#so basically the idea behind this was this was before luna got banished to the moon

[moogaiashe]

good morning tumblr i present Celestia in her Marie Antoinette phase

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

Lily (from "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus", what else?) and Lenin and maybe some other people? Watch "Heathers". Reactions? Or what they get transported there? Sorry, it's just that I'm in this Heathers-obsession phase and since I love your work so much (and the fact that Trotsky is kinda sorta like JD) I've been wondering about a crossover like that. I honestly have no idea what your answer to this will entail.

I’ve been musing on this one for a bit now but I suppose it’s time to dig in and answer.

First, I’m not usually a fan of the “X characters watch Y thing” so we’re going to avoid that. Also, to Wizard Lenin, it’d undoubtedly be yet another one of Lily’s weird 80′s movies that she loves so much and forces him to watch. It’s less gory than Predator, but dammit Lily, high school isn’t like this! 

Getting transported there is a similarly weird story. It’s such a muggle setting that it really doesn’t mesh well with the “Sisyphus” cast. Why would Lily and Wizard Lenin be stuck in this high school in Ohio? Would they even do anything besides go “That JD kid sure is weird” and “Wow, the death count here is higher than Hogwarts!”? Point being, I can’t imagine they’d get entangled in the true plot of “Heathers” and at best would be providing riff track commentary on this crazy high school. 

So, instead, let’s go the good old fusion route. Let’s make the world of “Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus” just a bit more like “Heathers” and see how it pans out.

Because “Heathers” is all about the destruction of society from within, we’re axing Voldemort. Sorry, Tom, you got stuck in a magical mirror, eaten by bears, or something after 1943 and are going to be Sir Not Appearing in this Universe. As a result, there’s no Voldemort, but the deep societal issues that Tom took advantage of very much remain and are flourishing. 

In this world, Lily is still a god, but is not immediately recognized as such by being the girl who lived. Instead, she’s just a strange, dangerously overpowered, nuisance that nobody likes. And her home life is trash.

I imagine in the world without Voldemort, Death Eaters, and a second war Lily and James’ marriage quickly crumbles. This is mainly due to the stress of marriage but also due to having a gifted, ridiculously intelligent, and creepy child. Within a few years, Lily Evans has the audacity to do what is never done: she divorces her pureblood lord husband and tries to vie for child custody. She loses, of course, as she’s a muggle born woman, and is basically banished from ever seeing her kid again.

James never really gets over this, Ellie looking so much like Lily Evans certainly not helping matters, and over the years grows very cold to her. She’s not a son so is useless to inherit, she’s nothing like him, and she’s just an all around disappointment. James very quickly gets remarried for political purposes, marrying a far less scandelous pureblood witch from pick your prestigious family, and they have a son meaning that Lily is no longer heir.

Lily thus attends Hogwarts as essentially the half-blood Potter. She’s for all intents and purposes a bastard child, one barely acknowledged by her father, and is also weird. As a result I imagine she’s bullied relentlessly much in the manner Luna is. For years.

I imagine Luna Lovegood is her only friend, as the pair have bonded over constantly having their stuff destroyed and being locked out of their dormitories. 

Enter Lily’s seventh year and thus the plot.

The outside world is looming and Lily effectively has no future. Despite being the daughter of Lord Potter, she’s in a similar position that Tom Riddle was. She won’t be hired into the Ministry or basically any position thanks to her dubious heritage as well as the fact that no one likes her.

Mostly, she just wants out. She wants out of the country where everyone knows exactly who she is and where she came from. Her best hope for this is employment with the goblins but she needs recommendations from a professor. Her best bet is Slughorn, but while he’s always been awed of her ability after seven years of Lily the charm has worn off. Lily has never received an invitation to the Slug Club.

Lily realizes that to get out she must become popular so someone can vouch for her to Slughorn. Not to mention her life might become slightly, slightly, less miserable. So, Lily approaches the Heathers. Much like in the film/musical, Lily offers her services to them for the fee of making nice, pretending to like her, and getting her an in with Slughorn.

This spirals out of control as the Heathers instead do the makeover and make Lily suddenly cool. She’s suddenly invited to parties, people talk to her, it’s a whole new world.

Around this time, Lily in the room of requirement happens to stumble across the diary (nevermind how he gets there, we’ll pretend Tom just never managed to smuggle him out of the castle). Tom has been trapped in there, dying, and Lily obliviously informs him that all his ambitions and sacrifices amounted to nothing. There was no dark lord after Grindelwald, she’s never heard of a Tom Riddle, and everything she describes makes it sound like nothing has changed.

Tom Riddle inexplicably vanished off the face of the earth leaving only the diary behind.

Naturally, Tom is very pissed about this, and sets about plotting how he can return, trying to get Lily to open up by asking her for help returning him to his body. Lily does him one better and just returns him to his body without any sacrifice, casually remarking that she’s always been like this as long as she can remember, fully accepting Tom to yell “SHE’S A WITCH! BURN HER!” to her face as everyone else does.

Tom, however, is floored and everything he’s ever known to be true is thrown out the window. He decides to make Lily his new pet project. 

Unfortunately for him, by this point Lily has a Slug Club to attend, only it goes horribly wrong. The Heathers have purposefully set about humiliating Luna, Lily’s only friend, and Lily has to very publicly break ties with them even though it means sacrificing her only real chance of leaving the country with gainful employment. Worse, the Heathers promise wrath the likes of which Lily has never seen before.

Lily, devastated and despairing, goes back to Tom and confesses all the shitiness of her extremely shitty life and how she doesn’t even know what the Heathers will do to her now. Tom finds this a little odd, as Lily has quickly proven herself the most powerful person on the planet, but he’s willing to play along. More to the point, Lily and Tom’s relationship goes from 0 to 100 as he is not only the first guy to show interest in her but he’s very very interested and very very hot. When Lily decides to beg Alpha Heather for forgiveness, Tom notes that he’ll come with, he’s better with people than she is.

Tom, having hit a low point of nihilist rage thanks to Voldemort having amounted to nothing, poisons Alpha Heather and dutifully covers for Lily by writing her suicide note. This works. There is an ecstasy of joyous grief throughout the school as staff and students alike confess how they never knew the true Heather. Lily is astounded, Tom is ecstatic.

Lily tries to return to life as normal, goes back to hanging out with Luna, but also has to introduce Tom to the school. Tom suggests she mind wipes everyone, that makes Lily uncomfortable, so she instead confesses what she believes is the truth in that Tom was trapped in an enchanted object. Dumbledore nearly has a stroke, but since Tom Riddle never became Voldemort, it’s more that this is a solution to an unsolved mystery and the castle is glad Tom isn’t actually dead. They’d thought he got hit by one of those muggle bombs during WWIII or whatever it was the muggles had going on. 

HA HA HA HA, but no, Tom says in response.

In the meantime Tom gets to witness Lily’s weird and strained relationship with her father, his friends, and her younger half-brother. Tom points out that Lily seeking out gainful employment is unnecessary. Lily doesn’t have to be a part of society, like all these worthless people around her, she’s so powerful that she can do whatever she likes however she likes it. She can simply leave the country, she could become a dark lord even, there’s nothing stopping her. Lily’s never thought of it like that before, to become a true part of society, to be accepted on some level by that society, has always just seemed like the obvious path to her. What else would she do?

Due to this, Lily and Tom’s relationship continues to grow as they’re really the first people to see each other as they are. Naturally, this is when shit hits the fan. Thanks to Tom, Lily’s invited to another Slug Club with him (Tom can still become minister even if he was trapped in a book for fifty years! Slughorn says). Lily gets hit on and nearly sexually assaulted by some of the boys there, Lily gets out, but the next day rumor circulates around the school that Lily was in a threesome with them.

Tom Riddle sets up a ridiculous scheme in which he fakes their murder suicide where they confess to being homosexual. Lily is increasingly horrified. The school, once again, is in an ecstasy of joyful grief over the loss of these two, beautiful, oppressed, gay souls. Lily realizes that Tom is A Bad Dude (TM) and tries to confront him. He easily confesses he cares nothing about these people and has decided he wants to watch society burn. These are the people who thought he had died in the Blitz and did nothing. They are people who cannot and will not change. They’re the absentee fathers who dote on far less powerful, pureblood, sons. Tom has officially, completely, given up on the wizarding world and now he will destroy it as quickly and horrifically as he can. Lily, not belonging to society, can pour the kerosene on with him.

This is getting a little too gnarly for Lily and she dumps Tom.

Unfortunately, he quickly becomes exceedingly popular thanks to his angelic face, his natural charm and charisma, and his understanding of people. He passes around a petition for suicide and bullying awareness that everybody and their brother signs. What they’re really signing is pages from the diary which, much like Death Note, promises him both their magic and their life force.

Tom confronts Lily and admits he’s going to murder everybody, an entire generation of wizards and witches gone in an instant, AND LILY CAN BE HIS DARK QUEEN! Lily and Tom get into a fight, Tom accidentally murders the shit out of her and is devestated, only of course for Lily to wake up later after he’s left because she was unwittingly immortal this whole time.

Rising from the dead, Lily hunts Tom down before he can blow up the school, and sucks him back into the diary. Upon graduation Lily makes up with Luna, still has no prospects and plans to go and be homeless in India, has hesitantly gotten in contact with Lily Evans, basically has no contact left with her father, and has a boyfriend diary named Tom who might be let out in fifty years if he promises not to blow up a school. 

[bronyinabottle]

Some Preliminary thoughts on MLP Generation 5

I was considering waiting for a Trailer before speaking on this. I assume one will probably come out any day now, heck the way things are coming out I probably won't be surprised if I end up sort of jinxing things and we get our first trailer smack-dab in the middle of tomorrow or something. But I do want to sort of give my current thoughts heading into G5. As we've gotten alot more tidbits then the rather vague details from the first few months since our first look at the new characters back in Feburary. If we do get a trailer, depending what is shown. Maybe I'll make a follow-up post.

I will first say that I do plan on giving both the movie and series a shot, none of the concerns that I express in this post will make me hesitate in at least checking how the movie and show goes on it's own merits. There is a possibility the movie and/or show ends up being fun despite the underlying concerns I'm about to say. Without further adieu, I'll begin.

((More thoughts after the break))

We are now almost 80 days from the premiere of G5. And most information up until recently have been fairly vague on what exactly is the G5 world. With a brand new cast, and even some vastly different design from the G4 pony design we knew it feels like at least from a visual standpoint that this is supposed to be an entirely new generation. The same way G1 or G3 is not the same universe as G4. However, both some vague information and recent information sort of dropped the bombshell that no, G5 is actually supposed to be in the same world that the G4 Equestria is. Which lets get to the general point of this:

Even if the G4 world that we loved in Friendship is Magic is sort of now this ancient past in which for at least thousands of years there was harmony between all the pony races and non-ponies alike as shown in the future of The Last Problem until perhaps some sort of slow collapse later on happened (Presumably long, long, LOOOOOONG after assumingly everyone of the Main 6 sans Twilight have died from old age). It... might be a bitter pill to swallow for any fan of G4 that loved the show's happy ending. Sure, at the very least it doesn't look like they're trying to say that at some point Twilight failed, as heck Sunny is probably sure to look at Twilight as this legendary hero to aspire to be like. But still, it just doesn't feel like a good look when while I get why G5 is having it's premise of Sunny and the others making the world a better place. Upon seeing the initial synopses of the show. It very much feels like it was Hasbro taking note of last year's George Floyd/BLM Protests. Which I will say is potentially a good direction. But it'd help if this was an entirely new universe that is having this divided world problem. Not a long time after G4 itself ended on the positive note on just about every notable species pony or non-pony alike are living in harmony where Sunny's goal had already basically been achieved.

I get the idea behind having G5 mentioned as the same world as G4. It's an attempt to have their cake and eat it too where they're trying quite a bit new and also try to keep many of the fans of G4 that proved to be a lightning in a bottle. It's a big truth that Friendship is Magic is going to be a hard act to follow even if G5 turns out great on it's own merits. Having an entirely new universe from Hasbro's perspective I also get have some risks. You toss away a world so many people love for one that the fans might find it hard to find an interest in flocking to like the previous one. At the same time though, taking G5 as the far future of G4 runs the risk of heavily feeling like everything Twilight and the Mane 6 did eventually fell to ruin and the ponies became divided again anyway despite the very finale showing they may have very well ended it for good. With even non-pony species part of the harmony that exists.

I guess the counterpoint may be that in if they must have G5 a follow-up in some way of G4. Then there must be some sort of conflict as otherwise the show would feel boring without many villains and/or adventures to save the day going on. The cost of G4's massive success is that no matter what direction they take G5, it's going to be a struggle for it to find the same footing. But what's worse: Making a new world which while it may potentially disinterest fans of G4 with a lack of familiar faces, it can have potential to grow in it's own fashion and maybe just maybe you'll get something of a following even if it's alot smaller. Or possibly saying it's in the same world where the world of Equestria has somehow gotten to the point that it got worse then when Celestia was ruling Equestria by herself (Because at least under Celestia even with Luna banished to the moon and Twilight was either not there yet or still training. The three pony races were generally united as they have been for more then a thousand years. Not segregated as they are implied to be in G5.)

And while it's too early to tell and could easily be still very much a part of G5 is the non-ponies that were featured in the later seasons. Will Changelings, Dragons, Kirins, Hippogriffs, etc. still play a role? Or will it only focus on ponies? Because the less there are of the non-pony species, the less it will feel like this truly is supposed to be the same world of Equestria we knew. Unless you want to say in a really dark direction that most non-pony species went extinct ever since G4 happened. Even if they're never going to explain how Equestria collapsed into the G5 world (Which I have something of a suspicion that they might never explain it completely)

And another question that is sure to follow... are all the Alicorns from G4. Whether it be Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Cadence, or Flurry Heart... all dead at this point? We never really got much lore about Alicorns even throughout all of G4. So while it's certainly still possible that the Alicorns are more mortal then the fans have been led to believe. That doesn't mean it's not an important question to think about. As if this supposed to be a follow-up to G4. G5 is well within it's right to tell us that maybe we overestimated the immortality of the Alicorns, though because G4 never gave us a straight answer... it means it's entirely on G5 to tell us it's own interpretation. No matter what they say will alienate some fans because the topic of Alicorns has always been a touchy subject even before Twilight herself became an Alicorn or even arguably before the introduction of Cadence due to the many, many, fan interpretations of Luna until we finally got a look at canon Luna in Luna Eclipsed and the fear of how many headcanons it'd destroy (Didn't turn out as bad as people thought it would, but just that the fear was there sowed the seeds of what discourse the Alicorns in G4 was going to cause)

Before we got the detail from the book that G4 is considered ancient equestria in G5's world. There was speculation on the possibility that G4 is actually fictional in G5 world. In other words, the G5 world is in fact an entirely new world but in a meta sort of way is a TV show that Sunny and others were a fan of. Which would explain both the changes that are much different from Equestria (With stuff like horn and wings being different colors from the coat) and the fact Sunny had Mane 6 figures and merchandise in her room. This in retrospect might of been the smarter decision because even with the slight possibility of making some G4 fans mad that they're entirely tossing out the previous series and only having it being mentioned in a fictional context. It wouldn't run the risk of overriding the happy ending. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if say if they took that direction they'd pull a Daring Do and have it that yes in fact G4 was once G5's past. But in order to show that, they'd have to bring back the G4 Mane 6 in some fashion. Perhaps in a pulled out of limbo-like fashion like they did for the Founders. Though that in itself comes with the problem that they'd want the Mane 6 to be actually recognizable and thus young looking. And if they come out of a limbo while still looking fairly young, it means they weren't around in the past for much long for some odd reason.

That's all I have for now at least on the top of my head. If there's a trailer coming soon I might make another of these as I said. And I'm also open to any responses whether if you want to tell me you have some of the same concerns or do anything that might calm my own concerns about the way G5 might be stepping on G4's toes whilst trying to maintain G4's fandom into the coming generations. Thanks to anyone who bothered to read. I wish good luck on G5, but if concerns aren't addressed and/or they end up correct on some fronts. There's a chance I may have quite the baggage clouding my mind even before the movie and series starts...

[reid-like-roses]

All I Need - Prologue (Yang/Neopolitan)

Read on FF.net

Summary: After the Mountain Glenn plot failed, Roman was imprisoned while Neo escaped. Enraged by Roman’s failure of her plan, Cinder punishes Neo by torturing her, banishing her from her faction and occupying Neo’s hideouts. Now homeless and without a weapon, Neo winds up far from Vale and is trapped in a blizzard. But then she’s saved by the most unlikely of heroes. Post Volume 2 AU

Content Rating: T

Word Count: 2,471

Author’s Note: Post Volume 2 AU where basically none of Volume 3 or beyond happened. Neo is mute in this story and any dialogue from her is implied or inner monologue and will be written in italics.

RWBY and all the characters within are the intellectual property of Rooster Teeth Productions, Miles Luna, Kerry Shawcross, Gray Haddock and the late Monty Oum. I am not being compensated in any way for this story and wrote it merely for entertainment purposes.

A few months ago, Neo and her best friend, Roman Torchwick, had been working on a plan to bomb the city of Vale with one of the abandoned trains from the Mountain Glenn ruins and flood the city with Grimm. But then those brats from Beacon had shown up in their secret hideout and Roman had decided to execute the plan earlier than scheduled. The plan mostly worked but because of the huntsmen and huntresses at the scene and nearby, Vale escaped with minimal damage and Roman was arrested. Neo had managed to escape, however but she had a fate worse than incarceration waiting for her afterwards.

The woman who had planned the attack, Cinder Fall, was not pleased one bit by Roman’s decision and failure of her plan. And since she couldn’t easily get to Roman in order to punish him, she decided to take it out on Neo, instead. Neo had been beaten and tortured for weeks by Cinder and her henchmen, Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. Then they confiscated her parasol weapon and banished her with a warning to not try come back or they would kill her. Neo tried to escape to one of the many safehouses she and Roman had acquired over the years but found that Cinder knew where they were and had the hideouts trashed and guarded by her men. She made a bold move and tried to disguise herself to get into one of them but without her weapon, she was swiftly captured by the guards and held captive again.

Cinder had left Vale to return to whoever her boss was and get new instructions and didn’t want to fly all the way back to deal with Neo so she told her henchmen to take care of it. They then put Neo in a box and loaded her into one of their airships to dump her into the sea. At least that’s what they planned on doing but a storm over the water caused them to eject their cargo without seeing where it would land and she just happened to hit just off the shore of an island. But after breaking her way out, Neo found herself caught in a massive blizzard with no idea where she was or where to go. So, she just began wandering off into the forest, hoping to find someplace to take shelter even just for the night.

“Roman, I’m so sorry,” Neo thought to herself glumly. She knew she was in a bad way and likely wouldn’t survive the cold through the night. “It’s all Cinder’s fault that I’m stuck in a blizzard and you’re in jail. If she would have just left us alone and found some other thieves to use for her plan, we’d still be nice and comfortable at home right now. I swear Roman, if it’s the last thing I do, I will free you and then together, we’ll bring that bitch down.”

But as she seethed in her mind about wanting revenge on Cinder, it brought about some unforeseen consequences. As Neo imagined all the vicious and brutal ways she wanted to hurt Cinder, she suddenly heard some growls over the howling winds. Neo stopped in her tracks and looked nervously around. Through the trees, she could see several pairs of burning red eyes bearing down on her. “Oh, fuck me,” she thought as over a dozen beowolves surrounded her. Normally Neo would have been able to handle this many Grimm without too much trouble. But without any weapons, she knew that her quickness and gymnastic abilities would only buy her so much time.

As she quickly glanced to the trees to try and find any friendly branches she could jump to and try to make an escape, one of the beowolves lunged at her and tried to bite down on her leg. Neo quickly dodged out of the way and kicked the monster’s leg out from under it to send it crashing into the snow-covered ground. She allowed herself a brief satisfied smile but another one slashed out at her from behind her and clawed her right in the back. That caused Neo to stumble and as she turned to face the Grimm that had struck her, two more made their move on either side of her and leapt onto the small woman. She fell to the ground under their weight and immediately was smothered by the beasts. Frantically, she tried to wriggle out and escape before any serious damage could be done. After a few seconds of wild flailing, she got a little bit of daylight and managed to bolt away. With her survival instincts on autopilot, Neo scrambled up a tree and away from the danger. Neo stopped for a second to make sure she had some relative safety but only found the beowolves clawing their way up the tree themselves. Neo started jumping from branch to branch on all the nearby trees, desperate to escape.

After a few minutes of swinging through the forest, Neo couldn’t hear her attackers behind her and stopped to rest. She was completely exhausted from the physical exertion and the sweat from her head was beginning to freeze. Even though she’d managed to escape certain death, she wasn’t out of the theoretical woods yet so she started formulating a plan to get out of the real woods without any further incidents. But then another huge gust of wind blasted through the trees and caused the branch under Neo’s feet to snap. She tried to catch herself on another branch but it was too late and she plummeted out of the tree, crashing into several limbs on her way down. When she hit the ground, Neo felt the last little bit of her aura break and pain shot through her body. Despite her excruciating pain from the beowolf attack, falling out of the tree and the cold, Neo pulled herself to her feet and began hobbling out of the forest.

A few hours later, night had fallen on the island but the snowstorm had only gotten worse. Neo was frozen down to her bones and couldn’t feel most of her body anymore. She was beginning to lose hope of making it out alive but she crested a hill and saw a small cottage with the lights on and smoke coming from the chimney. With a new sense of hope, Neo resumed limping towards her possible salvation. But as she trudged towards the house and hoped that whoever was in there would be kind enough to take her in, her body finally gave out on her and she collapsed to the ground. Determined to not give up, she crawled along the ground towards potential safety as her body went completely numb. Unable to continue, she slumped down, ready to accept her death. As her eyes closed, she heard a familiar howling sound and resigned herself to the inevitability of being eaten alive by a beowolf. The last thing she felt before losing consciousness was its warm breath on her face.

——————————————————————————–

Taiyang Xiao Long anxiously stood at the front window of his house, looking out for his older daughter. Yang had gone out to cut down some fire wood just in case the power went out. But she had been longer than he’d hoped and worry was starting to creep in. This was certainly one of the worst blizzards he’d seen in his life and even someone as tough as Yang wouldn’t stand a chance out in it for very long. So, he’d began pacing around the living room and looking out the window for Yang every ten seconds.

“Daddy? Would you like some cocoa?” Taiyang turned to see his younger daughter Ruby standing in the doorway to the kitchen with two steaming mugs in her hands with a mountain of marshmallows on top.

“Sure honey, thank you,” he replied, offering as warm of a smile as he could. Ruby handed him the mug and they toasted each other. Taiyang sat down in his recliner and took a sip. The hot chocolate helped ease his nerves a bit and he took a deep, steadying breath.

“Any sign of Yang?” Ruby asked as she wiped some of the frost off the window and peered out herself.

“No, I haven’t seen anything,” sighed Taiyang as his stress returned. “I wish she would have just listened to me and taken her scroll with. It’s too dangerous out there to go out without a way to contact someone.”

“But she was right, dad,” reasoned Ruby. “The cold would have made her scroll useless. And the service has been really bad on mine for a few hours now because of the storm.”

“Even still, if she had gone out this morning to chop wood when I told her to, she wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

“Dad, calm down. Yang’s going to be fine.” Ruby knew her dad had a right to be worried but he could get seriously annoying when he slipped into his worried father mode. Ruby downed the rest of her mug and went to go put it away in the kitchen when she saw a familiar head of blonde hair as she passed by the window. “Hey Dad, it’s Yang!”

“Really?” Taiyang asked as he scrambled to his feet. Sure enough, when he looked out the window, he saw his daughter running up the path with her arms full. But it didn’t look like she was carrying any logs. That looked like…

Oh no.

Taiyang quickly pulled on his boots and coat as he threw open the door. A large pile of snow came flowing into the house as he dashed out to meet Yang and their dog Zwei who were both hustling through the snow to get to the house. In Yang’s arms was a small, unconscious woman with pink and brown hair and badly tattered clothes.

“Yang! What happened? Who is that?” Taiyang called to her.

“I found her passed out in the snow about a half mile away,” answered Yang. “She’s in really bad shape. I have to get her inside now before she freezes.”

“Where’s the firewood at?” Taiyang asked.

“I had to drop it so I could carry her. It’s back up the trail where I found her.”

“Okay, you get inside and get yourself warmed up. I’ll go get the wood and then I’ll see what I can do for her.” Yang nodded and continued towards her house as Taiyang left to go find the firewood Yang abandoned. Zwei reached the house first and immediately began barking for Ruby.

“Zwei? What is it boy, what’s the matter?” Ruby asked as she returned from washing her mug out in the sink. Zwei led her back to the front door just as Yang came bursting in with Neo.

“Ruby, where are you?” Yang called out in a sterner tone than she meant. “Go prepare the guest bedroom with every spare blanket we have and grab your warmest pair of pajamas.”

“Okay, but why?” Ruby asked in confusion. But then she saw what Yang had with her and the color drained from her already pale face. “Oh…oh no. Okay, on it sis.”

Ruby zipped away into the house as Yang closed the door and carried the unconscious Neo to the guest bedroom. Once inside, Yang quickly stripped off Neo’s frozen clothes and chucked them into the hallway. She gently placed the naked woman onto the bed and wrapped her up in the few sheets that were already on the bed. A few moments later, Ruby burst in with three comforters and her fuzzy flannel pajamas. Yang quickly took the pajamas and redressed Neo before wrapping her up in all the blankets.

“Thanks Ruby,” gasped out Yang as she sat down on the floor and tried to regain her breath from how much she’d exerted herself in the past few minutes.

“Is she going to be okay, Yang?” Ruby fretted, staring in horror at the shivering Neo.

“I don’t know,” answered Yang gravely as she put her head in her hands. “I’ve done all I can until she wakes up. She really should get to a hospital but I don’t see how that’s possible with the storm.”

“Wait a minute,” said Ruby suddenly as her eyes went wide. “Yang, isn’t that—”

“Yes, Ruby, it is,” interrupted Yang through gritted teeth.

“But…but what is she doing here?” Ruby squeaked in fright.

“I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is keeping her alive long enough to maybe get some answers.”

“And you’re sure that this is the best thing to do?”

“What else was I supposed to do Ruby? Just let her freeze out there?” Yang snapped as Ruby backed up a step from Yang’s sudden outburst. Yang closed her eyes and took a breath through her nose to get her composure back. “Like I said, all that matters right now is trying to keep Neo alive.”

“Okay,” replied Ruby warily, still not sure if this was smart. “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Would you be willing to make me a cup of tea, please?” Ruby nodded and headed back towards the kitchen. Once she was gone, Yang let out a heavy sigh as she started to shed her winter clothing. Her eyes fell on Neo’s battered body and she scowled. There was a small part of her that was also wondering why she’d bothered to rescue Neo. But Yang couldn’t just let somebody die like that, even if they were a sworn enemy. After she finished getting undressed from her wet clothes, Yang pulled back the blankets and climbed into bed with Neo. Her skin was freezing cold but Yang wrapped her arms around her and hugged her close against her own body. She could feel just the smallest hint of a pulse and breathing from Neo but that was all that Yang needed for right now. She just had to make sure she stayed alive.