I just know that some people who she might want to see are headed there too.” He put his hands into his hoodie’s pocket. “That’s all.”

Raven, Cadet and Vernal looked over to each other uneasily, not sure what to do.

Raven turned over to the boy again, once again readying her blade.

“And how do we know we can trust you?”

The boy’s smirk faded into a cold expression. He took a small handle out of his pocket in his right hand.

He clicked something on it, and it instantly folded into a long cane.

A cane which Raven instantly recognised.

“So, Raven.” The boy said, flicking the cane to point at her.

“Do we have a deal?”

“We’re here.”

Ren, Nora, Jaune, Yang and Qrow had arrived at a destroyed and desolate city, with a cracked stone sign lying on the ground. It was starting to be covered in moss and had claw marks scathed across it, and had “KUROYURI” printed across it in bold letters.

Jaune flinched back. “Yikes...” He turned over to Qrow. “Reckon we’re gonna find her here?”

Qrow shrugged. “Maybe. And even if we don’t, we’re close enough to Mistral to inform the authorities of her disappearance.”

Yang sighed. “Guess the only thing we can do now is search the city.”

Jaune nodded uneasily. “Uh...Yeah, good call.”

Qrow, Jaune and Yang all started to head into the city, while Ren and Nora hesitated at the entrance.

Ren was still looking uneasily at the sign. He sighed.

Nora looked over to him, worried. “Are you okay?”

“I just...” He started. “...Was it really a good idea to come back?”

Nora didn’t reply, also looking over towards the sign.

Ren continued. “I mean...It still might be here.” He shuddered a little at the thought.

Nora was uneasy at that idea too. “I know, but...” She looked back over to him. “Unfortunately, this is our best shot at finding Ruby right now. And besides, even if it IS still here, we have combat training now!” She smiled a little. “What’s the worst it could do?”

Ren smiled a little too, amused at Nora’s lightheartedness in contrast to the situation. “Guess so. We should start looking.”

Nora nodded, as the two of them headed into the city to catch up with the other three.

The city, if it could even be called a city, was filled with rows of long-abandoned and decaying buildings, some even being partially destroyed.  The atmosphere was bleak and tense, and the city was almost entirely dark, as if one cloud in the sky had been reserved to hang directly above it.

“It’s like some kind of ghost town...” Jaune noted warily, stepping past a rusting bike on their path.

“Mm-hmm.” Ren nodded, as him and Nora slowly started to take the lead of the group again.

“What even happened to this place?”

“Grimm happened.” Qrow replied, taking out his flask.

“Uh, yeah.” Yang said, raising an eyebrow. “No doy.”

“Must’ve been a lot of Grimm to cause this much damage...” Jaune said, uneasily looking around at their surroundings.

Ren shook his head. “No.”

This prompted Jaune to look over to him. “...No…?”

Ren’s reply was unnaturally cold.

“Just one.”

Jaune flinched back, before quickly changing the subject.

“...We should try to find Ruby.”

Ren nodded in agreement.

“Ruuuuuby?” Nora called out, looking around at the derelict buildings. “Are you heeeere? Where aaaare yoooou?”

“I think it’ll take a lot more than calling her name to find her.” Yang said.

“Wow, way to look at the glass half empty.”

“I mean we’re going to have to search some of the buildings ourselves.”

“Yeah, we might,” Jaune replied. “But she might be outside or something. And besides, judging by the condition of some of the buildings, even if she was inside one, she might be able to hear us.”

Qrow took a sip from his flask. “Good deduction, Blondie.”

Jaune raised an eyebrow. “I have a name, you know.”

Nora kept calling out. “Ruuuuubyyyyy! Can you heeeaaaar uuuus? We’re coming to heeeeelp yoooooou!”

Jaune decided to join in. “Ruby! It’s us! Where are you?”

Nora darted over to the door of a nearby house. “Helloooooooo?”

Jaune went over to another house and tapped on the window. “Ruby, are you in there?”

Yang went over to another house, kicked away the debris that was blocking the door and kicked the door down. “Hey! Are you in here?”

Qrow sighed, and took another longer sip from his flask. “This is going nowhere...”

Ren didn’t reply.

Qrow looked over to him. “What, not gonna object?”

Still no response.

Qrow sighed, and screwed his flask’s cap back on as the other three headed back over.

“No luck just yet, unfortunately.” Jaune said, shaking his head.

“Damn...” Qrow muttered.

“Hey, we might be able to find her if we keep searching!” Jaune said, trying to be optimistic.

“Keyword ‘might’...” Yang grumbled, kicking a nearby pebble into a wall.

“Looks like the only thing we can do is press on.” Ren said, already starting to continue walking.

“Looks like it,” Nora seconded, quickly joining Ren at the front of the group.

The group were about to continue through the city when they heard a loud thudding from ahead.

Jaune stopped. “What the hell is that!?”

“Must be some kind of Grimm...” Qrow said, reaching for his weapon.

The thudding started to get closer.

“Sounds like a pretty big Grimm.” Yang added, already readying Ember Celica.

Jaune nodded and reached for his sword.

Ren didn’t say anything, as him and Nora both readied their own weapons.

The thudding started to get closer and closer, until the source of the thudding soon revealed itself; as a massive horse-like Grimm with a humanoid shape seemingly fused to it’s back began to slowly approach the group, it’s legs heavily thudding on the stone ground.

The creature stopped walking, and the humanoid shape suddenly leaned bolt upwards to stare lifelessly at the group.

Ren gave the creature a cold glare.

“It’s here.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘WE HAVE TO LEAVE’!?”

Lillian flinched backwards as Ashe slammed on the mahogany desk.

Professor Lionheart, who was sitting across from the two huntresses, calmly replied “I mean exactly what I just said. An important mission has suddenly opened up, and I need you to leave the city to take it.”

“With all due respect, Professor, you can’t just order us out of the city without any warning.” Lillian objected. “We aren’t exactly your students anymore.”

“I know that this is frustrating for you-”

“Frustrating doesn’t even bEGIN TO DESCRIBE-”

Lillian grabbed Ashe’s arm to stop her from slamming her hands on the desk again.

Ashe sighed and folded her arms. “Frustrating doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“I can imagine. I know you’ve only started to settle normally since...” He trailed off, before continuing. “But I need you for this mission.”

“Couldn’t you have contacted literally anyone else?” Lillian asked.

Lionheart thought a little before replying. “I’ve tried. A lot of them are out on excursions themselves.”

Ashe muttered something to herself and shook her head.

“And I had already gotten Lazuli to sign,” He continued. “So I thought it would be best for all of you to work together.”

“Of course she signed up...” Ashe said to herself.

“Well you’ve already got Lazuli,” Lillian said. “Wouldn’t she be all you need for this mission?”

Lionheart shook his head. “I doubt that. More than two hands are going to be needed for this.”

“But you can’t exactly drag us out of our lives for this!” Ashe objected.

Lillian nodded. “I agree. Need I remind you that I have a husband and a son to look after? He’ll be too busy with his work to look after him.”

“And I don’t exactly trust Al with the kid.”

“And to be honest, I don’t either.”

“Girls, please-” Lionheart started.

“Professor,” Lillian interrupted. “I know you need our help, but it is unfair for you to be dragging us out of our lives without any notice. We have had a lot to deal with over the past view years since-”

“I know, but I need you two for this-”

“What about Fuchsia?”

Lillian and Professor Lionheart both went silent when Ashe spoke up.

She wasn’t looking at the professor at all.

“I just know Fuchsia wouldn’t be having any of this.” She continued. “Have you ever stopped to think about what she would want?”

Lillian looked over at Ashe sadly.

Lionheart sighed. “I...Know that miss Cerise would want you to help people.” He said calmly. “I know it’s hard for you. But I need you to help.”

Lillian and Ashe looked over to each other uneasily. Both of them nodded.

Ashe turned over to the professor.

“Where do we sign?”

Lionheart nodded, before handing out a piece of paper to them. “I knew you would come around eventually. Thank you.”

The paper was the usual short consent form that huntsmen and huntresses were sometimes given when sent on excursions, to show they had full consent for the mission they were going on and that if they were injured, the professor wouldn’t come under fire for it.

“Lazuli Silver” was already written in small blue handwriting at the bottom of the form.

“You just have to sign below where she signed and you’re good to go.” The professor explained, handing the two huntresses a green pen and a red pen.

Ashe went first, taking the red pen and quickly writing “Ashe Driftwood” below where Lazuli had signed the form before putting the pen back down on the desk.

Lillian picked up the green pen, put it near the paper and hesitated.

She sighed, and slowly and neatly wrote her name below where Ashe wrote hers.

“Lillian Ayana”.

Blake was standing outside of the hospital room door.

She had been standing there for the past few minutes.

She had gone to the front desk earlier, and the lady at the front had said she can go inside.

But she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to go inside or not.

Her hand was hovering uneasily near the door handle, shivering a little. She knew that if she opened the door, her emotions would all come flooding back.

Should I...REALLY go inside?

Eventually, Blake sighed and started to turn the door handle.

She had felt terrible after what had happened with Scarlet earlier, and honestly didn’t know what to do.

And there was only one person who she could talk to.

Blake slowly opened the door and smiled a little.

“Hey, Sun.”

There was no response.

Blake’s face fell a little. Of course there wasn’t going to be a response. There hadn’t been a response for a long time.

“Sorry to bother you,” She gently shut the door. “But a lot has happened just now, and frankly...” She slowly walked over to a chair next to the hospital bed in the room and sat down. “You’re the only person I can talk to about this.”

Sun’s body was lying on the hospital bed. The area where Adam had impaled him had been bandaged up, and his shirt and been taken off and was hanging on a peg at the side of the room. His eyes were closed and he looked...Unusually peaceful.

Blake turned away for a minute, still finding it hard to look at him in that state, but eventually turned back around and continued.

“I’ve...Already told you about Neptune, right?” She said. “I don’t think it’s good for him to be getting so suspicious about his teammate, but...I think I may have added more fuel to the fire.”

Silence. Blake fidgeted a little uncomfortably.

“I’ve been trying to talk to Scarlet for the past few days. I’ve been getting worried at him, so I thought he might need someone to talk to...Other than Sage, of course.” She laughed a little to herself. “But...I’ve also been starting to see why Neptune has been so suspicious of him recently. And...” She looked down at the floor. “I accidentally told him that I knew. That Neptune knew. That we both knew that he wasn’t human and he can see auras, and...” She sighed. “It didn’t end well...”

No response.

“He’s probably really mad at me at the moment. And I feel terrible about it, and...” She looked back over to him. “...Well...It feels like you’re the only one I can talk to. So...” She took a deep breath.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Still no response.

“Of course...What was I even thinking?” Blake sighed and shook her head, angry at herself. “You probably can’t even hear me right now, can you?”

She started to get up off of the chair.

“I keep coming back, day after day, as if you can actually hear me, but...” She smiled bitterly. “I’m just a naive idiot for thinking that, aren’t I?”

She walked over to the hospital bed for a brief second, as if still hopeful for a response,  before shaking her head and starting to walk away.

“I shouldn’t keep coming back here, it always ends the same way...”

Instead of heading to the door, she dropped down and curled up next to the chair, facing away from the hospital bed.

“I know I shouldn’t keep coming back, but...” She trailed off. “I don’t know why, but...I have to. I have to keep coming back. I know you’re not going to answer me, but...I need to keep coming back...”

Before she knew it, there were tears running down her eyes.

“I don’t even think you’re listening to me. I don’t know if you even CAN listen to me. But...I need you.”

Blake started sobbing.

“I’m hopeless...I don’t know what to do anymore...”

“You...Shouldn’t talk about yourself like that.”

Blake froze.

Was that…!? No, it couldn’t possibly…

Blake slowly started to turn back around. Her eyes widened in shock and surprise when she saw.

Sun had started to ease himself back up, and was looking over to her with a smile.

“Hey.”

[mikotyzini]

What Defines Us - Ch. 25

If someone can tell me how to get the ‘read more’ function to work on mobile, I will try to work it out!  Otherwise, I’m sorry if it breaks and you have to scroll through the entire thing.  I do put ‘read mores’ on all my chapters though.

Here’s the link to ff.net.

Who would’ve thought that keeping photos from years ago on her scroll would be a bad idea?  Especially when they weren’t password protected and happened to feature a certain brunette who no longer remembered taking them to begin with?  

A certain brunette who’d almost used that very scroll and could have uncovered said photos?

“Stupid.  Stupid, stupid, stupid...” Weiss muttered to herself while password protecting any trace of Ruby she still carried with her.  Photos, videos, messages...long-lost memories that she'd never dared to look at but had lacked the strength to delete.  Even now she didn’t have the gall to take the painful journey down memory lane - unfocusing her eyes and flying through the files as fast as humanly possible.  

Some images still managed to slip through - flashes of eternally-frozen happiness that made her question why she was going through this trouble.  Why must she keep all of this history?  Why couldn’t she simply buy a new scroll and toss this one in the trash?  Or lock it away in a safe to be opened again far in the future - if at all?

The answers to those questions were simple to find but hard to swallow.

Hints of Ruby lingered upon her...attached to her just as firmly as she clung to their shared past.  After all this time, she still couldn’t let go of what they’d once had.  Which - unfortunately in this instance - meant that she held onto evidence of their relationship far past the expiration date.  Regardless of whether or not she looked at the photos herself, she had them.  Within her grasp, or within arm’s reach at any moment, was proof that it hadn’t been a wonderful, short-lived dream.

The dream had ended.  The world told her that it was time to wake up and move on.  Yet...she still wanted to go back to sleep.

Only when she was positive that every trace of Ruby had been hidden behind a wall of passwords did Weiss set her scroll down on the kitchen table and sigh in pseudo-relief.  Now if Ruby wanted to use Weiss’ scroll, she was free to do so without accidentally stumbling into pieces of her past self.

Nudging the scroll away from her, Weiss leaned back in her seat and let out another sigh before glancing at the clock hanging above the doorway to the dining room.  It was unusual for her to be away from the office at such a reasonable hour.  Normally, she did everything within her power to stay late into the night - her ultimate motivation being to avoid moments just like this...where her mind was unoccupied and free to wander.

Wander, where else, but to Ruby?

A smile tugged at Weiss’ lips while her fingers calmly tapped against the smooth surface of the wooden table and her mind thought about the night prior.  

Other than a brief moment of consuming panic when Ruby picked up the scroll, last night had actually been...really fun.  It was such an unusual experience to be filled with infectiously lighthearted and carefree energy - to laugh freely and openly - but that’s what last night had been.  

For the first time in over a year, the weight pressing down on her chest had lifted - allowing her to enjoy someone else’s company without the constant threat of thunderstorms hanging over her head.  Of course, Ruby had always been able to convince Weiss to do just that - relax and let go of the responsibilities, the worries, the anxieties.  Relax and enjoy the little things - little things like throwing grapes at Ruby to see if she was fast enough to catch them.  Laughing together whether she was successful or not.  Making a mess and not worrying about who was going to clean it up.

Last night had been classic Ruby - effortlessly sweet and kind, with a good dose of upbeat energy thrown into the mix.  And, for the first time in a very long time, Weiss had felt like...herself.  Or at least, the person she used to be.  For a few hours, she wasn’t the broken huntress who’d nearly gotten her partner killed, but just a girl who loved spending time with her best friend.  It didn’t even matter what they did, as long as they were together.

This meant that, even though Weiss had been initially reluctant to throw eggs at Ruby using her semblance, the two of them ended up having a blast anyway.

Ruby had proven that she was, indeed, fast enough to catch eggs fired (carefully) off of Weiss’ glyphs, but they’d also proven that eggshells were too brittle to survive any secondary impact at that speed.  If the surface of the glyph didn’t crack the egg in midair, Ruby’s palm always did.  

Naturally, the little speedster insisted that she’d be able to cushion the blow - ‘just one more!’ she begged each time, wiping raw egg and bits of shell onto the leg of her pants.  

A dozen eggs later, zero progress had been made towards that objective.  However, the experience had allowed Weiss to view the very literal meaning of the phrase ‘egg on the face’ while listening to a collection of adorable squeals whenever Ruby thought she’d been successful.

Ironically, they spent the next part of their evening doing exactly what Ruby had jokingly suggested - cleaning.  After the eggs and grapes disappeared into the trash can, Ruby had switched on the television to some crime investigation show, but they hadn’t paid any attention to it.  Instead, they talked about whatever popped into Ruby’s magical mind. The weather, in-depth technical details on upgrades to Thorn, her favorite type of Grimm and why (it had been and had remained the King Taijitu, even though Ruby had not yet learned how easily she could take down the beasts using her semblance and Crescent Rose).

It had been the first time since Weiss returned to Vale that she’d had the chance to spend a significant amount of time doing nothing but holding a conversation with Ruby.  It was the perfect opportunity for her to feel the brunt of their ruined relationship - to crumble under the weight of loss and hardship - yet the memories never resurfaced.  At least, not after the incident with the scroll.

It should have been a challenging evening, which made it all the more incredible how...easy...it had been.  They could’ve stayed up through the night finding random topics to discuss, just like they had at Beacon.  Every time Weiss stumbled trying to think of a new line of conversation, Ruby already had three or four more ideas she wanted to discuss.  And if Weiss ever felt a thread of history tugging her away, Ruby pulled even harder in the opposite direction - preventing Weiss’ attention from waning.

Last night, surprisingly, hadn’t been a revisit to the past.  It had been getting to know Ruby all over again.  It hadn’t been painful; it had been...wonderful.  Weiss would gladly repeat the evening over and over again without changing a single thing.

Although...they’d made it to the end of the night and Ruby had stubbornly kept one very important subject to herself.

What was Weiss’ tell?

How could something like that have gone unnoticed for so long?  Weiss prided herself on recognizing personality quirks that gave away emotions.  And, in her family, the ability to mask emotions and intentions was vital to survival.  However, she had absolutely no idea how she was giving away her lies.  And Ruby - who’d known Weiss best in the world - had never mentioned it before.  

Was it possible that she’d developed it recently?  Or maybe Ruby never noticed?  Or...maybe she had, but never said anything?

That was unlikely.  Ruby had never been able to keep a secret for very long, especially from Weiss.  Then again...how long had Ruby kept the secret of the hidden messages on Myrtenaster?

Speaking of which - for the rest of Weiss’ life, any gift from Ruby would be thoroughly examined with a fine tooth comb.  It didn’t matter if it was merely a birthday card - it was going under a microscope for inspection.

It was a mystery what caused Weiss to take a magnifying glass to the ring Ruby made for her, but a lingering suspicion at the back of her mind said that it wouldn’t hurt to double check.  Ruby was clever, after all, and apparently quite sneaky.

That suspicion immediately paid off.

Hidden on the inside of the band, cleverly concealed and nearly microscopic, was a single word - ‘BELIEVE.’  The letters weren’t quite as pristine as the ones etched into Myrtenaster, but they were still well-made for their diminutive size.

The singular word of encouragement had excellent timing, as Weiss wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.  Before she returned to Vale, she’d firmly believed it was in everyone’s best interest that she stay away.  She wasn’t needed or necessary.  She would only get in the way and make it harder for everyone else to recover, especially when being a stranger to Ruby was an insurmountable, unlivable situation.

She never believed she would find the courage to stay.  She never believed Ruby would give her the time of day. That Blake would ever speak to her again.  That Yang wouldn’t instantly slam the door in her face.  

Now...now she didn’t know if she could believe the subtle feelings she was getting from Ruby.  Was she misreading cues or grasping at straws?  Because at certain moments last night, it almost felt like…

No, she didn’t even want to think about that.  That had been her imagination and nothing more.

The buzz of her scroll against the table drew her attention back to reality and stopped the spinning of the ring around her finger.  Smiling as she reached to pick it up, she froze when it was Yang’s picture grinning back at her.

That wasn’t a message from Ruby.  

Well, clearly.  But why would Yang send a message?

Weiss’ heart raced as she quickly unlocked the device and read the contents of the message.

‘Hey - can you come over?’

Come over?  Was it urgent?  Had something happened with Ruby?  To Ruby?  Was it her head again?  Or her wrist this time?  Had she fallen or tripped or hurt herself in some way?

Somehow, Yang must have heard the barrage of bad scenarios playing through Weiss’ head, because another message quickly followed.

‘I just want to talk.’

Closing her eyes and putting her head in one hand, Weiss waited for her pulse to slow to a more normal tempo before looking back at her scroll.  Thank goodness it wasn’t a matter involving Ruby’s health, but this might be worse for Weiss’ personal health.  It wasn’t as if the two of them had spoken since their argument in the hospital - nothing more than mere pleasantries, at least.  Well, they hadn’t spoken more than pleasantries since Weiss had returned…

But now Yang wanted to talk?  There was only one subject that the two of them needed to discuss - the one Weiss tried to broach once, only to be succinctly shot down in her attempt.  Did she want to try this again?  Maybe she could ignore the request.  While highly unlikely, it was possible that she was too busy to notice or read the message.  There was also the possibility that it had gotten lost in transit - which happened only once every few years or so, but it had happened before.

It was a coward’s solution and, unfortunately, not an option for her.  If she wanted to see Ruby again, she couldn’t ignore the message.  And she wanted to see Ruby again.  Really, really soon.

“Get it over with,” she mumbled to herself, trying to summon the courage to respond.  It was the band-aid approach - pull it off with one quick yank, shout a few bad words when the wound stung like Grimm, then be done with it.  

Hands hovering over the keypad, she ran through multiple possible replies before settling on a short ‘When?’  Her answer arrived a few seconds later.

‘Now?’

Sucking in a deep breath, she spun her ring rapidly while staring at the timeframe phrased as a question.  

Now.  Was she ready to do this right now?  Or ever?  Most likely not, but she could at least make an attempt.  She could try to believe, like Ruby was always telling her.   Believe in yourself.  Believe that you can do anything.

‘Be right over.’

With the message sent, Weiss stood from the long dining table, but her feet refused to move her an inch towards the door.  She stared towards the front of the house as if willing herself in that direction, while her mind began its rapid process of overanalyzing the situation and trapping her in uncertainty.

For whatever reason, her mind stuck on the outfit she was wearing.  Was it appropriate?  Did she need a change of clothes?  It would take time to find something perfect to wear, but what she currently had on wasn’t the perfect ‘please forgive me’ ensemble.  This was her work attire, which meant it spoke to power and respect.  It wasn’t soft enough - she needed softer tones -

Or she needed to stop procrastinating over the color of her shirt and get this over with.  Yang wasn’t that oblivious - she would understand what Weiss’ perfectly coordinated outfit and delayed arrival time meant.

Willing one foot to leave the floor, Weiss didn’t dare pause once she was successful.  The next foot followed, then the next. She found her keys and bag lying on the table right where she’d left them and headed out the door without a second glance back at the safety of the unfamiliar house.  Before she knew it, she was inside of the car and headed down the drive - putting as much distance between herself and dalliance as possible.

Just last night she’d been thrilled that Ruby’s home wasn’t too far away, but today she found herself wishing that the two properties were a little further apart.

But everything would be alright.  Believe, believe, believe…she had to believe that everything would turn out for the best.  And, on the positive side, it was Yang who reached out first.  Could that mean she was finally ready to talk?  Or maybe she was finally done pretending for Ruby’s sake.  Or maybe...or maybe…

Several hundred rapid scenarios later, Weiss parked in front of the quiet house, sat back in the seat, and stared at the front door.  That first night back in Vale, she’d been terrified of what lay beyond that unassuming door.  She’d sat and stared at it for what must’ve been an hour - trying to force herself to go up and knock.

Today, she wasn’t terrified, but she was certainly apprehensive.  It felt as if she was about to walk straight into the lion’s den with a nice steak tied around her neck.  Hopefully, the lion had been fed today…

“Band-aid, band-aid, band-aid…” she muttered while creeping up the front walk, dreading reaching the front step but making it there anyway.  Taking a deep breath and straightening her posture to feign confidence, she knocked twice before lowering her arm to wait.  

The wait wasn’t long.  Heavy footsteps crossed the living room, and the door swung open seconds after.

“Hey, come on in,” Yang said simply, gesturing with her head before heading towards the kitchen table without another glance.  It wasn’t exactly the greeting Weiss had been expecting, but it was better than any of the more painful alternatives.  

Stepping hesitantly inside, she closed the door and followed Yang to the table.  As she walked, her eyes roved around the house in search of signs that anyone else was nearby.  Yang must have noticed the action because she spoke up a second later.

“Blake and Ruby went out for groceries.”

“Oh.”

Weiss had expected Ruby to be out of the house, but she hadn’t connected the dots to conclude that Blake would be gone as well.  Of course, thinking through the situation now, it made sense.  How would they get Ruby out of the house unless one of them incentivized her to leave?  And if Yang stayed behind to speak with Weiss...that meant Blake had to go.

But Blake’s absence was mildly unsettling.  Who would calm Yang down if she got heated again?

No, Weiss silently scolded herself while awkwardly resting her hand on the back of one of the kitchen chairs and standing behind it.  She couldn’t constantly rely on Blake or Ruby’s presence to run interference with Yang’s emotions.  Both of them were great mediators, but Weiss and Yang needed to figure this out on their own.  They needed to find a way to be in the same room together and behave civilly.

Just the two of them...Weiss was now wondering whether or not she should’ve brought Myrtenaster along with her.  Could they resolve this with words only, or would Yang prefer to vent some steam in a more physical sense?  Not that Weiss was in any way opposed to a good fight if it would bring some resolution or relief, but battling an angry Yang Xiao Long hadn’t exactly been in the plans for today.

Sitting down at the table, Yang placed both hands flat on the smooth surface like she wanted to be holding on to something.  When Weiss remained standing and did nothing but expectantly stare, Yang finally motioned to the seat across from her.  Taking that as a cue to sit, Weiss cautiously pulled out the chair and sat down on the very edge - her posture rigid and straight.  

For the first time in who knows how long, the two of them were sitting together, alone.  

It was as uncomfortable as would be expected, made all the more apparent when Yang shifted in her seat and cleared her throat.  On the other side, Weiss didn’t know where to start or if she should say anything at all.  This conversation hadn’t been her idea, and she didn’t want to hijack whatever Yang intended to accomplish.

Thankfully, Yang spoke first.

“I’d like to hear what you have to say…” she said, her voice quiet and constrained while avoiding eye contact.  “If you’re willing to talk.”  

At one point in time, Weiss had been nearly as comfortable speaking to Yang as she had been with Ruby.  Even though they bickered often, it was always playfully intended or quickly resolved.  They’d spent a great deal of time together - just the two of them - discussing their respective partners and relationships.  

That felt like a long time ago...especially considering how their last couple of attempts at real conversations had been explosive, at best - destructive, at worst.

“Where...where should I start?” Weiss finally asked.  Her voice had already lost much of its volume while her heart pounded in anticipation of the upcoming conversation.  

What had Blake’s advice been?  Be honest. Honesty wasn’t exactly Weiss’ strong suit...or maybe it was showing vulnerability that consistently sent her running for cover behind her self-constructed walls.

“I don’t know...wherever you want, I guess.”

Yang’s small shrug belied the importance of the conversation - as if they were merely trying to decide where to go for dinner and Yang had no preference in the matter.

“Alright…” Weiss mumbled, internally struggling to find a good way to broach the topic.  Opening her mouth and closing it, she briefly shook her head and tried to summon the courage to tell her side of the story.  Hands in her lap, she spun the ring around her finger in an effort to calm herself while her heart began to race.  

This was the subject she’d spent most of the last year avoiding - now she was supposed to spill everything at once?  With no preparation?  Ordinarily, she would have formulated a clear and concise list of points to mention, in order of their importance.  Or have an entire speech typed out. Or...anything was really better than ‘winging it.’

But this might be her only chance to explain what had gone on in her mind - why she’d done what she did and why she’d seen the decision through nearly to the very end.  

She didn’t feel ready.  The wounds still felt too new and unhealed, but...maybe she should acknowledge their existence, for once.  Maybe instead of hiding behind the idea that she was ‘fine,’ she should admit that sometimes she wasn’t.

And that terrified her...but so did the idea of never being Yang’s friend again.  So, any story should start at the beginning - or the beginning of the end.

“I...I ran into Ruby…” Weiss whispered, her mind recalling that fateful moment in the hospital when everything had so suddenly unraveled into turmoil and uncertainty.  “The morning that I...that I was supposed to meet you.  I got there early, and I...I bumped into her…”

Silver eyes still passed over her in her dreams - not pausing with an ounce of recognition.  The moment still haunted her - filling her with hopelessness and despondency.  To suddenly become a stranger to the one she loved...

“I thought...that I could start from the beginning...but we’d come so far.”  Pausing when her voice wavered with emotion, she sniffed and forced herself to continue, feeling lilac eyes trained upon her.  “It wasn’t until she looked right past me that I realized...just how much had been lost.  And I...I couldn’t...”

Her chest clenched with pain as Weiss risked a glance across the table, trying to gauge if her words were having any impact.  From Yang’s stunned expression, she had no idea that this interaction ever happened.  Of course, how could she have known when Weiss had never told anyone?  

“Ruby meant the world to me…she still does...”  Closing her eyes, Weiss felt the tremors in her hands as memories she’d held at bay for so long surged through her.  The hopefulness, the determination - all dashed to oblivion by a glimpse of silver.  

It hurt.  It hurt in a way that continued burning even to this day.

“I had...only barely been holding myself together,” she admitted, opening her eyes but keeping them fixed on the table.  “When she didn’t recognize me, it destroyed...everything.  My entire purpose...gone...”

The silence in the house was deafening, yet it was the unusual stillness that was as loud as rolling thunder in Weiss’ mind.  Yang sat in her seat without any amount of normal fidgeting.  And Weiss didn’t dare move lest her fragile shell finally break apart.

The person she’d once been was lost on that day.  She’d struggled to recreate herself, with little success.  This was the best she’d been able to do on her own - a fraction of who she once was, a partial shadow that faded or solidified based on the time of day.  

“It’s all my fault - all of it,” she continued, her voice gaining emotion as her eyes stung with the beginnings of tears.  “I wasn’t good enough.  Or fast enough.  Strong enough.  If I were, none of this would have happened.  I ran because I didn’t deserve another chance.  I nearly got Ruby killed - what if we weren’t so lucky next time?  She’d be better off without me.  You all would.  I never deserved any of you to begin with…”

It looked like Yang wanted to interrupt, but she closed her mouth and shook her head instead.  Remaining quiet, she frowned towards the table with an air of unhappiness.  It was uncharacteristic for Yang to hold her tongue unless someone (and there was only one person this could be) had instructed her not to speak until Weiss had said everything she needed to say.

Taking the lack of response as tacit agreement to her own condemnation of her actions, Weiss continued while her voice was still able to create full words.

“Being away wasn’t any easier.  I knew you’d get Ruby back on her feet, but me...I thought that maybe I could salvage some...some type of normal life, but...”

Feeling tears grow at the corners of her eyes, Weiss stopped and tried to rub them away, but more immediately sprang into existence and wet her fingers when she pulled them away.  A weight was pressing into her chest, making it more and more difficult to breathe while she struggled to push forward.

“I couldn’t...move on.  I tried.  I tried so hard...to forget….but...”  

Feeling a lump grow in her throat, she paused and tried to swallow around it.  Don’t cry, she ordered herself as her breathing grew deeper and more erratic.  She needed to hold it together for just a little longer.

“I was on my own...and I was failing…”

Clenching her fingers into fists, the next breath she took hitched in the middle with an unmistakable sob.  She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, but when she blinked another fell to the table. Staring down at the small wet splotch, she watched through increasingly blurry vision as another one appeared beside it.

She didn’t want to say anything more.  She didn’t want to admit how weak she was.  She didn’t want to leave herself completely defenseless...but she’d made it this far.  She could press a little further - for Yang, for Blake, for Ruby.

“I only came back because I...I almost died..and I...a-almost let it happen, but Coco and Velvet - that’s when I realized I d-didn’t want to leave without...s-saying goodbye.  Without...s-saying sorry...”

Giving up trying to speak and covering her eyes with one hand, Weiss waited for more tears to escape while her shoulders shook with quiet sobs and the reality of her admission sunk in.  All this time she’d kept these thoughts to herself, never to be spoken out loud.  It was the lowest of her low points - the moment when she’d given up, when she’d run out of the will to survive.  Now, its existence was out in the open where it could be used against her.

At least, that’s what she thought.  Instead, there was nothing but more silence as she struggled to slow her tears.  There was no scoff of disbelief.  No huff of refusal.  Her darkest moment was lingering in the air, yet it was fading away without anyone grasping onto it.

“I’m sorry...” she whispered, risking a glance across the table and finding open sadness in Yang’s eyes.  “I’m so...s-so sorry, Yang...”

It looked like Yang wanted to respond to the apology, but, instead of words, she reached across the table and clasped her hand around Weiss.’  More tears immediately started flowing, quickly forming a small pattern of droplets on the smooth surface of the table while Yang’s warm hand wrapped reassuringly around hers.

She didn’t know how she found the courage to stay in Vale after that first night.  Where had the fortitude come from? It certainly didn’t feel like she possessed any of her own anymore.  The only explanation that seemed remotely plausible was that it was from her teammates - that they’d loaned her strength as they’d always done, giving freely when needed.

Struggling to pull herself back together, Weiss took two deep breaths that broke in the middle with tears.  Yang gave her hand a soft squeeze of encouragement with each one, while patiently waiting for the tears to slow.  And each small show of support made Weiss want to cry even harder, filled with gratitude for the strength her teammate was willing to provide even after all that had happened between them.

“Can I talk now?” Yang asked only after the sniffles quieted, her voice soft and devoid of any anger.  

Thankful that her time to speak had ended, Weiss nodded and wiped her eyes when Yang released her hand.  Leaning back in her chair, Yang let out a sigh - one that sounded like it had been held in for a very long time.

“I talked with Blake about...everything,” she began gently, as if speaking too loudly might disturb the moment they were in.  “I cried - a lot.  She pointed out a lot of things that I...honestly, I never thought about. Like how it feels to regret a decision, but not see a way to fix it.  Or feel stuck...trapped in that decision. She doesn’t feel like she deserved…like she deserves...”

Frowning, Yang gripped the edge of the table while the sentence trailed off.  Her mouth opened and closed as she struggled with her thoughts, until she finally spoke.  

“You know...when she was gone, I was angry, but I missed her so much.  When we found each other again, she apologized and I loved her too much to do anything but forget it ever happened.  I just...I guess I figured that if I forgot about it, so had she.  I never thought…” as Yang’s words trailed off, her expression unfocused in memory of the conversation that had taken place.  When she shook her head and concentrated on Weiss again, her eyes glistened with tears.  

“I don’t want her to feel that way...” Yang whispered, her voice wavering in sadness.  Turning away when a tear spilled over, she cleared her throat and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.

The display of emotion made Weiss want to say something - anything - to comfort Yang.  Regardless of their current friendship, the last thing she wanted was to see Yang upset or sad like this.  But the opportunity passed when Yang took a few deep breaths to collect herself and turned back to Weiss with a determined expression.

“And Ruby wouldn’t want you to feel that way either.”

Taken aback by the response, Weiss felt her mouth open, but no words come out.  Yang wasn’t done speaking though - and she continued with more certainty in every word.

“If you feel an ounce of what Blake does, that’s punishment enough.  And if you swear you’ll never do it again, I’ll believe you - just like I believe Blake.  I won't ever forget what you did, but I think I can forgive you.  I can forgive you.  And Ruby would’ve forgiven you - you know that.”

Pausing, Yang stared directly across the table to meet Weiss’ eyes - not a drop of red in the purest lilac she’d seen in quite some time.

“Learning to forgive yourself...that could be something you struggle with for a long time.”  The truthful words hadn’t yet settled before Yang mournfully shook her head. “You and Blake...you’re both so hard on yourselves…”

Even though Weiss remained silent, she knew the reason why both she and Blake expected more of themselves - they wanted to feel worthy of the amazing sisters they were blessed with having in their lives.  Yang and Ruby were both too humble to see it...they would never understand how remarkable they were in a world filled with malevolence, corruption, and hate.

“The past year I was so upset I could hardly even talk about you,” Yang continued, her brow furrowing in memory.  “If I tried, I’d get...just so angry and sad.  Blake listened, but never said much - just tried to distract me, ya know.  I should’ve known she was worried.  And when we heard from Velvet…”  Yang’s voice drifted off, and she looked back to Weiss.

“Blake doesn’t know I know this, but she was going to go get you.”

 That statement got Weiss’ full attention.

 “What?”

 “Yeah, it was an accident I found out.  She asked me to look something up, so I grabbed her scroll because it was closest.  She was in the other room so she never saw, but it opened up to her most recent search -  airship timetables.”  Pausing, Yang gave Weiss a small smile.  “I’ll give you one guess where she was headed.”

The only response Weiss could give was to stare at Yang in shock.  Blake had planned to fly to Atlas? How would Weiss have reacted to that?  After what happened in the forest with Coco and Velvet, she had to believe she might’ve burst into tears at the sight of her teammate.  That, or she would’ve steadfastly insisted that her life was perfectly fine.

“But then you showed up and saved her the trip,” Yang added more casually.  “Also saved me from having to worry about you.  I just got to remember how pissed I was.”  Sighing again, she sadly shook her head, looking disappointed in herself.  The expression was apologetic - as were the sorrowful eyes directed Weiss’ way.

“I’m sorry...for what I did in the hospital.”

“It’s alright -” Weiss began to respond, but Yang shook her head, her eyes filled with unmistakable regret.

“It’s not.  I never wanted to hurt you…” she whispered as her gaze dropped to the table.

“Hey.”  Weiss very nearly reached out to comfort her teammate but stopped herself at the last second in uncertainty.  “Yang,” she said instead.  “I understand.  And I’m the one who’s sorry.  I...I never wanted to hurt you either…”

Clearing her throat, Yang looked up with misty eyes.

“That doesn't make it ok, Weiss,” she said quietly.  “I never should’ve done that.  And I never should’ve said half the stuff I did.  I was just...angry.  I know that’s not a good excuse, but…just know that I don't want you to leave.  I don’t think that’d be better for anyone - not for Ruby and definitely not for you.  Ok?”

When Yang waited for a response, Weiss numbly nodded her head, and Yang nodded as well.

“Good.  Want to make sure you know that,” she muttered to herself before turning her gaze back to Weiss.  “You know...I remember how the two of you were together.  You were good for her, Weiss.  Better than I ever thought you’d be.  If...if she feels that way about you again, I’ll support that choice - I’ll support you. Because I should only be worried about if you make Ruby happy.  And you do.  You make her happy.  For some dumb reason, she loves being around you.  So...I can't be anything but grateful that my little sister is happy again.”

Leaning against the back of the chair, Yang looked infinitely more relaxed now that the air had finally been cleared - relaxed enough to give Weiss an easygoing smile.

“When Blake came back, I can still remember Ruby’s reaction…” Yang said, whimsically recalling the moment.  “She looked at me, and I smiled back at her.  So she burst into this huge smile and gave Blake a giant hug in a swirl of petals.  Ruby never held a grudge or said another word about it.  If she had, I would’ve told her to cut it out.” Yang paused then, her expression turning thoughtful.  “Jeez...I’m lucky Ruby doesn’t remember anything. She’d yell at me for sure.”

“Oh, yelling Ruby is a little scary,” Weiss replied.

“Isn’t it??  Like, she’s always so happy!  When she’s yelling, something’s really wrong.  And she knows how to deal a ton of damage in a few words.  But come on, Ruby’s never yelled at you,” Yang remarked, slapping Weiss’ hand jokingly.

“Well, no…” Weiss conceded after failing to come up with an example to the contrary.  “She’s yelled around me though.”  

For as easygoing as Ruby was, she could be every bit as protective as Yang if provoked in the wrong way.  One time while they were at lunch, a rather insolent young man had...impolitely...brought up a personal issue he had with Weiss’ family.  Without raising her voice, Ruby reduced him into a sniffling mess of tears before he ran off with a meek ‘sorry.’

The reply made Yang chuckle, seemingly amused at Ruby’s hidden talent.

“Consider yourself lucky then.  When I was ten, I borrowed one of her favorite Grimm toys without asking and accidentally broke it.  She was maaaaad…”

Weiss couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of tiny Ruby yelling at her older sister for breaking some precious piece of plastic shaped like a Beowolf.  After her laughter faded, the two of them lapsed into a moment of silence before Yang finally smiled - a real smile that reached her eyes.

“I think we’ve been through enough.  Maybe it’s time we put all of this behind us and moved on.”  

The words nearly made Weiss cry again - this time as a giant wave of relief swept over her.  If someone asked her months ago to imagine this moment, she wouldn’t have been able to. To have a path to forgiveness...even forgiveness that she still needed to earn...was an incredible, remarkable feeling.  

It was almost as if, maybe, she still had a chance of redeeming herself.

“I’d like that,” she managed to choke out with a flimsy smile of her own.  

“Good,” Yang answered with a grin before standing up and stretching her back.  “Come on, let’s hug it out.”

Hearing the phrase had never made Weiss happier.  Obediently standing, she hardly had the opportunity to move before Yang walked around the table and pulled her into a firm, warm hug.  It wasn’t strained; it wasn’t uncomfortable.  It was like...being welcomed home after a very long trip.  

Wrapping her arms around Yang and pulling her best friend close, Weiss felt the deep breath Yang sucked in as it expanded through her rib cage and released a moment later in a warm gust of air.  

“And you know,” Yang whispered.  “I really missed you, Weiss.”

Tears sprang into Weiss’ eyes as she pulled Yang even closer, resting her chin on Yang’s shoulder and savoring the best kind of almost-too-tight hug that only Yang could give.  

She’d missed Yang too.  So much.  Their playful bickering, their comradery...Yang had been one of her first friends.  Yang had taught her how to stand up for those you loved and not be ashamed of it.  Yang had taught her what it was like to have someone you alternatively couldn’t stand but wouldn’t give up for anything in the world.

“I -” Weiss attempted to say before managing a feeble smile and tilting her head.  “Me too.”

When the hug finally ended and Yang pulled away, her own eyes shimmered more than usual.  Clearing her throat and giving Weiss a gentle pat on the arm, Yang found one last smile that warmed right through Weiss’ heart.

“Who said we can’t be alone in the same room, huh?” Yang joked, playfully tapping Weiss on the shoulder while she smiled and shook her head.

This wasn’t a cure-all for their issues, but it was a start - a much better start than what they’d had so far.  And Weiss was determined to make the most of the second chance she’d been given.  The last thing she wanted to do was let her team - or Yang - down again.

The nearby sound of car doors closing drew their attention towards the front door, where voices in the yard approached the house.  The door opened a few seconds later, and Blake poked her head inside.  Quickly surveying the situation, she smiled upon seeing the two of them.  

“Hey Yang, can you help with the bags?”

Grinning at the request, Yang patted Weiss on the arm again before walking towards Blake.

“She got you to buy everything in the store, didn’t she,” Yang commented amusedly.

“No.  But it was a lot…”

The admission made Yang chuckle before she placed a quick kiss on Blake’s cheek.  “I swear, you spoil her more than I do.”

“I didn’t want her to be disappointed!”

“Because that’d be a horrible thing, wouldn’t it?”

When Blake playfully pouted, Yang smiled and reached out to squeeze her partner’s shoulder.  It was easy to see by the sparkle in her eye that she loved how Blake treated Ruby like her own little sister.  But Yang also loved to tease Blake about how Ruby managed to weasel her way through Blake’s stout exterior defenses.

“Woah there!” Yang suddenly yelped, holding up both hands and using them to stop Ruby after she careened through the doorway with a bag of groceries in her hands.  “There’s a speed limit around here, remember?”

“I wasn’t running!” Ruby whined before hastily searching the room and letting out a cute gasp when she found Weiss.  “You are here!  I thought it looked like your car, but Blake said it wasn’t!”

When Ruby shot Blake a look, Blake shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

“My mistake,” she replied nonchalantly as Yang took ahold of her hand and the two of them headed outside together.  Unperturbed by Blake’s thinly veiled misrepresentation, Ruby quickly dumped the bag of groceries onto the table and hopped over - her expression growing more concerned when she noticed the residual tears in Weiss’ eyes.

“Are you ok?” Ruby asked, glancing out the door towards the sound of Yang’s voice.  “She wasn’t mean to you, was she? I’m sorry - I didn’t know you were coming over, otherwise -”

“No no,” Weiss quickly interrupted with a shake of her head.  “No, we...we had a good talk.”  Drawing in a deep breath, she smiled, which made Ruby visibly relax and grin once again.

“Really?”

Nodding, Weiss found an even bigger smile as she replied, “Yes.”

“That’s great!  Right?  Like, you’ll be friends again?”

“I think so, eventually,” Weiss answered, the truth behind that statement spreading like a soothing balm through her veins.  A huge weight had lifted from her shoulders - one she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying this entire time.  

Knowing that this was what relief would feel like, she wished she’d spoken to Yang much sooner.  But, realistically, neither of them had been ready to go through that conversation until now.  Yang had needed to vent some steam first, and Weiss had needed to scrounge together whatever courage she had in order to be open and honest.

“Do you need a hug?”

“What?” Weiss asked, turning her full attention back to Ruby right as she was pulled into a firm, comforting hug.  

Caught off guard for only an instant, Weiss quickly gave in and wrapped her arms around Ruby’s waist as she rested her chin on the girl’s shoulder.  Closing her eyes and letting out a sigh, she turned her head burrowed into Ruby’s neck.

Ruby had always given the best hugs.  The stress melters - that’s what Weiss called them.  No matter how difficult or stressful the day had been, one of Ruby’s hugs would have her feeling better in no time.  Just like now, the strain of her talk with Yang was loosening and disappearing into thin air.  It was replaced by the scent of roses, the sensation of Ruby’s chest rising and falling with each breath, and the feeling of strong, capable arms creating a barrier that would keep the rest of the world at bay.

It was only when heavy footsteps thumped on the porch that Ruby finally let go, and Weiss blushed when Yang and Blake walked back into the house carrying more groceries.

“You gonna stick around, Weiss?” Yang asked while carefully setting three big bags down on the table.

“Oh, I - I think I have plans,” Weiss replied on instinct, her mind scrambling to come up with what those plans might be.

“Blake and I are gonna make dinner,” Yang continued, meeting Weiss’ eyes with an assuring expression.  “You should stay.”

Sparing one glance at Ruby, who nodded enthusiastically, Weiss smiled.

“Alright - yes, I can stay for dinner.”

“Yes!” Ruby immediately celebrated, raising one fist in victory.  On the other side of the table, Blake squeezed Yang’s shoulder before both girls began pulling groceries out of the bags.

“And I don’t want to know what you two did with a dozen eggs,” Yang commented while taking out a new carton from the bag.  “But at least you remembered to get some more.”

“We cleaned up!” Ruby said, making Yang playfully scrunch her nose.

“I don’t wanna know…” she repeated, taking the eggs and several different types of juices to the fridge.

Turning to Weiss, Ruby grinned and shrugged her shoulders.  Knowing how good Blake’s nose could be, they’d been really thorough cleaning up.  It took them quite a long time, but if Blake hadn’t complained at least they’d been moderately successful.  Except the sudden lack of eggs hadn’t gone unnoticed by Yang.

“Ok Super Chopper - get over here and cut up some onions!” Yang called out before launching an onion across the room while quickly shouting, “Onion test!”

Raising one hand, Ruby easily caught the onion before proudly tossing it up in the air and smiling at Weiss.  “See?  All that practice helped!  Now I can show you how the expert sous chefs dice an onion!”

“No cutting up produce with Crescent Rose,” Blake declared from the sink.  Ruby immediately pouted at the directive, but obediently left Weiss’ side to fetch a cutting board and regular kitchen knife to complete her task.

“Can I help?” Weiss offered, stepping closer to the table.

“You’re our guest, Weiss,” Blake answered.  “You can sit and relax - this time.”

“Yeah - make Ruby wait on you hand and foot!” Yang added with an evil grin thrown her sister’s way.  “Ruby!  Get Weiss some water, jeez!  What a terrible host!”

With an adorable salute, Ruby quickly filled up a glass and set it on the table in front of Weiss.  Next, she pulled out the chair and gestured for Weiss to sit down.  Obliging the display of manners, Weiss sat down and allowed Ruby to scoot in the chair before she leaned down and whispered into Weiss’ ear.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you.  I’m good,” Weiss answered, blushing at the proximity as Ruby grinned and took the seat to Weiss’ left.  While her blush faded away, her teammates settled into a comfortable rhythm of preparing a meal together.  Ruby diced the onions - close enough that Weiss’ eyes began to sting as a steady chop, chop, chop filled the air.  Yang put away groceries and folded up the used bags while Blake pulled boxes from the cupboards and measured out ingredients for whatever they’d be eating.

Watching them work together filled Weiss with a sense of warmth that had been missing from her life for quite some time.  She’d missed this.  The simple things - like making dinner together, racing through a list of chores together, or merely spending time together.  As they’d grown closer, anything they’d set out to do followed a cadence that was all their own.  They operated on the same wavelength, even if it was on something as mundane as heading out to dinner downtown.

Glancing at Ruby, who caught the look and smiled while still dashing through the pile of onions, Weiss wanted to turn away but found herself caught in that cheerful silver gaze.  

“You haven’t been over for dinner in a long time!” Ruby commented, slicing the knife worryingly close to the tips of her fingers before expertly sliding them away.  “We should do this more often!”

“If you’d like to,” Weiss quickly agreed, her eyes flitting to the cutting board before back to Ruby’s cheerful expression.

“Maybe next time I’ll make dinner!”

Ruby’s comment made Blake and Yang laugh from the other side of the kitchen.

“You’re going to cook something?” Yang asked in disbelief.

“I could try,” Ruby whined, finally setting the knife down on the board and allowing Weiss to breathe again.  

Refocusing on the conversation, she smiled politely at Ruby’s offer.  Unfortunately, unless a miracle had happened while Weiss was away, Ruby was a horrible cook.  Even though she followed directions and had the best of intentions, something inevitably went wrong.

“How about we go out to dinner instead?” Weiss offered, giving Ruby a smile that would hopefully encourage her to choose the easier and more edible option.  “My treat.”

“Like...just the two of us?”

Suddenly understanding how the invitation sounded, Weiss attempted to backpedal away from the implication.

“I mean, Yang and Blake are absolutely invited as well,” she added quickly, glancing towards the kitchen in hopes that one of her other teammates would bail her out of this situation.  Of course, Yang shook her head and tapped Blake’s side.

“Thanks but no thanks!  If you ‘n Ruby are going out to dinner, Blake and I are totally taking advantage of having the house to ourselves.”  Yang’s grin only widened after she dodged the dish towel Blake whipped her way.

Briefly scrunching her nose at her sister, Ruby then turned to Weiss with a smile that sent a flurry of butterflies soaring through her chest.

“I’d love to go out with you!  Out to dinner, I mean.  Not, like - that sounds like fun!”

The blush on Ruby’s cheeks was surely reflected on Weiss’ as the two of them avoided eye contact and waited for the moment of embarrassment to pass.  Of course, the moment wouldn’t have ended if Yang had her way, but the instant she opened her mouth it was covered by Blake’s hand - much to Weiss’ relief.

The invitation had been ill-considered before Weiss made it, but her original intention hadn’t been to ask Ruby out on a date.  It wasn’t a date.  It was just a dinner between friends.  That was how Ruby saw it.  Or, at least, that’s how Weiss was pretty sure Ruby saw it...

When Ruby cleared her throat and began scooping the tiny diced onions into a bowl, Weiss was able to glance across the table once more.

“Uh, so maybe we could go tomorrow night?” Ruby asked, shooting Weiss a hopeful smile.  Moderately taken aback by the short timeline but unwilling to allow such an opportunity to pass her by, Weiss managed a nod that made Ruby beam while she turned back to her task.

Even if it was just dinner, it was another chance for Weiss to spend time with Ruby - and that was worthy of being excited about.  

Excited and...Weiss needed to figure out where they would go.  Any of their favorite spots were likely off limits because there could be an employee still working that would remember the two of them.  It needed to be someplace new but magnificent.  And not too fancy, unless Ruby had developed a taste for the ‘complicated’ foods she’d never enjoyed...

A small gasp suddenly jerked Weiss out of her thoughts.  Searching for the source of the noise, she found Yang standing close to Ruby’s side.

‘Do you hear that?’ Yang mouthed towards Ruby and Weiss before pointing to Blake.  Momentarily confused, it took a couple of seconds for Weiss to realize that Blake was humming a song to herself while preparing a pan by the stove.  The tune wasn’t at all recognizable -

“That’s one of the Achievemen’s greatest hits!” Yang called out gleefully, running over and pulling Blake into a hug before nuzzling affectionately into her hair.  “And Blake’s singing it!”

“I wasn’t singing it,” Blake denied, earning a disbelieving look from Yang.  “...I was humming it.”

“Admit it - you had fun!”

“They have a certain...theatrical...skillset that was amusing to watch...”

The answer made Yang laughed joyfully, finally releasing her grasp and allowing Blake to slink away with an air of chagrin for being caught doing something she hadn’t been aware of.

“Sounds like you two had fun,” Weiss commented in an attempt to spare Blake from further embarrassment.  “Were you able to have them sign something for you?”

“Yup!” Yang replied proudly - so proudly that Weiss’ small smile immediately fell.

“It wasn’t your bra, was it?”

“Nope!” Yang answered with an even bigger grin.  “Blake wouldn’t let me, but they signed something even better!”

“Like what?” Ruby asked, setting her bowl by the stove and heading to the sink to wash her hands.

Reaching out, Yang grabbed ahold of Blake’s arm before pulling her forward and pushing up the sleeve on her shirt.

“I had them sign Blake!” Yang proclaimed, dissolving into giggles as Weiss and Ruby stared at the scrawled signatures on Blake’s upper forearm.  While they did so, Blake very consciously avoided eye contact with either of them, her cheeks rampantly flushing.

“You let them sign you??” Weiss asked in disbelief, tearing her eyes away from the proof to find Blake staring pointedly towards the wall.  Instead of answering, Blake rolled her sleeve down and turned to Yang.

“You realize it’s going to wash off.”

“Yup!  But I’ll always have the memory of the Achievemen signing my girlfriend,” Yang responded with a dreamy expression.

“I wouldn’t count on that!” Ruby quipped with a grin.

Weiss let out a startled laugh at the joke, with Blake and Yang soon joining in while Ruby beamed with success.  

It was refreshing how Ruby could make fun of what had happened.  To Weiss, it was this monumental moment that had changed the course of her life.  It wasn’t spoken about, ever.  But to Ruby...it was also a monumental moment that had changed her life, but she’d gotten past that.  Now it was merely something that had happened - something they could laugh about and move on from.

“You’re right, Ruby,” Yang commented before pointing to Blake’s arm.  “I’m gonna need a picture of that…”

“Good luck,” Blake replied with a smirk while lighting the stove and setting a pan on top of the flames.

“I’m going to have to beg, aren’t I?” Yang asked before letting out an exaggerated sigh and leaning on the counter beside Blake.  “You know how much I’ll totally beg for that.”

Making a soft “shhh” sound, Blake placed one finger against Yang’s lips to keep her from saying anything more.  Shaking her head and letting out a chuckle at the antics, Weiss returned her attention to Ruby - who was watching her sister in amusement before opening her mouth to speak.

“Maybe after dinner, we could like...watch a movie?”  When Ruby turned to Weiss, her eyes were shining with hope.  “You’ll stay for a movie, right?”

“I...yes, I can,” Weiss replied, surprised by the continued requests for her presence and Ruby’s whoops of happiness.

“Perfect!” Yang remarked.  “Because it’s my turn to pick.  I hope you’re all ready for some blood ‘n guts!”

“Yanggg!” Ruby whined.  “Why do you always pick those movies?”

“Simple!  Because they scare Blake.”

Blake scoffed at the grin thrown her way.  “They do not scare me.”

“Then why do you cuddle into me so much during them?”

“Because!  I...happen to like doing that.  Shouldn’t Weiss get to choose anyway?  She’s our guest tonight,” Blake pointed out.

When both girls turned to Weiss, the twinkle in Yang’s eye said she already knew what Weiss would decide.  Of course she already knew - they’d come to an agreement on this matter while still at Beacon.

“No, no,” Weiss answered with a shake of her head.  “I don’t want you to go out of order for my sake.  I’m fine with whatever Yang chooses.”

“Blood n’ guts!” Yang said, patting Blake consolingly on the back.  “Next time Weiss picks!”

‘Next time’...the words were like a warm ray of sunshine that made Weiss smile.

“We should really find a new place for our mail...” Yang commented absentmindedly, picking up the stack from in front of Weiss and tossing it haphazardly onto the sofa.  While Yang did that, Ruby leaned closer to Weiss.

“If you get scared, you can always hold my hand,” she offered, making Weiss’ heart do a little flip in anticipation.  Overhearing, Yang grinned.

“Oh don’t worry - it’ll be plenty scary,” she remarked, sending a wink Weiss’ way.

Years ago, they’d made a pact - Yang would pick scary movies when it was her turn and Weiss wouldn’t complain.  It was a silent concession to Yang’s goal of having Blake lean into her side - and self-serving in that it gave Weiss the same excuse to be near Ruby.  Through years and years of horror movies, their partners had been none the wiser...unless they secretly enjoyed it too…

“Yang, can you bring me a plate?”

“Of course!”  With one more grin at Weiss, Yang went over to the cabinets to find a plate as Blake requested.  

Watching the two finish making dinner together, Weiss felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude towards the both of them.  There was still so much that needed to be made right - so much guilt that Weiss still carried with her - but knowing that forgiveness was possible gave her hope unlike anything she’d felt in a long time.

Could it be that all this time she’d needed to expose her wounds, not hide them away?  It was extremely difficult for her to be vulnerable, but by opening up to Yang - by finally being honest and sincere - Weiss had found something she hadn’t realized she was searching for.  

It wasn’t pity - Yang’s eyes didn’t hold pity for her.  It was understanding.  They’d all been there - they’d all been through trials and tribulations.  They’d all reached a point in their lives where they were forced to question if this day, this moment, would be their last.  Somewhere along the way, Weiss had forgotten that they understood each other.  They always had.

“Here you go, Weiss!”

Turning, Weiss accepted the set of silverware Ruby held out to her.

“Thank you,” she replied while setting the items on the table.  Grinning, Ruby happily buzzed around and dropped the other sets in their proper places before Yang handed over a stack of plates that also needed to be set out.  When Yang caught Weiss’ eye, she smiled before walking back to help Blake.

Leaning back in her seat, Weiss smiled with ease she hadn’t felt in a long time.

It was difficult and scary - terrifying, even - to expose weaknesses to others, but she’d forgotten how rewarding it was when her barriers were lowered for the right people.  Because she didn’t have to feel alone.  Even though her horrible mistakes were entirely her own, they were relatable. They were understandable.

She wasn’t isolated - she wasn’t out on an island by herself.  She had help.  She had support.  That’s what teammates were for.  

[ruffsficstuffplace]

And The AWRD Goes To... (Part 38)

I wrote a massive, self-indulgent Magical Girl episode that probably wouldn’t be safe for Earth kids, but totally fit for Remnant kids, considering that they allow marital training at extremely young ages to slaughter Grimm.

The good news is, I have the basis for yet another LWA/RWBY AU, or an original series of my own.

The bad news is, I felt it was WAY too self-indulgent to show you guys, and completely got out of any of the plot or the characterization of the show, along with being too self-congratulatory to my writing skills, however my audience will take the self-indulgent trash I wrote.

The other good news is, I figured out a completely different way to write this chapter that won’t alienate people or feel like desperate, self-praising filler.

I hope, at least.

“I must say, I’m rather impressed the creators took the time to weave such complex, coordinated, and physically-involved fights into the show!” Diana said during the credits of another episode of Starlight Crusaders: Solar Eclipse. “Most other examples I’ve ever seen of this genre always seem content to have the characters blast their foes with an obscene amount of visual effects from a distance, and have the monsters just writhe and cry out before they’re defeated.”

“Not Starlight Crusaders!” Weiss said, hugging one of her pillows to her chest as she sat up and watched. “Man, there’s so many things I love about this franchise, but the way all the fights just leave stick with me long after the credits are a huge part of it...”

“Hah, remember when we used spent the entire week between each episode trying to recreate them in the training grounds?” Akko asked.

“How could I forget?!” Weiss replied, laughing. “It’s why I wanted to become a huntress in the first place!”

“You decided to go into this dangerous career because you wanted to reenact scenes from a children’s show...?” Diana asked.

Weiss smiled at her. “Relax: I’ve added a whole lot of other mature, deep reasons to it since… but as they say, every aspiring hunter had to get that passion from somewhere. I guess it didn’t hurt that grandpa and grandma could actually make it a reality, to a certain extent.”

Ruby blinked, before her eyes brightened. “Are there giant robot monster parts stored in your house somewhere?!” she asked excitedly.

“Sorry, Ruby, just giant monster costume pieces, made to be worn by Schnee Grimm summons,” Weiss replied.

Ruby frowned, the light in her eyes fading. “Aww…”

“I suppose that’s why your house’s training grounds were so complex and modular?” Diana asked.

“Mhmm!” Weiss said. “Could basically reenact the mechanics of any sort of Starlight Crusader fight, save for those while falling out of the sky, underwater, in low-orbit, or the Shiny Chariot special crossover special for Luna Nova.”

“What was the problem with that last one?” Ruby asked. “Maybe I could help solve it.”

“I appreciate the offer, Ruby, but it was entirely with the cast,” Weiss replied. “Lack of a Shiny Rod and what means Chariot used to transform it into so many different forms aside, she had both my speed and agility PLUS Akko’s strength and endurance; whenever either of us tried to play her, we’d either end up exhausted before the ‘episode’ was even halfway done, or didn’t have the necessary finesse and grace to even try to pull off her acrobatics.

“Looking back on it, she probably needed to be that strong and skilled to even use the damned thing without breaking every bone in her body after each show...” she finished, casting a glance at the Shiny Rod.

“More like ‘definitely needed!’” Akko added, before she sighed. “I always knew Chariot was awesome and incredible and way beyond my level, but I’m only realizing by just how much right now… I’m conflicted, you guys:

“On the one hand, she’s like, 500% more awesome, and given how amazingly spectacular she was already, that’s a huge increase in raw Coolness Factor!

“On the other hand, now the difference between us is even bigger than before and I’m not sure if I can even reach that, period...” Akko finished, now moping in her bed.

“… Maybe I can still help with that...” Ruby said.

The next episode of Starlight Crusaders was about to begin, Weiss paused it. “What do you mean…?”

“Ah, how do I explain this… back at the Bunker, it was generally a given that someone would be heavily reliant on tech to compensate for something when they first get in. If it wasn’t prostheses to replace original parts, it was accessibility technology, like a sound-sensitive pair of glasses with a heads-up display for a student with hearing impairments, or Battle Saddles.”

“Pardon me: Battle-what-now…?” Weiss asked.

“Battle Saddles!” Ruby repeated. “It’s what we called wheelchairs and other mobility devices, generally after we motorized, armoured, and armed them. They even have specializations called ‘Battalions’--my favourite was Rolling Thunder, the heavy weapons, artillery, and explosives specialists.

“Anyway, we were always making, adapting, and developing new tech to compensate for impairments and handicaps, and I could definitely do the same here, like develop shock absorbers for Shooting Star so the reaction from all the raw force the Shiny Rod is capable of won’t break our bones and send us flying off again.”

“May I interrupt you, Ruby?” Diana asked. When Ruby gave her the go ahead, she continued, “I know it might be rather irrational and biased given my experiences, but it feels like we might end up over-relying on your tech, which has its own consequences...” she said, looking down at herself.

Ruby nodded. “And you’re right to be worried about that, Diana, but you didn’t let me finish: once we were done getting someone up to the standard levels of performance, we started thinking about how we could go BEYOND that.

“Heck, that was actually a huge part of my developing Crescent Rose! At first, I didn’t have the balance, the coordination, or the strength to even swing her properly, let alone all the essential combat techniques, so I built a giant robot helping arm to provide raw strength and control for me.

“Then, when I could swing it and stop it without its help, I started thinking how I could start using all that momentum and weight to my advantage. And after a LOT of experimenting and redesigning, I started using it to amp up the force of my attacks like back with the grave lord, and all the other times I’ve cut something when I wouldn’t normally have enough raw power to do so.”

“So… what, you’re suggesting we make training wheels for the Shiny Rod…?” Weiss asked.

Ruby thought about it for a moment. “… Yeah!” she said. “I guess I do want to try and build training wheels for the Shiny Rod, if those training wheels happened to get cannibalized later as components for magnetic-levitation wheels to help your bike go even faster!”

She got a thoughtful look on her face, before her eyes started scanning the others, too. “… And come to think of it, I could make improvements to all our other weapons, too, especially Gwragged Annwn...”

Diana frowned. “Ruby, I’m not entirely sure I want you experimenting on my spear… it’s a prized family heirloom, totally irreplaceable!”

“Oh, then I promise I won’t!” Ruby said, smiling. “I respect the weapon’s owner more than my desire to improve and experiment on said weapon. Or I guess in the Shiny Rod’s case, the weapon itself. How about you guys, though…?”

“Count me in!” Akko said.

“The designers called Myrtenaster the peak of multi action dust rapiers, but that’s what they called her predecessor, too—feel free to experiment” Weiss replied, nodding.

“Awesome, thanks!” Ruby replied. “That’s going to be for when we’re all out of the hospital, though—back to the anime!”

Weiss picked up the remote and began to unpause the video.

“WAIT!” Akko cried. “I forgot something!”

Weiss flinched. “What is it...?” she asked, the others turning to look at her.

“What happened to the giant robot helping arm?” Akko asked.

“Oh! It’s probably in the storage room along with all the other robot helping arms, waiting for someone to either study it to make their own, or borrow it for their experiments,” Ruby replied. “They still take it out to the cafeteria sometimes to try and arm wrestle with it—still unbeaten in the ‘Giants League’ without disqualifying damage to the apparatus!” she said, beaming.

“Nice!” Akko said. “High—oh wait, sorry...”

“We’ll high five in spirit!” Ruby cried. “High five!” she said, cast-covered limbs still immobilized.

“Up top!” Akko replied, her cast-covered arms still by her sides.

Diana and Weiss both burst out laughing. “You two are ridiculous...” Diana said, shaking her head.

“You haven’t seen the worst of it, trust me,” Weiss added, smiling. “Unpausing now!”

The four of them went back to watching Starlight Crusaders. Whenever there was another fight scene and weapons started getting brought out, however, Ruby didn’t seem to be enjoying herself quite as much as she did earlier.

They eventually made it to the last few episodes, tensions ramping up, story arcs coming to a close, the Crusaders tearing their way through the main villain’s ranks until the inevitable final confrontation.

One of the nurses knocked and opened the door, Weiss reluctantly paused the video again as a nurse popped his head in. “Excuse me, Ms. Schnee, your family has come to visit you.”

“We brought umeboshi and blueberry froyo!” Whitley called out from outside.

Weiss and Akko both brightened up. “Let them in, let them in!” Weiss said.

Snowie stepped in with a shopping bag filled with the promised treats, among others. “Hey there, sorry we took so long, we couldn’t really—“ her eyes widened. “--Oh my gosh, is that Solar Eclipse?”

“It is, it is!” Whitley said, giddily rushing into the room and taking the seat beside Weiss, Snowie and Winter sitting or perching by Akko’s side. “Play it, play it!” Whitley said, beaming as he leaned forward with his chin in his hands.

Weiss didn’t hesitate. The nurse looked at them, patients and visitors alike all completely enamored with the show, smiled, and began to close the door. Then, he felt someone put a hand on his shoulder, turned around, and knocked again.

“Excuse me again!” the nurse said. “Ms. Rose, your father’s come to visit you.”

Ruby’s eyes brightened up as she took her eyes off her screen. “Dad! Come in, come in!”

The nurse turned back to Taiyang, and opened the door with a flourish, he happily stepped in with a silly swagger and a huge smile on me face. “Hey there, dear daughter of mine! How’re you doing?” he asked as he came over to Ruby’s bed.

“All four limbs still broken, dear dad of mine!” Ruby chirped. “I’m getting better, though, especially since Weiss can use the remote for all of us.”

“That’s good to hear!” Taiyang said as he carefully hugged her, she tried to nuzzle her head into his shoulder. “So, what are you guys watching?” he said as he settled into the chair next to her bed. “No, no, wait, don’t tell me! It’s... Starlight Crusaders, and this season’s, this season’s, ah...”

“It’s--” Whitley, Weiss, Winter, Snowie, and Akko began.

“No, no, don’t! I’ve got this!” Taiyang said, peering intently at the screen, sweat forming on his brow as he concentrated, listening carefully to the names of the characters and their Crusader titles as they fought each other,  willing forth the answer from deep within his mind...

“NEW MOON ORDER!” he cried, nearly launching out of his seat. “It’s New Moon Order, right?” he said, nodding and smiling, proud of himself.

Whitley, Weiss, Winter, Snowie, and Akko spared a few moments from the show, and all shared looks with each other; after a silent vote, Snowie got the duty of breaking the news to him. “Ah, Mr. Xiao Long? It’s actually Solar Eclipse; New Moon Order was one of the movies.”

“Call me Taiyang or Tai, please. Anyway, it’s based off this season, at least...?” Taiyang asked hopefully.

Snowie smiled politely, slowly shook her head, and went back to watching with the others.

Taiyang sighed. “At least I got the franchise right this time...” he muttered to himself.

The episode ended in suitably dramatic fashion, the girls and Whitley all cheered. Weiss paused the video as the credits started rolling, and turned to Snowie. “You mentioned blueberry froyo earlier?” she asked, eyebrows raised.

Snowie dug out a tub from the bag, and handed it over.

Weiss took it in both hands, and cradled it to her chest. “Thanks mom, you’re the best,” she whispered, before she opened it and started digging in with the spoon attached to the side.

“You’re welcome, Weiss,” Snowie hummed, looking proud of herself. “We even got treats for all your other friends!” she said as she dug into the bag again.

Akko cried out in delight as she pulled up a jar of umeboshi, Ruby eyed a pack of chocolate chip cookies hungrily. “I didn’t really know whatever it was the rest of you liked, so I just sorta got a little bit of everything from a convenience store on the way here.”

“She really does mean everything,” Whitley added as he took the jar of pickled plums, opened it up for Akko. “You should have seen her back at the aisles, trying to figure out if she should grab any special varieties, or just stick with the original flavours.”

“Hey, it’s not MY fault someone decided there needed to be like, 500 different flavours of Kari-Kari!” Snowie cried as Winter took to the bag of snacks over to the other side of the room. “I swear, that store had basically everything on the shelves!”

“There’s 317 total, and only 47 in that store, mother, I looked it up and I counted while we were there,” Whitley said as he started feeding pickled plums to an eagerly awaiting Akko.

“Still too many damn flavours of candy coated wafers...” Snowie grumbled. She blinked, looked around, and sighed. “Aw, crap—anyone seen my snowball?”

“It’s right here, mom!” Winter called out, pulling up a ball tightly wrapped in plastic, colourful packets taped to it.

Snowie held her hands up. “I’m open!”

Winter tossed it, Snowie missed it, it hit her in the face. She winced, caught it before it could fall to the floor, and started unwrapping it, revealing a ball of shaved ice.

“Well, haven’t seen those in a very long while...” Diana said as Snowie ripped open the syrup packets with her teeth, poured the blue liquid onto her snowball.

“Probably because it’s not as good as what you’ll find from the shops that really care, or the kind you could make at my da—father’s office, but you know, the mass produced stuff isn’t half-bad,” Snowie said, before she gleefully chomped down on her snowball.

“Anything you’d like in particular?” Winter asked as she showed off the rest of the bag over to Diana.

Diana looked uneasily at the sea of junk food, then back up at Winter with a frown.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s something healthy in here…” Winter said as she sat down and really dug into the mess.

“There’s a handful of sandwiches and a salad in there!” Whitley called out. “Don’t take both the egg sandwiches, one of them’s mine!”

“Found them, thanks, little brother!” Winter said as she dug them out. “Any catch your eye?” she asked as she held them out to Diana.

Diana looked at the plastic wrappers, and the proud labels of Mistral’s ubiquitous “Sari-Sari” convenience store franchise, and said, “I suppose I’ll take the strawberry cream…”

“Good choice!” Winter said, putting the rest back into the bag.

“I’m really rather sorry for inconveniencing you like this,” Diana said as Winter unwrapped the sandwich.

“It’s no trouble at all,” Winter replied. “Though if it bothers you that much, I suppose I could just wedge a tray on your chest to your chin, let you try and eat this with just your mouth?” she asked, smiling.

“… I’m not that sorry.”

Winter chuckled, and started feeding her.

“So!” Snowie started. “Diana, your family planning on flying over from Vale to visit any time soon?”

“No, actually,” Diana replied, before she took a dainty, careful bite out of her sandwich, started humming shortly after she started chewing.

“Aww, that’s sad,” Snowie said. “You want our help making a video to send to them, while they can’t come? I found that always helped when my parents were still going off on expeditions.”

Diana’s chewing slowed down, before she swallowed, and smiled politely. “The gesture is appreciated, Ms. Schnee… but I’d really rather not.”

Snowie paused for a moment, before she nodded, and went back to her snowball.

“Anyone else want more?” Winter called out after empty containers were thrown into the trash, or resealed for later. “Plenty of snacks still left in here,” she said, gently shaking the bag.

Whitley took his sandwich, and Taiyang grabbed some “to go” for himself, but otherwise everyone answered in the negative.

“So, anything else we can do for you guys while we’re here?” Snowie asked.

“We were just planning on going back to watching Starlight Crusaders, thanks,” Weiss said as she picked up the remote, Whitley hurriedly unwrapped his sandwich in preparation. “There’s really not much else we can do when I’m the only one with a working pair of arms.”

“I could recommend some pretty cool voice-recording apps we use at the Bunker!” Taiyang offered. “Free of charge, too, though getting support if something goes wrong can be a little… iffy, because they’re all experimental.”

“The offer is appreciated, Mr. Xiao Long, but Blake and Lotte have been doing an excellent job of transcribing from our diction,” Diana replied.

“I just wish Constanze wasn’t so busy with the mind palace machines and her own projects, though,” Ruby said. “She’s basically the only person that can help me take down weapons engineering notes.”

“I’m sure you’ll be able to get right back to it soon enough, Ruby,” Taiyang said, ruffling her hair.

“Maybe I could try helping with that?” Snowie said. “I take a lot of notes and dictation for my parents when they’re busy, I could probably do it.”

Taiyang chuckled. “Now I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I have to warn you: my daughter’s thought process when she designs or studies weapons is a giant, jumbled mess of jargon, doodles, and schematics flying everywhere all at once.”

Snowie snorted. “And you’ve just basically described what my brain is like 24/7! I’ve got this, probably,” she said as she stood up.

“I’ve seen parts of Ruby’s journal when she sent me info on the Shiny Rod, mom, he’s really not kidding!” Winter said.

“Be my guest, though!” Taiyang said as he stood up, and gestured to the chair he was sitting in.

“You sure about this, Snowie?” Ruby asked as Snowie sat down beside her.

“Positive!” Snowie replied. “Jumping headlong into things without being entirely sure what I’m doing is kind of my thing! I mean... it doesn’t always work as well I think it will, but I work best when I’m figuring things out as I’m going along!” she said as she pulled out her scroll, complete with her own quill.

“Alrighty then!” Ruby said.

Whitley nudged Weiss to resume playing Starlight Crusaders, she did, and the others went back to watching the show. She found herself frequently looking away from the screen and listening in to Ruby and Snowie’s conversation, however.

“So, what exactly are you thinking of here?” Snowie asked as she got her quill at the ready.

“Well, I was thinking about trying to make some sort of recoil buffer for Shooting Star, hopefully one that will also work when it fuses with the Shiny Rod to become Shining Star,” Ruby started.

“There’s just WAY too much force that thing is capable of whenever Akko chops with it, and short of starting to learn how to throw it; let go just before each impact, and hope it doesn’t hit her or anyone else when it inevitably flies off in the opposite direction as soon as all that aura force is discharged; or chop really, really, really gently with it, we need to drastically increase her upper body strength, muscle mass, and possibly even aura reserves if we’re ever going to be able to use Shining Star without ending up in the hospital, or causing more excessive, collateral damage if we try to use the firearm component.

“It’s really bad because we can’t really use any of my momentum harnessing and/or controlling techniques and tech I use with Crescent Rose because Shining Star’s a shotgun-axe, and it’s a lot less aerodynamic.

“On the plus side, I might be able to just freely attach them to the weapon thanks to the already bulky design, but then that might necessitate Akko having to get used to the entirely new balance and weight of it.

“But do the buffers need to be on Shooting Star itself?” Snowie countered as she continued scribbling without much effort. “My daddy’s robot limbs have a lot of internal buffers and servos to amplify and compensate for all the stress, damage, and physical labour he puts himself through, not to mention all the upgrades he made specifically for surpassing his biological limbs’ limits, or making it a better option than using his originals.

“He prefers punching Grimm in the face with his robot hand for a very good reason! You know, aside from the fact that it’s easier and less painful to repair if it breaks, than his flesh-and-bone hand.”

Ruby blinked. “Huh. That’ll definitely be much more expensive, and I’ll have to call some friends back at the Bunker who specialized in exoskeletal enhancement rigs, but yeah, it could be better in the long-run!

“Maybe we could even go past recoil absorption, and go straight into power amplification, with all the extra leeway.”

“Thermoelectric generator to charge and power servos, make the second chop hurt much more than the first?” Snowie offered. “Though we’ll have to limit how much energy they can actually store, or else we’ll probably blow Akko’s arms off from the reaction...”

“And even if they do stay on, they’ll likely shatter all her bones, probably beyond repair this time...” Ruby muttered.

The two of them furrowed their brows as they considered a way around of this problem, before two metaphorical lightbulbs went off in their heads at the same time.

“Her semblance!” Ruby and Snowie said at the same time, their eyes shining with a similar glow.

“Temporary invincibility, plus a strength boost from the inhibition of her pain receptors, right?” Ruby asked.

“Exactly!” Snowie said, furiously scribbling now. “If we can train Akko to activate it JUST before it comes into contact, every single time, she can probably decimate whatever she’s attacking without completely fucking herself up!” The light in her eyes faded, her writing slowed down. “… And probably everyone around and behind her, too, because the reaction will likely send her spinning, or flying off at an angle like a missile, and then we better hope there isn’t anything hard and solid that she’ll hit while she still has high velocity, because her semblance would be deactivated and recharging by then, so...

She sighed and looked down. “… Never mind, it’s a terrible idea...” she mumbled as she put her quill down.

“Hey, don’t feel bad, we’re brainstorming!” Ruby said. “It’s a feature, not a bug! And besides, I got a great idea for how we can redirect all that force away from her arms, inspiration thanks to Diana’s semblance...”

Snowie blinked, looked at Ruby in a mix of wariness and fear, before she hesitantly took her quill back up. “Okay…? I’m listening…!”

Whitley gently nudged Weiss on the shoulder. “Don’t worry: I’m certain it’s simply just the two of them platonically nerd-bonding, nothing more,” he said teasingly.

Weiss blinked, and looked at him. “What are you talking about…?”

Whitley he looked at Ruby and Snowie deep in conversation once more, then back at Weiss’ confused expression. “Oh... oh, I see how it is,” he said, nodding and looking satisfied.

Weiss’ eyes widened. “Are you--?!” Her cheeks turned red. “Look here, you little shit: this isn’t one of your yuri manga or fanfics when the team full of girls eventually hook up with each other!” she hissed. “This is real life, Ruby is just my teammate and my friend, and if I may remind you again, I swore to hold off on the romance ever since Aqua...!”

“I believe you!” Whitley said, holding up his free hand. “Calm down, I believe you, Weiss!”

Weiss glared at him, before she sulked and went back to watching Starlight Crusaders.

“Here’s to hoping it goes better than it did with Aqua...” Whitley thought as he turned back to the screen, a small smile spreading on his face.

Yes, the Bunker also has a storage room full of robot helping legs, giant or otherwise. The other body parts and non-human limbs share a series of rooms together, because they’re not nearly as numerous enough to justify having their own dedicated storage.

No, Weiss is DEFINITELY not afraid her mother is going to attempt to make a move on Ruby, it’s more a “I’m jealous I can’t do this thing that my new, good friend clearly enjoys so much and needs at the moment because her arms are broken, and realize I could have learned to do it if I bothered to learn more about mechanical engineering when I was younger, and now I can’t even concentrate on my favourite show because I really kinda hate myself right now for not being here to help my teammate.” sort of feeling.

[moonsandstar-s]

The Final Warning - Chapter XXV

Chapter XXV - Flight of the Coward 

Summary:  As the year draws to a close, peace has finally dawned. The time for unity has arrived. In the Vytal festival, it is time for heroes to rise, bringing glory to their kingdoms. But as autumn dies, the first winds of winter blow over Remnant, chilling the hearts of the people; breathing doubt into their souls. Long-buried secrets will triumph, and every action will have a consequence. Ruby must reconcile herself with her own fate. Weiss struggles to escape her legacy. Blake cannot erase memories. Yang’s search leads her into more peril than ever— but none of them can outrun fate. Shadows turn on shadows, and bonds shatter as they are tested to the limit. For in dividing them, they will fall and burn; at the eye of the storm, no peace lasts forever. In the end and beginning of time, there is a place where the sun never rises, and the dead delight to teach the living. A great danger is rising from the darkness. It’s time to take sides. The final warning is coming. The first chill of winter is the most deadly; it is the chill that kills more than any other. The first betrayal is the most damaging; it is the act that shatters bonds of love and trust, crushing even the strongest heart, tearing teams apart. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7745314/chapters/22069091 Blake

She disappeared from view, leaving Weiss, Sun, and the school behind.

She bounded her way from step to step, past the desolate courtyard, past the school that was now an empty shell, one that would only ever hold ghosts of what she had once loved, past Vale itself, and her feelings grew and grew. A wave of choking emotion rose up inside of her, clamoring in her mind, and something inside her splintered as the wave finally did crash over her, darkness closing over her head and constricting her throat, pulling her downwards into bottomless grief.

And she ran.

She bolted, taking off like a shot, away from Beacon, away from Vale, not caring where she went as long as it widened the distance between her and what she had done. She ran, taking off over broken slabs of stone, over corpses who had died not long ago, her entire body humming with the knowledge, the confusion, pain, and fear of knowing that what had happened to the one she loved had been her fault, that her mere presence was to bring death and pain.

She ran, fast and far, past buildings, past places she had once loved. She stumbled, going down in a tumble as she tripped over a corpse, and nausea rose in her throat with a sudden, lashing surge, because the corpse could have been anyone, could have been Adam, could have been Yang. She rose to her feet and fled. She ran, heart torn asunder, her very soul crying out with the raw sky and pouring rain. She ran, the ground blurring past under her feet. She ran, knowing she could not escape the truth of what happened… no matter how much she ran, she knew she would never leave it behind.

Snow had begun to fall again, white flakes flurrying past as dawn slowly lifted its head above the horizon. But in her mind the snow was not snow, but the softness of Yang’s hair, and the light of the moon was the light of Yang’s eyes, and the wind whistling in the alleys was not the wind, but Yang’s voice calling out brokenly, blindly, for her, keening a song of inexpressible grief into the night.

You were right, she thought, staggering to a halt and going to her knees, fingers clawing at her temples, as if she could claw out the memories. Her voice cracked as tears finally streamed down her face, reality hitting her with the force of a semi-truck. She wasn’t Blake, a warrior, strong and proud— she was just a seventeen year old girl who had watched someone she’d once loved die and another nearly die because of her, and she was broken because of it, hardly able to contain her own grief. You were right, you were right, you were right… I’m only a coward and I’ll only ever bring pain and hurt to those I love…

Ayran had been right, in the end, and so had Adam. She had never, never escaped him or the White Fang, and even in death, he was hunting her. And as she took flight through the bleak streets, her eyes were blurred, with her speed or something else… she could not tell.  

She made it out of Vale, past the school, past the city, into a rough, untamed wilderness. Out here, she was on her own, unprotected from the Grimm, from the White Fang, but this was the way it had to be, ever since she had cut the cord on a train car and sealed her own fate. She collapsed, finally, sure that she was far enough away to rest, to get a grip of where she was and her physical status. She slumped in a sheltered grove of trees, crawling beneath their welcoming, open branches, burrowing into the dead leaves for warmth. The bitter wind sloughed through the trees, rattling the branches above her head like bones, bringing tears to her eyes.

Hands shaking, she lifted the hem of her shirt, and almost passed out at what she saw there. Sage’s abilities to heal were extensive, but they could only do so much, and it was obvious. The wound on her abdomen, right above her hipbone, where Adam had stabbed her, was edged with ragged scraps of skin, blood still oozing sluggishly out of the wound. It was a dark red color around the edges, a bright scarlet in the center; the sword had gone straight through the skin on the side of her body, surpassing her organs and bone, but piercing flesh and muscle, and it hurt worse than any physical wound she had sustained thus far.

But it’s nothing compared to what Yang has lost, she thought ferociously at herself, gritting her teeth as the night wind stung it. This is what you deserve, your penance, and even then it’s only a fraction of what he did to her, because you were there. He only harmed her because of you…

As she lay curled up there, in the darkness and shadows, their faces, the faces of those she had known, swam before her eyes, too quickly for her to grasp—   Sun, his face lined and weary, blood streaking his hands, churning gray eyes dark. Dark, with the promise of storms to come, of tornadoes and twisters and hurricanes—   Pyrrha, her eyes slowly glazing over and fading, hollow and empty of light, like some essential spark had fled from her—   Ruby, silver gaze blazing with a ferocious light, cold as chips of ice, her face as hollow and drawn as an angel plummeting from the sky with its wings burning up—   Weiss, tormented, a fractured coldness in her expression, filled with clouds that would unleash the first storm of war—   Yang, her face calm, eyes closed; as Blake watched, her eyes snapped open, fiery as the sun, her expression twisting into one of hatred and loathing, and she struck out at Blake, snarling—  

She jackknifed up, out of the hollow in the leaves, and retched, trembling, though her body had nothing left to give her. All the poison was within her mind, within her very soul, and there was nothing she could do to fix the mess she had created. I’ll run, she thought dully. I will run, because it is what I do the best, always leaving behind dust and shadows in my wake. I will run… because the White Fang can never catch me.

We are what we are, Adam, and I am never to be kept for long. / / / 

She was more exhausted than she had ever been after navigating along the coast of Vale, now miles away from the city and school, and from the towns on the outskirts. She had scavenged from the city after she left, taking nonperishables and Lien, bandages for her wounds, medicines and matches. Everything she stole was taken from the people who had died in the attack, people who would not be coming back for their supplies and notice that a few were missing. She knew how to survive on her own; she always had. She had run away from the White Fang, hidden her identity, survived, got an education, kept herself on top of things— she knew how to be alone, knew how to survive.

She walked along the coast of the sea, shivering against the brutally icy winds that knifed off of the waters, looking out at the high waves that slapped the shore like blasts from artillery guns. The sky was a mottled gray, and she pulled her cloak closer around her— a heavy black thing, made from the pelt of some animal, with a silver buckle; she had found it in a broken-down home on the very outskirts of the city.

I need to get moving faster, she thought. The attack’s completely wrapped up by now, and they’ll be sending students back home if they haven’t already, looking for survivors in the city and keeping track of who died and who lived… and the White Fang will be on my trail.

But she hadn’t really left much of one, if she could help it. She had disguised her scent with pine, and walked in streams, when she could stand it, but the water was so bitterly cold that she couldn’t keep it up for long. She had tried to keep to the edges of towns, so no one would see her, but still, the fear of being caught by the White Fang dogged her, hunting her persistently and relentlessly. As long as she kept them running after her, she kept them distracted, and she kept Yang safe. The minute that protection failed— the minute she was caught— Yang was in danger, and that was a thought that she could not stand.

Only by disappearing and keeping them hunting me can I save her in a way I could not save her before. It was my fault she got hurt; I must ensure it does not happen again.

Suddenly, a thought struck her, prominent as if someone had placed it directly in her mind, and she froze dead in her tracks, heart beating violently in her chest.

But she’s not safe, you careless fool, because you’ve done nothing about your Bond, and she’ll know where you are at all times because of it…. she might even try to follow you, and get herself killed!

“You idiot!” she hissed, berating herself for such an ignorant mistake. She should have broken it the moment she fled Beacon, should have been smarter. Now, she had a tether, following her at all times. Who knew what Yang would do? Blake didn’t have any clue any more, because she would have changed. Changed after Blake’s departure, whether she liked it or not.

But then, suddenly and chillingly, Adam’s words rang loudly in her mind, sneering and taunting. “What goes around comes around, my love, and I swear, Blake, by the end of tonight, you will leave her— your Bond with her will be over, and you will break it. Willingly.”

So he had been right on one count: Blake had left Yang before the night was over, and she shivered at the prospect of having him be right on the other prediction as well.

It must be done, she thought in anguish, trying and failing to push those needling words out of her mind. It must, do you understand? It doesn’t matter how I feel about it, but I have to… I have…

But as she stood there, shaking, her hands in fists against her sides, something stopped her. Try as she might to summon up the will to do it— to speak those words— ‘I renounce everything I have ever told you. I revoke our Bond. For in promises broken and vows deceived, this Bond stands for a trust that no longer exists. In Death, all Bonds are split; in Life, a fire has been extinguished, and this connection stands no longer. I revoke the soul I share and rescind words of hope that were spoken; I give up the recourse of that which a Bond entails. For though it is in passing that we achieve immortality, living forever is a dark path. No one may live eternal, so it is that lingering, old ghosts are resurrected. I take back my soul and by my own shoulder protect my own. I offer this up now; this ossified Bond I shatter, never to be renewed again’— she just could not do it.

“I can’t,” she whispered brokenly, falling to her knees in the middle of the track, overwhelmed by self-loathing as she covered her face with her hands. “I can’t.”

It was more than the fact that she loved Yang, loved her more than life itself, and it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t have the courage to do it, and it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t mean the words that were used to break a Bond— she could never mean those words, truly, could never mean that she didn’t want to be a part of Yang any longer. It was one plain, simple fact, speaking out in her mind in a small, sensible voice: haven’t you hurt Yang enough? What will she do if you break your Bond with her? It might kill her, break her spirit irrevocably— even more than you already have.

Practically choking on her grief and self-hatred, she rose to her feet, wiping the tears from her eyes and continuing down the track. There was nothing she could do about it now— nothing she could do, really, except to keep running, to put as much distance between them as she possibly could. The more distance, the more Yang would be unable to follow after her. It was the only solace she had, the faintest glimmer of light in the darkness that had engulfed her life, and she clung to it desperately.

She fell asleep that night in some abandoned farm-shed miles away from the nearest town. The inside was warmer than it was outside, but it was still freezing, and her breath plumed out in front of her in a silvery cloud that dissipated as soon as it appeared. Pillars of rotten wood held up the rickety roof, and limp straw was scattered all over the floor. Walking to the farthest corner, and settling down there, she wrapped her cloak tighter around herself and took out an apple, stripping it to the core in seconds. She had no appetite— hadn’t since the previous night when her life had been torn apart— but she had to survive. A feral, animalistic need to live, to press on despite the fact that she didn’t have anything left to live for, really, kept her going, and she didn’t fight it. Her life was as good as forfeit, but if she could lure the White Fang away from Patch, it was worth it. Rustling her cloak closer, with a sigh and a shiver, she slipped into sleep.

She was not surprised when she found herself, what seemed like moments later, a beautifully colored dream.

She hadn’t expected them to go away, and she had known they would be ever-present and even worse after she had killed Adam, no matter how pretty and unmalicious they appeared to be at first glance. Such was the laws of her nightmares, awful as it was. She had to ride it out and wake up the next morning… but when she saw the slim, beautiful figure of the warrior stalking towards her, a part of her didn't ever want to wake up.

Blake was in an empty clearing washed in silver moonlight, the slightest chill emitting from the shadows, and with a sudden awful pang, she remembered the light from the Tower, the silver light that apparently had swallowed up Ruby, the sister whose fate, after what had happened last night, she did not know. A forest ringed this clearing, and it was from this forest that the warrior was walking out of. She slowly padded out from between the slender elder trees, their branches bent towards her like the arms of old friends, weaving together their strong protective boughs, and as she emerged into the ethereal light, exposing her gaunt face even further— though she had already known who it was; she would know her face anywhere— Blake’s heart broke in two.

“Blake,” Yang whispered, her barely-audible voice full of longing, as she stopped, several feet away, and as Blake looked into her eyes, they were absolutely and completely heartbroken.

Blake fell to her knees, barely feeling the impact; it had all the soft, padded edges of a dream. But the clarity of Yang's eyes was very clear, as was the remote look she saw there, as if she were a million miles away, untouchable though she was right there.

"Yang." Blake forced the words out as if they were shards of broken glass, scraping her throat, making her choke on regret. "Are you... are you... Do you hate me now?"

"I could never hate you, Blake. Not any more than I could hate a part of myself." Her eyes slid away, not meeting Blake’s. "There's an absence now," she murmured. “It’s weird; it’s inside of me, it’s like… our Bond isn’t broken. It’s asleep, it can’t be woken by me alone… It’s empty. It’s not like something that is shattered— it’s something that’s melting away… and it’s because of you." She looked towards the sky, and the frosty light of the moon reflected back within her eyes. "I know what my father feels like now, at least. To be abandoned by someone you love like nothing else... but that doesn't matter. Something inside you is hard to explain, Blake. Something beautiful, but something broken, too. Maybe you've been singled out for a special destiny. Special torments. And maybe that destiny doesn't leave room for me.”

“Destiny—”

Yang spoke softly, but it made Blake break off her sentence immediately. “I’ve realized something. Between the months I might have come to know you, but I don't own you. That much is clear."

“No, Yang, that’s…” She trailed off.

Yang paused. "I loved you. I set you free. You left and did not return. What should that tell me? I take it hard, but it's hard to take, knowing you left voluntarily. I'm falling behind, always falling behind, seeing you always in the distance but never able to reach you..."

"I loved you," Blake said hoarsely, crawling forward. "You must know - I loved you more than I thought I could love anyone." She half-turned away, eyes stinging. "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," she choked. "My fault, my own fault, my own most grievous fault."

She felt Yang's hand touch her cheek, guiding her face towards hers. Her eyes were impossibly sad. When their foreheads rested together, the night whirled around them, and the stars died. They were in the heart of the darkness, utterly alone. The only light came from the pinprick of white that was the moon, illuminating them in a spotlight of silver.

"I should have been injured, not you. I'm sorry," Blake breathed. "I'm so sorry, Yang."

"Blake," Yang whispered, the name in her mouth like a cry of senseless grief, eyes shining bright and broken,"if you ever loved me at all, then why did you leave me?"

Before Blake could speak, the dream surged around her, spinning furiously, leaving her staggering. It swirled wildly like the heart of a maelstrom, forces tearing at her like she had been thrust into a tornado, and then it upended, heaving, sending her plummeting into a maw of blackness. A great wave of shadows descended on Blake's vision as she plunged down—

down—

—down—

—down—

into darkness

into the shadows of a heaving ocean of Grimm

into the echoing space of heartbeats

into endless tunnels and twisting passages

into swirling nightmares and broken vows

into agony worse than any breaking of a Bond

into the cries of the dead and the wails of the lost

into chilling ice and freezing rain

into the blazing light of lilac eyes and golden sunlight hair

into warm laughter brushing by her ear before it faded into nothing

into the lamentations of phoenixes

into the mournful songs of crickets

into the shining light that sank in darkness

into the void

into complete and utter

silence.

And Yang was torn from her -

rent apart and scattered into a thousand glittering shards

blazing away like a golden comet's tail as agony tore through Blake, making her twist and writhe

she screamed Yang's name, but nothing answered, just howling wind spiraling away, as fire rocked her to the bone

bubbles and life wrenched from her jaws to flood the abyss unnamed stars flashed behind her eyes in the inky depths. Faces swam before her, too quickly for her to grab—

— and not one of them was Yang's.

Blake awoke, a scream dying in her throat, the sharp coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. She remembered the dream in sharp detail, and, her body turning traitor on her, she turned and retched. Sweating shivers made her back arch as her body struggled to expel all the poisons she'd accumulated. Swearing, she rolled to her feet and burst out of the shed, starting off down the broken dirt path that wound away in front of her.

What use was it to pretend that she was fine— or for that matter, to pretend that Yang was better off now? It was all Adam’s fault, but it was hers as well. She missed Yang, missed her with a gnawing ache that was almost physical. For what was the happenstance with that which was lost and broken, she knew that their paths were unlikely to ever intersect again. And if they did, it would never be the same. Broken hearts never healed the same way. Blake was no more the girl who had met Yang in the Emerald Forest then Yang was a girl of light.

I am sorry, she thought, looking up at the blue sky, filled with wispy cirrus clouds, which was slowly clearing as the brisk wind pushed the snowstorms away. There’s no forgiveness, not for what I’ve done… but maybe there’s one more thing I can do before I disappear into the wilderness of Remnant for good.

And with that thought in mind, she drew a pen and sheet of crumpled paper out of her pack of supplies, and slowly, carefully, began to write a letter. / / / 

A/N: Looks like Blake feels as though her presence is almost like Qrow’s is, in canon: misfortune to those she loves around her. It’s not her actual semblance, of course— she’s got the shadow-clones— and Qrow’s semblance isn’t misfortune in this universe, (it’s turning into a crow, here) but it’s an interesting parallel I noticed after completing this chapter. Those two have a lot in common (like being my favorite characters, haha.)

For those curious, or simply geographical nerds, I would mark her as being roughly 30 to 40 miles away from Beacon at this point in time. Girl runs fast and covers a lot of ground when she wants to. And as we know, dreams are not necessarily a reflection on reality, nor is dream!Yang in this chapter a true reflection of how she feels in real life. In the next chapter, we turn back to her story after the events of the Fall of Beacon.

[play-read-write]

RWBY Phantom Jack O’ Lantern

Fandom: RWBY Words: 1899 Description: Danny Phantom AU. Ruby and her friends find a grimm, a malicious creature from the Ghost Zone, robbing a shop and intervene to try and stop it. 

Ruby walked down the street taking exaggerated steps and humming to herself. Her friends walked with her, Weiss on one side, her sister Yang on the other, and Blake pulling up the rear as she read and walked. It was a simple journey, a time out with friends as they headed down to Wok In The Park for a bit to eat. At least that’s what it would have been, if it hadn’t been rudely interrupted.

A woman ran past them from the direction they were headed. She was screaming as she ran, and was soon followed by a couple more people doing the same.

“You don’t think…” Ruby says.

“Isn’t it always?” Blake says.

“Let’s go check it out.” Yang says and they take off running. Soon enough they find the cause, just as expected. The windows of a shop were shattered and money floated around an eerily glowing figure of a man in hat with a cane.

“Weiss?” Ruby asks.

“I’m looking.” Weiss says, already on her scroll. “No information. Either new or too small to know about.”

“Well, guess there’s one way to learn.” Ruby says. “I’m going ghost.” She runs into an alleyway nearby and looks to make sure no one can see her. With a burst of power two rings form at her waist, one rising up and the other going down, changing her appearance.

Her usually black hair takes on a blood red look, her hood turns pure white and her clothes beneath it change to black and white with only a few splashes of blood red. Then for a finishing touch her eyes begin to glow with a green light.

Jumping into the air she turns and flies back out of the alleyway and towards the shop. “Hey.” She calls out, “What are you doing?”

“Oh my, oh my, what have we here?” The ghost says, leaning on his cane despite his feet not touching the ground. “I must ask, why does it look like I’m doing?”

“It looks like you’re robbing that store.” Ruby says.

“Right in one, wow you are good.” He says, pointing at her. “It’s almost like I’m a thief.”

“Who are you, why are you robbing them? You’re a Grimm, a ghost, you don’t need money.”

“To answer your first question, the name’s Roman Torchwick, and as for the stealing…” He looks at the things around him, “Well that I just enjoy.”

“Not anymore you don’t.” Ruby says.

“And just why is that? Who are you to tell me not to, little girl?”

“I am Phantom, and I’m here to stop you.” Ruby says.

“Oh we’ll see.” He says and raises his cane, pointing it at her. A moment later a ghostly laughing jack O’ Lantern shot out of it, right at her.

Her eyes went wide and she turned, flying around, barely ahead of each shot as it impacted things around her. Making herself intangible she flew through a wall, hearing the shots impact it. Turning around right where he wouldn’t expect she flew back out of the wall and fired off green beams from her hands, hitting him in the chest and sending him backwards.

Flying at him she drew back her fist, ready to hit him again, only to be caught in the chest by a sudden shot. She tumbled backwards in the air and fell to the ground. Just before another one could hit her she sunk into the ground. Moving through the ground out of sight she came up behind him and blasted him in the back.

“Oh now that is it.” He cries out. Pulling the cigar out of his mouth he raises his foot and stomps down on it. As he does there’s a bright flash of light, causing Ruby to shield her eyes. When she looks back again he’s gone.

“Dang it.” She says, looking around. Not seeing him anywhere she turns and dives down into the ground. A few moments later she rises up behind her friends, invisible for a moment before reappearing with a loud “Boo!”

“Gah!” Weiss says and jumps. Yang on the other hand turns around with a right hook that passes right through Ruby. “Don’t do that!” Weiss says.

“Scaredy cats.” Ruby says with a giggle, turning back to normal. “Well, we’ve got a new ghost to deal with, this one with a few tricks up their sleeve.”

“I’ve saved the name.” Weiss says, tapping on her scroll. “Roman Torchwick. I’m also already working on comprising a list of his abilities. So far we’ve seen those strange jack o’ lantern blasts and a bright flash.”

“Technically we didn’t see the flash.” Yang says, “Wait. Oh no.” her eyes go wide.

“What is it?” Ruby asks, suddenly worried.

“That terrible old ghost dude just flashed my little sister!” She says before grinning.

Weiss face palms as Blake groans and Ruby pouts. “I was worried for a minute!” Ruby says.

“Oh come on that was a good one.” Yang says.

“Let’s just go help the shop owner clean up.” Ruby says, “We can go get the food after.”

“Yeah yeah, let’s go.” Yang agrees as they head over to lend a hand.

…

“I’m still not used to all this.” Weiss says as she sits down at the lunch table with the others, students moving all around them.

“What, public school food?” Yang asks, “Yeah you never really do get used to it.”

“No not that.” Weiss says, “Though this… stuff is still strange. I’m not even sure it qualifies as food.”

“You can eat it without dying, so it’s food.” Blake says.

“Really?” Ruby asks, “Cause I ate it and now I’m a ghost.”

“Nice.” Yang says, giving Ruby a high five.

“That is what I’m talking about.” Weiss says, “You’re half grimm now.”

“Half ghost.” Blake corrects.

“What’s the difference?” Weiss asks.

“Grimm are malicious beings of darkness from the ghost zone.” Yang says, “They’re bad guys. Like, there are good ghosts, beings from there that don’t want to destroy humanity and steal stuff and whatnot, but the Grimm are the bad ones. They’ve got some kind of different energy apparently.”

“Right, your father’s a Grimm hunter, of course you’d know.” Weiss says.

“Well duh.” Ruby says as she eats.

“It’s still weird to me though.” Weiss says, “You can shift between dimensional phases at will and we battle beings from an alternate plane of reality. What kind of people have these problems?”

“Us, apparently.” Yang says, taking a bite. “I mean, it’s kind of odd, but odd things happen around our house so you get used to it.”

“Well what about you?” Weiss asks Blake, “You’re not there all the time, you have to find this weird.”

“There was an accident, Ruby got super powers. Get used to it, Weiss.” Blake says, “She’s still Ruby.”

“You’re all odd.” Weiss says.

“Yep.” Ruby says with a grin. “Oh, and since we’re talking about it, does anyone know anything about that Torchwick guy?”

“I did find something.” Weiss says, “Apparently a few small shops have been hit as well. It appears our new ghost is a petty thief.”

“So we need to keep an eye on small shops with a few pricey things?”

“Awesome, stake out.” Yang says, pumping a fist.

“Well I have picked out a few choice targets.” Weiss says.

“I’m game. I’m a night person anyway.” Blake says.

“Sweet, let’s hatch a plan.” Ruby says.

…

A crash echoed through the night as a window shattered. “Gya ha ha ha. Oh this is too much fun.” Came Roman’s voice. “Ohh, shiny.”

“Ruby I’ve got him.” Yang says into her scroll from her spot hiding across the street.

“On my way.” Ruby says, closing her own. Jumping up she turned on her powers, turning invisible and intangible as she flew through the air towards Yang’s location. Luckily Yang was the closest one to her.

“Let’s see let’s see, where to go next?” Roman says as he floats down the street, headed for another store, bills and change floating around him.

Ruby comes flying down the street and doesn’t even bother warning him. Drawing back she throws a blast forward, knocking him down. “How about back to the ghost zone?” She says.

“Ugh, the little punk again.” He says, firing off a few blasts from his cane at her as he got up.

This time Ruby met them with shots of her own, causing them to burst in midair. Through the small explosions she didn’t see him rush forward, swinging his cane down to hit her to the side and then pinning her against the wall with it.

“Just a little girl who wants to be a hero.” He says, “Well not for much longer.”

“Oh yeah?” Ruby says and goes intangible. She couldn’t phase through ghostly matter, but the wall behind her was normal so she could step back away from him easily. As he fell forward from the sudden loss of resistance she raised a knee and caught him in the face. Then she let off another blast, sending him flying back.

“Ruby, catch.” Yang called out, throwing her a rectangular hunk of metal. “Dad finished it!”

“Awesome.” Ruby says. With a flip of the switch it transformed, shifting into a large scythe.

“What are you gonna do with that, prune me?” Roman asked, getting up.

“Better.” Ruby says with a smile. She flies forward with it drawn back, swerving around his blasts. When she got close enough she swung down with the heal of it, striking again and again. Swinging it around her she fought, each of them striking out and deflecting each-other’s strikes. Finally she spots her chance.

Swinging upwards he leans back to avoid it and she lets go, letting the scythe get tossed into the air as she throws her hand forward with a blast. He’s caught off guard and knocked back as she jumps into the air, catching it again and flying down at him. “Grimm reaper!” She cries out as she flies past him, swinging the scythe blade down across his middle.

The technology imbued in the scythe activate at the contact, sucking the ghostly energy into the blade with the strike. Spinning it around she collapses it back into the other form, trapping him inside. “That was awesome!” She cries out gleefully while spinning in flight.

“Go Ruby!” Yang calls, coming out of hiding.

“Did you guys see that?” She asks, seeing Yang, Weiss, and Blake walking toward her.

“Weiss and I just caught the last part.” Blake says, “It was cool.”

“So that’s the new ghost catcher you came up with.” Weiss says.

“Yep.” Ruby says, “Worked with dad to finish it. Pretty cool huh?”

“Super cool.” Yang says.

“It’s certainly going to work better than luring them back to the portal.” Blake says.

“Speaking of which.” Ruby says, deactivating her powers, “Let’s get this guy back.”

“Good idea. After that, bed.” Yang says.

“We do have class tomorrow.” Weiss says.

“I’m just tired.” Ruby says, “I had to get hit with a stick.” She complains as she leads the way back.

“At least we took one out.” Blake says.

“Yep, now just to see what we face tomorrow.” Yang says.

“We’re going to do this more often aren’t we?” Weiss says.

“Yep.” Ruby says, “I always wanted to be a hero after all.”

[claeriekavanaugh]

Intro: What is your name, what do you write, where can readers find you on social media, and where can readers find your book? And just for fun, if you could be any mythical being or creature, who or what would you be?

Hi! I’m Kyle Robert Shultz, and I write snarky fairytale fantasy in an alternate 1920’s world. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. My first book, The Beast of Talesend, is available on Amazon and other ebook markets.

Hmm, any mythical creature…dragon is very tempting, but I’d probably go with centaur for sheer practicality. Ease of transportation without high gasoline bills, and no loss of opposable thumbs. Groceries and housing might present a problem, however. XD

Beast of Talesend is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  This is a popular fairytale to retell and it has been the inspiration for many authors.  What drew you to the story and which version appeals to you the most, Grimm, or Disney?

There’s a ton of storytelling and character potential packed into Beauty and the Beast. I think that’s why it’s been so popular over the years. You can twist the format around in many ways to create intriguing and powerful stories. The Disney version is my favorite–both Disney versions. I wish I could take elements of each one and smush them together into a single, perfect adaptation. Each film has its strengths and weaknesses.

2. How is Beast of Talesend different from other Beauty and the Beast stories?

What sets my book apart is that it’s not a retelling in the strict sense. It’s more of an answer to the question, “What happened after the original story?” That being said, there is a  retelling of the original tale included in the text, and it’s a story I may expand on in the future. Watch this space. 😀 Also, I’ve set the book in a unique alternate reality that blends 1920’s London with magic and fantasy. I don’t think anyone’s done that before…then again, at this point, I’m used to finding out that even my wackiest ideas are already taken. 

2. There are a lot of fun Easter eggs in Beast of Talesend that allude to other previously famous fairytales? Which was the most fun to twist?

Even though it’s been done many, many times before, I enjoyed mixing up the tale of Snow White. There’s so much scary and cool stuff you can do with mirrors. It was fun to create a deeper mythology behind that story that fits into the wider scope of my fictional universe. The Snow-White-related themes in The Beast of Talesend will be explored further in a future book that’s more centered around that particular fairy tale.

3. Do you find there are central themes or elements that are unique to your books? (For example, are you drawn to anti-heroes, antagonists, certain settings etc.) Why do those things stand out to you?

Villains and anti-heroes are my favorite characters. They’re the most interesting to write, in my opinion. (This is why Cordelia is sort of an ex-villain.) I also like to mix up “modern” themes with magic. Most fantasy books fall into either medieval or contemporary time periods. I like to pick times and settings that are more atypical. Beast is basically urban fantasy in the 1920’s. Future books, however, will go to a variety of other settings.

4. One of the things that really stood out to me in this book was the snappy dialogue. It was so funny and engaging, but also managed to propel the story forward. What advice would you give to other writers to help improve their own dialogue?

First off, thanks! Very kind of you to say. 🙂 The key to good dialogue is to have fully fleshed-out characters. If your characters don’t have distinctive personalities, backgrounds, accents, etc., then their dialogue will come out stilted and unnatural. Develop your characters in detail and try to get into their heads as you write their conversations. If they all sound the same, then you have a problem. Think of them as people, and they won’t just be robots parroting the information you need to get onto the page. A good way to practice is to try throwing your characters into a variety of different situations and free-writing their reactions. It will help you to find their distinctive voices.

5. What character would you say you relate to the most?

Nick. His sarcasm and his tendency to overthink things are very me. I would hope that I’m a little less uptight than him, however.

6. Give us your best behind the scenes story from writing the book.

I workshopped the book on Scribophile (an online critique community) before I got around to publishing it. At first, I really struggled to get it off the ground. I think I wrote about five different versions of the first chapter, all of which got politely tepid responses from the people on that site. I was trying way, way too hard, and it showed. Finally, I gave up. I stopped trying to make it absolutely amazingly perfect and tried having fun with it instead. The line “I’m sorry, Miss Hogarth, but I’m afraid this toad is not your fiancée” popped into my head. The rest is history. Very recent history, but history all the same. XD

7. Madame Levesque and Lord Whitlock reminded me quite a lot of the famous voodoo queen or New Orleans legend Marie Laveau and Rumpelstiltskin respectively. Were either of these people used as inspiration and if not, who was?

I suppose Rumpelstiltskin did have some influence on Whitlock’s brash, gleefully evil personality. My main inspiration for his character, however, was a figure from the works of P.G. Wodehouse–Major Plank, an “empire-building” British explorer of the old school. Very proper, very overconfident. The Master from Doctor Who informed some of Whitlock’s darker qualities (the Geoffrey Beevers and Alex MacQueen incarnations, specifically). As for Levesque, while there’s definitely a name similarity, she doesn’t really have any connection to Laveau. Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice was my model for her character. (I mean, think about it. Lady Catherine with magical powers. How scary is that?)

8. Nick as a beast and the other beastly characters look quite different in my mind despite being victims of the same curse. Can you shed some light as to why that is?

The in-story explanation is that Nick didn’t get the “full blast,” as it were, when he was cursed. His enchantment is a toned-down version of the original Beast spell. The reason for this narrative choice on my part was that I wanted a balance between scary and funny in the story. The Disney version of the Beast has been criticized by some for toning down the horror of the original fairytale. I don’t really have a problem with that, hence Nick’s more Disney-esque appearance, but I also wanted there to be genuinely frightening monsters. I really don’t think people would have been drawn to a main character as creepy as the fully-transformed Beasts depicted in the book. Nick’s better off as an intimidating-yet-not-utterly-horrifying gargoyle/minotaur. XD

9 . What can you tell us about book two of the series? Any behind the scenes secrets?

The Tomb of the Sea Witch gives The Little Mermaid the Beaumont and Beasley treatment. There are surprising twists on the original story and a few nods to the Disney version as well. The book also features Nick, Cordelia, and Crispin going undercover in a Hogwarts-like school, which was loads of fun to write. 😀 I can tease that The Little Mermaid isn’t the only classic ocean-related story that gets referenced, and that there’s a huge twist near the middle of the book that will turn everything upside down.

10. What is/are one or two pieces of advice that you learned while revising the first draft that you wish you had known before you started?

One thing I didn’t do when revising Book 1, and which has been very helpful in working on Book 2, is to convert the draft into an ebook and try reading it on my Kindle in order to spot errors. That method brings things to light which are easy to miss when reading from a Word or Scrivener document. On the other hand, I also wish I hadn’t overstressed quite so much about the revisions for Book 1. When people spotted a few embarrassing typos after I’d published it, I was mortified. But it turned out that I was far more worried about it than they were. The whole thing blew over, and it didn’t affect the book’s success at all. Finally, I wish I’d known about onestopforwriters.com…VERY helpful site.

11. This is random but fun one, if you could pick any time period to live in, when would you live and why?

The Old West. Untamed wilderness, horses as the primary means of transportation, the occasional showdown with desperadoes…I could live with that. XD

12. What is one book you think every YA writer should read at least once?

Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. The worst thing any author can do is to fall into the trap of thinking there’s only one right way to write a book. James’ book frees writers from that philosophy. You may not agree with him on everything, but you’ll at least find yourself able to relax more about the craft.

Thank you Kyle! Don’t forget, Beast of Talesend is available on Amazon and other ebook markets and you can say hi to Kyle on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.

As always, keep making magic, word weavers!

Author Interview with Kyle Schultz Intro: What is your name, what do you write, where can readers find you on social media, and where can readers find your book?

[ruffsficstuffplace]

And The AWRD Goes To... (Part 21)

Thud!

Akko let her head hit the table in front of her, her hands still on the thick, heavy, old tome she had just pushed away. “I give up...” she sobbed into the wood. “This is it, I’m done, I’m doomed... not even two days into Haven, and already I’ve washed out of Huntress training…”

The students around their table either gave Akko looks of sympathy, or annoyance at distracting them from their own reading and homework.

Diana sighed, and put a bookmark on the passage she was on. “I would suggest taking another break, but it seems like this method of studying is ineffective for you, say the least...” she said quietly.

“It’s really not...” Akko replied as she raised her head from the table, rested her chin on the surface. “Aww, I wish Weiss was here… she and Uncle Nick always had this way of taking complicated things and explaining them in ways I’d understand...”

Meanwhile, in a different section of the library, Weiss was doing just that. “Bellici-Noh is basically giving investors the odds that their investment might be worth this much in the future, assuming everything stays roughly the way they currently are, and absolutely no dramatic or catastrophic changes happen in the meanwhile.

“Think of it like an artillery specialist giving their commanding officers the odds for this particular type of mortar shell to hit a target, this far away from their most ideal firing position, how much damage the explosion might do, and how efficient it is compared to a different type of munition, all based on current battlefield conditions, the weather outside at the time, and all known types of shell, not including ones in development, or not yet formally deployed.

“I have to emphasize, though, the BeN’s predictions rarely, if ever, come close to reality; sometimes, they even tend to be really off the mark, like during the actual firing, it suddenly rains, that shell’s effectiveness drops dramatically in a moisture-rich environment, and, uh, assume that none of the engineers on-site can modify the shells, logistics can’t send them a different batch, and they’ll have to fire anyway, despite knowing full well it performs poorly in the rain, because command already paid for it, and can’t get a refund.

“… Sorry, weapon analogies are really new to me.”

“It’s totally fine, I actually really get it now!” Ruby replied. “Except one thing: if the BeN’s so unreliable in predicting the future, why do they still use it?”

“Because, even if the exact numbers are almost always off, it’s a good measurement for a company’s health in the present, and how likely they are to be profitable, or just still be in business in the future.”

“But can’t you do that without the predictions? You know, just look at how they are right now?”

“Not exactly, Ruby. Maybe the company’s just a brand new startup, and even though it may be small now, they’re primed to take advantage of a huge wave, or even a hot new industry like never before, such as the very first CCT-focused companies.

“Ah… think of like the first mass-production and deployment of fully-automatic firearms; no confirmed kills at time of first deployment and Mantle pushed itself even further into their resource crisis with them, but everyone could tell they were a good investment with how they could mow down hordes of simulated targets with ease…!

“… Aaaannnddd on an unrelated note: add comparing the first tech giants with one of the darkest turning points of the Great War to the list of weird, questionable things I’ve done in the name of studying!”

“There a lot of those?” Ruby asked.

“Oh, plenty!” Akko replied. “Not just analogies, either—mnemonics, weird stories so I could remember the sequence of things, songs, even—we always had to switch things up so I could stay interested and remember it.

“I guess it also really helped that Uncle Nick always had a lot of office supplies lying around, since he’s always learning something new himself, so I could get really creative with my own notes.”

“How so?” Diana asked, putting a fresh sheet of paper over her notebook.

“Oh, lots of ways: sometimes I’d just redraw graphs, maps, and formulas, in ways that I could understand them better, sometimes I’d make flash cards on all kinds of paper and with all kinds of pens, and sometimes we’d even put up cards, pictures, and my notes on the forest by her house, connect them up by string, and I’d just follow them to see how they all connected.”

“Wouldn’t that last one have been more efficient and simpler if you just drew a concept map on a piece of paper?” Diana asked as she wrote down notes.

“Oh, we tried that, but the problem is I’d start fidgeting and get antsy when I sat still for too long, and having to walk all the time helped with that,” Akko replied.

Diana nodded. “It all seems like quite a lot of work, effort, and cost in supplies, though.”

“It was definitely a good thing grandpa can get supplies in bulk and on the cheap, yeah,” Weiss said. “But it worked, and it got Akko through Combat School.” She sighed. “Man, I really hope she can adapt to all this reading and conventional note taking, there’s no way we could ever find the space nor the time to build something like that up here in Haven—just the stockpiles alone would take up a quarter of our room.”

“Maybe it’s not entirely impossible, though!” Ruby said. “I think I might be able to figure out some way to make it more space efficient, and less time, resource, and work intensive if I had enough opportunity and materials to experiment. I mean, the crux of the system was that it was varied enough to keep Akko from getting bored, sometimes move around and exercise, right?”

“You really think you’d be able to build something like that?” Weiss aksed.

Ruby snorted. “Weiss, please! I’m a weapons engineer: understanding, designing, and refining systems are kind of my thing.

“Sure, the ultimate goal won’t be killing Grimms and fighting off potential human opponents as quickly, efficiently, and simply as possible, but when you really get down to it, the design of any weapon is based on making a whole lot of potential actions be possible and efficient with the one machine.

“It’s kind of like how Shooting Star’s designed:

“It needs to have a stable, secure handle for the blade because of all the high-impact, heavy trauma it experiences every time Akko fights up close or defends with it, so it’s breach-loading, to provide the least amount of internal mechanisms and moving parts that might get damaged or knocked out of alignment from the reaction of melee attacks or recoil.

“And even though its rate of fire and maximum ammo capacity is pretty bad, it compensates for it by being able to fire shotgun shells, grenades, and Showstoppers without completely breaking apart from the sheer force of the blast traveling out up the barrel like other, lighter, more mechanically complex types of shotguns would.”

Weiss stared at her.

“… Sorry, did I go overboard again…? That tends to happen, as I guess you’ve noticed...”

“Oh, no, it’s fine,” Diana replied, “it was actually quite interesting, and a good insight into how your learning process works, and what’s effective for you—we might even be able to use this, if ever we find we really do need to recreate that system here in Haven, somehow.”

“You want to call Akko, start figuring out how to do just that?” Ruby offered. “Maybe I can even go find Constanze, see if she can help.”

“No, best not interrupt either of them,” Diana said. “They’re probably deep in their work right now, and sending a message will only distract them. Best we see if you all you really needed was a reprieve from the history books, and just float the topic once we all meet up for dinner, or continue studying in our room.”

Akko sighed. “Okay you’re right,, I guess I’ll just try again…” she said as she sat up and straight, put her game face on, and pulled the book from earlier back to her.

Thud!

Akko let her head hit their table in the dining hall, sobbing as she pushed the book away once more. “I give up, for real this time—I just can’t do it!”

Diana sighed as she took the tome, carefully shut it, and put it into one of their many loaded backpacks and borrowed bags from the library. “You know what Akko, I think it might be better if you and Weiss study together again, but only until we can figure out some system or method for you,” she said as she picked up her chopsticks, and returned to her bowl of katsudon.

“How about we spend the rest of tonight doing that?” Ruby said as she picked up a new croquette from her plate. “We could start testing it as early as tomorrow, when we get back to our assignments.”

“It might be better if we do it over the weekend, once we have a better idea of what ALL of our classes will entail, and our professors’ respective expectations,” Diana replied. “It wouldn’t serve us well if the system we create on Wednesday turns out to be lacking by Saturday,” she said, before she put some more food into her mouth.

“I disagree,” Weiss said, “everything I’ve ever done with Akko tends to be created, modified, and refined on the fly—extensive planning from the get-go just tends to fall apart pretty soon.”

Akko groaned, her face still planted on the wood. “Can we please not talk about studying anymore? I already lost my appetite from it...”

“Want to go talk a quick walk outside?” Weiss asked. “I’m already done with dinner, after all,” she said, gesturing to her empty plate.

“Yes please…” Akko said as she stood up from the table.

“Don’t take too long!” Diana called out as they left. “I want to get back to all these as soon as possible, but I’m not going to haul them to our dorm with just Ruby for help!” she said, gesturing to their bags of books.

“We won’t!” Weiss called back.

Soon, the two of them were walking around the side of the dining hall, passing by the numerous herb plants and vegetables the kitchen staff grew on-site, other students and staff taking their dinners outside, or talking walks themselves. They could still hear the din from inside, but it was muted now, so you could easily tune it out and speak normally over it.

“Why is huntress training so overloaded right from the get-go…?” Akko muttered, her fingers rubbing her temples. “Do you even remember half of the speeches from our morning classes? Because I don’t! Was it even really necessary, or were they just giving us a preview of all the reading we’d have to do, but spoken?”

“Like grandpa and grandma said, it’s to weed out those that don’t have the determination or the drive early; I don’t, but I took notes; I’d say yes, it was important to set the tone of the class right off the bat; and probably!” Weiss replied. “Maybe you really should have taken grandma’s offer for a summer class  about what academy life was going to be like.”

“No! No way!” Akko cried, taking her hands off her temples and crossing them in front of her. “I said I’d regret it if I wasted our last official summer as kids on that, and I sure as heck don’t regret it now! All this homework and reading sucks, but at least I didn’t waste a once in a lifetime opportunity I’d never have again, and I made sure that you didn’t, either!

“Speaking of which… how are you holding up?”

“Fine!” Weiss replied. “Nothing I haven’t already griped about back when I was in the hospital, and Diana and Ruby are turning out to be great teammates! Though, uh, I’ve got some new concerns about Ruby’s sister and the influence JAYS might have on ours...”

Akko nodded, before she stopped walking, and gave Weiss a pointed look.

Weiss hesitated for a moment, and said, “Like I said, it’s fine. I’m fine! Nothing to report.”

“You sure…?” Akko asked quietly. “Not getting those thoughts again? Didn’t miss any days?”

“Yes, no, and”--Weiss hesitated”—well… okay, I missed the morning of Initiation, but it’s fine! I held up all day, didn’t I?”

“Except for the part where you passed out twice.”

“That was probably more from the exhaustion of pushing my semblance so much, having drained my aura too far!”

“And what you mumbled while Ruby was carrying you…?”

Weiss winced. “It’s supposed to stay in that cave, right?”

“And it will!” Akko sighed. “I knew it felt like I was forgetting something important that whole morning, I just couldn’t figure out what… why didn’t you get your things out of storage?”

“I couldn’t find a good, quiet opportunity to do it!” Weiss shot back. “You saw how packed the Great Hall was that morning, and a lot of them were already waking up—what if they saw me…?”

“Then they probably wouldn’t have cared, because they were too busy getting ready for Initiation and thinking about what they needed to do that morning,” Akko replied. “If they were suddenly that interested to find out what you had in your suitcase and what you were doing with it, then that would have been a different problem altogether.”

“Okay!” Weiss said, holding her hands up. “I got paranoid and made a mistake! I promise, it won’t happen again.”

“And you’ll tell them, too?” Akko asked.

“Yes, like I said, I’ll tell them too!” Weiss said, exasperated. Then, she looked back at the dining hall, suddenly looking fearful. “How… how do you think they’ll take the news…?”

Akko put her hand on Weiss’ shoulder. “I don’t know, Weiss; I guess we’ll just deal with it when it comes up, like we always do.” She gently coaxed her face back to her, and smiled. “And I’m going to be right there by your side, like I always am, and always will be.”

Weiss teared up, before she pulled Akko into a hug, buried her face in her shoulder. “What did I ever do to deserve you…?” she sobbed.

Akko just smiled, and hugged her back.

Thud!

“Phew! That’s the last of them!” Ruby said as she and Akko admired the books now neatly stacked on the floor, within easy reach of both Diana and Weiss.

“Thank you, you two,” Diana said as she grabbed ancient history texts off the top of one. “My apologies again for my arms failing me earlier; I’ve just gotten far too used to Atlas’ high-speed lifts and trams everywhere, it seems.”

“You’re welcome, and don’t sweat it, it happens!” Ruby replied.

“Anything else you two want us to do?” Akko asked.

“None at the moment!” Weiss replied as ran her finger along the spines, pulled out a student’s copy of the Mistral Constitution. “Unless you two want to try exercising your brains again, I guess you two can take the rest of the night off.”

“Woo!” Akko cried, throwing her arms up into the air. “Hey, you two aren’t going to spend all night hitting the books, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” Diana replied as flipped back to the pages she was on, got her notebooks and her pens ready. “I’m already sleep deprived from my research into the Shiny Rod, and we all know what sort of unpleasantness THAT leads to...” she mumbled.

Akko blushed. “Sorry about that, again… Weiss?”

“Going to go to sleep as soon as I start feeling tired, Akko, don’t worry,” Weiss replied as she scanned through the pages of the first and second articles. “Also, Sucy said her ‘Infinite Energy’ tends to have pretty intense and sudden crashes followed by long periods of deep sleep, so you might need to go through dramatic methods to wake me up tomorrow morning.”

“Got it!” Akko said, saluting. “I’m just going to be introducing Ruby and the Shiny Rod to Starlight Crusaders, feel free to join us if you want to take a break from the books early!”

Diana blinked, and looked over her shoulder. “Seriously...?”

“Very seriously!” Ruby called out as she changed out of her uniform and into her pajamas. “Even if it is just a kid’s show, and pretty simple as a result, the wide range of characters, plotlines, and scenes might really help the Shiny Rod better understand Akko, and thus, help her talk with it!

“If nothing else, then at least I’ll finally find out why my classmates from grade school wouldn’t shut up about this show.”

“Fair warning, you might end up bingewatching entire seasons in one sitting!” Weiss called out. “It started with my little brother, Whitley, and the addiction just spread to the rest of us!”

Ruby and Akko went off to go watch it at one corner, the Shiny Rod in Akko’s lap and audio receivers in their ears, Diana and Weiss continued on with their homework, going about with their evening plans  until sleep called, and they started turning in.

Diana yawned as she raised her arms up and stretched, rocked about on her cushion before she got up from her desk. She made a mental note of all the tasks and reading that still needing doing tomorrow, before she looked at Weiss, and frowned. “Weiss? Aren’t you getting tired?”

“Nope, not really!” Weiss replied. “Like I said, whatever Sucy gave me is pretty 60 to 0.”

Diana checked her scroll, propped up on her desk like a timer and clock—10:13 PM. “It’s getting rather late… are you sure you don’t want to call her, ask for something that might put you to sleep?”

“No thank you, I’m pretty sure it’ll wear off any time now,” Weiss said. “Her estimate’s only off by like what, fifteen minutes? ‘Science is only predictable, precise, and rigid once someone’s figured out just what the hell it is you’re supposed to be looking for,’ like my grandma would say.”

“Fair enough… sleep well, when it comes calling, I suppose,” Diana said, shutting her scroll before heading off to change.

“Thank you, Diana, good night,” Weiss said, before she returned to her work.

By 5 AM, Weiss was looking over her shoulder and at her sleeping teammates as she unscrewed the lid of her prescription bottle, forced her hands to stop shaking as she shook out her daily dose, swallowed it dry before she slammed the lid back on, stuffed the bottle back into her underwear drawer.

Then, she carefully, silently shut it, and slipped into her futon, rubbed her hair against her pillow and tossed and turned as quietly and discretely as she could. She pulled out her scroll, and after confirming that she looked like she had just had a poor night’s sleep than none, she sent out a message:

“Sucy, we have a problem.”

[moonsandstar-s]

The Final Warning - Chapter XX

Chapter XX - Fallen Angels and Risen Demons 

Summary:  As the year draws to a close, peace has finally dawned. The time for unity has arrived. In the Vytal festival, it is time for heroes to rise, bringing glory to their kingdoms. But as autumn dies, the first winds of winter blow over Remnant, chilling the hearts of the people; breathing doubt into their souls. Long-buried secrets will triumph, and every action will have a consequence. Ruby must reconcile herself with her own fate. Weiss struggles to escape her legacy. Blake cannot erase memories. Yang’s search leads her into more peril than ever— but none of them can outrun fate. Shadows turn on shadows, and bonds shatter as they are tested to the limit. For in dividing them, they will fall and burn; at the eye of the storm, no peace lasts forever. In the end and beginning of time, there is a place where the sun never rises, and the dead delight to teach the living. A great danger is rising from the darkness. It’s time to take sides. The final warning is coming. The first chill of winter is the most deadly; it is the chill that kills more than any other. The first betrayal is the most damaging; it is the act that shatters bonds of love and trust, crushing even the strongest heart, tearing teams apart. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/7745314/chapters/21163190 Qrow 

“This is ridiculous,” Qrow snapped, swinging his sword around to lop off the head of a Beowolf as it crept up behind him. “I knew Ironwood’s little play soldiers wouldn’t be able to hold back a tide of Grimm, and I was right, and here we are—”

“Did you want to be right?” Goodwitch spat, ducking around and about, dodging a lashing King Taijitu, in a similarly precarious situation. She was surrounded by Grimm— they both were. Two Hunters weren’t sufficient enough to hold back this many all at once. They could buy Vale some time, but not a lot, and Qrow knew it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed.

“Of course I didn’t want to be right.” He turned, narrowing his eyes as he saw a Griffon trying to sneak up on him. Backflipping over its low, lean body, he leaped up behind it, scissoring the head off of the Grimm and riding its body to the ground as it faded, hitting the ground in a roll and stopping in a low crouch. For a moment, a flash of euphoria sung through him. This was where he belonged, killing Grimm on Ozpin’s orders, protecting his kingdom and his family. Being a Huntsman. It was what he trained for, and he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

“Impressive,” Goodwitch said, jerking him back to the dark reality they were in, “but you’re not here to impress Ozpin as usual, Branwen, you’re here to fight alongside me.”

He rolled his eyes, annoyed that she had popped his brief happiness like a balloon. “Killjoy. This night is too hellish for my tastes, Glynda, so I’m not trying to impress you. God, I could really go for a good whiskey right now.”

“You don’t have your flask on you, do you?” She looked surprised as she noticed how he was only armed with his broadsword, barely distracted as she turned around to cut down a Creep bounding towards her with a bellow. “Don’t tell me you’re actually sober.”

“Believe it or not,” he growled, slamming the sword into the ground for balance, “I am. Probably not for the better, though, because this sight is damn well unpleasant enough as it is without clarity.”

“You haven’t changed a bit from the same boy who walked into Beacon.” Looking annoyed, she sent out a pronged lance of violet light, making three Nevermores plummet from the sky, shrieking as their skin was stripped from their bones. “Arrogant to the last. What would you prefer, Branwen, a little tea party?”

“I’m a Huntsmen, not a dainty little lady.” Scowling, he spun around, light sparking silver off his sword as he slashed the throat of a Beowolf. “Do you think any other environment would make me comfortable?”

“Only you would be comfortable in the midst of carnage like this.”

“Carnage is alright, but this isn’t a regular battle,” he said angrily, stabbing a Grimm through the skull and stepping back as a spray of black ichor fountained out. “It’s betrayal, and with the involvement of the Maidens and deception… well, there’s too much magic at work tonight for me to be comfortable.”

All the bad things are coming out to play. The Fall Maiden’s assailant, Ironwood’s military, the Grimm, that blasted criminal Torchwick, and God knows where Raven is, but I’ll hope she doesn’t make an appearance. That’s the last thing we need. They had both raced up to Ozpin’s office after Cinder’s speech, and he’d sent them here, as if they were just Hunters and nothing more. He’s going to fight a Maiden, and I’m stuck here. Stuck in the city while Ozpin risks his life.

“Watch out!”

He spun around, wild-eyed, just in time to see a Grimm’s claws swiping for his face, faster than the eye could follow. Before he could react, a blast of hot copper light exploded over his head, and the Grimm fell, screaming in agony as fire devoured its flesh.

“Fire Dust?” Qrow asked hoarsely, watching as the bones turned to ash, crumbling in the bitter winter wind. “Well. I’m sure we could all stand a bit of warmth tonight, Glynda. Smart choice.”

“I don’t approve of Dust use excessively, but if it saves lives—” She broke off as a low rumble shivered through the air, and her eyes flashed up to meet his. “Did you feel that?”

Qrow straightened, looking around, before staggering as the earth heaved and shook around them, rubble crashing to the ground. A Creep shrieked as a stone gargoyle plummeted from a roof and crushed it, a gout of black blood spraying out in a fan across the cobblestones.

The air began to shudder, shaking with the roar of wind, chopping and unsteady. He gritted his teeth, standing up on the shivering earth with his sword planted in the ground for balance, and threw a glance towards Glynda. She said something that he couldn’t hear, her words lost in the growing swell of wind.

Suddenly, a scream split the night.

They looked up in an almost comical unison as a black shadow streaked overhead, giving another unearthly roar as it flashed past, intent on the glittering spire of Beacon Tower. Qrow caught a single glimpse of a gaping maw lined with hundreds of slavering teeth, batlike, blood-colored wings lined with veiny dark cords, terrifying, red, hollow eyes— but the eyes of the Grimm were mindless, filled only with seething rage and hatred against humanity, and no intelligence. But the eyes of the wyvern were hot with a hatred that spoke of intelligence and revenge— this Grimm was no more a like a regular Grimm than an eagle was like a fly.

The wyvern. The negative emotions from Vale; they woke it up.

“This was Salem’s plan!” Qrow shouted over the roar of the wind. “We’re scattered; there’s no way we can get through this. And Ozpin, up in the tower—” Qrow’s eyes widened. “He’s going to try and fight the Maiden’s assailant and the wyvern,” he breathed out in realization, his voice nearly lost in the howling storm. “He knew about the Maiden, but not the wyvern! He can’t hope to stand up to two of the strongest things on the face of Remnant. He’ll die! We have to go back!”

Glynda seemed to snarl at that, whipping around to take down a cluster of Grimm. “We have orders from him to protect the people, Qrow,” she snapped. “Here, in the city. Vale and nowhere else.”

“But Ozpin—”

“Ozpin trusted you!” She thrust her lance upward, sending out spirals of white light that lit up the sky with the brilliance of the sun, banishing the shadows of the Grimm that threatened all around. “He trusted you to keep the city safe. He knows what he’s doing, and he knows his own choices.” Her voice lowered. "He's not a fool, Qrow. You knew him - better than any of us, perhaps. You know that."

“No. I don't care about valor or self-sacrifice, don't you get it? I can’t let him die.” Qrow began to struggle to his feet, blood run unchecked down the side of his face as he propped himself up on his sword, every muscle in his body screaming in pain. “I can’t. I won’t.”

“Qrow, you have to let him do this! We need you here or more people are going to die. He always wanted to save innocent lives. He’s not a coward. He knows about Salem, about the wyvern and the Maiden’s assailant, he knew all of it, he was prepared for this possibility—”

Qrow shook his head impatiently, scattering scarlet drops of blood. “But he was counting on being able to transfer Amber’s powers to Pyrrha; he’s lost that now; there’s not enough time to do the transfer. He’s on his own.”

“This is the way it has to be.” Her eyes were full of pain and he wondered if she had known about his feelings all along. She must have, by the way she was looking at him, with pity he had never wanted, had never deserved. “Don’t let that sacrifice be in vain, Qrow. Let him go.” Her voice dropped to a pained whisper, one he felt reflected in his heart. “Let him go.”

He stumbled, the hilt of his sword digging into the skin of his chest, right where his heart was beating. I’ve lost everything, he thought. My team. Summer, and Raven to the Maiden’s powers, and now Ozpin too… / / / 

Ruby

She landed on the very edge of the airship with a thud that reverberated up through her bones, and teetered wildly, arms pinwheeling as she fought not to be hurled off the side. Wind scoured the whirring ship, and she staggered forward a few paces, falling to her knees and retching as the tension and nausea from her wild flight through the air took their toll.

Just as she got to her feet again, clutching Crescent Rose like a lifeline, the air began to pulse like a heartbeat.

No, Ruby thought, puzzled. Not a heartbeat. A… wingbeat.

She turned around and yelped in fright, a yelp was torn from her mouth by the vengeful storm as she saw the cause of it. A shadow— a Grimm— was swooping towards her, but no Grimm she had ever seen or studied about was this big. Its wings blotted out the stars, huge and bat-like, lined with blood-red veins. Its head was cruelly shaped, with sharp horns, its eyes glaring scarlet fury through the night.

It disappeared, hellbent on some distant location, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight as she realized its destination— Beacon Tower, each thunderous wingbeat winging it closer.

Nobody could stand up to a Grimm that big, she thought in horror. Nobody. Nobody could. And if it’s heading to Beacon… towards the Tower… They’re in trouble! Qrow and my team and Ozpin and all the rest… and the airship in the sky with my friends!

The wingbeats faded, leaving her alone with the wailing of the wind and the Grimm. Ruby shook her head to clear it, before pausing as she sensed something, something wrong, like someone unseen was watching her. Tensing up very slowly, she turned around.

She heard the girl before she saw her— heard the clicking of footsteps, even above the shrieking, howling storm of snow and Grimm. Shaking, she raised her eyes, blinking against the tempest of snow and wind flung in her face. A short-statured girl was standing there, looking coldly amused as she stared down at Ruby, who recognized her instantly, even though she had seen her only twice: this was the tricolored girl who had aided Roman Torchwick; who had almost murdered Yang.

She remembered what Ironwood had said. An individual posing as a student, the one we all heard making her speech, has gone rogue, using Torchwick to commandeer my fleet of airships, releasing Grimm all over Vale. But Cinder couldn’t have freed Torchwick if she was making her speech— and Torchwick had been in Ironwood’s ship, locked up, just as they had handcuffed him last year in the Grimm attack on the city.

“You broke him out of jail, didn’t you?” Ruby gasped, words ripped from her mouth by the violence of the storm. “Torchwick. Out of Ironwood’s ship. He shot his ship out of the sky, and it’s your fault! Torchwick killed Ironwood!”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and she made an odd movement of her hand, a slicing downward motion.

She’s mute, Ruby realized, before hardening her heart and sweeping Crescent Rose in front of her. “Get back. I mean it. I’m here to fight Roman, not you. I will hurt you if you get in the way.”

She smiled. Ruby, caught off guard, stared at her before she saw that the girl was looking over Ruby’s shoulder— at something behind her. Too late, Ruby remembered one of the first lessons she had ever been taught as a Huntress.

Look behind you, Ruby.

“Well, well, little Red.” She whipped around and froze as Torchwick smiled down at her, having snuck up in the howling storm. The barrel of his cane was trained right on her forehead, his finger on the trigger, and in the half-light, his eyes gleamed with a feral green shine. “Are you really in any position to be making threats?” He hissed. “I think not.” / / / 

Qrow

Qrow plunged his blade through the skull of a Griffon so viciously that it crunched through the bone, blood spurting out in a black gout that coated his hands up to the wrists in a shining, dark glove. It screamed, but he was whirling away as it faded, killing everything about him, hardly aware of anything except the icy-fire of adrenaline, the sort of high you could only get in a fight.

He laid into the Grimm with a savagery that wasn’t unfamiliar, so to speak, but he had never felt such fury while in battle with Grimm. He didn’t hate them, because they were, to the well-trained Huntsman, an insignificant threat on their own. You couldn’t hate something that was mindless. But his fury with everything— at his own helplessness, at Ozpin’s self-sacrifice— made every blow he landed twice as hateful, twice as forceful, acquitting himself especially well, every part of him numb, as though locked in ice.

The wyvern had gone, already flown overhead, and he and Glynda were fighting for their lives once more. The tide of Grimm had receded, but only barely, and he wasn’t sure why. Most Grimm didn’t process danger— only some were smart enough to do that, like the Mammoths and the Father Grimm— they just hurled themselves right into the spot where other Grimm had been slain, launching themselves into death like lemmings. He supposed that the Grimm had figured out that to come here was die on the point of his sword, or perhaps they’d been drawn to Beacon by the greater number of negative emotions there. Either way, the battle had begun to lull, allowing him to take a few breaths and recuperate, if only slightly.

Just as he bent over the hilt of his sword, panting, he heard a noise— an odd clicking, followed by a low humming that was oddly sinister, one that sent a chill like ice water trickling down his spine.

He turned around slowly.

An Atlas soldier, the mechanical ones, which had been battling against the Grimm alongside he and Glynda— however poorly— stood there, gun trained directly on the spot between Qrow’s eyes, an eerie red glow, like the Grimm’s gaze, emanating from the blank hollow of its eyes. He knew instantly what had happened.

“Glynda!” he hollered, using his sword to deliver an uppercut, sending the soldier toppling to the ground in a squeal of gears and sparks that swarmed up like a host of fireflies in the glowing dimness. “We’ve got a bit of a problem!”

She turned around and swore— an unusual occurrence— as she saw that the Atlas soldiers were all marching towards them in a uniform line, their eyes bright red. “Ironwood’s military—”

“No. Humans should be okay, but his robots are hacked by the enemy. Bad as the Grimm now, or worse.” Qrow crouched, bristling, his sword barred over his chest.

“What do we do?”

“What I’ve been wanting to do for years.” A smile that more resembled a snarl flitted across his face. “Chop those bastards into tiddlywink little pieces.”

The battle recommenced, now a furious whirlwind of howls and screams and flashing claws. He and Glynda fell in, back to back, a slashing storm of silver metal and bright lances of light. He casually stabbed a Beowolf in the spine as it hurled itself towards him, and it staggered into Glynda’s reach, yowling. She seized it in a web of violet light and it disintegrated, screaming.

“Qrow, we can’t keep this up forever!” she shouted, but he barely heard her, his ears full of the hum of battle. “My energy—”

“I don’t think we’re doing too badly,” he growled, twirling his sword around so that the starlight sparkled silver off of it, “all things considered.”

After that, it was chaos. She got torn away from him, leaving them both to fight alone. Slowly— very slowly, so much so that he wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t an experienced Huntsman— the battle began to slow, and stop, until the only noise was the ringing in his ears and his own harsh breath. The storm had lulled, snow now coming down in gentle, beautiful flakes that contrasted sharply with the terrible carnage all around him, and the wind was little more than a whisper in his ears.

The street was empty. Atlas soldiers lay around like badly-jointed dolls, some still spitting sparks. The Grimm, of course, had all faded away when they died, but the air reeked of something burned, like scorched sugar and toast, a sharp, lip-curling stench. Black ichor pooled in puddles on the street, turning to ice at the fringes in the bitter coldness.

In the brief lull that followed, his adrenaline faded, leaving his exhaustion free to hit him like a ton of bricks. He became painfully aware of how ragged he was, covered in blood and grime, wounded all over. He didn’t want to be here; he wanted— no, needed— to be back where he belonged, protecting Ruby and Yang, protecting Ozpin, protecting Beacon, his only real home.

“Qrow!” Goodrich’s voice was unmistakably frightened. “Qrow, come here. Quickly!”

Thoughts scattering, he turned around, eyes narrowing, before his stomach dropped into freefall as he saw what had scared her. She was standing over a pale form, and as he strode over, the darkness receded just enough so that the form resolved itself into a more definite figure. A corpse. A corpse that lay face-up, expression frozen in one last snarl of defiance, weapon rolled slightly away from their outstretched hand. It was a boy, no older than seventeen, his short brown hair ruffled by the bitter night wind.

“Cardin Winchester,” she murmured, her voice shaking minutely. “A first year student. We should have been watching him, Qrow—”

“No. I’ve seen much worse in my career. Especially on my missions for Oz.” His heart giving a constricting squeeze at the name, Qrow grunted, using the toe of his boot to nudge the boy’s body. He was undeniably dead, flopping away from Qrow’s touch. “Besides, a Beacon kid should've been able to look after himself. This was bad luck - bad luck and nothing more, and no one can prevent turns of luck. His Aura must have just run out. You think a Grimm killed him?”

“No,” she said sadly. “No, he was a strong Huntsmen. No Grimm could have really hurt him, not fatally. Besides,” she crouched down, fingers gently brushing over a spot on the small of his back where blood slowly spread out, staining his clothes, “there’s this. A bullet hole. One of Ironwood’s guards must have shot him in the back. He couldn’t have seen it coming. No one deserves a death like that. Not even a boy like him, bully and simple as he was.”

Qrow turned away as he heard a howl in the distance, indicating that more Grimm were on their way. “Well,” he said, the ice already flooding his veins once more, “undoubtedly, you’ll see more death tonight.” / / / 

Ruby

As soon as she saw the barrel of the gun and the gleam of his eyes, her training kicked in. She ducked, sweeping her foot around and catching Torchwick on the feet, sending him down, but then the girl was attacking from the other side, stabbing at Ruby, backflipping over and weaving around and around in a colorful blur. She lashed out with Crescent Rose, driving them both back, where they circled her, snarling like predators.

“So,” Ruby panted, “so this was your goal all along… not the White Fang and not getting Dust… but this!”

Torchwick’s green eyes held an ugly glitter. “Give it up, Red,” he said, his voice almost a croon. “Don't be a fool. Everyone at Beacon tonight is as good as dead.”

Fury still burning white-hot in her veins like open wires, Ruby brandished Crescent Rose again as the girl tried to sneak around her back and launch an ambush, sending her reeling away. “But why?” she spat. “You don’t get anything out of the Grimm ruling Remnant, you don’t get anything out of destroying Beacon… why not get out of here, go to Mistral, where thieves belong? Why ally with Cinder, why all this? What could you possibly gain from destroying the world you live in!”

Torchwick threw back his head and laughed, actually laughed, a harsh sound that sounded detached and insane in the shrieking storm. “The naïvety of the innocent,” he said. “Oh, but it never fails! Let me tell you something, darling. You’re asking the wrong questions. It’s never about what there is to gain, not to the criminal… but how far I have to fall.”

With that, they both attacked, rushing her from both sides. Ruby activated her semblance, hurtling out of the flanking maneuver in a flurry of rose petals whipped away by the vicious wind.

“Run and hide, run and hide, little Red!” His voice came from somewhere behind her, gleeful in the shadows. “You can’t escape me!”

Can't I? She thought grimly, before whipping around and slashing her scythe at him. He lurched back with a scream, and she saw blood well up blackly from a shallow wound she had slashed across his chest.

“You bitch!” he snarled, shooting at her. She wasn’t fast enough to dodge it, and it crashed into her, her Aura rippling throughout her system to deflect the strike, but she still cried out as a sharp pain bloomed out from the center of her chest.

And as she backed away, shaking away the pain, out of nowhere a blinding pain smashed into her left temple, and she saw Torchwick’s cane darting back from his strike before blackness crashed over her in an agonizing wave. She staggered, her foot going down to find purchase, and it found only empty air.

Her hands slammed onto the edge of the ship just in time as she slipped and fell off the side, and she dangled, feet kicking out over the void. Nevermores swirled and shrieked below her, and she fought off a dizzying, white flash of panic. She was thousands of feet above the ground; if she fell, she would die.

Torchwick stood above her, a slow grin spreading across his face as the girl came to stand beside him. “Back where we started,” he said, looking down at her, shadows moving over his face. Ruby’s fingers were growing numb, and she knew it was only a matter of minutes before she plummeted headlong to her death. The thought felt oddly slow, and she felt blood seeping out from the spot where his cane had struck her temple. A curious mixture of panic and adrenaline thrummed through her, and then, suddenly, Weiss’s face flickered behind her eyelids— not as Ruby had seen her last, drawn and worried as she and Blake had left for the fairgrounds, but when they had Bonded, her face bathed in a golden glow, an odd softness in her eyes, her hands warm and slender in Ruby’s. All those memories that were not Ruby’s own, all the emotion that did not belong to her. She remembered the surety of having another heart close to yours in spirit, the warmth of love that never wavered.

Torchwick’s face, above hers, loomed like the moon. “Any last words, Red?”

There is always a way out.

“Yes,” she said, her voice coming out in a way she didn’t recognize, harsh and scraped raw with hatred. “Goodbye.”

With that, with her last burst of strength, she surged upward and yanked on the girl’s knife, unbalancing her and making her stagger away from Torchwick, the silver light of the blade slashing away as she stumbled. That one step was all she needed. The wind did the rest, tearing her unsteady balance and hurling her off the edge, and Ruby hauled herself up off the brink and onto the steady ship as the girl went plummeting into the dark void of the night as Torchwick let out a scream of sheer rage and fury. She looked back for one wild-eyed instant and saw the girl disappear into a fleet of sharp-taloned Nevermores, her screams of agony floating back through the night as they tore her to pieces. Ruby cried out as the ship bucked, sending her to her hands and knees.

“Neo!” Roman howled, and Ruby collapsed on the edge, one hand clutching with white-knuckled fingers on Crescent Rose, the other splayed on the ship. For a moment, she pressed her cheek to the icy metal, breathing in and trying to control the wild thump of her heartbeat. Then reality stepped in, and she rolled to the side with a cry of alarm as Torchwick’s cane slammed down where her head had been a second before.

“You!” he snarled, his face looming crazily above her. “You killed her!”

Ruby staggered to her feet, swinging Crescent Rose around in a wide arc, moonlight bouncing off the blade. “I don’t care what you say, or what you think,” she said, a dark emotion she had never felt before coursing through her veins. “I will stop them, and I will stop you. Even if I have to kill you too!”

His eyes glittered with a dangerously unhinged glint, and he didn’t reply, only lashing out at her as gunfire spat out in golden explosions from his cane. There was a disjointed fury to his movements, a wild ferocity that would destroy him. Blind rage was never good in battle, and it was his undoing.

“You have spirit, Red,” he hissed, swinging his cane around and barely missing her as she ducked to avoid it, slashing out with Crescent Rose. “But this is the real world! It’s cold, it’s cruel, and it doesn’t care about spirit— you want to be a hero? Then play the part and die like every other damned savior in history!”

In that moment, she saw it, the tiniest gap in his defenses, where he favored his left arm over his right, trying not to open up the wound she had gashed across his chest. She saw the opening, and with the quickest of darting strikes, she lunged forward and stabbed him in the chest.

He lurched back with a choked cry, the faintest sizzling noise on the air telling her that his Aura had expired completely. Her strike wasn’t fatal, but he staggered backward, and, knowing that it must be done, feeling oddly detached from the sudden ice in her heart, she used Crescent Rose to help his fall.

He slipped off the edge with a final scream.

She watched him fall into the dark night, his scream fading as he plunged down, down, down, his hair the only part of him she could see, like a spark fading to darkness. As she watched, a swooping Nevermore snatched him up with a screech of triumph that didn’t drown out his dying scream, and Ruby turned away with a shiver of fear so she wouldn’t see his death. She wondered, briefly, why she felt so conflicted— she had done the right thing; Torchwick would have fired on the school, maybe even killed more people— before she realized. He was the first person she had known, in a way, that she had killed. She had killed Grimm, but this was different. Torchwick had an Aura, a soul.

Behind her, the ship— already beginning to tilt into a nosedive as it registered the death of its pilot— was tipping over, and Ruby knew she wasn’t safe yet

It looks like I have to make the flight again. Except this time, it’s the last.

With one final prayer and a glance back at the dark night rising, she shouldered Crescent Rose and leaped off the edge, into the abyss of darkness, leaving the ship, the Grimm, and the spot of the slaughter far, far behind her.

/ / / 

Weiss

She and Blake had split the instant they entered the courtyard, and now she was fighting for her life, desperately trying to quash the terrible fear rising inside of her.

She knew Ruby was fighting, but where? Her Bond had been electric with pain, adrenaline, and fear the whole night— all unmistakable signs of battle. Weiss was getting better and better at reading Ruby’s emotions, but she couldn’t make head or tail of the coldness that had suddenly emanated from the Bond.

“Weiss, watch it!”

She jerked backward just in time to avoid gunfire spitting out from the gun of an Atlesian-Knight, and she stabbed it between the joints of its back, sending it down in a shower of sparks. The sparks scattered hungrily, seeking fuel, and she shivered as they caught on the limp corpse of a White Fang member, long dead. Their horns were red down to the base with blood, and a bloody slash gaped in their throat, ragged flaps of skin fluttering slightly in the screeching gale. As she watched, the flames caught, devouring their body in a shroud of dancing golden flames, smoke belching upward.

A pyre.

She leaped away from the burning body, the reek of charred flesh already thick on the air, and reengaged in the battle, her heart pounding fit to burst. She could feel a heavy pressure at her temple, pressuring her, but she had no idea if it was her own or Ruby’s.

Leaping back into the battle, she looked around, scanning for anyone who might need help. Neptune and Sun were going toe to toe with a league of knights, but they seemed to have the matter well in hand; Yatsu and Coco were acquitting themselves especially well, laying into White Fang members so angrily that their hands were coated in red up to the wrists; Team TEAL were circling a pack of Ursai, taunting them; then Weiss saw Velvet, cornered by a furious White Fang member. She stood there, blade to blade with him, one who looked furious as the blue light of her weapon rippled over his masked face. “I know you,” he growled to her as Weiss approached. “You’re a Faunus. You should be with the revolution, with the White Fang. You weren’t courageous enough to join!”

“At least I was courageous enough to recognize that true progress isn’t made through fear.” She struck out, and the member dropped their blade with a scream. “Now it’s your turn to run.”

She stabbed him through the arm and he turned to flee, running straight into Weiss, who sent him flying away with a glyph. He crashed into a stone and fell off the side of the courtyard, and Weiss turned away, seeing Velvet, who had her hands on her knees and was bent over, panting.

“Thanks, Weiss,” she said through broken breaths. “I’m so tired… never fought this many before…”

Out of the dark, behind her, a Grimm suddenly lunged, white claws flashing forward as its huge jaws gaped, ready to crush her skull. There was no time, no time to shout a warning, to do anything except watch in horror—

And then, suddenly, an intense surge of power let loose in her veins like a firework going off, the pressure evaporating from her skull as it rushed outward, through her veins, into her palms, into Myrtenaster itself, and it exploded from the razor-sharp tip in a blinding white glyph. Weiss’s eyes were forced shut as a huge explosion of white made her stagger back.

Weiss peeled open her eyes, and let out a cry of alarm as she saw what had happened.

The shimmering, intricate glyph for Summoning lay upon the ground, undulating and shining like the moon itself had fallen. The Grimm lay on the ground, impaled through the back by a massive, white, translucent sword. She could hardly force herself to do it, but she lifted her eyes, gazing up at Velvet’s savior, and her own, and what she saw took her breath away.

It was the knight. The one she had killed, the one that she had been forced to kill to gain entrance to Beacon by Vincent’s precedent. It stood there, looking down at her, and Winter’s voice echoed in her mind. “Excellent form! Now think to your fallen foes! The ones who forced you to push past where you were, and become who you are now. Think of them, and watch as they come to your side.”

Weiss watched, and watched, her heart in her throat, blood rushing in her veins like ice. And as she watched, the knight gave her the tiniest of nods before it faded away into shimmering nothingness.

“Weiss,” Velvet said softly, stunned speechless, her eyes huge and terrified.

I Summoned it, she thought, staring at her hands in shock. They were unchanged, but they felt different, somehow, stronger where they gripped Myrtenaster. I actually Summoned it.

She gave Velvet one look before tumbling back into battle with a new confidence flooding her veins. She saw a team she recognized vaguely— Team TEAL— all of them teamed up to take down a Paladin. Talos was up on its head, bashing into it with a glinting gold sword, while Eliás and Amber circled in furious blurs around its clawed feet, their whips flying. In the middle, Leah yelled a war cry before stabbing a spear into its mainframe, electric blue sparks flying out from the contact point.

“Go! Get out of here!” Talos yelled at her as she paused. “We’ve got it covered!” Roaring in defiance, shaggy hair whipping around his face, he backflipped off the machine and landed on the ground. Confident she was leaving them in safe hands— their own— she turn and pelted off.

Weiss didn’t really know when the battle ended, or when a lull came. All of a sudden, she was blade-to-claw with a slavering Beowolf, and then she stabbed it through the heart. It keeled over with a wail, dissolving into a thick cloud of black smog. When it faded, no other enemies lunged forward to take its place, and Weiss realized that the battle had come to a standstill as everyone paused to lick their wounds and regroup. The Grimm had retreated somewhat, to the farthest reaches of the courtyard, realizing that they were only being killed like lemmings by the furious Huntsmen and Huntresses in training. They were mindless, but their instincts could preserve at times, it seemed.

For a moment, she felt a flicker of hope that they might all survive tonight, that it would be okay despite the impossible odds, before she realized that everyone had gathered in a circle besides two shapes— two shapes that had not faded, as the corpses of the Grimm did.

Two bodies.

She walked over slowly, dreading what faces she might find, of who had died, and her breath caught in her throat as she saw who laid there, surrounded by a solemn circle of their peers.

Fox and Neon lay side by side, their eyes staring sightlessly up at the sky, glassy and reflecting the stars. Weiss felt sick as she looked at them, at the wounds that had taken both their lives. A bleeding slash gaped in the side of Fox’s neck, and Neon was so gashed up, so bloody and mutilated, it was impossible to tell which wound had stolen her chance of living.

Life, Blake’s voice whispered in her ears, is far from a fairytale.

“We need to bury them,” Weiss said, her throat impossibly tight.

“We can’t. The ground’s too hard, we don’t know how long we have until the next wave of Grimm comes, and we don’t know why this happening,” Sage growled. “I knew this would happen. We’ve got to go find the teachers and other Hunters.”

“We can’t just leave them here for the Grimm,” Weiss protested.

His eyes glittered at her. She could recognize fear behind them, and she knew he was Blake’s friend, somewhat— but she couldn’t suppress a burst of fury at him. She wasn’t feeling very reasonable, not now, and her fists curled as he spat at her, glancing towards the burning body of the White Fang member, “Do you want to build them a pyre?”

Her teeth clenched together. “Go to hell, Ayana.”

“Do your job, Schnee,” he shot back. “You didn’t fight in this battle to perform funeral rites.”

She lifted her hands, a black glyph forming between them. “How about I crack open your skull like a bird’s egg?”

“You don’t want a look at what’s inside my head, Weiss dear.”

“Stop it, you two!” Sun snapped, stepping between them. Weiss’s anger evaporated as she looked down at the two bodies, and a thick sense of shame overwhelmed her. Two of her peers had been killed, and here she was, arguing like a little schoolgirl who hadn’t got her way. “What the hell is wrong with you? Weiss, it’s okay, we can bury them, and we will. Sage— you stand down. The last thing we need right now is to be fighting between ourselves. Isn’t there enough negativity already?” He cast a glance around the courtyard, where the Grimm circled.

“I’ll help you bury them,” Velvet said sadly, gently weaving her between Sage and Weiss, who were still bristling. “Oh, Fox…”

The snow was falling more thickly now, flaking their still bodies with white. Weiss took Neon’s body, while Velvet took Fox’s, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead between his brows.

In the brief lull of battle, they dug two shallow graves just outside the fountains of Beacon, just under the Latin inscription on the bases: Libertas perfundet omnia luce. Freedom will flood all things with light. With the shadows growing thicker and more dark by the moment, it seemed to be taunting them all. In the distance, a Beowolf was keening, the mournful wail rising high, like the anguished chords of a violin singing its agony into the night, a pain that would tear your heart apart. Weiss let out a deep, shuddering breath.

They laid the bodies in the graves as the snow built up, but she barely felt the cold. Her hands were dappled rust-red with Neon’s blood, and she shivered, wiping them off on her gear. Sage, however reluctant he must have been to watch the sending-off of those who were dead, while he dealt with the living, stepped forward and asked grudgingly, “Do you remember the words before you bury them?”

Weiss gave him a stern look, which he ignored. Velvet looked at him, confusion on her face. “The… words?”

Sage frowned at her. “When a person on Remnant dies— Faunus or human— it’s custom to speak a requiem. A final prayer as they go on their way to the afterlife, as it were. I don’t know the words myself, but…”

Weiss cleared her throat, remembering his words about the pyre. “I do,” she said. “They were spoken at my mother’s funeral.” Winter made me memorize them, so I would never forget Ivana.

“You know the requiem?” He looked at her and there was the slightest hint of a challenge in his eyes. “You wanted to bury them. Then you must speak the words.”

Weiss looked down at the two open graves with a feeling of dismay blotting out her sorrow; she was to speak? She hadn’t been particularly close to either of the deceased. She’d only spoken to Fox in relation to their schoolwork, and she had never spoken to Neon at all, except to see the time when Yang had knocked her unconscious. That seemed lifetimes away now.

Feeling like a cluster of thorns was stabbing sharp spikes in the back of her mouth, blocking her voice, she looked down and cleared her throat.

“From Dust we came, and to Dust we must return. One day the earth will dim; the light in the sun will flicker and die, and the moon will sigh and roll over, keeping her back to the world. Our shadows will say farewell to our bodies, and go their own way in the darkness. But today is not that day. Though we have two less hearts than we did yesterday, though we are two souls lighter, two absences heavier, today we still stand, and fight. But your fight is done with. Shut your eyes on this earth. Place your feet upon the pathway to above, when auras flicker and die, you shall lend us light, whence you return to the stars. Death is not the end. Death is but that one last journey that we all venture on in the end. We bid you farewell, not forever, but until we meet again. May you find shelter where you sleep. May the waters run clear and the comforts leap into your arms. May the sun shine down upon you, may the rain fall softly upon your skin, may you find peace. Your battle is over, brave warrior, those who fight in your stead share your blood, your memories, your love, so that your spirit may never die. Hail and farewell, Fox Alistair, Neon Katt, now and forever. From Dust we came, and to Dust we must return.”  

Weiss backed away as their teams began to cover up the scant graves, suddenly conscious of the tears pooling in her eyes. She hadn’t been particularly close with either of them, but she knew, with a sudden sharp, aching pain, that she had been lucky it wasn’t someone she cared about lying there. It could have been Blake, or Yang, or Ruby…

Ruby, she thought. Where is she? I’ve got to find her.

I have to make sure they’re safe, but it might already be too late.