Chapter Text
It’s not an ideal situation for anyone. To send Ruby and Yang away, on their own.
But neither Weiss nor Blake can deny the sisters their chance to make sure their father is okay. Nor can they deny that they are worried too and need to know for themselves that Tai is going to be fine. If no one else can make sure of it, it’s their partners. Those two will go ballistic on whoever dares to pose a threat to their dad.
Regardless…
“He was in pretty rough shape and badly injured.”
Her eyes find their way to Blake’s, even though her friend stares at the door where the other half of their family vanished. Wearing the dismay on her face and making no effort to hide it because she’s just as unnerved over the whole situation as Weiss is. Shaken. She clings to the ring around her neck like that’ll magically bring her closer to Yang.
The space beside her that Ruby took up is now unbearably empty and she can’t remember how she ever used to convince herself she could handle it.
Concern claws at the inside of her stomach and the pleasant fullness from the delightful meal now turns to anxiety-induced nausea and Weiss takes a second to hold a palm over her mouth, close her eyes, and just breathe. Just breathe, just breathe. Inhale, hold, exhale. Everything will be alright.
She cares for Tai like he is her own family. During their stay in Patch, and throughout the years in general, she’s heard plenty of stories of his endeavors and just how much Ruby and Yang admire him. She’s seen how he’s trained with Yang, she knows just how skilled he is even without it needing to be properly shown against a Grimm. He carries an air of strength around him that someone only gains when they’re capable at what they do. He is a mentor figure, someone she views as having many more years of experience in their field than she has. Untouchable.
…So how in the world can he show up beaten and bloodied and in need of healers?
Those kinds of things aren’t supposed to happen. They don’t seem real to people who are stronger than her and have more experience than her.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
But it has.
And until she’s able to join the sisters at their home, she can’t determine for herself just how bad the situation is. Just how much more they need to potentially prepare for (because even if Tai can barely escape a threat alive, how are they supposed to fare any better?).
Because right now, she has equally as pressing matters to attend to. She can entrust their teammates with this task, Weiss and Blake have their own.
“I do hope they aren’t too upset at us for forgetting,” Kali mutters, breaking the long and tension-filled silence as gently as she can to get things moving. Weiss is grateful for it because heavens knows the two of them wouldn’t have been able to do it. There’s too much in their minds to piece together a proper sentence; let alone, a beginning and an end. Yellow focuses on the two of them, a frown to her lips. Regretful. “We’re sorry, sweethearts. We thought you knew.”
Weiss forces her mouth to form some semblance of a reassuring smile as she settles her hands into her lap. Clinging to the corners of her cloak to bring it closer around her (because it never fails to bring her one step closer to her partner that way). Readying herself for this upcoming mess of a conversation that they’re going to have to improvise now because the original plan was for all of them to be here and tell them. Explain as much as they’re willing or all of it, they didn’t know. Whatever would feel right in the moment.
But as per usual, the world loves to f*ck over their plans at the drop of a hat.
Really, she shouldn’t be surprised.
“It’s alright,” Blake clears her throat, at last, resetting herself as well as she finally takes her frozen stare away from the door. Fidgeting in place before just holding onto her ring mustn’t be enough anymore and she actually goes as far as taking off the necklace itself. Unhooking it so she can free the little band and slip it onto her finger where it rightfully belongs. “It’s not your fault. And besides, I don’t think Yang and Ruby have the capacity within themselves to ever be mad at the two of you.”
None of them do, for that matter.
Weiss would sooner rather hurt herself than somehow hurt Ghira and Kali. No matter what way.
“In any case,” Blake peeks over to her briefly- almost as if to ask Are you ready?- and Weiss gives a firm nod of her head. Granting her permission to begin. (As I’ll ever be.) “I don’t… even know where to begin. We learned so much at Beacon. Encountered so much… We got the answers we wanted and the ones we didn’t.”
Ghira and Kali listen with rapt attention. The two of them focusing on the conversation as well and letting their concern over the whole issue with Tai and his daughters settle for the moment in favor of concentrating on the here and now. There’s not much else they can do for the others as well.
“I’m sure you might have noticed that the world is getting more and more dangerous. Every single day.”
“This… Salem, you mentioned before,” Ghira hazards a guess, speaking her name like it is a language he still has not mastered. Simply overheard.
And while Weiss is used to people already knowing about her and everything she has done and every dark deed she is capable of, this is but a swift reminder that not everyone does. The world, normal civilians, most of their family members don’t know about her. They know of her, they made sure of that at least (one of their last good deeds before everything in Atlas fell apart), but they don’t know her.
Not in the way Weiss and the others do.
“Is this her doing?”
“Yes. She controls every Grimm that’s out there. Ancient or otherwise,” Weiss picks up, just so the entire discussion doesn’t have to fall on Blake’s shoulders because her friend already looks so uncomfortable needing to tell all of this to her parents. Needing to bring them into the loop that they’ve been stuck in for years now, going round and around and around with no end in sight. A perpetual, downward spiral. “Now that we’ve released her, we have every reason to believe that she is strong enough again to… Well. Do what she did last time and… try to destroy the world. With her creations.”
“The threat of the Grimm is not anything new. Even if Kali and I and most of the world have only recently learned they have a puppet master pulling the strings. It’s old news, we’ve always been dealing with the Grimm.” The chief draws in a slow breath, perhaps already aware that they’re trying to prolong the inevitable as much as possible because they don’t want the truth to reveal itself. There is no easy way to tell them and their time to think of such a method has officially run out when he asks; “What makes this time so different?”
Everything.
Everything has changed.
The rules, the battlefield, the task, their enemies. It’s no longer just them trying to play keep away with the relics and butting heads with Salem’s henchmen, she doubts the witch is even interested in the relics anymore and if she still is, she has a different approach to get to them instead of remaining patient in the shadows and letting the kingdoms tear themselves apart and divide their forces as she weaves deception into the hearts of everyone. Now, she’ll simply take them by force if she wants to.
She has the army to do so anyway.
“Weiss.” She snaps to attention at the sound of her name beside her. Blake sucks in a sharp breath, tilting her head back and blowing it out slowly, raggedly. Reluctant as ever but knowing it has to be done, sending her an expression downright pleading (begging her not to). “Can you show them?”
The Fallen.
“Show us what?”
She hardly hears the question. Searching agitated gold and wanting to help but not being able to. They’re jumping right into the deep end of the truth and they’ll be no surfacing.
It feels like they’re racing for the cliffside. A leap, but this time, they will not be able to soar.
They’ll fall.
And fall.
And fall…
Down, down, down into the abyss.
Never to return.
But what other choice do they have?
None.
“I don’t know how much of the Schnee legacy the two of you are versed in,” she starts softly, reaching her hand across the table to grab onto Blake’s wrist when she crumples in defeat, shoulders drooping and chin tucking into her chest and ears flat against her head. Defeated. Body tense as if she wants to stop Weiss but she can’t. She can’t, it has to be done. They deserve the truth. “My semblance is more unique than most. It is my family’s duty… to restore the souls that have fallen to darkness. The ones that are trapped within and make up the Grimm that we know of. Normally, just pieces. Many, multiple that have been stitched together by Salem… but as we’ve recently discovered…”
Her teeth grit together as the glow from the cracks on her skin illuminate beneath the cover of her cloak. The blue-white shine that contrasts the red and she swallows down any potential sound of pain when she can sense the branching arcs extending. A millimeter, a centimeter, half an inch.
Stop it, the world warns her even before she’s able to push enough of her aura to create a summoning glyph, off to the side of their dining table set-up. Or I’ll break you.
She ignores the threat. A tremble passing through her as she closes her eyes for the briefest moment, kneeling in the snow with her awaiting summons. All of them having come at her call, her behest.
The Fallen have carved a little space for themselves amongst the mix, all gathered together with the others. And to them, she extends a hand. An open invitation for whichever one wants to step forward and attempt to be freed. Even if only for a few seconds.
There is a heartbeat of hesitation that resonates within her. Worry of what it might do to her, for they are already inclined to put her well being above their own. Fear of what could potentially happen to them too because, aside from Caelum, none of them had ever been brave enough to be summoned. Perhaps they’re afraid it will hurt. If not in a physical way, then over the fact that their step into the world will only ever be a short one. A temporary one- before they’re forced back into the haven.
She cannot give them the freedom nor the life they desire. She can try and she can try and she can try until it breaks her but they are not Ruby. They are not chosen by the light or favored by the Gods.
She cannot bring them back to life. All she can ever do is give them a moment. A moment outside of her haven. A moment to view and experience the current world through themselves rather than as an echo from her.
A moment that will never be enough.
But regardless of that, fingers grasp onto hers- desperate, like they’ll lose their chance forever if they don’t grab on now- and she pulls on instinct.
The glow at her chest, for a flash, flickers that pretty seafoam green shade of Marin’s aura. Flowing all along to the very tips of the cracks against her skin before receding back to the center, and there, from the middle of her summoning glyph, the shape of the Fallen begins to form. The secondary heartbeat is already racing and she has no idea how she doesn’t give in to the sheer pain of it coming into existence.
It’s easier, she learns. Realizes. To summon Marin than it is to summon Caelum. (Or perhaps her tolerance for it has grown since her repeated attempts at calling Caelum forward the past few days. And failing.)
And her only prediction as to why it might be like that is determined by how long the Fallen was in the shadows for. From the conversations she’s had with them in her haven, during her meditation sessions, and the flashes of their memories she receives nightly- always switching between any of the five she currently has- she’s slowly been able to try and piece together a history. A timeline.
From what she’s discovered, the one with the giant axe and an earthy brown aura- who the others have started calling Ajax and he doesn’t seem to mind it. Weiss can’t tell if it’s because it’s his actual name and they somehow managed to help him remember it or if he’s just happy to have a name again and simply accepted it. Whatever the case, he always beams whenever they use it and it’s adorable- was actually in the darkness the longest. Coming from a time long, long ago before the kingdoms were founded, before huntsmen and huntresses, before the academies. She dare say he was one of Salem’s first experiments (and a successful one, at that).
Marin had the shortest amount of time struggling with the throes of corruption. She remembers the academies, names and places that currently exist. She can’t remember when she had been captured, or where she last was, but it’s rather… surreal. To have the soul of someone inside of her who had been alive only very recently. Perhaps only for as long as Weiss has been alive, give or take a few years perhaps.
The Fallen kneels on the glyph, sitting back against her heels with the hand that had reached for Weiss’s lowering. Bit by bit as she blinks open her eyes. Seafoam green intermixed with white and pale blue. She peers over at Weiss first with an expression that could only be one of surprise before switching her attention to Blake- who still hasn’t lifted her head- and then to Ghira and Kali.
Understandably, the two of them are speechless. Kali gasps, covering her mouth with a palm, while Ghira’s eyes widen.
Because this isn’t a Grimm- it’s a person.
“...Salem has been doing the same to other huntsmen and huntresses that she has done to the Grimm.” Weiss licks her lips to wet them, voice hoarse and scratchy, and it’s a struggle getting her own heart to relax. To set the pace for Marin’s to follow. But Marin, whether out of anxiety or fear or excitement, cannot calm down. She stands up slowly, cautious still, gazing around at everything with sheer wonder. Mesmerized. “What she did to Ruby.”
At the sound of her partner’s name, the Fallen focuses back on her for only a moment before turning her gaze to the door that Ruby left through. Somehow already knowing which direction she went and where she is. She takes a step that way as if inherently inclined to go to her, perhaps feeding off of Weiss’s whims and wishes to be with her.
“What she almost did to me,” Blake reveals in a quiet tone, convinced that if she just whispers it and doesn’t say it any louder than that, her parents won’t be able to hear her.
Of course they do though. Why else would Ghira and Kali snap their attention her way and shift in place as if both of them are about to leap across the table to save their daughter from a darkness that no longer has her?
“She has many others,” Weiss pushes on for both of them, dipping her head to Marin. A silent command to send her back. Thanking her and apologizing to her all at once. Though Marin notably saddens, she doesn’t resist as her body evaporates into particles the same way a person’s aura breaks. The motes of light drifting down into the summoning glyph that remains and sinking into it. She lets the glyph fade afterward, the secondary heart next to hers vanishing as well, and she can breathe properly again. “We don’t know the amount exactly, but enough to send them after us.”
“After you all specifically?” Kali asks because it seems as though Ghira is still having a difficult time processing it. His eyes never once leave Blake and Blake is doing her best not to meet them.
Ah, yes.
The part they were all dreading the most.
When they had to tell them-
“We can’t stay here, mom.” She opens her mouth but Blake beats her to it before she can form the words. Before she can take on the burden of breaking their hearts. Weiss scoots even closer to her teammate beside her until she’s sitting on the floor instead of the cushion seat, placing a hand against her back. Giving her support and strength and whatever else she needs as Blake takes in another deep breath, prepares herself, and finally raises her head to look her parents in the eye. “The four of us… We can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous for Menagerie.”
“Honey-”
“These marks,” she points to the black webbing on her chest with a shaky finger that matches the quiver in her tone, “are not just reminders of what we’ve been through, they’re trackers. Salem is going to send everything she has after us- and to the island too if we stay here… I’m sorry.”
It is devastating watching the tears form and fall instantly and Weiss is so f*cking useless here. She can’t take her pain away. She can’t make things better.
This is their fate.
This is what they were destined for.
“I never wanted to leave again,” Blake sniffles, wiping the tear trails away fiercely. Fighting to get them to stop and focus. Focus, focus, focus. “But for your safety and the safety of everyone here… I have to. We’ll be going soon. We just wanted to come and say goodbye.”
Soon.
They didn’t plan a timeline for that either. How soon is soon? A few days? Next week? Tomorrow?
When?
When are they going to have to say goodbye to everything and everyone they’ve ever loved?
“You ran before, baby girl,” Kali reflects her daughter’s sorrow- and f*ck if she thought watching Blake cry was difficult enough, witnessing the woman who has become a mother figure to her tearing up, voice breaking, is a whole new level of unbearable she couldn’t possibly prepare for. And there is nothing more heart-wrenching in this world than seeing a mother cry… and knowing you are the cause of it. “That didn’t work out for you then, kitten.”
Blake all but breaks. She flinches severely, covering her face with both hands to hide her pain away and muffle her sobs. But Weiss (and no doubt the other two) can catch it in the way her shoulders shake. Attempting to reel away, attempting to run now from what’s causing her so much agony, but intentional or not, Weiss’s hand at her back prevents her from doing so.
A part of Weiss is tempted to just let her go. Deal with this herself so that Blake doesn’t have to go through it.
But the other, selfish part of her doesn’t want to be alone either.
And it has her gripping the back of Blake’s gold and black jacket for dear life.
“She’s not alone this time,” Weiss cuts in, reinforcing that truth by gingerly pulling Blake into her side in a pseudo-hug. Lean on me, let me bear your weight. I’m close to crumbling too but I’ll hold on for the both of us. (Gods she’s really starting to regret sending Ruby and Yang away. Because she could use their help right about now.) “She’s got us. Me and Ruby and Yang- and I swear on my life and my legacy that I will not let anything happen to your daughter.”
Yang would no doubt beat her to that promise first, but still.
It should be known she’d be willing to risk her life to protect Blake all the same.
“That may be true, but forgive me…” Ghira looks at her directly and Weiss is torn between cowering away and standing her ground because instinct demands the former while her heart demands the latter. She doesn’t have a choice to begin with. If Blake can’t leave or back down, neither will she. “The three of you are in as bad a state as she is.”
And she hates how true that is.
Between them, there are four tracking marks (and who knows whatever kind of magic Salem can use to hunt them down alongside that). Four flashing beacons of light just calling the darkness and the devil to them.
No matter where they go, if they stay together, they will never be safe. And whatever place they happen to pass by, they’ll bring the Grimm along with them. If not Menagerie, then the next town. The next city, the next settlement. The next home.
Where do we go?
Where are we supposed to go?
(You can’t escape.)
…But oh, that’s not the end of it.
She wished it was, but it can never stop getting worse, can it?
Because Ghira’s gaze hardens, stern and stony, even as his features turn dire. Something akin to defeat washing over him when he admits in a rumbling, detached mumble, “Besides, even if you do leave, Menagerie is already in danger.”
“Why do you say that?”
Have the Fallen been actively going after people here already? Or have they’ve just been spotted and now that Ghira understands what they are, he knows they stand very little chance against them?
No.
Worse.
The threat always comes from the shadows you least expect.
“Around a week ago,” the chief starts with a withdrawn timbre that Weiss has never heard from him before, “during his patrols, Ashe noticed new traces of petrification in certain areas of the jungle. Near Silver-Streak Mountain, at the very far side of the island. He has… reasons to believe the contamination beyond the mountain is starting to spread over to this side somehow- and in all my years living here, in all of Lupine’s years too as the eldest, that has never happened before.”
“What’s beyond the mountain?” It’s the first Weiss is hearing of it. Even during their Grimm hunts a few years ago, clearing out the island, all she ever learned about it was that people generally don’t go near Silver-Streak Mountain. A set of peaks damn near on the entire opposite end of the isle, sitting somewhere in the Southern corner of Menagerie, farther than the dormant volcano and even the range where the caves of ice and eternal fire resided.
“It’s a petrified wasteland. As far as the stories go, it was claimed that that’s where Oblivion spent most of its time, and thus, the land suffered for it. Past the mountain… It's as if time has stopped.”
Ghira leans in as if this is nothing more than a tale told around a campfire at night.
But oh, this is very much real.
“The wind does not blow, the leaves of the trees do not rustle, grass and flowers do not bloom. The earth is equivalent to stone, any bodies of water simply do not move. Even noise has gone still. Many here call it the Timeless Forest. And as decreed by previous Grand Elders, no one is allowed to go there; some may say, we have even done our best to forget its existence in the first place. Erase it from our history. Out of sight, out of mine.
“For whatever reason, the petrification of the Timeless Forest has never shown signs of spreading past Silver-Streak Mountain… until now.” Ghira squirms a bit in his seat, finding comfort in reaching for Kali’s hand beside him on the table. Peeking at her briefly before continuing, “Worried as I was, and reluctant as Grand Elder Lupine was to grant permission, I allowed Ashe to take a couple of guardsmen with him and investigate.”
“Are there any active threats there?”
Because all of it- the petrification, the silence, the spreading of that time-stop- she knows are signs of a Grimm or multiple Grimm having spent a sufficient amount of time there. Never leaving that one area and corrupting the very nature around them with their blight.
It’s what started happening with the Crocodile King and his entourage before they stopped it.
“No. Well… one,” Ghira swallows thickly, zeroing in on Blake again when she reveals herself. The sorrow replaced with growing horror because while Weiss is confused, she certainly isn’t. She knows what’s there, without even needing to have it confirmed by Ghira. “They came back this morning and discovered… that Wrath is waking up.”
Again, Weiss has no idea what he’s referring to (but anything named Wrath mustn’t be something nice and on their side).
But Blake does.
“I thought that thing was just a story, dad.”
Ghira exhales slowly through his nose, dejected in a way. Perhaps not wanting to scare them any more than the two of them do. Adding as gently as possible, “I think you of all people know by now that every story holds some ounce of truth within it.”
Most of, if not all of the things that they’ve encountered and had to endure throughout their lives since learning the truth of Salem’s existence feels so much like something out of a fairy tale. So unbelievable that it couldn’t possibly be real. Corruption and magic and the realms of Gods and immortality and Champions and Scribes, they can only be made up by the machinations of a person’s mind.
But oh…
Oh, it’s all real.
And they’re living it.
“What is Wrath?” Weiss inquires because she’s so damn lost here, peering between father and daughter and it’s as though Blake has turned into a statue. Pale with fear and hardly breathing. Hardly moving. If it weren’t for her hand pressing into her back to feel the warmth of her body heat, she could convince herself that she had somehow turned to stone.
Neither of them respond immediately, so frazzled by the information.
It’s Kali who has to explain it; “As I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of times, there are a lot of stories here in Menagerie that explain how everything has come to be as we know it. How the Primordials are the ones to have made the world of Remnant itself, why they no longer walk the wilds with us but we can feel their presence every day. One such tale goes that after Oblivion was defeated by Moon, it wasn’t over.
“As predestined by Creation themself, there would come a time when Oblivion’s pupil, only ever called The End, would… go on to destroy the world in its place. The End was infinitely stronger than Oblivion, not even Moon or the newborn Sun could deal with it. The Era of the Primordials would come to a close because of it, and while some accepted their fate and knew this was how it was supposed to be… others did not.”
“Most of the main Grand Primordials that we know of created these… creatures in an effort to stop The End. Guardians. Protectors,” Blake picks up in a vacant voice, so detached from herself and from reality as she digs up this one particular story of Menagerie’s culture from her mind. “Sun, Moon, Storm. Many more, I think only eight in total though. These creatures were supposed to fight off The End, protect humans and Faunus from being wiped out. It didn’t work though, The End won anyway and these creatures were rumored to be dead along with everything else. But they’re out there.”
“And I’m assuming these creatures are based on… Grimm?”
“Really, really old Grimm,” Blake finally blinks back to herself, turning to face her. Trying to approach this now as a huntress with an enemy, their quarry, rather than a girl frightened from a cultural ghost story about monsters and the world’s end. “This whole story about the Primordials making them to protect us, it- it was just supposed to make people feel better and not be so afraid of them. To make them nothing but a fantasy and erase their existence from the world because as far as we know, all of them have gone dormant or they’ve been stopped. Because the less people knew about them, the less we were afraid. And we all know that fear-”
“-is the best way to attract the Grimm,” Weiss concludes.
Because once something becomes a story, a fairy tale, then it’s no longer a real thing. It’s no longer something that can harm you.
It’s just a story people tell on camping trips or when putting their children to sleep.
“According to the legends and Menagerie’s history,” Ghira offers more insight, more clues, more so she can get a full sense of what exactly they’re dealing with now that has everyone clearly frightened. “Nature’s Wrath was the name given to this particular Grimm. It didn’t originate from the island but it somehow found its way here long ago and brought terror to everyone at the time. Truth be told, it could’ve destroyed Menagerie before it ever would have had a chance to prosper.”
“But something clearly stopped it from doing so, right?”
“The first Chief of Menagerie,” the current chief bows his head, motioning to a grand portrait on the far wall that she’s never really paid too much attention to before. If only in passing to admire it. A beautiful design of a night sky filled with various stars, different colored motes all leading up to a certain point near the top where a brilliant gold one sits. “Not much is known of him. Even his name has been forgotten, though he’s often referred to as Kip in whatever written records we have from those times. Bear in mind, record keeping wasn’t the best back then since most everything was passed down by word of mouth. But rumors go he sacrificed himself to seal Wrath in stone where the beast resides today at the Timeless Forest. By doing so, he saved the island and everyone on it.”
Sealed in stone…
Weiss frowns to her friend beside her, “Did he have-”
“Probably,” Blake nods, following the same line of thinking. “The silver eyes are the only way we know of now that’s able to petrify a Grimm, especially one of Wrath’s size.”
But considering how long it’s been, the petrification must be wearing off. Maybe the beast inside has been trying to push its way out this entire time (when they’re trapped in that state, are they aware of where they are? Or does their consciousness freeze along with their bodies? So many questions, so many questions) or maybe Salem has been calling to all of the Grimm throughout the world. Frozen or otherwise. Awakening them to wreak havoc upon the realm and bring it to ruin on her behalf.
“How come we’ve never been told any of this before?” Weiss furrows her brow as she faces the chief and the Queen again. Not necessarily in accusation, but more so curiosity. “This feels like something we should’ve discussed long ago, as huntresses here. Maybe we could’ve dealt with it sooner?”
“Because this has never been an issue before, and as I’ve said, most of it’s been erased from our history and forgotten. A large majority of the people living here now don’t even know it’s there. We’ve never had an established group of huntsmen or huntresses to rely on since the kingdoms and their academies have shunned us out for the most part and it’s… still a new concept for the Elders to grasp. A battle against Wrath here would sooner destroy the entirety of Menagerie than defeat it.”
Ignorance is bliss.
But ignorance has also gotten so many people killed before.
She can understand not wanting to scare the masses. It’s the same exact mindset Ozpin had with not wanting to tell the world about Salem. Because what good is knowing there’s an ancient Grimm that could wake up at any moment right on your home turf? What good is there knowing there’s an immortal primordial evil out there that controls everything and wants to kill everyone?
For those who are unable to fight, for those who live simple lives and will never know what it’s like to take up a weapon and go against the creatures of darkness, it only creates panic. Fear. Negativity.
And negativity brings the Grimm. Making their jobs more difficult.
But there has to be a better way to at least let people be aware of the dangers that exist in the shadows so that they’re more prepared when it strikes. So that, even if they can’t fight it, they can run from it and get a headstart. So that they can get themselves and their loved ones to safety.
So that another Fall like the ones of Beacon and Atlas doesn’t happen again.
Both times they had been caught by surprise. The second time was so much worse because not only did they lose Ruby- but they should’ve already known. They should’ve been ready.
But they weren’t.
Because they were distracted.
Because they were too busy trying to convince Ironwood to not abandon the people of Mantle in his fear. Because they were too busy dealing with their own internal conflicts. Because they were too busy fighting amongst themselves instead of banding together against the real enemy.
Because they were too busy trying to save everyone- and they can’t. They can’t, they’ve tried twice now in both Falls to save everyone and look what the f*ck happened.
They failed. Both times.
They saved some people… and lost so much more.
And now, another disaster has lined up perfectly to happen. The dominoes are in place and one by one, they’re tumbling down. Right here, in the home they created for themselves. With all the people who have accepted them in their time of need, nurtured them and loved them and gave them warmth and welcomed them so easily into their culture and community. Sure, there have been ups and downs and not everyone has been perfect, but nothing ever is- yet being here in Menagerie is pretty damn close to it.
This changes their plans entirely. Because how can they just leave now? After learning what awaits the people they call their own. How can they just abandon everybody here to Wrath?
If what Ghira and Kali and Blake and the stories say, then fighting it is not an option. Not here, at least. Unless they want to bring the island down anyway in their attempt to save it.
And this is on top of whatever else is going to be coming after them because of the trackers and-
The trackers…
Weiss gazes down at her arm, fingers brushing along it. Though the three-banded black lines are covered by her glove, she knows they’re always there. Whether they throb with phantom pain or exist on her skin like paint or tattoos, she is hyper aware of where they are at all times.
Their most obvious problem…
…that could potentially also be a solution.
“What if we lure it away?” Weiss jumps at the idea before it can leave her mind, facing Blake once more as she lifts her arm a bit to indicate her own markings. Hidden away as they are. “It’ll want to come after us, right? We can take it off the island, evacuate everyone just to be safe in case it doesn’t chase us immediately. I can use my Nevermore to fly us safely out of its reach but keep it interested in us so it doesn’t turn back around. We can lead it elsewhere.”
“That… could work,” Blake speaks slowly, the start of a plan forming together with the bits and pieces that Weiss has provided. It’s not perfect and this puzzle might not ever turn out right, but if it works, that’s all that matters. She presses a palm over her chest, covering a majority of the black spider webbing. Their death sentence, but now, their only possible saving grace in all of this. “How far can you take us?”
“As far as we need to.”
Whether she has to draw from her aura net again or allow the cracks to grow more to a dangerous level, she’ll let it.
Whatever it takes to save their home.
“Using yourselves as live bait?” Kali gawks, and as they turn to the two across the table, Weiss can already tell they are immediately against this. “Have you gone crazy?”
It probably doesn’t help matters, but Weiss gives a sheepish smile. A wrinkle to her nose as she ruefully admits, “Believe me, of all the insane ideas we’ve come up with over the years, this is rather tame in comparison.”
“Yeah, I’m surprised you are the one who thought it up,” Blake chuckles, tight with panic and slightly hysterical. But there’s a true bit of humor in there that allows the light to shine through.
“Well, Ruby and Yang are usually the ones to think of them and they’re not here right now, so…” Weiss shrugs helplessly. Not even trying to defend herself. “I’ve spent too much time around them.”
“Where would we even evacuate everybody?” Ghira cuts in before they can delve even more into banter. Body rigid and his hands that have been resting against the table have become white-knuckled fists as he clenches them. “There’s nowhere else for us to go.”
Where, indeed?
With sea travel as dangerous as it is, and travel by air equally so, evacuating the entire population would have its own set of complications. Not only deciding where they would go in the meantime while they dealt with… everything, but also, how they would get there. Menagerie owns plenty of ships, mostly fishing vessels, but in good conscience could they really send everybody off to fend for themselves against the sea and the storms? They already had enough trouble with it getting home- she can only imagine what entire boats filled with hundreds of innocent men, women, children, Elders, pets, livestock, and many more incapable of defending themselves would be like.
Chaos.
Sheer, total chaos.
“Ori Akamu,” Blake snaps her fingers, peering over to a map of Menagerie on the other wall (mostly there simply for decoration) and appearing as though she was about to stand up and go get it but decides against it. Explaining in a rushed tone, “The… The archipelago that’s not far from here- but far enough! It was an attempt at an expansion project long ago but it never amounted to anything because it started to take up too many resources back in the day, so it was abandoned. Everyone just focused on the main island here afterward, but it should be empty and though it’s small, there should be enough islets to house everyone for the time being.”
“We can clear it up if need be and make sure it’s safe first?”
It won’t matter if it’s hospitable for long-term living or not. They don’t plan to have everyone live there from here on out, just until… everything settles down.
Or at the very least, just until Wrath is no longer within Menagerie’s vicinity.
“Yes, exactly!” Blake nods, a bit excited now that something seems to be shaping up for f*cking once with them. She makes a sweeping motion with her hands, wincing, “I just want to get everyone away from here for now.”
“And not everyone will agree on it.”
Ghira’s demeanor changes now. It’s so slight, so subtle, but from one moment to the next, Weiss knows they aren’t just making a plea to Blake’s father anymore.
They’re making a plea to the Chief of Menagerie. And as he’s stated before, there are some decisions he must make that he might not agree with, but for the sake of the island and his people, need to be made.
It is the leader that always has to make the hardest choices.
“Dad…”
“Many who live have never left the island and will refuse to. Even if there is a threat, they won’t want to leave their homes. Everything they ever know and love is here, and you’re asking them to abandon it.”
“For their own safety,” Blake throws back, incredulous, and Ghira shakes his head sadly.
“Many are in the mindset that if the ship is going down, so too will they go down with it.”
“But it’s not going to be forever! It’s just until we can get Wrath away from here and-”
“And what makes you think your mother and I are okay with allowing you to use yourself as bait?”
“Dad,” Blake grits her teeth with a guttural growl building in the back of her throat and Weiss is starting to grow very, very uncomfortable in this situation. Because neither of them will give up, she knows that. She’s seen it before once already, back when they came to him before Ruby’s cleansing to tell him about what they were going to do.
“I’ve said it once before and I’ll say it again,” Ghira presses one of his hands flat against the table, leaning forward as if to bear down on them. Leaving no room for argument. “You four are not going anywhere. I’m not going to allow my daughter to sacrifice herself for her people. We will prepare for what’s coming together and we will deal with it together. You are not leaving us again and that’s final.”
Once, it had been comforting. Reassuring, even. Back when they had been so scared they would be chased off the island for Ruby’s cleansing so they didn’t just unleash Salem there.
But now, it is but another obstacle in their way. Because as much as they want to, they can’t stay here. It would defeat the whole purpose if they went with everybody for evacuations.
Weiss nervously glances to her side where Blake has gone quiet. Afraid that she might’ve become a statue again.
But no.
Blake isn’t frozen this time.
She’s trembling.
So many emotions burn within gold they’ve all been turned into molten magma. A mess of sorrow and heartbreak and frustration and anger and-
“You can’t keep treating me like I’m a defenseless little girl.” Each word comes out slow, measured. Quiet. Like it’s taking everything within her to keep from shouting because this is still her father she’s speaking to and Blake is not one to raise her voice at her parents. (Or at anyone, for that matter.) But the calm is slipping through the cracks and Weiss braces herself for impact, removing her hand from Blake’s back to shield herself to the best of her ability. To get out of range of the crossfire. “I am a huntress. It is my job to protect the people from the Grimm- It is my job to protect you and mom now!”
“You will always be our daughter, first and foremost.” Ghira stands up, towering over everyone even more now and Weiss can’t tell if he wants to leap across the table to smack them or hug them for trying to convince him otherwise. “And it will always be our honor and our duty to protect you, Blake. Huntress or not, that doesn’t change anything- and I will not allow you to risk your life like this. We will come up with something else. Anything else that doesn’t involve-”
Blake snaps.
Weiss could tell that it was coming, and yet, she still flinches when her hand slams against the table with a sharp;
“Hunter’s Law!”
Cutting Ghira off completely. Silencing him in a way she has never seen anyone accomplish before. He recoils almost as much as Weiss did, his features paling in an instant. At his side, still sitting, perhaps stunned, Kali squeezes her eyes shut as though pained by just the words alone. Like they are a blade her own daughter has taken to her chest.
She has no idea what that means.
But they sure do.
And their reactions are only made worse when Blake takes in a ragged breath, repeating in a calmer, sadder, breaking tone, “Hunter’s Law; Sun’s Gambit.”
Ghira takes an entire step back. His entire posture dropping, all the vehemence he had to get his point across and get them to change their mind vanishing to the wind. Kali bows her head like she’s standing in front of a gravestone for her daughter.
Even Blake is crestfallen by it despite being the one to bring it up. She wraps her arms around herself and instinctively leans toward Weiss, catching her by surprise and nearly knocking her over because she isn’t expecting the abrupt weight. But she adjusts, keeping both of them up and wrapping her arms loosely around Blake to hold her.
Catch me. Hold me, don’t let me break.
Since Yang isn’t here to do it, Weiss will in her place.
“Blake?” She whispers to her, afraid of breaking the sudden silence that finds them and the entire room. Oppressive. Suffocating. “What…?”
“Hunter’s Law,” Blake mumbles, fighting back her tears and her emotions before they can get the better of her, “is a kind of ancient martial law here in Menagerie. It decrees that when there is a serious Grimm threat, the word of the active huntsman or huntress at the time goes above everyone else’s. Including that of the chief and the Elders.”
Oh…
Weiss understands now.
And she f*cking hates it.
“There are various stages of the Law that reflect the level of threat; Moon’s Plea, Storm’s Request, and Sun’s Gambit. It is based on the danger the huntsman or huntress deems the Grimm to be. The third is the most extreme and it is named that… because it means,” Blake starts to tear up now, losing the fight against her emotions as her words start to come out shaky and uneven, “that the threat is far beyond what the hunter can handle… and death is a high possibility for them. Civilian evacuation from the island is mandatory and will begin posthaste, there will be no exceptions.”
She saddens. Can’t even bear to glance at Ghira and Kali to gauge their reactions.
Because Blake might as well have just said it out loud We’re going to die, we can’t beat this thing, so you need to leave.
(...Goodbye…)
“You don’t think we can win?” Weiss murmurs, wanting to give them some bit of hope. Not wanting to leave this room until they have the reassurance that when all is said and done, their daughter will come home safe and sound again.
“Not against Wrath. Not if the stories are true.” Blake shakes her head outright, wiping at her cheeks with a sniffle. “You’ll see it tomorrow. We need to go and determine how much time we have left before it breaks out.”
A squeeze to her wrist has Weiss releasing her from her hold as Blake pushes up to her feet as well. Oh so shaky with her legs about to give out, but somehow, she manages to stand tall. Facing her father directly, who still hasn’t moved an inch from his place. Staring at his daughter like he’s already watched her die right before his eyes.
“But as of this moment, as one of the active huntresses of Menagerie, I am invoking Hunter’s Law. And there will be no more arguments against this.”
“Blake,” Kali gets up as well, rounding the table on swift feet to hold her. Perhaps just as paranoid as Weiss is that at any second, Blake will fall apart. Perhaps needing to convince herself that despite everything, Blake is still here. At least for now. She places one hand against her shoulder, the other at her scarred cheek, choking up as she wipes away a tear, “Honey…”
“I’m sorry, mom,” Blake leans into her touch like it is the last time she’ll ever get to feel it. Fingers circling her mother’s wrist to keep her there with a short sob. “But I have to do this and I know that neither of you will ever give me up. I can’t risk you. Never you two.”
“We can… We can come up with something else-”
“There’s no time.”
Time.
Ever their greatest enemy.
Perhaps Salem isn’t their biggest threat, perhaps it’s been time all along.
“There’s no time,” Blake repeats, giving in now and embracing her mom like her life- like both of their lives depend on it. Kali returns it. Her next words are muffled against her shoulder, “All I care about right now is getting you and everybody else away from here.”
Weiss knew that this conversation was going to be one of the toughest to partake in. Even more than standing in Ironwood’s office to make their plea and bring some sense back to him, even more than confronting Ozpin about all of his lies and learning the real truth behind the witch’s story. And those people… She wouldn’t exactly call them their enemies, but they most certainly aren’t their friends either.
But these? Ghira and Kali?
These are people they love, people who love them in return.
And telling them to Go, leave us behind, it’s too dangerous is something Weiss doesn’t think she had been fully mentally prepared for. Fighting to be abandoned while everyone else went to safety. Every damn instinct within her wants to take it all back. Try and come up with a different solution that will somehow appease everyone and the four of them won’t have to separate from everything they’ve ever known. Isolating themselves yet again in their grand endeavor to save the world.
But there’s no time.
Seconds are a resource that can make the difference between life and death.
They can’t afford to waste any.
“I could’ve sworn I tore those documents about the Law apart a while ago,” Ghira finally starts to function again, speaking in a hushed, haunted tone. Nigh a whisper full of disbelief as he doesn’t take his attention off of his daughter once. “Where did you learn about them?”
Blake stirs from where she still holds her mother in a long embrace, refusing to let her go even as she turns her head in her dad’s direction. Weiss can just barely make out the small, sorrowful curl of the corner of her lip from her angle on the floor. “A chief is meant to know everything about their people. Their culture, their legacy, their laws. It’s the first thing you taught me, dad. So I started reading.”
Weiss never thought it was possible for someone to be proud and full of grief at the same time, but Ghira accomplishes it. His eyes water but she can’t tell whether from joy and pride or sorrow. He thins his lips, chin dipping toward his chest for a second as if he wants to crumble but fights against it. Draws in a deep breath before he straightens himself out again.
“The law is the law,” he relents (and it doesn’t feel like victory whatsoever; Weiss can’t imagine a scenario where it would’ve), “I will bring this up to the Elders tomorrow while Ashe escorts you to Wrath. And from there… we’ll begin planning evacuation methods and I will figure out what to say to the people of Menagerie.”
“Tell them as much of the truth as you want.”
“I’ll tell them as much as they deserve.”
Everything, then. The people deserve to know everything.
Even if he does happen to leave some things out, just like they have, there’s no possible way everyone on Menagerie is unaware of what’s happening around the world. Ozpin has already broadcasted his warning messages to all of Remnant and the rest of the academies have echoed it as well. The people are already working toward doing their best to prepare for the disaster swiftly approaching everyone’s way, bracing for impact to the best of their abilities.
And even if Menagerie was somehow kept out of the loop of all of that, the folks aren’t blind. They can see what’s happening around them. The violent storms that have taken place. Can hear the distant screeches of Grimm. Can feel the unrest growing in the air, as if the universe itself is holding its breath in anticipation and leaving little to no oxygen for everyone.
They know something is wrong, but they don’t know everything.
Perhaps they don’t even know how serious it is.
“Once we check out Wrath,” Weiss uses the momentum of a plan forming together to keep pushing forward, presenting suggestions that she hopes will make a difference in the long run, “we can go to the archipelago to see if it will still work as a proper evacuation zone. I can use my summons to scout around, if need be.”
And if worst comes to worst, the refugees are always an option to ask for assistance as well. She knows at least a couple of them off the top of her head who would be willing to help them out, Aegean would no doubt be the first.
It’s not ideal, and she’d hate to ruin the peaceful lives many of them have built for themselves, but these are no longer peaceful times.
It’s either they get up and get going or they stay and die. There’s no in-between.
And she’d hate for any of them to be captured and corrupted too. So if they had no intentions to fight again whatsoever, then at the very least, they can be convinced to join in the evacuations.
Away, away, away.
Blake is right.
She just wants to get everyone away from here. And there’s nowhere on Remnant that is truly ‘safe’ anymore, but perhaps this Ori Akamu place will be a decent temporary choice.
Before Weiss can offer anything else, keep the conversation going now that it seems like they’re getting somewhere, now that Ghira and Kali have very reluctantly agreed to their idea (or at least, aren’t actively arguing against it anymore), a buzz from her scroll in her pocket makes her jump. Unprepared. She surreptitiously takes it out just enough for her to see the screen, low on battery as it might be.
A message, from Ruby; I don’t want to rush you but there’s a lot we have to talk about when the two of you get home. Take your time though.
As with most of the messages her partner sends her, there’s a little character at the end of it made from symbols and numbers that always reminds her of a person presenting a heart to her. And it’s crazy to her just how much comfort she finds in it. Just how much it can almost flip her mood entirely. Just how much it already brings the start of a smile to her lips.
She types back quickly; Is everything okay? Is Tai alright?
A minute passes and it is the longest 60 seconds of her life before there’s another buzz.
He’s fine, Ruby’s message reads. Hurt, but fine.
And not even a second later, another one arrives that sends a cold chill through her.
Please, come home. And be careful. Yang and I were followed by the Fallen. Neither of us were attacked. I think I stopped them, but I don’t know for how long.
Ah.
In light of everything they just talked about, she almost forgot about the Fallen already here. Stalking them through the darkness, killing one of her jaguars. Standing so out in the open with no attempts to hide as if they didn’t care if they were spotted by her and her summons.
As if they wanted to be seen.
(As if they wanted to be found- so that they may be freed.)
Time to go.
They’ve done all the planning they can do right now, given the circ*mstances. They’ll cover all their bases first, go and locate Wrath and estimate just how much time they have to work with before it all falls apart, and do what the rest of the world is doing and brace for impact. Maybe in the following days they can talk to the refugees, get some more help. Start evacuations.
But as of right now, there’s nothing else they can do but their favorite thing.
Wait.
Wait until morning.
And pray that nothing bad happens overnight.
As she gets up to say her goodbyes (and her apologies too because it feels like she’s taking their daughter from them to die), she pauses. Taking one look at them alone, at the way Blake and Kali continue to hold each other and how Ghira joins them eventually, scooping his family into his arms to keep them close, and she decides she can’t find it within herself to separate them yet.
Time is of the essence but she will bend it in her favor to allow them just a few more minutes.
She excuses herself, mumbling to Blake she’ll wait for her outside, and leaves the Belladonnas in the room before the sight of what might be their last family hug is enough to break her. (Gods, she can’t imagine what’s going through Blake’s mind right now and all she can do is sympathize.)
No one tries to stop her and she didn’t expect them to.
Weiss leans heavily on the other side of the door. The weight of it all bears down on her until it’s only the wood at her back that keeps her from sliding to the floor. The exhaustion of their last few days of travel, the news of everything they’ve learned here, the tension of a room with people she never expected to argue against, the repeated use of her summons despite needing the rest. It’s beginning to catch up to her and if she isn’t careful, she’ll break.
She can’t afford to break right now.
So, as she’s often done plenty of times before (and she will continue to do many more times from now), she breathes through the pain. The fatigue. The grief.
And she puts one foot in front of the other and walks.
It feels wrong to go so far away from her only teammate that’s here, but she’s convinced herself the only way they’ll get the privacy they deserve is if she’s all the way outside of the house. Perhaps the guardsmen that usually wander the halls have the same sentiment, because as she heads down to the foyer to slip on her boots and grab her rapier from the floor, the house is deathly quiet. More so than it’s ever been before. Normally there would at least be an occasional creak of wood from the floorboards, telling of the guards constantly roaming about to keep watch.
But not right now.
She can’t exit through the front door fast enough, the silence wearing on her nerves until she’s convinced it alone will make her bleed, and as soon as she passes through the threshold to greet the soothing sound of the chirping crickets and the cloud-covered night sky, it feels as though she just barely escaped certain death. It looms over her at a distance, always hovering nearby, but at least for this instance, she is safe.
As safe as she can be.
She stumbles into the wooden railing of the porch as if she’s catching herself from a long fall, damn near knocking the wind out of herself, but Weiss just sighs. The weight of her cloak compressing rather than comforting and forcing her to hunch against the banister, rubbing at her forehead and the terrible migraine that hasn’t left her for days now. An aftereffect of drawing her aura in from the net. Only made worse because she continues to use her semblance (but really, what other choice does she have? None).
“Things have really gone to sh*t, haven’t they?”
Perhaps a part of her is expecting that voice to pop up at one point sooner or later, like a sixth sense knowing that someone had been following her out of the house, or perhaps she’s just simply so damn exhausted from it all that she can’t even find the strength to be surprised. Whatever the case, she doesn’t jump or flinch and lowers her hand enough from her face to spot Ilia sitting on the railing a few feet away from her. One leg drawn up to hug her knee close while the other hangs limply over the side.
Her focus remains on the sky. As if searching for the stars that haven’t shown themselves for days now because of the storm clouds that block them out. But still trying.
“How long have you been here?” Weiss sighs, sending another message to Ruby that they’ll be home soon before pocketing her scroll.
“The entire time.”
Go figure. Maybe it’s paranoia that keeps her close to them- maybe a little traumatized now since the whole lightning strike debacle and watching Weiss willingly almost break herself to save the others, (Ilia had been the only one in the main cabin of Road to Dawn who managed to convince her not to rejoin the fight so soon, choosing to stay down there for the duration of the attack because while the deck was protected by the huntresses, she had been the only one down there to protect the crew)- or she probably knew what conversation they were going to have with Ghira and Kali.
Why she chose not to reveal herself until now is beyond Weiss, but she chooses not to question it.
“How much did you hear?”
“All of it.” Ilia lets out a whistle, grimacing, “People aren’t going to be happy.”
“We’re trying to save their lives, surely they can understand that much.”
“Oh, they will. And they’ll be more than grateful, but that doesn’t mean they’re okay with leaving their homes.”
“And what about you?” Weiss faces her properly, still using the railing as support because she doesn’t think she can stand on her own at the moment. If Ilia notices, she doesn’t comment on it. But then again, it’s not as though she has looked in her direction a single time yet. “Are you against this?”
“Well, I don’t love it if that’s what you want to hear. But I can see why this is the best choice for the sake of the people, even if some of those people won’t agree to it.” At last, at last, she finally gives up her search for the stars with a withering sigh and tilts her head her way. Frowning and giving a feeble shrug. “I’m used to leaving anyway, so I’m not too bothered. I spend more time off of Menagerie running errands and stuff for the chief than I do on it. Hell, if I knew Wrath was waking up, I might’ve just stayed at Beacon.”
Weiss almost shares in that sentiment.
Almost.
Bad as things are shaping up to be here, there was no way they would’ve survived being at Beacon any longer than they already did.
If Salem and the Grimm didn’t get to them first, the city and its memories would have for sure.
“What can you tell me about Nature’s Wrath? I didn’t want to press for more, but…” Weiss furrows her brow, attempting to bring up her knowledge about every living Grimm she can think of. And even those that she’s never come across that she often studied back at Beacon, any that her Grandfather might’ve written about that could be one of these ‘Primordial’ creations. “I have to say that I am curious.”
“Blake used to hate the stories that featured Oblivion’s protégé because they all ended in death and tragedy, and you know. Princess of the island and all, people didn’t like making her sad, so they kind of stopped telling them around the village. But if I’ve learned anything here, ask any of the elders for a story and they’re more than eager to share it.”
Ilia pauses momentarily, most likely to gather her thoughts together about it. Rolling her head on her shoulders as if trying to stir up the memories of listening to those stories. And after a solid minute or so of silence, she pivots towards Weiss completely, sitting cross-legged on the railing now.
“As the tales go, there are eight out there, all of them created by a powerful manifestation of a specific emotion the Primordial who brought them to life had at the time of shaping them into existence. Mostly, negative emotions.
“Nature’s Wrath is one of them. Then you have Wind’s Frenzy, Storm’s Ire, Earth’s Rage,” Ilia counts them off one by one on her fingers, “Water’s Misery, Sun’s Fury, Moon’s Sorrow, and Oblivion’s Hunger.”
“Oblivion had one?” Weiss tilts her head in confusion. “I thought these things were made after its death to stop The End? Why would it have one?”
“Apparently Oblivion had already made Hunger as a failsafe of sorts generations before. It woke up at the time of Oblivion’s death and is the reason The End was able to be unleashed in the first place. Hunger was meant to help it, devouring the rest of the Primordials and their creations and the world, and it was also supposed to betray The End and eat it too because it was a glutton. Always starving. But,” Ilia lets out a huff of air, scratching a finger to her cheek, “I guess Oblivion didn’t plan for Hunger to be defeated instead.”
“Either way, whether The End did it or Hunger did, Oblivion would’ve gotten what it wanted.”
Either way, the Era of Primordials would come to its bitter close. The world would be wiped out for eons before it began to be populated again, before the spirits of the dead began to be reborn anew, and the divine that walked with humanity and Faunus would no longer be around.
Either way, the darkness won.
So is that the story they’re destined for too? That no matter how powerful they end up becoming, the light will never be enough to emerge victorious?
Will all life here be wiped out a second time with no guarantee of ever coming back for a third chance?
“So it seems,” Ilia mumbles, the same dreary question no doubt going through her mind as well before she shakes it off and moves on. “Anyway, this whole story about the Primordials and their creations is essentially just based off of Grimm. Ancient ones from generations ago, from whoever the hell made the tales in the first place. When people are afraid of something, they make stories out of it. Makes it seem less scary that way.”
“Until you learn they’re real.”
“Yeah, until you learn they’re real. Then they’re even more terrifying because what they do in the stories is already bad enough, and that’s probably not even half of what they’re capable of,” Ilia somehow has it within herself to laugh about it. Breathless and uneasy as she goes about fiddling with her hands, shoulders drawing up to make herself smaller. Speaking in a lower, quieter tone, “You’ve technically already encountered one of them.”
What?
“Pardon?”
“I’ve heard the stories from the refugees. I like to talk to them sometimes and they like the company of non-huntsmen too. The… Drake thing? That one is Earth’s Rage.”
The scar at her thigh from its toxic breath tingles and Weiss has to grab at her own hand to stop herself from instinctively trying to scratch it. The image of the monstrosity flashes in her mind and it’s all she can do not to panic.
“One of the refugees has photographic memory and they’re really good at sketching. Blake drew it a couple of times too when I visited her in the hospital in Atlas after… everything. But those drawings look eerily similar to the old sketches that the Elders currently have locked somewhere about these Grimm, if slightly different. I’m sure you can ask them to show you if you want.”
Oh how small the world can be sometimes.
She doesn’t know what to make of it. To suddenly be told that she did indeed encounter one of these mythical beasts and came out of it somehow alive. Not necessarily unscathed, but alive and breathing and that’s better than the alternative. Better than what most people went through against that monstrosity.
At the very least, if she wants to attempt to find some sort of silver lining to make herself feel marginally better about the whole thing, it gives a sense of the power scale.
But if the Drake was already difficult to deal with, how bad is Wrath going to be in comparison? Equally so, or is it somehow powered down now that they’re not on the Grimm’s home turf? If the beast has been petrified this entire time, surely that’s somehow weakened it right?
Perhaps it’s hopeful wishing.
At any rate, it would be in their best interest to bring this up with the Elders as well. Even if it’s just to learn a little bit more about these ancient enemies that might start popping up all around the world on Salem’s behest, even if it’s just to get a visualization of them.
“Do you think there’s any way we can defeat them?”
No matter if it’s just Wrath. It would settle her mind a lot more if they could somehow kill it and get rid of it entirely so that it’s no longer an issue for the future than running away from it and leading it elsewhere. Because what if their plan doesn’t actually work? What if the thing shows zero interest in them or Salem forces it to turn its attention elsewhere?
“Not any that we know of. I’m sure if there is though,” Ilia sends her as reassuring a smile as she can and it does little to soothe her nerves but Weiss appreciates the effort nonetheless (because it can’t be easy. To try and look on the bright side of things or find the silver linings or stay optimistic when things just keep going from bad to worse to terrible), “you all will be able to figure it out. From the things I’ve seen and heard, you’re all miracle workers.”
Weiss emits a small breath, shaking her head slightly, “I’d hardly call us that.”
“You brought a girl back from the dead after over two years of her being gone. If that’s not a miracle, what is?”
…Well, she does have a point there.
They could’ve failed from the very beginning. They could’ve never found Ruby and Salem probably would’ve reformed on her own with or without the Champion’s involvement. f*ck, they could’ve died on any one of their ruin hunts before ever finding the God of Light’s realm.
But no.
They found Ruby. They brought her home safely despite the difficulties along the way. They cleansed her of the devil and have guided her along the path of healing while continuing to walk it themselves as well. They’ve faced ancient Grimm after ancient Grimm and have somehow emerged victorious and alive each and every time. They’ve fought many of the Fallen already and have freed almost every single one that they’ve personally come across.
And now they’re here. Together. Facing a new set of challenges that sits before them that they have to somehow find a way through or around or over.
Things can be worse.
They could all be dead right now, for one. So just the fact that her heart still beats in her chest is already a step in the right direction.
If she is alive, she can fight.
And as long as she can keep fighting, then there will always be a chance of winning.
She just has to try. Try. Try again, keep trying. Don’t give up. You can’t.
The sound of the door behind her opening has her spinning on her heel, the cracks upon her heart deepening at just how wrecked Blake is. Eyes puffy and red from crying, tear trails on her cheeks that still haven’t dried yet even when she has no new ones left to give, hair slightly disheveled like one or both of her parents had continuously ran their hand through it in a soothing act. She moves like a person who has been drained of all their energy and it is only the body’s need for survival that keeps her putting one foot in front of the other.
When she notices Ilia there, there’s not an ounce of surprise in her. Maybe she is too tired to feel such an emotion like Weiss is, or maybe she already suspected her friend to have eavesdropped on the entire conversation.
Ilia hops off the railing without any hesitation, stepping over to Blake until she’s able to gingerly bring her into an embrace of their own. Blake closes her eyes, exhausted, bumping her head into the side of hers with a sigh. Weiss has half a mind to go over there and help keep her standing, but Ilia seems to be handling the weight well.
There’s a beat of silence before Ilia murmurs, “Gonna tell me to leave too?”
Perhaps a jest. Perhaps an honest question.
Blake sighs, throat scratchy as she replies (so difficult to hear from where Weiss stands), “Don’t start, Ilia.”
“I won’t, I won’t. I understand.” She pulls away to an arm’s length, features twisting in a wince. “...sorry.”
A single word to encapsulate it all. If she goes on to list everything that the world won’t apologize for, they might just be here all night. All their lives. So sometimes, just one little sorry is more than enough.
Blake dips her head. Accepting the sympathy instead of shoving it aside to focus on the task at hand. Because she can do both. Even if it’s only for a heartbeat, she can allow both to exist as one.
“If it’s not too much trouble for you, I need you to stay close to them,” Blake subtly nods to the house behind her, always prioritizing the safety of her parents above everything else. “When evacuations begin and beyond them, you don’t leave their sides for a second. I’d do it myself, but-”
Gold peeks over to Weiss and Weiss stands taller in response, just now realizing her hand has been resting on Myrtenaster’s hilt this entire time like she is ready to go to Wrath now and fight despite not being in any condition to do so.
“I’m going to be caught up in everything else. So I’m trusting you, Ilia. I’m begging you-”
“Okay,” Ilia accepts her heavy task forthright. Zero questions asked, zero reluctance shown. She nudges Blake on the shoulder with a hint of humor in her actions, a smile in her voice that’s almost teasing, a wink, “As your highest advisor, I got your back, chief.”
It’s something. To know that at least someone they know and trust is going to be watching over Ghira and Kali when they’ll be busy with everything, it’s something. A brief bit of good in this mess.
“Thank you,” Blake softens, butting her forehead against the side of Ilia’s temple in what must be a parting gesture because she stands at the very top of the staircase afterward. Prepared to head down the too many steps and waiting for Weiss. “Let’s go home. I’m tired.”
Home.
Ah, how she’s longed for it.
But it’s a bittersweet sting. Because she knows and they all know that they can’t stay here for long. Sooner rather than later, they’re going to have to abandon their humble abode once again.
And the next time they leave…
Weiss has no idea when they’ll be able to come back.
(... if they’ll be able to come back.)
…
The walk through the jungle and down the lantern-lit path to their secluded area of Menagerie is one full of suffocating tension and an ominous hush. She warns Blake in advance of Ruby’s message of there indeed being shadow figures out there that did attempt to follow their partners, so they can’t even take their time to enjoy the scenery and let nature relax them as the island is prone to doing. Neither of them have the energy to run though, so they settle for a speed-walk with their weapons drawn and senses on high alert.
It’s one of the most stressful moments of her life.
This far out, though normally beautiful at night, the wilds become their biggest nightmare. The flickering flames of the lanterns can only produce so much light, a small radius that doesn’t extend far within the tree line itself. And with no moonshine to guide them either and illuminate the path even more, everything is just so much darker.
It doesn’t help that there are enemies out there right now. Probably trailing after them right at this very moment. Or perhaps, not there at all and it’s only Weiss’s paranoia that tricks her into believing there are moving shadows following their every movement.
The amount of relief that rushes through her when they finally arrive at the clearing where their home sits proud and center nearly makes her fall to her knees then and there. She takes one final peek to the path behind them and can’t tell whether the motes of red- like eyes in the smog- actually exist or not because from one blink to the next, they aren’t there anymore and nothing rushes out at them and there’s no sound of anything trampling through the undergrowth to get away either.
Though it’s not actually true, she feels as though nothing can cross into their bubble of safety.
Here, in their home, they are safe.
(You aren’t.
You are never safe.)
“Hey, girls!”
Though she knew he was here, somehow Weiss isn’t expecting Taiyang to be sitting on their front porch. Comfortable on their swinging bench with one of the dining chairs from inside brought out so he can rest his feet on it and basically all of their throw pillows stacked behind and around him to make him as relaxed as possible. He starts to try and struggle to stand, but Yang- sitting securely at his side like she’s refusing to let him out of her sights for even a second- must snap at him to stay sitting or something because he doesn’t try again.
And despite the fact that he is covered in bandages that are visible even with him doing his best to hide them under his shirt, he beams at them like he isn’t as injured as he is.
“It’s been a while, huh?”
“Tai,” Weiss smiles at him in greeting while Blake gives a tiny wave, the two of them climbing up the stairs and onto the porch to hug him to the best of their abilities. It’s difficult to do considering he’s sitting down and the angle is all awkward with the chair in the way, but they make do.
Even though Weiss is so afraid of hurting him somehow if she squeezes too tightly.
“What happened to you?” Blake gasps, glancing between her partner and Tai and back again. Allowing herself to be pulled into Yang’s lap when Yang takes her by the hand and tugs her in, wrapping her arms around her delicately and holding her as close as possible as she breathes her in. Content now, finding a nice little hiding spot in the crook of her neck.
“It’s…” He flinches when he goes to try and scratch the back of his head, causing a twinge of pain to shoot through him just by lifting his arm that way. He doesn’t try again afterward, sighing through his teeth. “...a long story. I’ll tell it again in the morning, right now I’m beat and honestly, all of us should go to sleep. We’re just out here waiting for- Oh, there he is.”
Tai lets out a sharp whistle, a signal, and trotting out from the jungle like he had gone scoping out the lands by himself to secure a perimeter for them is Zwei. The corgi’s ears perk up at the call before he lifts his head from the ground where he had been sniffing the grass, releasing a short yip before darting across the yard to join everyone on the porch as well.
Immediately going to Weiss first, of course.
Weiss crouches down to scoop him into her arms, kissing him on the nose to welcome him back from whatever excursion he had been on. Worrying as it is that they’d let him go off on his own with so many dangers out there, the others don’t seem particularly concerned that something could’ve happened to him.
Apparently patrolling the areas near what he deems a ‘safe zone’ is a habit of his, even when they had been back at Patch.
“He didn’t find them, so they can’t be nearby anymore,” Yang mumbles, peeking out of her hiding spot against Blake’s neck and peering over at the dog. “He howls whenever he comes across something out there. I think for now, they left.”
They left.
Or Zwei simply couldn’t spot them anywhere.
But considering how bold they had been to be so out in the open when her constructs discovered them, she doubts the Fallen would suddenly change their minds and be stealthy now. Unless they were truly scared off by whatever Ruby did to stop them, no doubt using her eyes and her light.
For now, they’re safe.
“We can discuss everything in the morning.” Tai shifts his gaze from the dog to the jungle where he emerged from. A tight set to his jaw and a mark of tragedy in his eyes. “We have a long few days ahead of us.”
“Tell me about it,” Blake grumbles, kissing her partner on the top of the head and staying like that for a second longer than usual. Yang doesn’t rush her either, reveling in the contact.
“Where’s Ruby?” It’s the only oddity she discovers. The fact that her partner isn’t out here with the rest of her family. One would think neither of the sisters would be so willing to leave their dad’s side after what’s happened to him.
“...She’s in your room. Waiting for you.”
And another thing.
This entire time, Yang hasn’t met her in the eye once. The moment she arrived, she ducked her head and has kept her face mostly hidden against Blake and it could be excused that Yang isn’t necessarily hiding from her but from everything. Concealing her emotions as she always does from everyone else until she has worked through them better.
But she knows Yang. It’s been this long by now, she understands her ticks and tells as well as her own.
It’s her tone that gives her away the most.
The silent apology, the secret sympathy that bleeds through every single syllable.
Something is wrong.
Something is wrong and Weiss has to figure out what it is. She places Zwei down as carefully as possible, not wanting to drop him in her panic, and she doesn’t even bid anyone a good night before she’s rushing inside.
Ruby.
She has to get to Ruby first.
She has to make sure Ruby is alright. It mustn’t have been easy seeing her own father as hurt as he is, maybe she’s-
Weiss forces herself to slow down right as she reaches her bedroom door. Their bedroom door, it’s unofficially become both of theirs by now and any talk or idea of renovating to better accommodate both of them will have to wait until later because it is not at the top of their priority list whatsoever. It’s become nothing but an afterthought now.
The door is closed. Which makes her think that maybe Yang was wrong and Ruby went elsewhere because her partner still hasn’t entirely broken the habit of leaving every door behind her open a sliver for an easy escape. So the fact that it’s closed now is either a cause of concern or confusion or both and Weiss has settled on that third option.
She debates leaving Myrtenaster in their little storage closet down the hall but decides against it because if there is something possibly dangerous in there with her partner, then she needs to be fully armed.
As she goes to test the knob, a rush of air escapes her because it does turn. It hasn’t been locked. A good sign. Silver linings.
Ruby stands by the window with her back facing the rest of the room. Hardly reacting to the creak of the door opening, the shuffle of Weiss’s feet as she cautiously enters. Not wanting to startle her in any way.
Still, her partner does not turn around. Like she’s having a staring contest with the outside world just past the window.
Softly, hesitantly, she calls for her, “Ruby?”
A sharp intake of breath. A ragged exhale. All the muscles in her back tensing and shoulders stiffening before she reaches up to draw the curtains close with a huff, staggering back one, two steps.
By then, Weiss has already closed the door and made it to her. Catching her with a hand to the small of her back before Ruby can trip backwards. Lightly grabbing onto her by the elbow with her other hand and leaning against her. “Schatzi, what is it?”
“...There’s another one outside,” she murmurs like she doesn’t want to admit it and she’s struggling with herself to reveal the truth, a flicker of pain within silver. “Far past the garden, just within the jungle. Zwei didn’t check in that direction, we only sent him to the part in the front of the house.” A pause, before she whispers, “I think it was Oliver. It looked like him.”
There are five shadow figures on Menagerie, then. None of the ones Weiss discovered had Oliver’s signature bow and quiver.
“Should we go after him?”
Gods, it’s the last thing she wants to do. But if it will give them a peace of mind at the very least that there isn’t a skilled marksman with his sights trained on their house while they sleep, then that’s what they’ll do.
“No. Not right now, that’s what he wants.” Ruby lifts her hand, showing off the scar at the center of her palm. In the place where one of Oliver’s arrows had pierced through skin and muscle and bone as she saved Blake from receiving that same fate by the skin of her teeth. “It’s not worth chasing him yet.”
Yet.
Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever Oliver decides he’s tired of waiting and starts firing at them or they lose their patience.
But not yet.
Weiss pulls her partner’s palm forward until she’s able to press her lips to that scar like she has done countless times already since its creation. Ruby softens at that, appreciating the gesture, before she abruptly turns around and swaddles her into her arms. Weiss returns it more than easily, standing on her tiptoes so that she’s able to rest her head on her shoulder. Inhaling deeply, the scent of roses is a comfort like no other.
Home, home, home.
Here, she is home.
Here, she is safe.
“I’m sorry, Weiss…”
…Right?
Here, I’m safe, right?
She frowns, tries to pull away to meet her in the eye- but Ruby doesn’t let her go. If anything, she strengthens her grip on her. Damn near crushing. Constrictive. From comfort to constraint, her partner’s fingers dig into her back and it makes her flinch. Like she’s preemptively trying to prevent Weiss from breaking (even when she’s the one who has to do it).
Tick. Tock.
“I’m so sorry.”
Tick. Tock.
“Ruby-”
Tick. Tock…
“It’s about Winter.”
Tick-
Silence.
Time stops. Her heart stops. Her lungs stop- everything just stops. Her mind repeats that three-word sentence on loop and conjures up the worst possible scenarios over and over and over again until she’s convinced they’ll drive her mad and two of the words are lost in translation so all that echoes is Winter, Winter, Winter, Winter-
She doesn’t mean to. She doesn’t ever try to, aware of Ruby’s fears and triggers as she is.
But Ruby is still refusing to let her go and Weiss needs to see her face, she needs to see her and determine the truth and-
She pushes her back. Not a lot, just enough to release her from her hold. She doesn’t mean it, she doesn’t mean it, but she’s so caught up with Winter, Winter, Winter in her mind that she can barely register the way Ruby shudders, shaking fingers reaching up halfway toward the back of her neck before she forces herself to stop and lower them back down, visibly swallowing and fighting against those reactions born from a deep-seated fear. Her inhales and exhales deepen, like she’s convinced herself the next one she takes might be her last so she has to breathe in as much air as possible while she still can.
Any other time, Weiss would apologize.
But this isn’t like any other time.
“What’s about Winter?”
I’m sorry, Weiss.
It’s not anything good, that’s for sure. You don’t say sorry to someone in a tone like that when nothing has gone wrong.
She waits for the truth and it is one of the most painful experiences in her life. Knowing something bad has occurred to someone she loves and waiting for it to be confirmed. Waiting for Ruby to tell her she’s gone, Weiss, she’s gone and you couldn’t save her.
“I-” Ruby begins but fear rudely robs her of her voice and she flinches. Lifting her trembling hand again but instead of going for her nape, this time she goes directly for her throat. Clutching it in such a way as though she’s already punishing herself for needing to hurt her with her words. It has Weiss taking a step forward, to stop her, but she freezes when her partner hastily presents her with a piece of paper from her back pocket. Holding it between them like it’s a peace treaty. A barrier. She manages to get out roughly, “It’s from Raven. She left it for my dad, but I think you need to read it too.”
She almost doesn’t want to accept it. Anything from Raven is bad news, typically. And though she has a million different questions already, Weiss decides to take the leap of faith and trust her partner and snatch the paper from her. Reading through it swiftly.
It begins with apologies that may or may not be sincere- she can never truly tell with that one- and none that are directed to her. None that are meant for her and it feels as though she’s overheard something she wasn’t supposed to, but she moves on.
It gives little insight as to what happened in Patch that left Tai so injured and Weiss can only begin to imagine the state her partner’s hometown must be in at the moment.
…And then it talks of Qrow. Of him responding to Ironwood’s request to check out Purgatory and answer the SOS signal. The slaughter that Emerald mentioned to them. The slaughter whatever this thing that attacked the prison tried to do to the humble little island town of Patch.
And worst of all-
:The eldest Schnee daughter was there as well, doing her best to fight it off. But between her injuries and previous exhaustion and Qrow’s bad luck and my shadow already knowing how to fight Qrow because I do, they would’ve been killed too if I didn’t show up.:
Winter.
Eldest Schnee daughter- Is she not even f*cking deserving of being called by her name in Raven’s eyes?
Is her name not worth remembering?
:...I wanted to stay and help them, but he told me to go after it instead.:
She didn’t stay…
Raven was there, she was f*cking there and she saw how injured they had been and she just left.
She just left. She left them alone.
She left them to die.
:I don’t know what became of the Schnee or my brother. I know, at least for now and the time that I’m writing this, he’s alive.:
Qrow is alive (for now) and that’s good. Great, even. Fantastic.
But Raven’s letter does not mention anything in regards to Winter afterward. Which, in hindsight, makes sense because unlike with Qrow, Raven doesn’t have a link to Winter. She doesn’t have whatever spiritual connection she can make with people that allows her to know how they are at all times and gives her the chance to get to their sides in a heartbeat.
:I can only hope someone finds them in time.:
Robyn…
Weiss’s mind immediately goes to the leader of the Happy Huntresses. Since their last call with her warning them to proceed with caution to Purgatory, she has not heard a single thing in return. Mostly because she hasn’t had a proper signal until now. Weak as it may be here on Menagerie as well because there isn’t a fully established communications tower present on the island. But it’s much better than what they had out at sea.
With the letter in one hand, she takes out her scroll with the other and swipes down to Robyn’s name in her contacts. Clicking on it and holding the device up to her ear.
“And according to mother, Winter set out on a mission into the tundra soon after returning back to Atlas from here.”
Straight to voicemail. There isn’t even one ring that goes through.
She grunts in frustration, presses on her name again. Holds it to her ear.
“Everyone in and near that prison was killed.”
Voicemail instantly.
Third time’s the charm.
:I don’t know what became of the Schnee or my brother.:
Failure again. Though she has a signal, Robyn might not. They must have been too far into the tundra, probably dealing with their own kind of storms out there too. The blizzards and hail can get even worse than the thunderstorms and rain the four of them dealt with going across the ocean.
“f*ck,” she snarls, a sting of frustrated tears in her eyes as she grips the scroll so tight the metal creaks, doing the same with the letter until it’s completely wrinkled in her hand. A sudden, sharp drop of temperature descends upon the room as her aura crackles dangerously around her form. Specks of ice cling to her scroll and she scowls at it like it’s the cause of all her problems- because right now, it very well is. If they could just get a f*cking signal- “Damn it…”
:I can only hope someone finds them in time.:
Robyn is their only hope. So maybe it was a good thing that Weiss sent her to Purgatory.
Or maybe it’s already too late.
Maybe it wouldn’t matter that she’s going there because Winter could already be-
A hand covers hers, attempting to pacify her.
But Weiss doesn’t even glance in her partner’s direction, the temperature of the room dropping, dropping, dropping at an alarming rate as her breath crystallizes upon her next exhale, a tight voice, not wanting to snap and hurt anyone she loves. Especially not her.
“Ruby, don’t touch me right now. I don’t want to hurt you.”
By accident, she will. The blizzard feeds off of her emotions, it always has, and oh does it want to be unleashed so that she can hunt down that f*cking Shadow for what it’s done and-
Ruby, despite how much she shivers (in fear of being pushed or because of how cold it is now? It’s hard to tell), does the opposite and brings her into another hug. This one, not as restrictive as the last. She doesn’t even wrap her arms around her; instead, she grabs her by both hands and simply tucks Weiss underneath her chin.
“Ruby,” Weiss exhales sharply. A plea. A warning.
“You won’t hurt me,” Ruby whispers against her hair, certain that no other possibility exists, refusing to get herself to safety even when her skin starts to redden from the bite of the chill where she’s in contact with Weiss. (Oh, the memories it brings. Of another time Ruby was willing to risk the pain of the blizzard and the cold just to get closer to her.) “And even if you do, it’s okay. Let it out, princess.”
“If you need to take it out on someone, take it out on me and not yourself… I’ve faced worse.”
Oh, Ruby.
Ever the selfless one you are, my beloved.
“Ruby…” She whimpers now, the scroll and letter dropping from her hands as she allows herself to go limp. Leaning fully into her partner and gripping at her hips to keep herself steady. Because even now, perhaps afraid she’ll get pushed away again, Ruby doesn’t wrap her arms around her.
Some part of her is grateful for it while the other yearns to be in her embrace.
“You’re in pain. And I don’t like it when you’re in pain. So let it out on me,” a kiss to her forehead, sweet and delicate (and a quivering exhale from the cold brushes over her), “it’s okay. I can take it.”
Here, I am home.
Here, I am safe.
Her nails dig into her waist, perhaps taking her up on the offer to unleash her pain before it can turn inward and tear her apart (because she’s already so close to shattering, she can’t. She can’t risk it, this will be the end for her) or maybe just desperately trying to cling onto her. Bracing for the fall.
And letting herself do so, knowing that Ruby will catch her.
The sob escapes her before she can stop it and it is her innate reaction to try and hide. Finding refuge near Ruby’s heartbeat (faster than a steady rhythm, the fear of being pushed back still has its hold on her but her partner has chosen regardless to come closer to her and risk it once more). Putting up a pitiful fight against the tears, to call it a struggle would be giving it more importance than its worth.
“Hold me,” another sob, another whimper, another tear, “please, I can’t-”
I can’t survive if you don’t.
I won’t make it through this with all my pieces if you don’t.
Ruby does. Her arms slip underneath the cloak so that there are less layers in the way of Weiss being able to feel her warmth. She crushes Weiss to her just like earlier and it is everything she needs to break in peace.
The worst part in all of this is just not knowing what’s become of Winter.
But knowing that something terrible has happened.
Did Qrow somehow manage to get both of them somewhere safe in the tundra? But where the f*ck could they even go if not back to Atlas? There weren’t any dust mines operating near Purgatory nor settlements that far into the middle of nowhere and the closest one wasn’t for miles away that it would take at least two to three weeks to get there by vehicle. Many more on foot.
Did someone manage to find them after all? Even if it wasn’t Robyn and the Happy Huntresses, any traveling band of ice fishers or hunters or hell, bandits could’ve picked them up and offered their help. She’s sure Qrow has ways of convincing even the ne’er-do-wells to do him a favor.
…Or did they succumb to their injuries? Did they die alone in that cold underground prison? Did they become just another dead body on the floor with all the others? Raven must have written this letter a day ago, two days ago, three days at max, whenever Ghira said that Tai arrived here- and if they’ve learned anything by now, it’s that so much can happen in one day.
So much can happen in one minute.
Even if Qrow was okay, what about Winter?
What about Winter?
They just don’t know. No one will know until it’s too late or they get that miraculous call from someone in Atlas that they did indeed make it back safe and sound.
Weiss is continents away, oceans away. Even if she wanted to drop everything here and go find her sister herself right here and now, she would simply take too long. Without Raven she can’t magically teleport there, and with the seas as rough as they are, it will take forever just to get to Mistral, then they’d have to travel all the way back to Argus to get to Atlas if they didn’t want to go by ship all the way there from here. She can’t push her Nevermore that far either.
It would take too long.
It always f*cking comes down to time.
Time that they don’t have. Time that they can’t spare.
There’s nothing she can do…
Nothing… but wait.
Always waiting, always waiting.
When does the torture end?
(Never.)
… … …
To nobody’s surprise, you barely get any sleep that night before the sunrise moseys its way into the sky. Barely changing how bright it is outside because the cloud cover is still too thick and dark to make out much of the light that hides behind it.
You spend the entire time holding Weiss as she cries until she falls asleep in your arms. Her body utterly giving out and shutting down more so than her choosing to pass over to the realm of dreams. And even then, when her sobs grow silent and she curls up against you once you carry her to the bed, not bothering to get dressed out of your combat gear, you never stray far from her side. You take her hair out of its ponytail to at least make her a little more comfortable, slipping off her boots and yours because you know how much she hates the bedsheets getting dirtied (you suppose, all things considered, it won’t truly matter because there are more important things to worry about aside from this but you convince yourself it does).
She clings to your waist with her nails- her claws- digging in until you’re certain she alone will leave behind creases and tears in your gear that you’ll have to ask the seamstress to stitch up… whenever you get the chance. You had all planned to do general maintenance on your weapons and combat gear, maybe even an upgrade or modification or two while you were at it (and if time permits it), but considering how everything is shaping up to be, you don’t quite know if you’ll be able to do so. One can only hope.
You spend most of your night staring at the wall in the dark, running your fingers through her hair rhythmically and praying to someone better that it’ll be enough to keep her asleep throughout it. When Weiss stirs every now and then, you’ll leave a kiss or two or three against her head, whisper sweet nothings to her ear to help her forget her woes and trouble, and only begin to relax once she does.
You try to sleep too, you’ll close your eyes and even your breaths to match hers, but right as you’re drifting off you’ll have the sensation of her pushing against your shoulders (of you falling, endlessly backward. Deeper and deeper and deeper into the abyss as the darkness poisons your mind, your soul, your body and tears you apart), and you’ll snap back to attention and full consciousness. You’ll stop combing your hand through her hair, concentrate on a piece of artwork on the wall that she must have painted- a stunning rendition of the colorful lights in the sky on Atlas nights, painting the midnight blue heavens above with swathes and waves of greens and pinks and blues with hints of reds and yellows and purples. From the perspective of someone sitting on a rooftop- and let the colors soothe your panic before it can take over.
And you’ll count, under your breath, “One, two. Three. Four. Five.”
“Look around. What are five things you can see?”
Blake’s calming words encourage you to focus. And though it’s hard to see in the dark, you use what little bit of moonlight you do have to aid you in your efforts to calm down.
Weiss’s painting. The dresser. A photo of us from Beacon on the dresser. The lamp. Weiss.
“What are four things you can feel?”
The bedsheets. The pillow. Weiss’s hair. My heartbeat.
A fast tempo as it is, but you think it might be starting to settle.
“Okay, three things you can hear?”
Even more difficult than being able to see anything, but you concentrate. Straining your senses to pick up on anything.
My dad snoring from the other room. Weiss’s breathing. Crickets outside.
“Two things you can smell.”
Snowdrops and blueberries.
Your favorite scent.
You’re finally free.
“And tell me one thing you can taste.”
No longer blood.
It takes you a few minutes with every instance, and each time, you repeat the little grounding method to yourself. Somehow able to find something new for your senses so you’re not repeating the same things over and over again and by the time morning comes and the concept of sleep is a distant memory, a fleeting wish, you have to try harder and harder to pinpoint something you haven’t already listed.
You manage, overall, maybe an hour to an hour and half full of intermittent rest.
Honestly, you’ll take what you can get and if that’s all you can get, you’ll treasure it.
The fact you can even get that amount is astounding in itself.
You give up the fight when you hear the first bird songs outside, drifting in with the breeze through the closed-curtain window. The light hasn’t changed much but that’s mostly just due to the overcast for the day. Though it might not be a violent thunderstorm like the ones you faced for the past few days, it’s possible there’ll be a light drizzle if nothing else. Or strong winds.
Because of the rough night, coffee is a must. Sugar and caffeine will be your best friends for the day. So loath as you are to leave your partner there, worried about disturbing her at all, you manage to wriggle free from Weiss’s grasp and the bed- marvelously, without disturbing her and waking her up so you take that victory for what it’s worth- and tiptoe your way out of the room. Grimacing at the stiffness of your gear because it is in desperate need of washing up or at least letting yourself breathe without the constriction of the corset. You at least take off the buckle around your chest and the belt from your hip, as well as the glove from your right hand.
At least this way, you’re a little more comfortable and relaxed in your own home.
You pause as you pass by the window, opening and closing the fingers of your left hand before you give into the paranoia and change directions entirely. Because you have to check. You need to know if Oliver is still there in the distance. Watching your house from just within the treeline, bow at the ready and primed with an arrow. The one-two beat of your heart quickens as you stand just beside the opening, sweeping the curtain aside by one corner barely enough for you to scan outside.
You direct your vision to the place where you saw him last. Unsure whether it would be better if you did see him or not because if he was still there, then that just meant none of you are entirely in the clear and you can live with the knowledge that at any moment, Salem can give the Fallen the signal to attack and they’ll be ready.
But if he wasn’t there, then that meant he was somewhere else and you’ve lost track of him and you’d have to spend time finding him again.
Past the garden that has been well-maintained by those you’ve entrusted to watch over your home. Past the expanse of grass that still has an entire streak of dead strands that haven’t grown back anymore despite everybody’s efforts to restore the land. To the jungle trees and hanging vines and thick undergrowth and low branches that intertwine with one another like hands grasping at each other.
Nothing.
There’s nobody there. No shape in the shadows. No gleam of red in the thicket. No bow and arrow aimed right at your face at a standstill, as if taunting you that it could be released at any moment and there’ll be no saving you. That you are at its mercy, his mercy.
He’s not there.
…Is that good or bad?
You still have no idea.
Whatever the case, you close and lock the window just as a precaution. Maybe you are wrong and someone is there. You want to make it as difficult as possible for them to get inside because Weiss will be alone. Asleep and vulnerable. And you’ll be damned if you left an opening right for them to get to her.
Once you give a quick test that the window won’t open, straining against it, you nod to yourself and glance over to Weiss one final time. Scanning the room to make sure there isn’t anything that could potentially hurt her. And once you’re certain she is safe and will continue to be so without you here, you exit the room as quietly as you can.
There is stillness that greets you as soon as you’re in the hall. Your dad’s snoring from the room next to Weiss’s- your old room that he has decided to use while Maria takes up the cinema. Though Tai offered to switch it around and give her the bed, she had declined saying he needed it more since he was recovering- had stopped, the door cracked open about halfway for you to pick up on faint bits of conversation between the two of them. Maria must be checking on his bandages again.
Though a part of you wants to snoop, ever curious (especially when you recognize that familiar scolding tone from Maria), you decide against it and turn around to go to the kitchen instead. The sooner you can make the coffee for you and Weiss, the sooner you can get back to your partner’s side and hopefully before she wakes up alone.
It’s never fun waking up alone.
Especially after the night you’ve had.
The rest of the house is filled with a kind of hush that’s only ever brought when everyone is worn out and absolutely drained, so not quite peaceful or pleasant but a quiet nonetheless that allows everything to settle in like snow on the ground. Piling up at a frightening speed where you don’t know if you’ll be able to keep up with shoveling it all away before it buries everyone in an icy grave.
You’re not the only one awake, you learn.
When you turn the corner into the kitchen, you’re not entirely surprised- but you are saddened- to find Blake sitting at the counter island already. Having changed into her pajamas the night before, managing that at the very least so it’s something, and already nursing a cup of tea that must have gone cold because you can’t see any steam rising from it. Nor does she take any sips from it. She studies a moot point of the world like it holds all the answers she requires, if only she searches hard enough.
She doesn’t even react to you walking into the room.
You don’t have the will or the energy to disturb her hunt for answers, so you go about your business without sharing a word with her. Making Weiss’s coffee first before yours, the smells of the brew causing your stomach to rumble and you’re reminded that your only proper meal was the plate of leftovers from last night. So perhaps a coffee isn’t the best choice for you to have, but considering you haven’t had this either in so long, you indulge yourself.
As you wait for the coffee maker to work its magic, you wander over to the stool beside Blake’s without a word. Settling down upon it and rubbing at your tired eyes, already beginning to regret not trying harder to sleep (but you tried, you swear you did), and maybe it’s the fatigue or maybe it’s the yearning for comfort, but either way, you rest your head against Blake’s shoulder and slump into her side as best as you can without slipping off of the stool.
Blake hardly reacts to that either at first. But it does take her out of whatever staring contest she had with the universe because in the next second, she’s ruffling your hair lightly, halfheartedly, and giving a kiss to the top of your head.
Your eyes flutter shut for a micro-moment more of sleep and just that split second already works wonders at recovering smidgens of your energy back.
“Yang told me about what happened. At Patch, and the letter.” Her nails lightly scratch against your scalp as she continues to run her fingers through your hair. Encouraging you to try and get at least a few more seconds of keeping your eyes closed to let them rest so they aren’t burning or as heavy as they were before. You worry you might just doze off against her if you let yourself (and you can’t. You can’t let yourself, so you bite the inside of your lip just for the tiniest spark of pain to keep yourself awake). “How is she holding up?”
A weighted sigh slips past your lips and you jerk upright because there is a ghostly pressure of her palms at your shoulders, pushing you back, back, back- “About as well as one would think. I just… wish we had some better news for once.”
You want to be able to look her in the face and tell her We found her, she’s alive. Your sister is alive.
But you can’t.
None of you can because you don’t know that.
With no way to get to Atlas or wherever Winter and Qrow ended up last- not Purgatory. It can’t be the prison, they at least must have gotten far enough away from there to no longer be in the radius of the place’s heat and movement sensors because you refuse to believe otherwise. You will not allow yourself to think even for a second that the alternative of them dying there is true because it’s not. It’s not, it can’t be. You can’t lose two people that mean so much to you and your team just like that without even a chance at a goodbye or a chance to save them. You can’t- there’s nothing for you to do. As much as you might want to be able to take Weiss there and help in the search for her sister and your uncle, you can’t.
It’ll take too long. You’ll be too late.
And you have so many other things to worry about that get in the way of that wish.
“Tell me about it,” Blake huffs, bitter and downcast and weary. Ears perpetually flattened against her head as she begins to go back to her stare-down with the world.
You reach for her before she can leave you alone entirely, laying your hand carefully against her arm on the countertop. An unvoiced plea. Stay. Stay, don’t leave me please. I can’t do this alone. I don’t want to do this alone. “Weiss didn’t get a chance to tell me how the talk went with your parents yesterday or what the plan is now. Catch me up?”
Before I get left behind.
It works at keeping her here, but perhaps in the worst way possible.
Blake grimaces, squeezing her eyelids shut as if the very idea of discussing it brings her internal agony like no other, and you’re half-tempted to take it all back before she responds;
“Long story short… There’s an incredibly ancient Grimm that’s waking up on the far side of Menagerie that puts the entire island at risk, and Weiss and I came up with a plan to use our trackers as a lure to bait it away before it can destroy everything. Meanwhile, my parents and everyone else are going to be working on evacuations. As soon as the others are awake and we’re ready, we’re going to see how much time we have left before it breaks free… and then afterward, we need to scope out the archipelago where I wanted everyone to evacuate to and make sure it’s actually safe to do so.”
She draws in a deep breath like it’s taken everything within her to lay it all out on the table in front of you. Gold drifting down to the counter and your muddled reflections as if she can visibly make out the puzzle pieces of the plan and the picture that’s slowly coming together. All the other possible options and parts that might or might not fit into the grand scheme of everything- and if it doesn’t and you choose wrong, it’ll ruin the whole artwork and there’ll be no starting from scratch afterward.
No second chances.
“Not everyone is going to be happy about leaving their home, I predict some backlash from the people, my parents aren’t too pleased with the idea of us using ourselves as bait, and I’ve officially broken their hearts yet again. So,” Blake places her chin against the heel of her palm, turning her head your way with a melancholic smile, “that about sums it up.”
Oh…
That’s… a lot. And you can’t even begin to imagine how much more of their conversation is missing out from this condensed version of it. How much more arduous it must have been just getting to that point. You regret not being there to help in what must have no doubt been a difficult discussion for everyone involved, but as with almost everything else, you didn’t have another choice.
“I’m… trying-” Blake rubs at her face as though she can erase the exhaustion that way, but you want to tell her it won’t work. You’ve tried that multiple times, it never works. But maybe she already knows that. “-to come up with a way that will make everyone happy while also keeping everyone safe, but I can’t see anything else working. Either I sacrifice their safety or their happiness, I can’t make both happen. I just…” She groans, her head thumping against her arms as she hunches over the counter with a grunt. “I hate this. I hate making the choices for everyone. I’m not cut out to be a leader.”
You soften at that, moving your hand to her spine. Rubbing up and down in a consoling manner from the nape of her neck to the center of her back where it aches the most. Subconsciously tracing the entire length of the scar you left on her with Crescent Rose. Where you granted her a fate worse than death and pushed the corruption into her.
Oddly enough, instead of stiffening as she always does, a second from tearing away from whoever is touching her there, she relaxes this time.
“You’re doing a lot better than you think you are.”
“How?” She raises her head with a grunt but doesn’t get up from that position. “It feels like I’m making all the wrong f*cking choices.”
“Sometimes every choice feels like the wrong one, they’re just the only ones you’re stuck with and you have to make the best out of it. And you are. You’re trying to keep your people safe.”
You stop, your palm sitting against the middle of her scar. If you focus hard enough, the image of that moment you used her as a stepping stone to your own freedom burns at the forefront of your mind. Your scars tingle, the veins of corruption that have lost their black coloration flickering with their previous ominous shade for a heartbeat.
But despite it, you don’t pull away.
“You care so much about them and it shows, Blake. A terrible leader would never put the sake of their people before their own. They’d only worry about themself.”
So, what does that make you then?
You used her. No matter how you want to look at it, which angle and any number of lenses, you used Blake to free yourself from the shadows despite knowing there was a very high chance of damning her to the same torture you endured. If not, a worse one because she doesn’t have silver eyes.
Was that who you really were? When you’ve been brought to your lowest low, is your true nature someone who would do anything to save herself- even if it meant sacrificing one of her own?
Or was that just a moment of weakness, of desperation, that doesn’t define you?
Are you instead the person who, even when you were brought to the depths of despair by a creature masquerading as you and your family spitting and snarling the harshest remarks you’ve ever heard anyone tell you, never gave up despite how tired you were? Are you the person who kept fighting and fighting and fighting to survive and refused to give in to the voices telling you to quit? Are you the person who kept moving forward no matter how impossible it felt?
Who are you?
I’m Ruby Rose- and I have found myself again.
And who is that?
That’s for me to define and discover and I will aspire to do so every day.
Right now, you settle on friend.
“You’ve been dealt a difficult hand, and these are very… tough circ*mstances.” It’s not easy being a new leader in peaceful times and learning the ropes but it’s a whole other level of burden and demand being a new leader in times of war. Times of loss. Times of hardship. Blake’s been given the short end of the stick by choosing to take on more and more of her chiefly responsibilities in such an era, but at least she isn’t alone and if you and your team have anything to say about it, she never will be. “And my opinion may not matter much, but I think you’re doing a wonderful job. There’s just no perfect choice to make, but you’re making the best one you can.”
In your heart, you believe it. Because you know Blake.
You’ve seen just how much she loves all of Menagerie. Her parents, especially. And you’ve seen just how much they all love her in return.
If it ever comes down to choosing to save herself or her people, it will always be her people.
(And that includes the rest of you. You and Yang and Weiss.
Has she not already proven that by willingly taking your place in the Kraken’s grasp underwater?
Has she not already proven that by jumping into the ocean with a mass of flying piranhas coming after her just to get them away from all of you?
Has she not already proven that by forgiving you for what you did to her?)
And that, you believe, is what makes her worthy of being a leader.
“Of course your opinion matters,” Blake murmurs after a long moment of contemplation. Sitting up more properly now to be able to meet you in the eye, a little shy as she is about it as she admits, “You’re my second biggest inspiration when it comes to being a leader.”
Your brows shoot up as you perk up in surprise, flabbergasted, “Really?”
“Yeah. Even from the very beginning, I’ve always looked up to you because of it.” Your friend eases with the memories of simpler times that you long to have but will never attain. And maybe that’s okay. The three of them remember the good days of Beacon enough for you to feel like you were right there with them. Even if you can’t remember it. “It was weird at first, I’ll admit. Because you were younger, but despite that and the difficulties you faced, you took up to the task of leading the three of us idiots with an eagerness that… Honestly, I found rather refreshing. No matter how hard it was, because we certainly didn’t make it easy for you, you never gave up on us.”
It’s… strange.
Because it sounds like you.
But it also doesn’t.
Because all you can remember is-
“I’ve made so many mistakes that ultimately led to me leaving the three of you behind.”
Because you didn’t talk with them. If you had just told them you were struggling the whole time, if you had just asked them for help, if you had just trusted them to take some of the weight off of your shoulders instead of carrying it all for yourself…
If you had just told them, any of them, where you were going the night Atlas fell…
Perhaps things would’ve turned out completely different.
Perhaps Salem wouldn’t have taken you away. Perhaps you wouldn’t have left them behind to pick up the pieces.
Perhaps you wouldn’t be in the state you are now.
“But you never gave up,” Blake says as if that makes up for every single mistake you’ve ever made in your entire life. Maybe to her, it does. And maybe if you just let it, it will for you too. “No matter what, you’ve never given up. And that just showed me that even the best leaders can still make mistakes and keep moving forward.”
But do you deserve to? After all the people that died because of you who can’t do the same?
That’s a whole other can of worms you’ve opened time and time again and have never quite landed on an answer. You can’t stomach opening it again right now, so you set it aside for another second. Another hour. Another day.
Instead, you settle for a smile that could be real, could be fake. You can’t tell the difference right now. “Thanks, Blake.”
“Thank you for trying to make me feel better. I appreciate the effort.”
The effort. So you most likely didn’t succeed, but she acknowledges that an attempt was made and it makes her smile.
“You said I am your second biggest inspiration,” you nudge her shoulder with yours, raising a brow, “who is the first?”
“My dad.”
“...Yeah, I can’t compete with that.”
You manage to draw a laugh from her and it comes with the tune of victory. The coffee maker beeps that it’s done and you hop off the stool to go about finishing making the warm drinks for you and Weiss. The pleasant smell of the fresh brew makes your stomach clench with hunger and a part of you wants to scour the fridge for anything that’s possibly there, but considering you haven’t been here in weeks, any and all leftovers there before the trip to Beacon probably aren’t edible anymore.
You do manage to snatch a packet of cookies from the pantry that are still decent and that’s as good of a breakfast as you’re going to get.
“I better go wake up Yang,” Blake wrinkles her nose at the remnants of her tea, letting it go to waste down the drain of the sink while massaging her forehead. Peeking toward the glass doors leading outside. Though the curtains for those are closed as well, you can already hear the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting the roof and the wooden patio outside. A light rain compared to what you faced on the journey here, but it’s already shaping up to be an inconvenience. A bad omen. “The sooner we can head out to check on Wrath, the sooner we can get back. I don’t… want to be out there too late. Everything gets so much worse at night over there.”
“You sound familiar with it.”
“I’ll explain more on the way there, but yes…” A dark, distant expression settles over her as she murmurs, withdrawing into herself again. “I guess you can say that.”
She goes to take a step around the counter and back to her room, but you hurriedly place the mugs down- spilling a few droplets onto your skin but you don’t even flinch from the scalding heat- and stop her by the wrist. “Blake…”
She pauses, pivoting halfway around to you with a tilt of her head. A silent question.
You don’t know why you struggle to find the proper words- because everything feels wrong and you’re questioning yourself as much as she might be- but eventually you find ones that feel right.
“I promise,” you begin with a stern vow, leaving no trace of doubt in your words, “we’ll do all that we can to protect everyone. Especially your parents.”
A dangerous promise to make. An empty one.
Because if life has taught you anything, if tragedy has, it’s that you can’t uphold such an oath. No matter how hard you try, no matter how skilled you are, no matter how much you wish for it, you are only one person. Blake is only one person. So is Yang. So is Weiss. Between all of you and any other friends and allies you manage to rope into helping you when the time comes, you stand a better chance but that’s not to say the odds are ever going to be stacked in your favor.
You can’t protect everyone.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have enough time before whatever this ancient is wakes up to send a majority of the island’s people away and to a safe zone. If not, all of them. Increasing your chances even more so the only ones you’ll have to worry about is yourselves.
But you’ve rarely been the lucky kind.
Right now, everything hinges on just how long you have left before Wrath awakens. And that’s if the Fallen that you know are here don’t decide to strike before then and start killing everyone they can. They’re docile for the most part, if more than willing to threaten you and chase after you, but you don’t think they’re to that level yet where they’ll attack.
You hope, at least.
One thing at a time.
You can’t let yourself panic. You can’t let yourself be overwhelmed. Yes, there’s a lot to consider and so much to worry about, but if you just pick it apart piece by piece and inspect every part individually, maybe…
Maybe you’ll actually manage to get things done.
Maybe everything will fall into place as naturally as it’s supposed to.
Maybe it’ll all turn out okay.
Blake regards your worthless pledge with more sympathy than belief- for she, too, understands just how impossible it will be to save everyone- but instead of pushing it aside and brushing it off, she steps closer to you and brings you into a hug. One arm around you, cradling the back of your head as she tucks you underneath her chin (with some effort, you muse. Did she used to do this before when you had been shorter than her? You’re around her height now- does she mourn how much you’ve grown the same way you do?) and sighs. “Thank you, Ruby.”
She wants to believe you. To trust your words to be true. To have faith that you will accomplish the unfeasible and save every living soul here on Menagerie so she doesn’t have to say goodbye to anyone. You can hear the ache in her voice with just three words alone.
She wants so badly to believe you.
…but she doesn’t.
And she’s walking away through the living room and back to her room with Yang before you can stop her and keep trying to convince her.
Truth be told, you don’t even try. Because you can hardly believe yourself either at the moment, not with everything that’s transpired from the second you arrived back home, and before you can go on reassuring anyone else, you need to be certain of it in yourself first.
You don’t want to keep making empty promises.
Not anymore.
With the chance of fixing a lost cause slipping from your reach, you concede defeat and spin on a dime. Moving your attention and efforts from Blake to Weiss as you carefully grab the two coffee mugs- and your packet of cookies of course, the breakfast of champions- and make your way down the hall and back to her room. Cautious not to spill a single drop as you go.
You won’t have long before you have to set out for the day, busy as it’s already turning out to be with a laundry list of tasks to accomplish, but maybe you’ll be able to squeeze in some relaxation. Even if it’s just sitting in silence with your partner, nestled by her side. You won’t complain if you don’t get a nap or even if it’s just for a minute. As long as it’s something, you’ll take it.
Beggars can’t be choosers.
And oh, you’re begging.
The closed door presents its own challenge and you have to maneuver the mugs skillfully to accommodate, holding the cookies by the wrapper between your teeth and ignoring the heat on your arm as you hold one of the cups against yourself just so you can free one hand. You beam at your victory of getting it opened, nudging it with a foot as you step inside as quietly as you can.
A pointless endeavor, Weiss is already awake.
And on the phone with someone.
“Thank you, mother.” Weiss doesn’t notice you at first, her expression twisted into a grimace so whatever news she’s received mustn’t have been anything pleasant. “Do let me know if you and Whitley need help. That sounds… like quite the headache.”
“It is,” you can’t ever recall a time hearing Willow’s voice and doing so now brings you to a pause- and you find it a little odd because Weiss talks about her family in Atlas a lot it’s almost as though you’ve always known them. Even if you’ve hardly, or ever, shared a word with them. “But never you worry about us, Weiss. We’ll handle it here. I presume with the way things are turning out to be, you are going to be kept more busy than us in the coming days. Do be careful."
“The job of a huntress never ends.”
Oh, the amount of exhaustion that’s riddled in her tone has you moving again, barely remembering to kick the door behind you shut as lightly as possible with your heel so it doesn’t slam close. It is your body’s instinctive response to help her when she is this tired- because the more tired she is, the more vulnerable she is. And you can’t have that.
Your movement finally catches her attention, blue flicking away from her mother on the screen over to you and you summarily freeze in place again. Not comprehending why you feel like a deer caught in headlights with the way she immediately relaxes at the sight of you. Maybe she had been anxious waking up alone. Maybe she thought you disappeared again.
A fear that’s never fully left her (or any of them, for that matter).
“Oh.” It’s not fair. The amount of love she still has for you despite you all but breaking her heart last night with the terrible news. It’s not fair. “There you are. Good morning, Schatzi.”
“Morning,” you respond. At least, you try to, but because you still hold the packet of cookies between your teeth, all that comes out is an incomprehensible mumble. It brings the breath of a chuckle out of her and you feel like you can conquer the world from it. You walk around to your side of the bed and hold her mug out for her to take. Murmuring around the plastic, “Here you go.”
She keeps her scroll in one hand, accepting her coffee from you with the tiniest upward curl to her lips (ever appreciative of the small gestures) and mouths, “Thank you, beloved.”
And before either of you can say more, you’re promptly reminded that even though it’s just the two of you physically here in the room, you’re not entirely alone. A question from Willow comes through the speakers of the scroll, “Is that Ms. Rose?”
Weiss jumps to attention as if she forgot she was on the phone in the first place and you stand just off to the side of the bed and out of frame of the camera. You place your own coffee mug down on the nightstand you’ve claimed, grabbing your packet of cookies to start opening it as your partner glances between her mother on the screen and you. “Yes, it is. Umm…”
Her eyes return to you in a silent question. Nodding her head subtly to the scroll as if to ask Do you want to say hello? Are you comfortable with it?
You have no reason to deny it. You’ve already met her sister and her brother (and you doubt you’ll ever meet her father but maybe that’s for the best because you certainly don’t want to after everything he’s done to her. You are not responsible for what you’ll do to him if you come across him) and all that’s left is her mother. And Klein too, an honorary member of her family from Atlas.
As such, though it’s always a little nerve-wracking to meet people that she values so much because you don’t want to leave a bad impression, you have no issue sitting on the bed beside her. She adjusts against you as naturally as she always does until she’s tucked into your side and you greet the camera with a smile. Lifting one hand to wave, “Hello, Mrs. Schnee. It’s nice to meet you, uhh… ma’am?”
You wince at the way your voice cracks, sending Weiss beside you a faux glare and a pout when you catch her little snort of amusem*nt. Fighting off the faint blush of embarrassment that threatens to brighten. Especially when Willow lets out a small laugh as well, kind as it is.
“Just Willow is fine, Ms. Rose.”
“Well then,” you clear your throat, settling more comfortably against your partner in an attempt to relax, “you can call me Ruby!”
Willow dips her head in a proper greeting, “It’s an honor to meet you, Ruby. I’ve heard many great things about you.”
Some part of you can’t entirely believe her. Though it might be true, not all of it is. Your name comes with a lot of mixed emotions for the people of Remnant; some forever celebrate you as a hero and remember you as who you once were, others sympathize what you’ve been through and idolize the strength you have for getting through it… while there are still some in the world that hate you and always will. No one’s actively tried to slander your name- although it might be hard for anyone to do so publicly with the whole of the SDC and their power at your back- but you know there are some that would if they could.
Moss. Felix Bellflower. That one reporter who outed all the skeletons in your closet made by your hand while under Salem’s control. Many more, many more.
They would all have plenty to say about you, and not anything good.
(But regardless, you will do your best to save them anyway.)
“Most of it from Weiss.”
“Mother-”
That you can believe though. Wholeheartedly and without a doubt.
“Aww,” you can’t stop yourself from teasing, nudging your shoulder gently against hers before you can lose yourself to your thoughts, “you talk about me?”
“Of course I do,” she admits so easily with a scowl. As if offended you’d think otherwise. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know that.”
It’s not like you’re much better anyway. She’s always on your mind and you’re always on hers. It’s distracting at the best of times and comforting in your worst moments. She more than anyone else motivates you to keep going. Keep trying. Keep fighting.
All for her. All for a future with her.
“Cookies for breakfast?” Weiss sends you a deadpan expression as you finally get the wrapping opened, raising a brow. Unamused.
You pause before you can reach for one, smiling sheepishly at her. “We didn’t have anything else.”
“Did you even check the fridge?”
“...No, but-” You take out one of the small cookies. Presenting it to her in a peace offering. “They go with the coffee and I know they’re secretly one of your favorites.”
You hold it out for her to eat and detect the way she fights back a grin, shaking her head in fond exasperation as she always does as you silently keep it there for her. Weiss rolls your eyes at your pleading expression before she finally gives in and leans forward to take the offered pastry. Crispy cinnamon with a light dusting of sugar coating, though not your favorite- since you’ll take any kind of chocolate cookie over it any day of the week- through your extensive and secret research of getting Weiss to try sweets with you, you’ve learned they’re her second favorite.
(Yet another unimportant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things piece of information you’ve clung onto from the earlier days of before; Weiss’s top favorite will always be anything with gingerbread.)
“Much as I’d love to stay and chat some more,” the two of you are drawn back to Willow on the screen, donning an air about her that is both somehow soft and sad. Comforted but contrite. Happy yet… hurt. Perhaps not caused by anything either of you two did. Perhaps simply brought forth from deep within her own mind. “It has been a rather long day over here, and I suspect tomorrow won’t be any easier on our side. I appreciate you checking in on us, Weiss. I’ll let Whitley know you called as soon as he’s up, the poor boy passed out right as he walked into the house.”
Weiss grimaces her sympathy and because you have no idea what they may have been talking about before you walked into the room, you angle back against the pillows and the headboard and munch on a cookie in peace and let them say their goodbyes. Though you also would’ve enjoyed actually getting to talk with your partner’s mother, get into her good graces, you’re also aware that compared to Menagerie where it’s early morning, it’s late into the night at Atlas.
Just an added layer of difficulty when it comes to staying in contact with those that are over there. Everyone’s on different schedules.
“I’ll let you go and sleep then.” There’s a second’s hesitation as she no doubt fights against herself to keep it in, but inevitably, the apology slips free. Unbidden. Rushed. (Habitual.) “Sorry if I woke you, mother.”
You hide your frown as best as you can, glancing down to where her free hand sits in the small space between the two of you. Balled into a fist, tense. It has you reaching for her until you can cover the back of her knuckles with your palm, rubbing your thumb against her in an effort to get her to ease up.
It works, marginally so, but Willow’s reassurance is what truly gets her hand to loosen, “Never apologize for that, Weiss. Any chance I get to hear from you is a blessing. Sleep can wait, so don’t ever hesitate to call no matter the time of day. Understand?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Very well.” Willow dips her head again, in parting now, but right when you expect her to hang up, blue eyes so similar to your partner’s focus on you as she addresses you directly, “Ruby Rose.”
“Hmm?” You perk to attention, gripping onto Weiss more on instinct, and now it’s her turn to pacify you. She flips her hand over from under yours until she’s able to properly link your fingers together. Giving a subtle squeeze that you return. Thankful. “Yeah?”
She’s quiet and she studies you and you begin to wonder if it’s mutually a Schnee thing because there’s a unique look they’ve all given you at one point or another. Winter, Whitley. Weiss on numerous occasions. Not like she’s judging you for what you’re worth, or if you’re worth anything at all, and more like she’s trying to determine your true nature just by observation alone. Your ticks and tells. Dive deep into your soul through your eyes.
All you can do is stay there and await judgment and hope you pass whatever test you haven’t prepared for that you’ve been given.
Somehow, some way, you do.
“Thank you.”
“For…” You risk it all by glancing away in confusion to your partner beside you and back again when she seems just as curious as you are. “For what?”
“For being there, right by her side, when I can’t.”
Oh.
You suck in a sharp breath and Weiss’s nails dig into you now, clinging, but Willow isn’t done.
“For taking care of her when I’m not there.” Those blue eyes transfer over to her daughter now as she finishes, “And for loving her in the way she’s always deserved and being unafraid to show it when I’ve never been able to. Even when I should’ve.”
“Mother…” Weiss begins but the rest of her sentence is lost to the void.
“You don’t have to thank me,” you respond honestly, gently, holding your heart into your hands and presenting it to the open air in the hopes that nothing will come along and harm you for the truth. You tilt your head to the side and it’s frightening when Weiss meets you in the eye, but you somehow pluck up the courage to continue. “I only want what’s best for her. I don’t… know if I’m it, but she seems to think so. She balances me out. So I just want to keep trying to make her happy. For as long as she’ll let me.”
Though your partner doesn’t say anything out loud in response to you, her eyes scream and her smile whispers Forever. Forever and a day.
Forever and a day.
What a dream come true that will be.
To spend the rest of forever loving her.
Willow hums, content with your answer, before she turns to her daughter, “Weiss.”
“Yes?”
“She’s a good one.”
Weiss softens, never once taking her gaze off of you. Nodding almost without realizing it in agreement, a breathless whisper, “She is.”
“...Don’t lose her, my dear.”
“I already have once,” Weiss traces the tips of her fingers along your palm, following the expanse of the veins of darkness that have carved scars upon your skin as a reminder. A reminder of how close they could’ve been to losing you again. A reminder that they didn’t. “Never again. Not if I can help it.”
If anyone can, it’ll be her.
It’s because of her it was even possible for you to come back the first time.
“Good,” Willow smiles, small and barely-there but brimming with content. “Until I hear from you again.”
Weiss sends her mother a final grin and you wave in farewell, “Until then. Take care.”
The call ends- and the last thing you see of Willow before the video cuts out is that sadness you can’t understand. A deep-seated guilt that only reveals itself when Weiss isn’t paying attention.
Your partner is left staring at the blank screen for a minute longer before she sags into your side with a full-body sigh. Clutching the scroll to her chest, her one connection to her family back in Atlas. You support her weight as you always do, wrapping your arm around her back and pulling her closer against you. The desire to pull her into your lap so you can cradle her that way is strong but you resist it.
She finds solace in the crook of your neck and you let her, kissing the top of her head. Taking in her scent. Giving her the time she needs to process everything she must’ve talked about with her mother you weren’t privy to.
“...I couldn’t tell her.”
You peer down at her but don’t attempt to nudge her out of hiding, massaging circles into the side of her hip with your thumb. “About?”
“Winter.”
The letter. Purgatory. The attack.
“Oh…” You should’ve known.
Weiss sighs in defeat, disappointed with herself. “I couldn’t bring myself to. I didn’t have the heart to break hers, she seemed so… so happy that I was even calling in the first place, I couldn’t do it. Things are starting to get bad over there too and she was worried about me.”
Maybe it was for the best. Until the rest of you have further news, good or bad, it’s better than saying something happened and you don’t know the results of it. The fact Willow must not have mentioned anything regarding Winter already tells you that at the very least, as of this moment- three or four or however many days it’s been since Raven’s letter was written and the last time she saw them in Purgatory- they have not gotten back to Atlas or Mantle. Willow has not received any news from elsewhere out in the tundra that her eldest daughter is injured and dying or already found dead.
As of this moment, still, nobody knows where they are or where they ended up.
“How bad is it in Atlas right now?” You direct the conversation away from those millions and millions of questions and unbearable what-if scenarios. It does nothing to settle the panic, the need for answers, but there is no feasible way to get what you desire. (You can’t even contact Raven to ask if she can still feel Qrow either. You’re stuck in the dark and there’s no way out.)
(You can’t escape.)
“There’s been blizzards on-and-off in the area. Once, both cities lost power for half a day before Ironwood and his people were able to bring the generators on. Everyone’s been encouraged to stay inside if they can help it, work from home. Most military patrols have been replaced with either drones or Atlesian bots because they don’t want to risk personnel out in the weather.”
You can feel the way she recoils against you and it has you fully turning to her so you can properly envelop her in a hug. She returns it so easily.
“So far, six casualties from the weather and cold alone. Five citizens, three from Mantle and two from Atlas. One soldier. It’s… getting harder and more dangerous to keep any supply cargo going with the cable cars since the lines are starting to freeze over and aircraft have a difficult time finding a spot to land because of the storms.”
You don’t know why you were expecting it to be better.
Blind hope has let you down again, apparently.
“No Grimm attacks or reported Grimm sightings yet, fortunately. Mother predicts that even the monsters are having a tough time with the weather just getting to the walls.”
Perhaps one silver lining after all?
Though it probably doesn’t make a difference in the long run if the weather is already killing people. If it gets any worse or they can’t find ways to counteract it, if the generators break down or they’re just not enough, the numbers will start to rise without a single Grimm needing to be present.
All it takes is the tundra itself to decide to kill the people of Atlas and Mantle.
And the tundra is nobody’s friend.
“As for the SDC, Whitley and mother have been up to their ears in paperwork. They’ve even needed to hire some extra help despite the risk of liability if those people turn out not to be trustworthy, but that’s the least of their problems right now.”
You try to bring her comfort by combing through her hair with your hand but it doesn’t seem to help in the midst of all this terrible news piling up even more. You wish there was a way to fight against it but Weiss isn’t even done yet.
Just how much worse can it get?
(So much worse.
Oh, it can always be so much worse- and it is.)
“While the Grimm haven’t attacked the cities, they’ve not been shy with targeting some of our main dust mines. Conditions out there are already bad enough because of the weather so half of them have been needing to shut down because of that, and the other half have been ravaged by the Grimm. Multiple cave-ins in at least four sites, three that have needed to be evacuated completely with the workers and staff having nowhere to go because it’s too dangerous to try and trek through the tundra to get back to Mantle or even to nearby safe houses, and at least one of them… exploded.”
All you can do is let out a weighted breath that takes almost all of the meager energy you have for the day away, leaving room for dread and despair to make themselves at home. You hold onto her tighter in the hopes that it will do something good and can’t tell if it does.
As she continues, her voice takes on an aching, shaky tone. “I don’t even want to consider the number of people that have died out there.”
You don’t either. You know very little about how the company works overall and how the mines function, but you can predict at each mine, at minimum, there has to be hundreds of workers on site. Whether they’re miners or cooks or doctors and nurses or managers and their crew. The bigger mines obviously need more employees than that.
Most of the people that make up the population count in Atlas and Mantle combined are likely out there instead of within the cities. Others are just those from elsewhere who came by for work.
It’s devastating.
And what can you do?
Absolutely f*cking nothing.
“Whitley has ordered for most of the mines to shut down production entirely if it’s too unsafe or if there are Grimm within the vicinity. Others that insist upon continuing to work are on curfew for the safety of the employees and they’re only making… not even a fourth of the output they usually provide. That they need to provide. He’s trying to coordinate proper rescue evacuations for survivors and for the mines that haven’t been targeted yet and… recovery efforts for the destroyed mines so the bodies of loved ones can hopefully be found and at least be put to rest.”
Weiss clears her throat, leaving from your embrace to take a sip of her drink and you’ve almost forgotten about your own coffee. It’s gone lukewarm already by this point but you savor it anyway and you’re sure she does the same. A small boost you’ve both desperately needed.
“But…” Your partner frowns to herself, shaking her head. “You can imagine what shutting down Atlas’s and the world’s main supply of dust is going to do eventually.”
“We’ll run out,” you mumble. Numb as the realization of just how terrible things are sinks in.
This isn’t just bad now- it’s downright catastrophic. At a world-wide level.
“Yep. We use dust in everything, Ruby,” there’s something defeated in her voice already. “Some places more than others, but it’s not just the ones we use in our weapons. They’re energy supplies. Power sources. Fuel. The generators in Atlas use dust to keep running. The electricity in a lot of cities, the dams of the world, vehicles, hospitals, schools, water filtration systems, food production. The CCT towers. Defense bots, bridges, even just to close the walls around Argus need dust of some kind to function. The fact some huntresses and huntsmen need them to fight the Grimm is the least of the world’s concerns.”
The timer has been set. The hourglass has been flipped.
It’s not just you here and the people of Menagerie that are on a clock, the whole of Remnant is if those dust mines are unable to operate.
Sure, there are other methods to get power and keep things working- here in Menagerie is a prime example of it because they’ve learned to survive and thrive without needing to rely on dust- but so much of the world depends on dust as an energy source.
And you don’t think that if they’re suddenly deprived of that, they’ll smoothly move over to a different power source. It’ll take years to transition from one to the other to maintain the level of livelihood they have now.
And depending on how fast Salem wants this to end, Remnant may not have years. You might not even have that many months left.
“So, as you can see,” Weiss lets out a humorless, vacant laugh, “I didn’t want to add the possibility of my sister being dead on top of all of that.”
“Weiss…”
She doesn’t give you the chance to comfort her.
She just swiftly moves on.
“But despite hearing all of that first thing in the morning,” Weiss regards her scroll like it wasn’t just the source of so much awful news, a kind of lightness and longing taking over her features that you’ve seen on her only a few times. Whenever she speaks of her family. One that lingers on her for hours after every video call she has with one of them. “It was good to hear her voice. She’s focused and… still there.”
(Homesickness.)
You’ve heard the stories. You’ve held Weiss as she’s talked about her mother and her habits of drowning the world and her sorrows away with bottles and bottles and bottles of wine. You know of your partner’s sheer detestment of the drink.
Some part of you innately understands it. Reflects it.
“You miss it.”
“What, Atlas?” Your partner scoffs, finishing her coffee in record time since it can’t scald her tongue anymore. You try to offer her more cookies but she declines them. “No, I don’t. I can never miss that place, it’s hurt me too much for me to do so.”
“Not Atlas,” you subtly lean into her from behind as she angles partially away from you, carefully resting your chin against her shoulder and kissing the back of it. “Home.”
Her family.
Those related to her by blood that only up until recently she’s never been truly close with. Those bonds that were kept apart from each other (some even poisoned) by the audacity of one man who wanted to have full authority over every family member.
But each in their own ways, they have rebelled against him. Be it while he was present or only now after he is locked away and unable to hurt them.
Winter left and joined the military. Weiss left and became a huntress. Whitley has walked down the path his father laid out for him, but in his own ways. With his own rules. With his own compassion that Jacques would’ve never tolerated (you imagine if he had still been running the show, it wouldn’t matter if so many lives were on the line out in the mines. He would’ve forced them to continue production with zero care for their wellbeing. He would’ve put the company and profit first, but here is Whitley. Putting the people first, their workers first).
And after spending so long lost in the throes of alcohol, Willow has emerged, fighting tooth and nail against her own evils and addictions to finally be with her family again and help her son with company matters despite going countless years banned from it by her husband.
At last, at long last, Weiss has the blood family she deserves.
And there is Salem…
Trying to take her sister from her.
Weiss goes silent at that and you fear you might’ve overstepped, pushed too much, but eventually, she lets out a bitter sound.
“What does it say about me then,” a sneer, as if angry and disappointed at herself, “that I only seem to miss home when the world is ending?”
You don’t even have to think about your response before you say it, “That when everything is starting to fall apart, they are the first ones on your mind. That they are the first ones you worry about.”
That they are the first ones she wants to get to safety. Because you and Blake and Yang are already here with her. And she doesn’t count out any of your strengths. She knows you’re all capable of defending yourselves just as well as she is.
But Whitley? Her mother? Klein?
They’re not made for fighting. If a Grimm comes across them, they won’t be able to defend themselves. Willow might have a higher chance because of the family semblance, but after spending so many years in a constant state of drunkenness and with no proper combat training, it’s only by a very small amount. As far as you know, neither Whitley or Klein have unlocked auras at all.
So it’s only natural for her to worry about them.
Because she loves them. She can’t bear to lose them.
When a person’s home is caught on fire, they always go for the most important thing first. The one thing they can’t live without.
Weiss has never been fully allowed to show her love to her family in Atlas. While it’s gotten better, by leaps and bounds, you understand- even if she doesn’t- there’s still a part of her that can’t properly express it. Perhaps afraid. Deep down within herself, perhaps a part of her is scared of being reprimanded for it like she must have been as a growing child. Scarred. Maybe Whitley and Willow and Winter are all the same.
Maybe they’re all scared.
But in times of crisis, that’s when their love for each other shines the brightest. When there is a possibility of them losing one another, that’s when they’ll hold onto each other as tightly as they can.
You can’t say you fully understand it. Because the way you and your family have always shown love for each other is so markedly different from hers. You were never punished for having a heart (not by your family, at least. The world certainly has, but never has your sister or your dad or Uncle Qrow or what little memories you have of Summer), while Weiss was.
That’s not to say one kind of love is better than the other.
They’re just different.
Yet still, undeniably, it is love.
“We’ll try to find out more about Winter as soon as we can.” You kiss the back of her shoulder again where her scar is, normally hidden by the pauldron that you managed to take off of her before you both fell asleep so it wouldn’t dig into her during the night. “I promise.”
There you go again.
Making promises you can’t keep.
When will you learn, Ruby Rose? When will you f*cking learn?
Weiss is swift to call you out on it, as if predicting what would come out of you. “Don’t promise me that, Ruby. We both know it’s next to impossible for us to do that right now, and we have other priorities to worry about.”
You thin your lips, gazing at the back of her head because she doesn’t turn around to face you. “You’re our top priority, Weiss.”
“I beg to differ. The people of Menagerie come first.”
“...You’re my top priority.”
She doesn’t rebuke that so readily, a release of tension from her body with her next exhale so indistinct it’s almost unnoticeable. But you have always been attuned to her. Literally and figuratively.
And though she might not agree with your sentiment- because she’s also right, you do have so many other things to stress over already that each has their own level of ‘impossible’ slapped onto them- at the very least, she is touched by it.
For now, that’s all you can do to make her feel better.
A rhythmic knock at the door brings any more attempts to convince her that everything will be okay in due time to a pounding end- one, two, three. Three heartbeats left in the world- and you almost want to whine at the same time you want to snarl at whoever has ruined your chances.
It’s probably for the best though.
In her current state, you have a higher chance of breaking Weiss with your insistence and conviction than you do with making her believe you.
“Come in,” she calls out but notably doesn’t move from her position, feet thrown over her side of the bed and prepared to stand at any moment. Building up the courage to finally get started for the day even while she seems but a split second away from falling backward instead and laying down for the rest of the day. (Not that you would be against that, you just want her to rest. That’s your biggest concern, the cracks that have yet to reduce. Is that so much to ask for?)
The door parts open a crack but no one walks in immediately and you understand why when you hear Yang ask, “Are you guys decent?”
Ah.
So she did learn her lesson.
“Yeah,” your lips quirk in amusem*nt when she pushes inside with a hand covering her eyes, making a show of lifting it to peek open one of them before sighing in relief. Already dressed for the day in her combat gear that is in desperate need of repairs, much like everybody else’s. (Leave it to Yang to try and make everyone laugh when tensions are as high as they are.) “Morning, sis.”
“Look who finally learned how to knock,” Weiss teases, appreciating your sister’s efforts at lightening the mood in her own special way as much as you do. “It’s a miracle.”
“When you experience something as traumatic as that, it changes a person.”
You snicker to yourself at her dramatics while Weiss rolls her eyes, fondly exasperated by her antics as ever, and you just barely catch a glimpse of the soft smile Yang wears that’s gone from one blink to the next. You start to think you might’ve imagined it.
Especially when she sobers up, growing serious with her next breath and a brief glance to the door behind her.
“Breakfast is almost done. Dad insisted on cooking for us before we headed out,” a voice that is both a little annoyed- because Tai is supposed to be resting and instead, here he insists on pushing himself. But it’s not like any of you are better, you get it from him, after all- and affectionate. Because of course, if nothing else, your dad is going to take care of all of you even when he is the one who’s most injured at the moment. “We’ll be leaving as soon as you two are ready, Ashe is already here. I don’t want to rush anyone, but…”
Yang peers toward the door again as she reaches up to clutch at her ring, transferring her attention back to the two of you almost pleadingly.
“Blake is starting to get really antsy. She won’t tell me why either, she’s just sitting out on the front porch with Ashe watching the rain. So the sooner we can get this over with, the better.”
“Do we have time to shower?” You wrinkle your nose down to yourself. Resigned to yet another day of remaining in your combat gear. It won’t be until after you return from… wherever it is you’re going that you’ll be allowed to change out of it into something cleaner and comfier. You and Weiss missed out on that chance last night, considering nothing else mattered once she read the letter.
“If you can make it quick, yeah.”
“We’ll be there soon,” Weiss says reassuringly. Sternly. Sending her a sympathetic expression as she nods to the door. “Keep an eye on Blake for us.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Yang chuckles half-heartedly, going to take a step out of the room to no doubt rush to her partner’s side- but she stops. Gripping the doorknob as she frowns back at Weiss, shifting uncomfortably in place as she asks tentatively, almost awkwardly, “How are you doing?”
The night before- after reading the letter a dozen different times each to dissect it for any, any possible clue or hidden message, but neither of you could find anything else- when you had discussed how to bring it up to Weiss, or if you even should, your sister had wanted to be there as well to spill the news. That way, both of you would be able to support her (and she had a higher chance of not falling apart and losing pieces along the way with the two of you there). Both of you would be able to be there for her.
You insisted otherwise. Already predicting that Blake would need Yang just as much as Weiss would need you.
You slightly regret it.
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the way Weiss clenches her jaw.
“Fantastic.”
It’s so biting it makes both of you flinch, even when you recognize her fury isn’t directed at either of you.
“Weiss…” You mumble beneath your breath, soothing. An attempt to pacify her that works surprisingly well as she runs both hands down her face. As if trying to reset herself. Remind herself that neither of you are responsible for what has happened so she doesn’t take it out on you two.
“There’s nothing I can do about it but wait.” Always waiting, always waiting. “Yes, I am devastated, and I appreciate that both of you are worried about me, but please, I am begging… I am trying to ignore it and move forward because there’s nothing I can do. Until we get more news, there’s nothing I can do. For my sake, please do the same and don’t bring it up again until I do.”
There’s nothing I can do.
There’s nothing I can do.
There’s nothing I can do…
You hate that she keeps repeating that. Like she’s deemed herself useless in this situation. Helpless.
…And you hate even more that she isn’t entirely wrong because there isn’t anything you can do in regards to that.
Except focus on what you are able to accomplish. Here, in Menagerie.
Getting showered and ready. That’s the first thing you can do.
“Okay,” you whisper, giving in despite how much you want to resist. Choosing to let this sit at a standstill until further notice even while it eats you away on the inside.
Yang likes it about as much as you do, but she, too, understands the importance of letting it go. For now, at least. She pulls a face of displeasure but utters, “Alright.”
“Thank you,” Weiss swallows thickly, rubbing her temple as one final attempt to psyche herself up for the day. It mustn’t work, but regardless, she stands up. You tense where you are, ready to dive across the bed so you can catch her if she falls, but she remains steady. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Your sister gives a thumbs-up before she leaves the room. Closing the door behind her.
You stay sitting for a second longer, watching Weiss as she goes around the room to grab her necessities to take a shower. Desperate for one as much as you are, no doubt. All you want is to wash away the ocean travel. A reset.
“I won’t be long,” she says with her towel bundled in her arms like it is a safety blanket, even while she still dons the red cloak around her. It is in instances like these where she looks… so small. Because despite her shorter stature, Weiss has always held herself tall. No matter how much the world or her father or anyone else has tried to knock her down, she has gotten to her feet time and time again despite being brought to her knees. She knows her worth and she wears it well and it is beautiful. You sometimes forget she’s shorter than you now because of it. “Unless you want to shower first?”
Disappointment stirs within you that you do your best to stamp down because it shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t matter that she didn’t offer for the two of you to shower together. You’re on a time limit, Blake and Yang and Ashe are waiting for both of you, and you can’t afford to be distracted by one another (because you know you will, you can’t help it. Even if you simply get the chance to hold her without the barrier of clothes, you can stay there forever just feeling the way she breathes against you and it is a kind of comfort you crave currently).
But that small part in the back of your black-hole mind- ever doubtful, ever cruel, ever cautious- takes it as a sign of She doesn’t want to be near you.
Does she somehow blame you? For telling her what’s happened, for showing her the letter? Can she hardly stand to look at you anymore?
No, you soothe yourself and inhale slowly, opening and closing your fingers as you sit cross-legged on the bed that now feels much too big without her in it. Not real. It’s not your fault, she doesn’t blame you. It’s not your fault.
(Your fault, your fault, your fault.
It echoes, hushed as the bad voices and memories are nowadays. Easier to ignore, but not entirely gone.
You doubt you’ll ever be free of them. They’ll pop in at moments when you least expect it. In moments when you are at your most vulnerable. In moments when you are at your strongest too, they aren’t picky.
You’ll live with them for as long as you’ll live with the scars, the trauma, the pain…
Forever and a day…)
“You can go,” you whisper just loud enough for her to hear you, doing your best to send her a smile because she seems like she needs it more than you do. “I’ll wait.”
Weiss nods, about to walk out the door that she opens halfway. She’s barely out of sight before she apparently pauses and turns back around, coming closer and closer to you when you aren’t prepared but you just stay still and watch her. Not making any signs to flinch away when she cradles the side of your cheek, caresses tenderly at the scar that tingles and pulls with every blink as you continue to grow used to it.
And you angle your head up toward her at the same time she leans down.
Her kiss is warm. Tastes of reassurance and coffee and cinnamon-sugar cookies and the faintest touch of salt from the residue of her dried tears from the night before.
You savor it.
When she ends it and pulls away, you automatically chase after her but she gets too far too fast and if you had continued trying, you would’ve fallen over the edge of the bed. You believe it would’ve been worth it regardless, but you let your eyes open so it’s easier to convince yourself she did actually turn around to kiss you and it’s not just a figment of your imagination. A grand wish.
Silver meets blue and it’s much easier to smile this time.
“I won’t be long,” she repeats, giving a final stroke of her thumb at your cheek before she steps back. Officially out of reach, but you do not have the instinctive panic or desire to trail after her for fear of her disappearing. “I love you.”
It is everything you need to shut up the taunts in the back of your head and confirm what you already (half) believed. That she doesn’t blame you for any of it, and even if she did, she forgives you for it. Your next inhale is easier and there is a pleasant quiet in your mind now as she officially exits the room. Leaving it opened just a crack in the way she knows you’re most comfortable with.
Only when you are certain she’s actually gone and out of earshot, only when you’re left with the warmth of her against your skin and your lips, only when you’re shrouded in her scent, only then do you have the guts to mumble out loud, almost so incoherent you can hardly understand yourself, but you’re convinced it counts on some spectrum because it makes your heart race (with panic, with fear; with exhilaration, with excitement);
“...I love you too.”
Silence.
Your throat is tight from allowing the confession freedom, like no matter how soft or real or pleasant they are, those three or four syllables will always contain some jagged edges that cut and tear and rip their way out from your heart within your chest through your throat and out of your mouth into the open air. It has been as tattered and tainted as you have been and you don’t know how long it will be (if ever) before it stops hurting. Before it’s healed as much as you have.
Or if you’re resigned for the rest of eternity to say those words with blood in your mouth. With fear in your soul.
“And you think we love you?”
With an underlying hiss, no matter how distant and difficult to comprehend as it’s starting to become (fading, fading, fading like you once did), in your mind.
You debate if it’s worth it anyway. To say it to her face and when she’s actually here and not when she’s asleep or away. You’re dying to see her reaction. You don’t want to be afraid of your own heart and emotions anymore.
You want to tell her… but now you don’t know when would be a good time to do so. Because there are so many emotions running through everyone, especially her, and so much to stress about that piling that on top of everything gives a sense of trying to balance just one more layer on the house of cards that is already threatening to come crumbling down. You can’t add anymore to it without risking someone breaking. Most likely you, or probably her since she’s halfway there already. Or maybe it’ll be the world itself.
You can’t risk it.
(Hmm…
You’re starting to get deja vu from this. In a bad way.)
You’re brought out of your musings from a spark of heat at your left arm that comes seconds before the sound of something small hitting the glass in a single tap does. You jump to attention, leaping off of the bed on Weiss’s side so at the very least if something is about to burst in from the window, you have a bit of space, an object between the two of you, and you are closer to the exit than they will be. You hold your breath and count to five but nothing happens again.
The burning sensation, however, remains.
And maybe it’s just morbid curiosity (that’s gotten you in trouble before so you really shouldn’t listen to it- but you can’t help yourself) or maybe it comes with the realization that if whatever is out there does decide to come inside, you are the only one standing between it and everybody else in the house so your instinct switches from self-preservation to protectiveness. From flight to fight.
You do wander to the door, but it’s to close it shut instead of running out. Grabbing your scythe that leans against the wall beside the door in its compact form, you steel your nerves and steady your breaths and approach the curtains. Standing directly in front of it.
Another thump. Slightly harder than the first, louder. Like someone went from tapping a single finger against the glass to knocking against it with a fist. Only once, before it’s quiet again.
And it’s as though you’ve been challenged to a shootout and accepted it without even realizing it. A duel. It will be their reflexes and aim and speed against yours and maybe whoever it is will have the upper-hand because you need to waste precious seconds- seconds that can save your life- to open the curtains and actually get a visual on your opponent.
You double check that you have some sniper rounds inside of Crescent Rose. Spark your aura to gauge how much you have and predict what you can withstand at the moment. Your heart thumps in your chest as you breathe in slowly, hold it, and exhale. Calm.
You toss open the curtains.
And there, standing so boldly in the middle of the grass in the rain instead of hiding within the tree lines, about halfway to your house and where the back garden is, is Oliver. Having returned from wherever else he went earlier, or maybe he had only gone slightly further into the jungle where you wouldn’t be able to spot him anymore but he would still have a visual. The Fallen carries his bow in one hand at his side, while the other…
Rocks.
That’s what hit your window. The shadow man tosses another stone piece into the air in an almost playful manner. Distracted with it for a second before vivid red eyes focus on you and he catches the rock again.
He stares at you and you stare back. Still so conflicted when confronted with another Fallen. So many emotions warring within you.
One side of you begs, screams at you to go out there right now and save him from the shadows. Before it’s too late. Before he’s too far gone. Because you can still see him, he’s still there!
…But the other side knows better.
Stepping outside right now and going up to him is a death sentence.
Oliver isn’t here to be saved.
Even if he wanted to be.
Instead of with an arrow, he primes his bow with the piece of rock. Pulling the string back and aiming right for your face with the practiced motions of an experienced marksman.
And with zero hesitation, he fires.
Thump!
Crack.
The thick glass of the window can only take three strikes before it cracks. A jagged line forms relatively where the right side of your face is, as if to mimic the scar you now have there. Tiny splinters extend outward from it but it doesn’t travel very far and the rock doesn’t actually manage to break through entirely either and the majority of the glass is spared. It’s just this one section.
Your view of the outside world- and him- is distorted from it. Making it harder to clearly differentiate the huntsman that’s trapped underneath and the shadows of Grimm that have taken over his body. (Is it because of the cracked glass… or is it because he’s losing himself more and more and you can’t see the human as much anymore?)
All you do is sigh. Choked up, for some reason.
Oliver runs out of rocks or out of patience or time. Because he stands motionless for one minute, two minutes, three. Soaked by the drizzle of rain that falls outside because he has nothing to protect himself from it. No umbrella, no cover, no jacket. No home.
And he looks so… lost.
You know he can’t hear you- he’s too far and the window is still closed- but you reach out anyway. Placing your palm flat against the unmarred part of the glass, so he can actually perceive what you’re doing. So your attempt at peace isn’t ruined by jagged lines and broken edges.
“Just a little longer,” you promise. To him. To yourself. To all the Fallen that are here on Menagerie and those that aren’t. To those that are trapped in darkness, unable to free themselves the way you did. “We will save you. Just hold on a little longer…”
The man flinches. As though he was able to hear you somehow. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence and he’s merely been standing there too long and Salem has taken notice. There’s a flash of black lightning around him, a telltale sign of her control and forcibly needing to demand him because her puppet is no longer obeying.
And Oliver turns.
And walks away. Into the jungle.
He doesn’t look back at you. Doesn’t resist. Doesn’t stop. He keeps going further and further into the treeline until you can’t see him anymore.
He’s gone. (For now, he’s gone again.)
You close the curtain and backpedal, stumbling and almost tripping backward, until the back of your knees hit the side of the bed and you carefully lower yourself until you’re sitting down. Breathing in and out… in and out… in and-
“Damn it,” you grunt, placing your weapon on the ground in front of you and hunching over yourself. Elbows against your knees and head in your hands. The sting of defeat pierces at your skin and bones and muscles until you ache all over and you’re nauseous again.
Just one thing at a time.
Please, can there just be one problem at a time?
You don’t get to have that luxury.
Can you call yourself a hero if you aren’t spread to the absolute thinnest? The world thinks not.
I’m so tired…
You’re really starting to regret not getting any suitable amount of sleep.
And to think that the day is only beginning.
…
When it’s your turn to shower, you’re in and out before you get the chance to fully enjoy the water (you’re even convinced you don’t entirely wash off all the suds from your hair because of how fast you go), and breakfast is so rushed that it isn’t worthy of being called a meal. You inhale the breakfast burritos Tai made for everyone, half-surprised none of you choke on the food, and by the time you’re getting ready to begin the journey to wherever the hell you’re going- you still don’t fully know but you trust Blake and Ashe- only an hour and a half has passed since Yang came to fetch you and your partner.
You think that’s a new record.
Because of the nature of where you’re going and what you’re going to do, Yang or Blake has asked Maria to come along as well. Mentors you can trust are hard to come by and all of you just feel so much safer when she’s around. Maybe she’s heard of these stories of the Primordials and their beasts too and might have some insight or advice. Maybe there’s just something comforting having an experienced silver-eyed warrior at your side because you still have so much to learn from her.
Your dad, though he certainly tries, is not invited.
“Go and stay with Ghira and Kali until we get back,” Yang is unyielding in her stance, arms crossed and jaw set, and you stand right by her side. Mouth in a frown, almost a pleading pout for him to listen to your concerns. Nervously clutching at the chipped snowflake locket you have in your pocket as you shift in place. “But you’re not coming with us. It’s too dangerous.”
“What makes you think I’m okay with just letting my girls go off alone then if it’s so dangerous, hmm?”
“You’re supposed to be resting!”
“Technically so are all of you.”
…Well, he’s not wrong but-
“Dad,” you try this time, placing a hand against Yang’s arm to pacify her so you can step forward. “Please. We don’t want your injuries getting worse.”
“We already lost Patch,” your sister’s tone comes out gravelly and you understand. It still hasn’t fully set in that you’ve lost the home you grew up in. It’s not completely destroyed, not in the sense that Beacon or Atlas was (at least, you hope not), but it has been damaged and there’s no way for you to go back there. Especially not right now. “We can’t lose you too.”
Thankfully, that’s enough to get him to give in. Though he might not like sending you off to somewhere potentially dangerous, he agrees to follow a group of guards to the Belladonna Home and stay in the village. Once you return, one of you will go and get him or send him a message.
He takes Zwei with him and you’ve never been more paranoid in your life watching him leave through the jungle path, knowing what’s out there lurking in the shadows, but you can’t afford the time to walk him there yourself. You’ve already spent so much valuable time getting ready.
“We should get going,” Blake finally speaks up after spending a majority of the morning mute, making only the slightest bits and pieces of conversation with Ashe and no one else. Mostly reassurances from the lead guard than anything else, constantly asking her if she’s steady (whatever that means). “It’ll take about half a day to get there.”
She peeks over to Ashe for confirmation and he nods, snow leopard’s tail fluffed out in irritation from the sprinkling rain that’s drenched all of you by now because you’ve just been standing around with each other. “I know a shortcut. Four or five hours without rest. There’ll be denser parts of the jungle but nothing too concerning.”
And that’s with a shortcut?
You can’t imagine how long it will be on foot going through the main paths.
“Or,” Weiss catches everyone’s attention before any of you can start walking in a seemingly random direction, following Ashe’s lead, shrugging one shoulder, “I can get us there faster. You need only to tell me where to land.”
You wince at the implications of her using her semblance right now, saddling up at her side to take her by the hand as delicately as possible. Murmuring a displeased, worried, “Weiss…”
“We want to get there and back as quickly as possible,” she says to you specifically but also to the others, already expecting you to argue. Motioning to the jungle and the distance beyond, Weiss scoffs, “We can’t afford to waste time walking if we have faster means of getting there with a couple of my summons.”
“I know, but…”
She’s already summoned one too many times since she drew from her net and saved you from the Kraken. The cracks haven’t reduced back to what you deem to be a safe radius and the more she uses her semblance or her aura in general, the more she runs the risk of making them expand. And the more they extend, the more her aura will be drained. You can already pick up on that telltale exhaustion, a heaviness she only shows when she thinks no one is looking in her direction, the way she’ll rub at her chest beneath the locket with a flinch every now and then.
“You’re not supposed to be summoning right now, Weiss,” Yang is right there with you with her concern. Probably a tad more heated, a tad more paranoid about it than you are because while she may not know the risks that come with the cracks growing too much, she was there when they were really bad. Back when Weiss didn’t care about whether or not they grew and allowed her glyphs to shatter continuously, back when her aura used to drain and break constantly throughout the day. (Back when you weren’t there to stop her.)
“We can get there on foot,” Blake urges as well, stepping closer, “you need to rest.”
“We do not have the luxury of rest anymore.”
“Weiss-”
“Will one of you please come to a decision?” Maria cuts in before it can turn into a full-blown argument, standing off to the side where Ashe is as well. But where the lead guard doesn’t want to interfere, your mentor has no qualms with doing so in the most brusque way possible. “The more we stand around in the rain chit chatting away, the more time is being wasted regardless. So bite your tongues and either we start walking or we fly there. Which one is it going to be?”
The three of you can’t even suggest the former before the glow of a trio of summoning glyphs illuminate the space you’re in.
Silver eyes dart over to your partner immediately instead of the apparating constructs, focusing on the brightening glow of the cracks that she tries to hide beneath the cover of the cloak. But you notice them. You always will.
All Blake and Yang do is sigh in defeat and exasperation, but what’s done is done as soon as the three manticores are fully formed. It would be a large waste of Weiss’s already dwindling aura to make her unsummon them, so it’s better to not toss her efforts into the void and take advantage of this now.
The three winged lions behave… differently.
Normally, they act as though they are waking up from warm naps. Sleepy and content. It takes them a few minutes to fully wake up, and once they do, if you’re in the vicinity, they instantly go into cuddle mode and vie for your attention. If you aren’t, they’ll give their affection to their creator.
Right now, they materialize into existence immediately on high alert. All three of them don’t even give any of you a speck of their focus as they instead turn their sights to Weiss. And only Weiss. They rumble in a way that’s not quite a purr, not quite a growl either. Communicating in their own special manner that nobody but your partner understands.
Because you’ve spent so much time with her summons, no matter if you fully remember those months in her haven or not, it’s like a sixth sense that you vaguely understand their habits and demeanors.
So you can tell that they are very, very concerned.
For her.
Weiss blinks at them before softening insurmountably, shaking her head almost fondly as she bemoans, “Not you too…”
One of them chuffs at that.
Your partner rolls her eyes- not annoyed, more adoring than anything- as she steps forward until she’s able to pat the closest one on the top of their head. They lean into her touch, nuzzling against her palm even as she reassures them sternly, “I’ll be fine. I already know.”
“Know what?” Yang raises her brow, eyeing the three large beasts as they treat Weiss oh so gently. Nudging their noses against her instead of fully bunting their heads into her like they normally would, hyper aware of their own strength and size. Cautious.
Weiss gives each of them equal affection and attention (and it never fails to make you absolutely melt when she’s like that with any of her summons). Surrounded by her winged lions as they protectively gather around her, not facing any of you as she reluctantly admits, “I’ll be able to get us there and back… but that’s all I’ll be able to do today before my aura breaks. And I don’t know how long it will be before it comes back.”
Meaning, she won’t be able to use her summons to help make sure the archipelago is safe, which the four of you were supposed to go do after this particular excursion.
Not unless she truly wants to risk herself.
You’re at least comforted that she is aware of her limits and also how far past them she can push before it becomes too much for even her will.
You can only hope that she’ll listen to her body’s- her soul’s- warnings before it’s too late.
“We’ll figure it out when we get back,” Blake reassures her. “The archipelago can wait until tomorrow if need be. We do still need to speak with the Elders too, so we can do that later. For now…”
“Hop on,” Weiss runs her hand one final time along one of the manticores’ head, silently signaling them to pad over to where Blake and Yang are gathered. The summon crouches down in a position where they’ll be able to get on easily. To one of the others, she sends them to where Maria and Ashe are before climbing onto the remaining one. Blue eyes find yours as she gets onto the last one and extends a hand your way, “Ruby?”
Like a knight on her steed.
A huntress on her manticore.
Focus, Ruby. Focus, now is not the time to get distracted by her.
(But how can you not?)
You don’t argue anymore, mostly because there isn’t any time for you to do so, and accept her help. Pulling yourself up onto the space behind her, much more smoothly than the first time you did this, and scooting as close to her as possible as you wrap your arms around her midsection. Holding yourself flush against her and kissing the back of her neck.
Not because you’re afraid of falling off, even if you did you’re certain Weiss and her summon will do everything they can to catch you, but because you want to be as close to her as you can be.
Who knows? Maybe your love will prevent the cracks from getting much farther on her.
A fool’s wish.
“When we’re getting close,” your partner mentions to Blake and Ashe, reaching past the intimidating horns of the lion to pat the top of their head, “pat them twice and I’ll know to start bringing us down. I doubt we’ll be able to hear each other up there.”
What with the wind and the rain going on. You’ll have to shout to be heard.
With affirmative nods from the two technically leading this adventure, Ashe points in the direction you’re meant to travel as each of the manticores adjust themselves to standing. Wings flexing and spreading out, warming up as if they’re stretching the muscles there as each of them give a few flaps. The action causes the water already gathered on their feathers to spray every which way and it brings a small smile to your lips at the playfulness of it.
They let out more indistinct sounds with one another, communicating with each other, before the one that you and Weiss are on takes a couple of steps back. Preparing themself as they lope forward, their wings beating much more strongly than the first time once, twice. And on the third, they’re airborne.
The other two follow your lead, and soon enough, you’re soaring over the jungle trees. So close you can almost reach down to the side of it to touch the branches and vibrant leaves, but you keep your arms around Weiss. Knocking your head gently into the back of hers, ignoring the fact her soaked cloak is pressing into you unpleasantly.
It must be cold and heavy by now and you were tempted to ask her to leave it behind before you left, but it would’ve been a pointless battle.
She never parts with it unless she absolutely has to.
Some part of you is touched by it.
You’ve always known Menagerie to be beautiful. Never anything short of breathtaking no matter the time of day. When you’re this high up, you have a clear view of the entire jungle. If Weiss were to push the manticores higher, you’d crest over the peaks of every mountain range. Get high enough, and you’ll be able to examine the whole island from one end to the other.
If there is one word to describe your home here, it’s colorful. The jungles are full of vibrant green from vines and leaves and every shade under the sun from flowers. Earthy tones and rich dark brown from the bark of trees and the soil of the undergrowth. Hidden in the paths, little gleams of orange and red signify where lit torches are. Crystal clear waters and sapphire blue rivers. And that’s not even getting to the village itself, which is a whole other conglomeration full of life.
…But right now, you scan around and everything is so… dark. Gloomy. Dreary. You don’t know whether that has to do with your outlook on everything or the ominousness that comes with knowing the dangers that derive from a beautiful environment or just because of the overcast of the storm that dims the entire world of all its color. Any possible lit torches within the trails, lighting the way through the dark, have all been snuffed out from the wind and rain of recent days and they will all need to be manually relit by somebody.
Even when you peer over your shoulder to the buildings of the main village that are getting farther and farther away the longer you fly, it’s as if everything is muted. Dull.
It’s never once been like this since you’ve lived here. Even when the entire island’s people were mourning Ophio, there had still been celebrations and color in remembrance of the life he had no matter how subdued it all was.
You find it viscerally unnerving.
You close your eyes and hide your face against the back of Weiss’s neck for the rest of the flight. Letting the rush of the wind past your ears and the song of the drizzle whisper to you in a way that’s almost apologetic. As if the sky itself has no control whether it rains or not and it’s aware of how much it’s inconveniencing everyone (at best) or making everything so dangerous for people (at worst).
It’s not your fault, you want to say to it but the words get stuck in your throat.
Weiss, perhaps sensing your distress and sadness for how decolored everything is, places one hand over the back of yours at her belly. Her fingers squeeze into the spaces between yours and you cling to her in gratitude.
It’s almost peaceful. The flight is smooth as you glide through the air in a simple straight line. Though the constant rain is bothersome, you’ve grown used to having to ignore it in the long run so you’re almost numb to the rivulets streaming down your skin and soaking your combat gear and causing your hair to slicken against your scalp until you’re absolutely drenched.
You’re halfway to dozing off before the ride abruptly changes angle when you aren’t expecting it to. Your arms tighten around Weiss on instinct, legs stiffening around the manticore’s body beneath you as it goes downward, downward, downward. Breaking through the treetops in a thinner part of the jungle so you aren’t contending so much with the thick branches and clusters of leaves. Though some of them still pull and prod at you as you go by, you arrive to the jungle floor relatively unscathed and no worse for wear.
The summon lands heavily upon the earth, sniffing the air and doing a thorough scan of the area for threats as it crouches down for the two of you to get off easily. One, two more thumps of the other manticores announce their arrival as well. Grumbling to one another with low rumbles as they inspect around.
You don’t quite know what you’re expecting to find.
But the first thing you do notice as you hop off the manticore is that the dirt underneath your boots… is hard. Normally because of how moist the jungle typically is, there’s at least a little bit of a give. The slightest bounce as the soil is displaced with your steps or slick with mud that usually occurs when it’s been raining as much as it has in past days. You’re often prone to slipping because of it.
But not here.
You drop your gaze to the ground. Lifting your foot and tapping it against the dirt.
And it’s like solid rock. Greyed out like it’s turned into stone.
Petrified.
“Wow…” Yang’s gasp has you glancing in her direction a few paces ahead. Surveying past her.
And your heart drops.
Because it’s such a sudden change from the part of the jungle where you stand that still has brown trees with green leaves with only the dirt that’s different from what it should be… to where she is. Roughly two, maybe three meters away at most.
Where all the leaves of every single tree have rotted and crumbled to the ground, littering every inch of the jungle floor with dead, dried vegetation. The bark of the trees appear like they’ve been drained of all their natural brown coloration, leaving behind this sad, faded grey shade that looks like it’s two seconds away from turning into dust and ash.
“We are only… maybe an eighth of a mile from the mountain at most,” the lead guard breaks the silence that’s only been disturbed by the everlasting rain up until this point as all of you just take in the sight of the jungle withering right before your eyes. Ashe wanders about idly until he reaches one of the petrified trees, extending a hand toward it before deciding against touching it. Not wanting to risk it falling. “It’s extending in patches further into the jungle by the day with no real pattern that I’ve been able to predict. And no one knows how to stop it from spreading. At this rate…”
The entire jungle- no…
The entire island will wither.
“In the end, they all wither and succumb.”
Frantic, you dig your nails into your palm at your left side and try to do the same with your right, but the glove there protects you from yourself (and it’s not what you want and you somehow just resist the urge to take it off). You force the devil’s taunt from your head and proceed forward because if you don’t move now, you might never will and you can’t have that. There’s no time to be stuck.
You have to keep going.
Even as it breaks your heart more and more as you walk and with every step, the petrification just continues. A part of you wants to run back to the healthy side, the side full of light, the side that has color and life- but you swallow thickly, steel your nerves, fight against your instinct, and keep moving forward. Into the grey. Into this dead section of the jungle.
Because of the rain, it looks like the trees themselves are crying.
Or melting away as the water running down the trunks strips away particles of the wood, leaving behind deep gouges and streaks as if a great beast has raked their claws down it.
When every tree you pass by is like that, it truly gives a sense that you are treading deeper and deeper right into a monster’s den. Willingly. The further in you go, the harder it will be to come out alive.
But still, you go.
Behind you, your team follows. Weiss dismisses her manticores- despite how much they give the impression they want to stay now, but she does not have the aura to spare to keep them active this entire time- while Yang waits for Maria and Ashe to go before taking up the rear and Blake is the first to join your side. Perhaps because you might not have any idea where you’re going, but she does. Only once does she wordlessly tap you on the arm, trekking at a slight angle now.
Five minutes in and nothing changes. The trees bleed out, the rain resumes as normal. Your combined footsteps against the earth-turned-stone is so loud to your ears and you almost want to try and take a stealthier approach but Blake moves with no air of caution about her. As if she innately knows there aren’t any possible dangers that can get you no matter if the environment warns differently.
You trust your friend and keep going.
Ten minutes of non-stop walking and something does change.
The rain.
From one step to the next, it ends.
Except, when you glimpse behind you (out of nothing but habit, mostly), you discover that it is still going. Just… not in this area and beyond it.
As if even the storm doesn’t want to be here.
The six of you continue.
It takes a total of fifteen minutes to finally reach where you’re heading from where you landed. The crying trees begin to thin and spread out more and more- and you can’t help but wonder if it’s a natural process of the jungle terrain transitioning into a mountainous one with less trees… or if it’s because some of the trees have already succumbed to the petrification and are nothing more but piles of dust that sit on the ground- until they come to an end. The landscape opens up as the rock face of a towering mountain greets you.
At first glance, it just looks like any other mountain to you that you’ve come across here.
But the more you focus on it, the closer you get…
“I can see why it’s called Silver-Streak Mountain,” Yang comments in an attempt to lighten the mood that falls flat since everyone is too distracted marveling at the cliffside.
With a name like that, you predicted for there to be some sort of visible pockets of silver ore that led to its namesake. But instead, there are actual veins of liquid silver streaking this way and that in every direction like a full capillary system that has solidified into the stonework. Like someone long ago dumped buckets of it from the top of the mountain and let it naturally run down the sides in any way it wants.
It’s rather beautiful in an unusual way.
“Ashe,” you pick up on Blake murmuring to the lead guard a short way’s away, motioning to a part of the mountain that’s indented. And as you step to the side to examine it, you realize there are doors there. Large, almost overly so, and made of metal wrapped with multiple chains that interlock as a clear sign to Keep out. Do not enter. Deterring people from trying to go past it (or… keeping something on that side from getting over here). “Will you unlock it for us?”
“...Are you well?”
“It’s been years,” Blake clenches her jaw, the muscle there flexing, and gold focuses on the door instead of the rest of the mountain. “I’ve grown.”
“Forgive me,” Ashe softens at that, “but that doesn’t answer my question, princess.”
“I’m… uneasy,” she answers honestly this time and that alone has you and the rest of your team stepping closer to her until you’re all relatively gathered around her. Yang takes her by the hand and it is not lost to you the way Blake has to fight against flinching away from it. “But I’ll be fine. I’m steady.”
“If you’re sure.”
Ashe gives a final once-over to his charge before he turns around, approaching the double doors with all its chains and instead of going to it right away to start meticulously taking off every fetter, he instead kneels before it. Sitting against his heels and bowing his head as if in prayer. Like even something as simple as unlocking the door requires a plea to divinity for guidance and protection.
“Blake,” your sister whispers, massaging her partner’s knuckles to at least try and ease the nerves that just being here brings her. “What’s beyond the door?”
What’s making you so scared?
Aside from Wrath, but that’s a given.
Truth be told, it’s as though Blake isn’t even thinking about Wrath right now. And more so, the rest of what’s on the other side of the mountain.
“The Timeless Forest. In some stories it is referred to as the ‘Land where the World stops Spinning.’ All of that,” Blake motions to the petrified jungle you just exited out of before pointing to the mountain ahead, “is beyond there, but so much worse. There is a fog that is so thick it’s almost impossible to see an arm’s length away from you. Nothing moves there; no wind blows, no water runs, no rain falls. It’s as if… time has paused.”
“That just sounds like the forest back at Patch,” Yang states, shifting her weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “Where the Fiend was.”
“Yes, it’s similar to that. But the worst part is, your senses like to play tricks on you. You will see things that aren’t there out of the corner of your eye and it will disappear as soon as you go and look. Some have described that they’ve been touched, others that felt like something was grabbing onto them and refusing to let go, a few have been scratched and shoved. You will smell and taste either your favorite things to lure you into a false sense of security or… what some imagine the taste and smell of rotting corpses to be.”
How pleasant.
Just what you need.
For your mind to play tricks on you with things that aren’t real.
(An everyday occurrence for you, honestly.)
“And then, there are the Whispers.”
“Whispers?”
“It’s… not unlike the voices from the shadows in Salem’s Realm, now that I think about it.” Blake reaches up to the back of her neck and it’s only just then that you realize that you’re already doing it too. It brings a shiver down your spine and you force your hand to lower back down to your side. “These are different, though. Some folk tales call them the Voices of the Forgotten. Every dead spirit of the world that has no home to return to or a body that’s been buried or cremated, they come here and they’re trapped for the rest of eternity… They’re more insistent, and they target only certain individuals instead of everybody. It’s a Grimm with no corporeal form, some even argue it doesn’t exist and doesn’t count because it has no physical body. But they’re everywhere. You’ll sense them.”
She swallows nervously, gripping onto Yang more and stepping more into her side for comfort that Yang provides so easily.
“If you do not have the best mental fortitude to block them out, they can and will drive you insane.” She smiles sadly at whatever memory that passes through her mind. “I… They don’t like me much.”
“You’ve been here before?” You gawk, now fully understanding how she knows so much about it (and why she doesn’t want to go back).
“When I was a kid. My parents took me on a trip around the jungle to show me all of Menagerie as a way for me to know the island in her entirety. A group of guards broke off from us to investigate something, I thought. Turns out, they were doing a final test for that set of rookies there… but I was curious. So, I followed them. I was…” Blake grimaces, sheepish somehow, “adventurous?”
“Mischievous, more like. Rambunctious is a better word,” Ashe declares from his place, finishing his prayer as he gets to his feet and turns halfway around to send her a fond grin. Amusem*nt in his eyes. “Rebellious, some might say. Always liked to step out of line and see how far she could get before she got in trouble.”
“Well, I certainly learned my lesson that day. Do not go where I’m not allowed.”
“What do you mean the Whispers don’t like you?” Weiss gets them back on track before they can get too far into their reminiscing. Apologetic as she may be about it.
“They targeted me back then and no one else.” A pause before she lets out a huff of a bitter laugh (as if there is anything funny when she says-), “Nearly walked right off a cliff because of it. Ashe saved me.”
“As is my duty,” the lead guard bows at the waist with a hand at his chest, “and my honor.”
Blake nods in appreciation before she continues, “I just remember that they were so… loud. And mean. Most children don’t have the strongest minds to push them out once they’re inside their heads. I was the most vulnerable… An easy target for them that presented itself on a silver platter.”
The clammer of one of the ropes of chain hitting the stone causes everyone to jump, your fingers twitching to unleash Crescent Rose from your back, but you calm yourself before you can do that. Ashe loosens another one, testing each one to see which will give first now that the lock is gone, before carefully pulling it out. This, too, requires a diligent procedure. A pattern that makes no sense to you but it must be important somehow.
“And they chose you,” he speaks over his shoulder, hauling the next chain free and letting it fall to his feet with the others, “because you are a child chosen by the island. Menagerie favors you, and they hate it.”
“Huh?” You turn to Blake for clarification.
“It’s just a story,” she sighs, “made by the Elders upon my birth-”
“It is no story,” Ashe cuts her off fiercely (and you can’t remember a time when he’s done that before, so he must truly be offended by her non-belief) and lets the final chain fall before he faces the group again. Putting his hands on his hips as his tone takes on a nigh lecturing lilt, “You’ve felt it, princess. Don’t deny it. Menagerie loves you, and if only you allow her, she will protect you. But you refuse to believe.”
It sounds rather far-fetched, for an island to favor someone. You could believe it if he meant the people who represented Menagerie itself, but he talks as though the rivers, the trees, the ground itself, perhaps even the winds love the princess. Like they are capable of such emotions and thoughts, like they are as real as you and the rest of your team and every living person that resides here.
Perhaps the island is alive though.
In some ways, you’ve felt it too.
Blake merely shrugs, a weak jerk of her shoulders, “I just find it hard to believe Menagerie would choose someone like me. Why not my parents? Why not you? You deserve it more.”
Before any of you can comfort her, Ashe beats you to it with a raise of his brow, “What makes you believe you aren’t worthy of her love?”
“What makes you believe I am more worthy of it than anyone else?”
“Because you are Blake Belladonna.”
That brings a small laugh out of her. Not quite believing it still, but not actively denying it or brushing it off. More amused than anything else by his insistence. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I think it does,” Yang remarks with a grin, bumping her shoulder against her partner’s. Giving a squeeze to her hand that Blake returns almost out of habit rather than with full awareness or intention. “You’re pretty great.”
“You told me once that the island was your first and oldest friend,” Weiss saddles up to Blake’s other side to purposefully meet her in the eye. A shared memory of whatever moment she’s talking about passing between the two that you and everyone else aren’t privy to (but for you it… sounds slightly familiar. So distant, so distant. You can’t even hope to reach for it for more clarity, so you let it slip between your fingers and let them keep it for themselves). “What makes it so hard to believe that you are Menagerie’s first friend too?”
“There have been others ‘chosen’ before me. Grand Elder Lupine, for one.”
“And just like with her, Menagerie speaks to you. You need only listen, but you’ve made yourself deaf to her voice… Yet,” Ashe frowns, having approached bit by bit until he stands directly in front of her now. Peeking over his shoulder to the unlocked doors. All you’ll need to do is open it and… hope for the best. “You choose to angle your ears to her blight instead.”
“Because it’s so loud, Ashe. It’s hard not to listen to it.”
“I know. But make heed to remember that everything beyond this mountain,” he glares over his shoulder, standing in such a way as though he alone will protect Blake from the Voices of the Forgotten, “is not Menagerie. It is her poison. It is her opposite. So because Menagerie loves you so, her antithesis despises you and seeks only to harm… Do not let it, my liege. Keep them out. They may be loud but you are stronger than they are. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Blake mumbles. Too quickly, all of you can tell she’s just trying to brush it off and move on as fast as possible.
But Ashe will not let her, “You need to say it.”
“Ashe…”
“Saying it out loud is halfway to believing it.”
It was one of the very first lessons the Elders of the island told you. When you initially arrived here and sought their guidance. When your mind had been so broken but made anew and nothing made sense. You spent hours upon hours upon hours repeating to yourself like a broken record- “This is real, this is real, this is real. I’m not trapped. They won’t hurt me. This is real. I’m okay.”- until you were convinced you sounded insane.
Sometimes, it had the opposite effect. Saying it so many times made it sound even more false because there was very little evidence you could use to back the words up. Nothing but blind hope and things too good to be true.
But most of the time, it calmed you. Even if only by a little.
Blake does not respond for so long you fear she might not go through with it, but eventually, perhaps when she has fully convinced herself of its truth, she utters with nothing but conviction, “I am stronger than they are.”
Ashe dips his head, proud, before taking a step to the side and motioning her ahead, “After you, my liege.”
“Why can’t you open it?” Yang tosses in, holding onto Blake for just a second more to prevent her from walking forward. Cautious. Paranoid.
“When the chief is present, only they may open it and go through first. I am only given permission to do so when no member of the royal family is here. But should there be one, no one else is allowed to touch the door. There is a higher chance of the Voices escaping through if someone less worthy does it.”
Ah.
No wonder he had been so careful with removing the chains.
He didn’t want to come into contact with the actual metal of the door and break tradition.
Blake brings the back of Yang’s knuckles up to leave a kiss there, meeting her momentarily in the eye as if to reassure her- I’m okay, I’ll be okay, let me go- and your sister only does so when you stand by her side and place your hand at her back. She releases her partner with a strained breath and you cling to the back of her combat gear to prevent her from rushing forward when Blake starts to walk away. Straight for the door.
You don’t fully grasp all the traditions and customs of Menagerie yet. You’re sure there are a lot of things that those of you that are not from here haven’t even heard of.
It’s better to be respectful and stand back than interject yourselves and break who knows how many rules.
That’s not to say it’s easy staying where you are as one of your own gets farther and farther away. In less than a minute, Blake is now officially too far from any of you to be comfortable with and the chances of her getting hurt by something are higher now.
You scrutinize the shadows that sit at the base of the mountain, searching for any signs of movement or aggression as a subtle chill fills the space around you. Should anything go wrong for any reason at all, you know Weiss is ready to create a glyph to protect Blake. Of all of you, she will get there first- and you, second.
When Blake makes it to the door, the very first thing she does is lift one of her hands as high as she can and rest her palm flat against the rusting metal. Hanging her head and closing her eyes in prayer.
Tick tock.
The silence is suffocating.
Tick tock.
You glance at your arm of white runes, not knowing if it’s a good sign or a bad one that it’s not scalding. If anything, it’s gotten colder the further into the petrified part of the jungle and the closer to the mountain you’ve ventured. It makes you shift in place, rubbing at it to try and warm yourself up.
You hate the cold more than when it’s burning you alive.
Tick tock.
Blake whispers something under her breath but she is too far away for any of you to pick up on it, even when there is no other noise in the area.
Tick.
And at last, she reaches for the old ring handles. One on either side and so large it could’ve been made for giants. Her muscles strain to pull them open, the doors groaning (that is more of a shriek in this level of silence). Contending against the sheer mass of the metal and the rust from age.
But open them, she does.
At first glance, there isn’t anything special about the entranceway.
Just that it’s so dark inside you can’t detect anything. There are no torches, no light bulbs. No distant speck foretelling of the end of the tunnel through the mountain.
It is but a black portal into the abyss that Blake stands in front of.
Thankfully, Ashe gives the rest of you permission to proceed now and the three of you all but rush to your last remaining teammate. You are seconds away from using your semblance just to close the space faster because she is too close to the all-consuming shadows. Too close to the void and you can’t-
…You can’t get there before she steps through without even looking back at the rest of you.
Should it concern you? How prepared she is to walk into the darkness without any of you by her side?
Or should you be proud of her for it? Because she walks into the darkness knowing you are all behind her even without needing to double check? Confident in herself and her ability to fend it off, confident that she is not alone and there is nothing to truly be afraid of.
You’re split fifty-fifty on it.
When you enter the tunnel, chasing after her and right behind Yang with Weiss by your side, you are instantaneously enveloped in shadows. And it’s as though there’s a rush of air that goes by you, even when there’s no actual breeze. Like the whole of the island has let out a deep sigh, like there’s a monstrous beast that towers behind you and it’s breathing down your neck. You reach blindly to the side and only relax when you find Weiss’s hand in the dark, holding onto her with a tad bit desperation (and she does the same).
Your heartbeat picks up in pace, your steps growing more and more cautious. Because you can’t see your sister or your friend in front of you. You turn your head and you can’t even distinguish your own partner beside you. Behind you, there is the sound of chains dragging, the heavy doors groaning (howling) again, and a slam as they’re closed shut by Ashe, who is the last one inside.
On and on, there is nothing but darkness… and darkness… and…
…light…
It’s weak at first, a dull glow, but when you’ve been trekking through the abyss as you all have, any speck of radiance is easy to spot. Each of you instinctively seek it out once it’s there. A respite from the shadows.
And there, on the opposite side, the opposite wall of the tunnel, another. And another. And another, more and more and by this point, you all stop to marvel as what you discover to be more veins of liquid silver that spider-web along the walls, the floor, the ceiling of the underpass begin to glisten. The illumination travels through the bloodstream of the mountain until the entire area is now filled with a warm shine.
Blake remains at the front of the group, leading the charge. Slightly further ahead than any of you. And as her vision passes over the spectacle, her features soften. Shoulders relaxing from their tensed state as she idly stretches an arm to the side. Brushing her fingertips along a few of the glowing silver veins.
Maybe it’s a trick of the light, maybe you’re seeing things, maybe it’s coincidence and perfect timing, but you swear on your life that as soon as she does, the entire tunnel brightens just a little bit more than before. As if the very mountain is greeting her. Reassuring her.
Encouraging her.
She keeps moving afterward with a hum and though you’re dying to ask questions and learn more about the island itself (herself?), you hold your tongue and follow. Much more confident and certain of your steps since you can actually see where you’re going now.
The tunnel doesn’t extend forever though, much like a part of you feared. (Much like a part of you might’ve wanted).
You can’t even tell the end of it is coming before you’re suddenly stepping out onto the other side of the mountain. Officially entering the Timeless Forest, all of you gather on the ledge directly outside of the tunnel. On an elevated area above the forest trees with a sloping decline of stone that leads down directly into them.
And it’s as though night has fallen.
There is no sunlight. No blow of the wind. No bellow of the nearby storm.
There is only silence.
Below, you can only discern the very tops of the trees. If that. A thick, obsidian fog that resembles more smoke and smog than anything else obscures the whole forest. You have no way of determining how tall the trees are either or how far they go.
As far as the eye can see, it is just endless, endless pitch black fog.
It’s… heartbreaking. In a way you can’t fully understand, but you feel it. Deep within your soul.
The runes at your arm are so cold that your entire left side is starting to grow numb from it. You don’t know what to make of it- because they’ve never gotten colder before.
“It’s worse…”
All of you turn to wear Blake stands, at the tip of the rock ledge. Ears flat against her head and an indescribable pain within gold. And she, too, must experience that same sense of heartbreak that you do. A thousandfold.
“It’s worse than I remember it being.”
“Over the years,” Ashe murmurs from the back of the group, nearest the tunnel. Standing guard to prevent anything untoward from going through it. “The fog has grown thicker. Darker. We haven’t been able to do any final tests here because of it, the chief has banned us from doing so in recent years.”
“Guardsmen used to take tests here?” Yang’s eyes widen at the mere idea of sending people here frequently, and you’re right there with her. Because already you want to leave and you haven’t even entered the damn forest.
“A simple test, by description. But the hardest for anyone to take. Start from here,” Ashe points to where you stand before pointing into the distance, straight ahead, “and get to the end of the forest and back. There are carved trinkets you’re required to pick up on the other side and bring back to prove that you actually made it. You’re given plenty of supplies, even though most finish the test within two to three days. It… was a way to prove that you have a strong mind and a strong will, a requirement for a proper guardsman. If you can get there and back without losing your mind along the way.”
“And for… those that failed?” You dare to ask, frightened of the answer.
“Most came back on their own accord within a few hours if it was too much and chose a simpler life, since they weren’t up to the task and the Voices got to them. The Elders make sure to check in with them until they’re well.”
If they ever get well, you assume.
“And for those that didn’t come back?” Weiss questions this time, studying the forest as much as Blake does.
Ashe doesn’t answer right away (and that’s telling enough already).
Blake beats him to it;
“They’re one with the Whispers now.”
It sends a spike of fear shooting through you. One that only stabs deeper when Blake begins to make the journey down the decline slope after revealing such information like it’s the most casual news in the world to her.
Yang trails after her and it is too late to turn back around for the rest of you. You will not let them go off on their own, especially to a place like this. No matter how much the idea of entering the forest now terrifies you.
As usual, you find your way to Weiss’s side and hold onto her by the hand. She does the same, sharing the briefest glance with you.
It’s all the reassurance you need to keep going. One step in front of the other.
Down, down, down to the bottom of the slope.
“I don’t hear them,” Yang mentions as you gather there, checking in on you. “Do any of you?”
“You won’t,” Blake replies before you can answer a positive no, taking away all your hope as she taps the stone beneath your feets with the toe of her boot. “We’re still standing on the rocks with silver. The petrification and the effects of the forest can’t go beyond it, unless it’s broken. As soon as we set foot on the forest ground, that will determine it.”
“Determine… what?”
“Whether or not this trip for you will be silent.”
One step.
All it takes is one step for you to cross over from the safe zone and into… whatever awaits you. You subconsciously shuffle back one, two more. Just so you are three steps away and have that extra amount of time to prepare yourself. Weiss does the same since she refuses to let go of you so you drag her along. And even Yang shifts back (only one extra step).
But Blake does not.
She stares at the stone at her feet, the recognized cliff’s edge. Eyelashes fluttering shut as she runs a hand down her face, grabbing onto her ring that hangs from its chain. Holds it close to her heart as she murmurs, “Menagerie protect me.”
And then she straightens up. Lifting her head higher and beholding the foggy forest ahead. A newfound determination in her stance as she draws in a slow, emboldening breath.
And demanding, out loud, addressing that which cannot be seen; “Voices of the Forgotten. You are not welcomed. You will not harm me or anyone else. You will stay here, you will not follow us back to Menagerie, you will not follow us home. This is your resting spot, find it within yourselves to sleep. We are stronger than you.”
“We are stronger than you,” Ashe echoes her, sending a glance to you and the others in a pointed manner. Silently urging you all to repeat it.
Maria does it first, and in unison, you and Weiss and Yang repeat it as well.
Saying it is halfway to believing it.
And only once the silence returns does Blake begin moving again.
One step.
Two steps- and she’s officially no longer on the silver-streak rock. But the dirt is as hardened as stone so there is no audible difference.
Three steps in and Yang goes after her first before you remember you must do the same.
You’re expecting an instant bombardment of noise. Of Whispers. Because whether you want to admit it or not, you know you do not have the best mental fortitude to block out nasty words from nonexistent entities. You’ve had Voices of the Forgotten yourself this entire time ever since setting foot into that torture room and they’ve stayed with you through shatterment, through rebirth, through healing.
You’ve learned to shut them out at the best of times. Even if they’re still there, you’ve learned not to let whatever they hiss bother you as much anymore.
You have your moments where it does, but you’re getting better. (You doubt you’ll ever reach a point where they are gone completely and maybe… maybe that’s okay.)
But nothing happens.
As you get further into the fog, so much so that it has you constantly checking over your shoulder to make sure Ashe and Maria are still close by, there’s not much of a difference. The silence is unsettling as ever and each of your footsteps are much too loud in comparison. Whenever one of you just so happens to step on a fallen petrified leaf or twig, it’s like an explosion. A crunch of bone. A shattering of glass that echoes… echoes… echoes…
And goes hushed again.
You hit the treeline with the grey-barked stumps and when you tilt your head back, you can’t even make out the branches above because the fog is so pervasive. Blotting out the sky so any sense of direction you might’ve gained from it is completely gone. You’re not that far in and already it feels like you’re lost.
It’s only when you pass by approximately seven or so tree stumps in that Blake pauses abruptly at the very front. Which causes Yang to bump into her and everyone behind her is forced to stop as well.
You peer around your sister’s body to Blake, ready to jump in to help, but all she does is gaze somberly off to the side. You follow the direction but, as expected, there isn’t anything there.
“You finally remembered me, huh?” She says aloud, ears twitching atop her head- and whatever they must respond with causes her to grimace. As if they all just collectively screamed at her with so much viciousness and animosity. Like she is somehow the reason they’re stuck here. Blake takes it in stride though, curling her lip, “Hello, old friends.”
“They recognize you?” Yang delicately places her hands at her partner’s hips, low at her back. To hold her steady or remind her that you’re all still there? It’s hard to decide.
“Yeah,” Blake chuckles, harsh and breathless, “yeah, they do.”
And once more, she continues (but she only does so while gripping onto Yang for dear life).
Farther, farther in.
Still, to your greatest surprise, nothing seems to be targeting you directly. Or any of the others, for that matter. It’s as if none of you even exist, none of you matter when Blake is here and the Whispers want to focus their full energy and ire on her.
…But she keeps walking. You’ll catch her cat ears twitching and swiveling so you can at least assume they are still screaming at her, but she never pauses again. She never falters. Never lets them slow her down.
Some part of you can’t help but be proud of her for it.
You have no way of keeping track of time here so you don’t even bother attempting to do so. You’d scope out the area and sightsee if there was anything for you to spot, but outside of the nearest tree stumps, you can’t identify much past the smog. The terrain doesn’t change either so you can’t determine if you’re even making progress or if you’re somehow stuck in a loop in this one spot.
How would you know anyway?
You could be walking for hours, days, months, years without even realizing it.
And still keep trying to find an exit that doesn’t exist.
The quiet must get to be too much for your sister, or maybe she’s just trying to distract Blake and give her something else to listen to, because she sighs, “Okay, let’s make a pact right now that this is the last time we’re going through a creepy, fog-filled forest, yeah?”
“I second that,” Weiss takes up on the chance at conversation and it’s odd to you how the trill of her voice can both make you jump and calm your nerves at the same time. “Twice is enough for me.”
You raise a brow at her, “What was the other creepy forest you went through?”
“When we went to find you. Long story, but in short, there was a creepy island with a creepy forest not too dissimilar from this one and a staircase that magically appeared that we had to climb.”
“That one was more worth it,” Blake mentions, peeking over her shoulder at you only briefly before she adds, “because at least by the end of it, we found you. This one probably won’t have as much of a happy ending.”
“Probably?” You tilt your head in curiosity.
She shrugs, “Anything’s possible, no?”
One can only hope.
Best case scenario, you make it to Wrath and discover it waking up was somehow a false alarm or perhaps you’ll have plenty of time to get everyone to safety instead of the few days you’re fearing you’ll get.
Worst case…
You freeze in place, jerking to a halt as silver snaps down to your left hand at your side.
Your lips thin. Studying the empty space beside you closely because maybe, just maybe…
“Ruby?” Weiss brings you to attention but you don’t remove your focus from your palm. “What is it?”
You rotate your wrist. Present your hand more, slowly curling your fingers closed. As if you’re just-
“...There’s a hand,” you mumble, delicately holding onto the sensation as much as you physically grip onto Weiss. “Holding mine.” You pause, getting choked up as you add- “It feels like a little kid’s. It’s so… small.”
Innocence.
That’s what you register from this.
It is not a malicious clasp that’s going to try and drag you into the earth and away from everyone. It does not come with the intention to harm or deceive.
It is simply like… a little kid has grabbed your hand to cross a busy street. For comfort. For safety. For guidance.
If it is a lost spirit, a forgotten spirit, you start to wonder who it could’ve been. For them to die so young and spend the rest of forever in a place like this…
Or what if it’s not? What if you’re completely wrong?
What if it is something that’s come to hurt you but it knows it can’t get close unless you lower your guard believing it’s a child?
…Even with that in mind, you can’t bear to let go of them. Whoever they are. Whoever they might’ve been in a previous life. The fingers of your left hand don’t want to cooperate and open anymore.
What if they get lost again because you chose to let them go? Because you chose not to help?
You don’t want to risk it.
You don’t even know who it is, but you don’t want to lose them.
“Ruby…” Yang calls to you and something is… off, in her tone. Wavering. Shaky. Small. “...Do you smell that?”
You slowly, reluctantly, take your attention off of the hollow area right next to you and transfer it to her. (Still not letting go of the child’s hand. Or Weiss’s.) “What?”
Her eyes close as she inhales deeply. Savoringly. A soft but painful kind of nostalgia crosses her features as she admits, “Mom’s perfume.”
Roses. Similar to yours, but… different. Unique. Rich flowers in full bloom while yours is the scent of budding blossoms.
Safe.
Home.
Mom smelled of home, that’s all you can recall. You can’t pick up on it, but Yang can.
And… if that scent is here then-
“Does that mean-”
“No.” Blake cuts in before you can even finish your question, already predicting what you’re going to ask and jumping in to reassure both of you. “She’s not trapped here. The Whispers have a way of stirring up your memories, good and bad. You’re new here and to the island in general, so they don’t know yet how to hurt you. All they want is a reaction.”
Case in point; beside you, Weiss coughs out of nowhere and pulls a face of sheer disgust. Swallowing as if she has tasted something she didn’t like, a dark expression settling within blue.
“What’s wrong?” You give a squeeze to her hand because you don’t like the way her eyes start to glaze over with what must be a bad memory.
“I taste… regret and mistakes.” She peeks up to Blake and Yang and can’t even bring herself to look at you before she tucks her chin against her chest. Revealing with a hint of bitterness, (and deep, deep remorse that has you stepping closer to her), “The wine. That I would drink back in Atlas.”
You’ve heard little about it, about anything from those dreadful and difficult two years you had been gone, and you mostly never ask for any more detail than you’ve been given or picked up on through context clues because it hurts her. Just the mere mention of Atlas in any conversation of those two years makes her clench her jaw, turn away, hide herself from whoever is near. Guilt and shame hook onto her and they are determined to pull, pull, pull her down and back to the bottom whence she came.
You will not let her go back down there.
“The best we can do is ignore it,” Maria suggests from the back, but even with the determination in her voice, you peer over at her and know that something has changed.
Her prosthetic eyes concentrate off of the path that you’re going through- well, ‘path.’ There’s not really a proper trail and you’ve been needing to step through the undergrowth and piles of dead, fallen leaves and greyed tree roots that jut out from the stony earth- and her grip at the top of her cane has tightened as if ready to defend herself. A minuscule amount, but even that is noticeable for someone who walks through life as if nothing can harm her.
Cautious.
As if she saw an enemy. Taunting her.
“From what I’ve gathered, that’s the only thing you can do, yes?”
Ashe, at her side, nods somberly. Tapping the side of his temple, “Once they’re in here, it’s nigh impossible to push them out while you’re in the forest. All you can do is prevent them from entering- but if you fail to do so, all you can do is try your best to ignore them.”
“You don’t seem bothered by any of this,” Yang regards the man with an upward twitch to her brow, doing her best not to give in and inhale the scent of mom’s perfume again. Shallow breaths, that’s all she allows now. “Are they not affecting you?”
“I’ve traversed these lands many times. Most only ever visit once.”
“Why would you come back repeatedly?”
“In year’s past, when a trainee failed their test and became lost out here, it was my responsibility to try and find them. Even if it was only their bodies, so that I can bring them back home so they may be buried on Menagerie soil. That way, they don’t become one of the Voices. I always gave myself a month- and I’ve done so every year for over a decade when this part of our tests were still allowed.”
Gods…
You can’t stand to fathom what spending entire months in this place could do to someone. Every year. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.
You’ve only been here for maybe a handful of minutes, half an hour if you want to be considerate, and already you want to turn around.
“In short,” Ashe gives a smile full of mixed emotions; partly proud of himself, mostly tired, another portion just… empty. “They’ve told and shown me everything under the sun and beyond, plenty of times. When one thing stopped hurting as much, they chose another aspect of myself or my life to target. But it would all eventually stop hurting… and now,” he gazes around almost fondly, almost with amusem*nt, almost sadly, “they don’t speak to me anymore. Even if I’m alone.”
So is that better or worse for him?
That he is truly, completely alone whenever he comes by here?
Better or worse, better or worse?
You don’t know.
Blake gets everyone going again, with a newer haste to her steps. Maybe it has to do with the fact you all are starting to be singled out in unique ways- you almost want to ask how it starts. If Yang is further along than you are because she can smell something of her memories while you only have a stranger’s hand to hold. If Weiss is the furthest along because she can taste a painful memory. If you are because you can physically feel something that isn’t there. Is there a gateway to hearing them or is which of your senses they decide to pick on up to chance?- or maybe it’s because of Ashe. Not wanting to make him spend any longer than he needs to in a place he’s frequented so often.
Either way, you’re grateful to keep going.
Still holding the kid’s hand as you walk.
The sensation never leaves. It moves and jostles, tightening when you step over some tree roots as if the child needs to use you for balance to get over them. So uncoordinated. You swear at one point they try to swing their arm and yours in a playful manner.
You almost give in but you remain steady. Even if your fingers don’t open to let them go.
Your internal clock is so messed up here and it could be minutes that pass by or it could be an hour, but eventually, the landscape changes.
“Halfway there,” Blake sighs with relief that you’re closer to the end than when you started and this whole adventure can almost be done with. She holds an arm aside to prevent Yang and everyone else behind her from walking ahead of her. “Careful, there’s a drop.”
You gather at the treeline close to her and discover that the land a couple meters ahead of where you’ve stopped has just… vanished. A giant ravine opens up and extends so far out you can barely see the lip of the ledge on the other side through the fog, and that’s only if you squint (and if your sight isn’t playing tricks on you). Staring down into it, merely a few feet of vacant air is perceivable before the smog takes up the rest. Any hope of seeing the bottom is gone.
You have zero clue of how far down this goes.
“We cross the bridge,” she points to the aforementioned passage and your stomach drops because yes, it’s a bridge, but it’s so creaky and from one glance alone you’re certain it will collapse as soon as any one of you step onto it. And as if that wasn’t enough, there aren’t any railings for it either. There might’ve been once, you can see the frayed edges of extra rope from where a railing could’ve been, but for some reason, it isn’t there anymore. “One at a time.”
Okay, now you’re really not liking this.
“Why one at a time?” Yang tightens her grip on her partner as if to stop her from going on then and there.
“Because,” Blake grins ruefully, “every single time when two people have tried to go on it, it’s snapped. No matter how many bridges have been built, whether from wood or stone or rope or even glass at one point, they’ve all broken when two try to go at once.”
Well that’s just comforting now, ain’t it?
“We can’t just use our semblances to get across?” Weiss offers, and even when you’re about to remind her again she can’t be using her semblance in the state she’s in, Ashe beats you to it with a grimace.
“You’ll find that… once you’re on the bridge and past it, aura doesn’t work. Something about the witherment from Grimm prevents it this far in. Semblances aren’t an option.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” your sister deadpans, groaning soon after, “that’s exactly what we needed here.”
To be more vulnerable in a place like this.
“I shall go across first,” the lead guardsman volunteers, stepping his way toward the front of the group and placing a hand on Blake’s shoulder. A supportive squeeze. “You’ll hear my call once I’ve made it safely.”
Blake dips her head, patting the back of his knuckles with a strained exhale. Whatever encouragement or reassurance or please, be careful she may have wanted to share with him remains stuck in her throat.
But Ashe must hear it anyway.
He grins.
And steps onto the bridge.
Oh the creak that comes from the worn ropes and old wood is nerve-wracking- and you’re not even the one on the bridge!
Yet, Ashe walks with a confidence unlike any other. As if he isn’t directly over an endless drop into the abyss. As if there isn’t any chance of him falling whatsoever.
You long to know what that’s like. To be able to move forward, undaunted by the fear of falling (and falling and falling and falling…) into a dark pit.
You come to terms with the fact that you may never know what it’s like.
It’s too late for you.
It takes a minute, a minute and a half for him to reach the middle. Officially becoming more and more blurred from the gaining distance and thickening fog. Instincts scream at you to chase after him before he can go too far and disappear forever, but you keep yourself rooted in place. Breathe in deeply.
…And the aroma of freshly baked chocolate cookies and a steaming mug of hot chocolate warms you up and makes your heart ache at the patchy memories of simpler times it brings.
You remember- vaguely, vaguely, vaguely. Only ever vaguely- running downstairs as fast as your little legs can carry you on crisp winter mornings. Cookies and hot chocolate for breakfast on Christmas day. Summer would wake up before dawn to make lots of batches to last the holiday season, of many different kinds, but your favorite had always been her chocolate chip recipe. Yang preferred the butterscotch or anything with gooey caramel.
It brings the smallest smile to your lips.
Three minutes- maybe more, maybe less, you can’t completely tell- pass by before you hear Ashe’s signal in the air. Like the calls of a purple grenadier. A lisping, whistled song.
Blake calls back instantly, confirming that she’s heard it, before she glances at the group. “I’m going last. Tradition decrees it. So, who’s next?”
You’re about to volunteer no matter how much you don’t want to go so you won’t have to risk any of the others, but Maria wanders off wordlessly ahead of you before you can even take a single step. You huff at that but let her go, jumping at the complaint of the ropes but all too aware that you can’t help her even if you wanted to.
It’s torture. Needing to stand around and wait while the people you want to protect go on ahead of you.
Your only solace is Weiss at your side, keeping you grounded. But even that is only temporary because sooner rather than later, you are going to have to let her go. The two of you can’t cross the bridge together.
You cannot have her at your side forever.
Three minutes. Four minutes.
You catch Blake constantly sending glances at the three of you throughout it all, as though needing to remind herself you are still here and haven’t strolled off into the forest for no reason. Each time, you send her a reassuring smile that you hope calms her down at least a little bit.
But the next time she does it, gold eyes focus on your partner beside you and they narrow.
“Weiss,” it’s said so sharply, so suddenly, it causes you to flinch despite the fact she isn’t addressing you. You instinctively turn to your partner, only now realizing that her gaze has gone somewhat distant as she absentmindedly rubs at her temple. It takes a second, two seconds, and at three, you shake her hand slightly to get her attention and that finally snaps her into awareness. Blinking the daze away as she beholds the three of you watching her with so much concern. “Don’t let them in.”
“Oh,” your partner mumbles and you step closer to her. Because her tone is so detached, you can’t stand it. “Is that why my head is hurting?”
“They’re trying,” Blake confirms, thinning her lips in a serious manner. Repeating, “Don’t let them in.”
“There’s nothing we can do to help?” You are so helpless here because there isn’t a physical enemy for you to fend off for her. How are you supposed to fight a non-corporeal being?
As you predicted, Blake shakes her head, “It comes down to the individual. All you can do is block them out.”
“Are they still talking to you?” Yang questions, torn between stepping closer to Weiss or to her partner. Ashe’s call sounds off again, letting you know that Maria has made it safely to the other side, and now it’s time to send someone else down.
Blake responds again with her whistle before she answers, “Of course. Even if they start going after someone else, there will always be a few that stay with me.” She pauses. A twitch to her lips as she adds, “They’re getting angry.”
“Why?”
“Because they can’t hurt me anymore.” Blake fiddles with her ring on the chain around her neck, gazing at each of you with the hint of a smile. “Everything they’re saying is just poking at old wounds. Wounds that I have healed from…” She chuckles, “Oh, they hate it.”
“I can’t hear anything yet,” Weiss describes and it brings a mote of comfort. At least you know she isn’t being bombarded with harsh words at the moment. “It’s just like… a buzz. Like the blood rushing in my ears.”
Like static.
The Voices of the Forgotten.
The voices of those that have been lost to the Grimm.
“That’s how it starts. Don’t let it get worse.”
“I’ll try.” It’s the best promise each of you are probably going to get from her. For her part, Weiss makes the valiant effort to refocus on where you currently are and what the situation is. “Am I next?”
“I’ll go,” Yang cuts in hastily before your partner can try to leave your side and you’ve never been more grateful. “You, catch your breath.”
Weiss scowls at that but doesn’t refute the offer. If anything, she is as thankful for it as you are as she leans into your side. You bring her in more willingly until you’re able to wrap an arm around her waist instead of simply holding her by the hand, pressing your lips to her crown in the hopes it’ll help to ease her headache from the Whispers’ attempt to break inside.
(You still don’t let go of the child’s hand. Preventing you from fully enveloping Weiss.)
“Careful, dearest,” Blake manages to say before Yang can leave, the two sharing a swift peck on the lips before Yang gives a mock salute.
“I told you, I have this,” she shows off her ring with a pride and adoration like no other. “I’m invincible with it.”
It makes the three of you snort.
A much-needed bit of light- because as soon as she steps onto the bridge, any trace of amusem*nt is erased as all three of you tense up. The overpass croaks with one heavy footfall of her combat boots, creaks with the second. Yang lifts her arms up marginally on either side of her to gain better balance because without any railing, the chances of tripping and falling are skyrocketed.
You don’t know what any of you will do regardless if it just so happens to break. If they’re right and semblances don’t work in the ravine, what can you do?
Blake might be able to catch her with Gambol Shroud, but if not that, then perhaps Weiss can pull off some sort of miracle with one of her dust elements. Earth or ice or even wind could help. Yang probably has enough rounds in her gauntlets to use the ricochet to get herself across or back to where you all are.
And you can’t do much but watch if that happens.
Lovely, isn’t it?
She takes her time with it. Even more than Maria had. Stopping every few steps just so the bridge can stabilize itself before she continues because though it might not be swaying much, it is still swaying just from her movement alone. There isn’t any breeze to blow it, so all it comes down to is the placement of her steps.
Go too far to one side and the bridge starts to tilt just from the displacement of weight.
It is the most tense six or seven minutes of your life. Made worse when she gets past the halfway point and she becomes difficult to identify in the smog.
But eventually, one may say too long but none of you are so eager to rush this part of the whole thing, the trills of a yellow warbler, Yang’s unique whistle, filters into the air and you let out a breath of relief.
Three down.
Three to go.
You don’t want to go.
But it’s between you and Weiss since Blake has to go last.
And you will not let Weiss take the risk before you do.
So, with your heart racing in your chest, you leave another kiss on your partner’s forehead. Longer, lingering. A one-armed embrace.
And you step away from her without a word.
Weiss lets you go no matter how much she may want to hold on. The worry, a burning flame in blue. Threatening to consume her as violently as any fire till it leaves nothing behind but ash and dust. She wraps her arms around herself once you’re out of her reach and clutches at her locket.
You share a nod with Blake that she returns, ever watchful over you so you don’t actually walk off the cliffside and miss the bridge, and tiptoe your way to the edge. With the wooden planks stretching on in front of you, more worn out in appearance now that you’re closer to it. And you’re about to tread onto it.
But you stop.
Look down at your left hand. Fingers still curled over something invisible (or imaginary).
Frown.
Because it feels like… the little kid or whoever it may be is… tugging you.
Away from the bridge.
As if telling you Stop. Stop, don’t go that way. It’s bad. It’s scary. Don’t go that way.
Like they’re afraid of whatever is on the other side.
“I have to,” you mumble below your breath, so that only you and this forgotten spirit, this noncorporeal Grimm, this innocent child can understand it. “You can’t come with me, but I have to keep going.”
It takes all your willpower and more effort than it feasibly should to get your fingers to finally uncurl (and there is a dull soreness to them now. As though you had been holding on as tightly as you can for years on end and only now can your muscles and joints relax from their tensed state). You don’t shake your hand out right away because the thing doesn’t release you right away either. Even if you don’t hold onto it anymore, it- they still do.
Again, you whisper, “I have to keep going.”
And with a gradual loosening of their grip, in a way that’s almost despondent, they release you.
And disappear.
You open and close your fingers, rubbing the ache away as a heaviness settles over your shoulders. Because it feels as though you’ve failed them somehow. By not taking them with you.
The cold to your left arm returns and you regret letting go.
But you step forward. Onto the bridge.
One step. Two steps. Three steps and you’re officially over the gorge. The bridge curves low, nearly touching the fog that sits in the chasm. A subtle decline on this side and an incline past the halfway mark.
You copy Yang’s example. Lift your arms to a point where you feel more balanced, more likely that you’ll be able to catch yourself in case something goes wrong (as it tends to do).
And walk.
One foot in front of the other. Half of you wants to look down so you don’t accidentally go too far to one side and cause the bridge to tilt while the other half knows you absolutely will not be focusing on your feet or the wooden planks, but rather, what’s beneath it. Beneath you.
The canyon to nowhere.
Is it human nature to want to stare into the abyss (and wait for it to blink back)?
Is that why it’s so hard for you to resist the desire to do so?
Stubbornly, you fight against yourself. Keep your sight trained ahead. Yang and Maria and Ashe become clearer with every inch you make, and you don’t have it within you to so much as peep over your shoulder to the last two. Because you know yourself and your tendencies and noticing how blurry they’re getting behind you will only make you want to race back to them.
Keep going.
You don’t have another choice. You’re almost halfway there so you might as well commit. There’s no option to turn back, and even if you do, then what? You’ll let the others keep going by themselves?
Absolutely not.
You will not let them do this alone.
You will not let them-
“Ruby!”
Ear-splitting and gut-wrenching and heartbreaking.
And familiar…
You spin toward it, stepping too much to one side. The bridge lists at an angle that has you rushing to correct yourself, to fix your mistake that can very easily become deadly, your knees bashing into the wood to try and lower your center of gravity. But the panic of almost causing it to flip upside down is second to the fact that-
“Weiss?!” You call out to the fog that obscures all (and you are alone, alone, alone in the middle of it).
It was Weiss.
It was Weiss that screamed and-
“I’m okay.”
What?
You can’t see her. f*ck, you can’t see her. If you can see her then you can be certain that it’s her that’s speaking.
But she continues in as calm of a tone as she can, “Ruby, I’m okay. I’m fine, I’m over here with Blake. Whatever you just heard wasn’t me. I’m okay.”
You’re panting. Your hands are shaking where they lay against the wooden planks while the rest of your body remains frozen. Muscles tensed in preparation to sprint back to where you came from just to double check that she’s fine.
But that would ruin all your progress.
If you go back to the beginning, you’ll have to restart everything because like it or not, you have to cross this bridge. You have to get to the other side so that you may continue on this journey.
You have to keep going.
It wasn’t her.
It wasn’t her, she’s fine.
She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine-
“Is…” You do your best to calm yourself and it feels like nothing is working but still, you keep trying. And the fact that you haven’t already ran back to her side should be a testament in itself. “Are you real?”
“I am.” With no hesitation. “I am, Ruby. Whatever that was, whatever you heard, it wasn’t me. I’m okay. I promise. I love you, I’m okay.”
I love you.
“Love you too…” You whisper, breathless. Wait a second. A minute. It was too quiet for her to hear, so if anything responds to it and uses her voice, it isn’t real. The real Weiss couldn’t have feasibly heard you.
Silence.
It makes you heave a breath of relief.
It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.
She’s okay.
“Keep going, Schatzi,” Weiss declares, encouraging, pleading, and you know she didn’t hear your declaration. “I can’t get closer to you until you’re on the other side. Keep going. I’ll meet you there.”
Keep going.
You get up on shaky legs, the vibrations of your body causing the bridge to tremble as well. As though feeding off your nervous energy.
And again;
“Ruby, please!”
You squeeze your eyes shut and swallow thickly. Because it’s so real, it’s so f*cking real, it sounds just like her. You know her pain and you know it well and you know it will haunt you for the rest of your life. You bite your lip until you taste that familiar coppery tang and somehow find comfort in its acridness.
“Ruby!”
Not real.
Keep going.
One foot in front of the other.
The first step is the hardest. The unsteadiest. The slowest.
But painstakingly, you take another.
And another.
And another…
Until you’re walking at a steady pace once more, feet shuffling against the wood because you hardly lift them off. Fingers digging into your ribs as if trying to tear them apart to get to your heart that’s been used against you time and time and time again and you are the one that’s had to suffer for it. You can’t tell whether you’d rather protect it, shield it within your arms, or strangle the life out of it instead for causing you so much pain.
It’s a coin toss at this point.
Another shout this time from the not-Weiss, the Whispers. A final dying cry.
Even if it’s not real, it’s going to follow you into your dreams tonight.
At last, at last, the end of the bridge comes into view. And with it, one very concerned Yang. Whether she heard you shouting or saw the overpass itself nearly flipping over, either way, she knows something went wrong or could’ve gone wrong.
She’s held back by the arm by Maria at her side. No doubt because she would’ve raced right for you the second she heard your distress, the possibility of the bridge breaking be damned. But your mentor has calmed her just long enough for you to make it and your sister all but snatches you from the wooden planks and officially onto steady land as soon as she can lean over the side and reach you.
You let her.
She cradles you in her arms- in that ever protective and warm way that is just so Yang. One arm around your body to hold you close to hers so that she may carry you to safety if she has to, one hand at the back of your head holding you to her chest and over her heartbeat. As if to tell you; Here, in my heart, you are safe. Nothing can harm you, sis. I won’t let it.
Ashe’s whistle- and Blake’s responding one- is difficult to discern past the ringing in your ears. The pounding of your heartbeat that ever so slowly begins to relax to the rhythm of Yang brushing her fingers through your hair. Your sister leads the two of you to the roots of a nearby tree, urging you to sit down as she takes up the spot right beside you. Always keeping at least one hand on you at all times.
But she doesn’t ask what happened. She doesn’t fret in the way you’ve come to expect from her, ever the mother hen.
She just holds you in silence. Running her hand through your hair. Humming a tune, almost without her explicit awareness, that becomes more and more familiar as you concentrate on that instead of everything else. Allowing the soothing song to coax you into a sense of serenity you’re surprised you can achieve in a place like this.
When the melody comes to its natural end, you stir. Lean your head more against her shoulder with a sniffle, not realizing you had been crying at one point. From the lullaby or the bridge?
“Did you make that song?”
“Mom would…” Yang starts but her voice catches in her throat and she has to clear it. Try again. “Mom would hum us to sleep every night before she went on a big mission. We’d both only get about halfway, we never got to hear the full version.” She pauses, kisses the top of your head and holds you like that. Close to her, safe and sound. “I made the rest of it up. So, did I make it? Yes and no.”
You let out a breath of acknowledgement. Curling more into her. Letting her comfort you instead of pushing her away. “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Rubes.”
The rapid footsteps of someone… not exactly running across the bridge but certainly going at a fast pace brings your attention that way and everything is okay as soon as Weiss comes into view. Instantly searching for you, and once she spots you huddled beside Yang, she rushes the rest of the way toward you.
Yang gives a final squeeze before unwrapping you from her embrace, giving you the room you need to try and get up to meet your partner halfway- but Weiss all but throws herself to her knees on the ground next to you.
And hugs you.
And all is well in the world.
“What happened? Are you okay?” She doesn’t pull back too far, just enough to meet you in the eyes, and brings a palm up to your cheek. Tracing the scar on that side over your eye, scanning your face for anything amiss. Any pain, any fear, any discomfort. She wipes at the leftover tear stain as if it hurts her just to witness it. “You sounded… so scared.”
You sigh through your nose, lean into her touch before you drag her into another hug. Needing more than anything else to just… feel her. Her heartbeat against yours. Her warmth. Her strength.
She’s right here.
She’s okay.
She’s-
“I heard you dying.”
You’re certain of it.
If you can imagine what it would sound like for her to die- which you never want to imagine it- it would be exactly like that.
And you don’t ever want to hear that again.
“I’m okay, Ruby.”
“I know,” you bury your nose into the side of her neck and breathe her in. Snowdrops and blueberries. This, unlike the freshly made chocolate chip cookies and hot cocoa, is real. She is real. “You’re okay.”
You’re tired of her voice being constantly used against you.
And it’s unthinkable how it can still affect you so much.
In some ways, it probably affects you more now.
The final set of footfalls signals the arrival of your last group member as Blake emerges from the fog. Stepping onto the rocky outcropping and off of the bridge in a stumbling manner that has Yang jumping to her feet and speeding to her side even when Blake manages to catch herself. But she accepts the help regardless, shaking herself out as if her head was dunked underwater.
No worse for wear though, not like you had been fearing.
“Good,” Ashe gives you as many minutes as you can spare before he pushes on, “Nature’s Wrath is not far, we take a different direction alongside the ravine rather than straight ahead. From here, the Voices start to grow quieter.”
“Why is that?” Maria questions, following after the guardsman as he takes the lead position now. Perhaps because from here, Blake doesn’t know the actual path to take to get to Wrath. (You begin to wonder if the ravine was the cliffside she had mentioned almost walking off all those years ago. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was.) “Are they afraid of it?”
“One can assume so. Or maybe,” he nods to the chasm at the side, “there’s something about it that prevents a majority of them from crossing over. Only the… most insistent, let’s call them, can be heard.”
You don’t want to go, but you’re almost there. So you let Weiss help you to your feet, nodding in response to her silent look of Are you okay? And hold her by the hand again as you trail in the back of the group.
Peeking back to the bridge that you slowly but surely start to leave behind as the fog consumes its visage.
With the echo of your partner’s cry dwindling the further you get, until it becomes nothing but a distant memory alongside the overpass. Left behind there until your inevitable return, and you don’t look forward to having to come back through here afterward.
Or would it be an easier passing?
You’re nervous to find out either way.
Five minutes of travel and though Ashe sticks as close to the chasm as if he does not carry the fear of accidentally falling to his right and into the abyss, you and the others march many paces away from it and closer to the tree line. Not willing to take the risk that he does. Not wanting to give into the temptation to peek down into it simply out of curiosity.
Some things are best left unknown.
Ten minutes of travel and you center yourself on every inhale and exhale. Not allowing your mind a chance to wander and lower your walls to the more insistent Voices. Blake’s ears haven’t stopped their telltale twitching indicating that she’s hearing something, so it’s safe to assume they’re still following. But aside from the horrid scream at the bridge, you don’t pick up on anything else. And neither Weiss nor Yang nor Maria for that matter mention that they notice something too, so again, it’s only Blake.
Twenty minutes and the forest starts to spread out moderately. Less trees start to litter about and the ground becomes harder, if that’s even possible, as it switches from what is meant to be dirt to stone and rocks. It doesn’t exactly become more mountainous, since there aren’t any other mountains here, but instead it turns into an open valley.
And around half an hour in, instead of trees, you start to pass by… structures.
Buildings.
Crafted by ancient hands, made of clay and stone and baked mud. With roofs made of thatch and lined with wood carved from the nearby trees to help keep the general shape.
You stop temporarily by what’s essentially a tiny village. Off to the side of the ravine.
Ashe allows the group a moment’s pause to… take it all in. At most, there are probably only a dozen huts made and still standing. Frozen forever like this. A couple half dozen more have succumbed to time and the elements or perhaps a creature and are nothing but broken piles of rubble. But even with that, this little hamlet could’ve only contained and sustained probably only thirty or so people. At most. Any more could be pushing it and would’ve made it incredibly cramped, those houses aren’t big.
Even the six of you can hardly fit in there all together. Not comfortably, that’s for sure.
You blink… and apparitions come to life. Blurs and shadows that disappear as soon as you pay any more attention to them. Going about their daily business. Everyday chores. Children, running about. Playing together. Hunters gathering spears and shields and nets as they saunter off into the forest to get their quota of food. Whistles, so faint, whispering through the air to fill this quiet forest home with song.
You blink again and they all vanish.
Gone, forever.
“According to legends and our history,” Ashe’s tone takes one of profound respect; low, not wanting to disturb the rest of these spirits that have been trapped in an endless loop for years and decades and centuries, “this… This place is what started Menagerie. These were the first people here, before other Faunus from elsewhere were forced onto the island by the outside kingdoms.”
He draws in a deep breath before lowering to a knee. Customary for him. You question how many times he’s passed by here. Has he ever been brave enough to stroll further in? To go into the huts? To walk the pathways those from ancient times walked?
Something tells you no.
He’s never let himself go inside- and he isn’t about to start.
“It is claimed this is where the first Chief resided. When Wrath arrived, the beast nearly destroyed everything. He sacrificed himself to save his home, in the hopes that the survivors could rebuild what had been lost… but once Wrath was frozen in stone, it didn’t take long for the blight to occur.”
You can picture it now.
Winning a seemingly impossible battle, only by sacrifice of the leader himself.
Only for the expected time of peace to never come.
Because the petrification spread. The poison spread. The darkness spread.
Even with Wrath sealed away, it still caused the downfall of this place. Without even trying.
The darkness still won.
“Many of the Whispers on this side,” Ashe remarks, glancing briefly at Blake with a sympathetic expression, “exclusively belong to the victims of Wrath and its blight.”
“So that’s why they’re nicer,” Blake murmurs, her entire body drooping with sorrow. The heaviness of so many lost spirits of Menagerie’s ancestors.
“Can you hear them, my liege?”
“I can. But I can’t understand them now. It’s just gibberish. They’re kinder, but they keep repeating one word or phrase in… panic. Frantic.”
“Run.”
It comes out so softly, so heartbrokenly from Weiss. Everyone turns to her and at this point you’re not completely surprised she’d be able to understand something the rest of you can’t. She’s accomplished other seemingly impossible tasks, why not this too?
After all, she is the Scribe of the Ancients.
The one who will connect the past with the present.
The first with the second.
The dead with the living.
“They’re telling us to run.” Weiss angles her head to the side, in the direction you’re all meant to be going, and lets out a forlorn sigh as she connects the dots, “They’re still scared of Wrath.”
Even in death.
Even in death, they know nothing but fear for that creature. Even when Wrath can’t possibly harm them anymore than it already has.
…How frightened must they be realizing that it’s starting to wake up again?
How devastating is it for them to register that the sacrifice of their leader… means nothing now because Wrath is breaking loose?
How painful is it for them, that the monster that killed them will soon be free… while they are stuck here for the rest of eternity?
Your heart weeps for them. These strangers you’ve never met and never will.
…But there’s nothing you can do for them.
For the wandering, lost spirits. Neither allowed into the light or forced to shape with others into a creature of Grimm. You can’t promise them freedom the same way you can for the Fallen. You have no idea what force, mythical or otherwise, keeps them contained in this area of Menagerie.
You can’t do anything for them.
And it is the greatest failure and harshest betrayal when you and the others regather yourselves from that harrowing realization, ignore their one warning…
And keep going.
Leaving the hamlet behind. Leaving the Whispers behind. Leaving these lost souls behind.
When you crest over the next hill and the huts become too difficult to make out in the fog, you catch sight of Blake. How she pauses for half a second and glances over her shoulder, a faint shine of tears in gold that she blinks away and continues to push forward.
Her ears don’t flick anymore from here on out.
And you know without even needing to ask that they’re no longer talking to her.
They go quiet.
As you make it to the top of the hill, there is a short decline on the other side before there is another sudden drop. The ravine itself has almost curved inward, or at the very least, extended outward this way.
But as Ashe leads you to the edge, you ascertain that it’s not an endless drop to nothing.
There is a dip in the ground, but you can see the bottom. An entire hole sits here as if an explosion went off in this area (or almost as if… people were trying to dig away at it to bury something in a massive grave).
And there, in the center of the miles-long crater…
“This,” Ashe rumbles in a tense tone, “is Nature’s Wrath.”
It’s huge.
That’s the first thing you register when you come face-to-face with Nature’s Wrath. Its large serpentine body fills the crater, coiling on top of itself multiple times so you can’t even see the stone and dirt that it sits on. You fear to picture just how long it actually is when it fully extends itself- Can it wrap around the entire island?
Initially, you believe it to be an extremely large snake. Similar to a King Taijitu without the second head and scaled up a thousand-fold.
But its face and head shape are more draconic in nature rather than strictly snake-like. With a shorter snout and stronger jaw filled with rows of deadly teeth- because it was frozen mid-bite, it’s mouth parted as if it had been ready to devour the first Chief then and there- and what appears to be a long crest or crown of feathers at the back of its head that extend backward.
In fact, a lot of the stone itself from its body takes the shape of feathers rather than scales.
What’s more, snakes don’t have wings.
But this thing does. A pair of them near the front of its colossal body, fully extended outward and digging into the crater’s wall. As feathered as the rest of it. As massive as the rest of it.
…You try to envision what it must’ve been like needing to fight this thing back then. Before modern weapons, before dust, before aura and semblances were properly understood and utilized. Before huntsmen and huntresses were even a thought in people’s minds.
You have a scythe that has torn many enemies that have come across you to smithereens that is also a high-impact sniper rifle that can use bullets infused with dust. You have a semblance that you’ve learned how to use with your chosen combat style to best aid you in battle and a decently durable aura. You have a team of powerful huntresses, each with their own unique capabilities and tricks up their sleeves, who fought in a war for you against an army of Grimm. You have silver eyes that act as an emergency button in case things go horribly wrong and you need to use them to save yourself or someone else.
And yet…
As you stand in front of this frozen beast, visualize what it could do once it’s free (because it’s going to get free) and you have to fight it…
You want nothing more than to run.
But all the people of Menagerie’s first settlement, the first Chief…
What did they have? Spears or swords that could do next to nothing to this monster and shields that would not be able to defend them whatsoever against even a stray whip of its tail?
…Yet…
Yet, what did they do?
They fought.
They sacrificed themselves to save their people, the Chief sacrificed himself to freeze this creature and save the entire island. (Who knows? Maybe even the entire world too. You doubt Nature’s Wrath would’ve been satisfied with just destroying everything here. It is petrified in stone and it still looks hungry.)
You’re all tensely quiet. Because what do you say to something like this?
You stand as close to the edge as possible. As close to Wrath’s head as you can without touching it. Because you can, all you need to do is reach over a little bit and you’ll be able to brush the end of its snout with your fingers. If you move further down, you can touch one of the ridges of its wing instead if you don’t want to get too close to its mouth.
Your eyes roam its body. Over and over again. Taking in as much information as you can through visuals alone.
And it doesn’t take long for you to spot the cracks. In the stone that keeps it sealed. Spreading everywhere, everywhere; from its coiling body up to where its chest is, entire chunks of it have fallen off where the fracture lines meet to reveal the body underneath. Tenebrous night. Cut through in some areas with the usual veins that every Grimm have-
But oddly, these aren’t the typical red and yellow shade you’re used to. They’re darker. Richer.
The red reminds you of the color of wine, while the yellow is a red-orange instead. Or an amber shade.
At the revealed portions of its chest, you can barely distinguish what appears to be a dark purple marking of sorts. A majority of it is covered by the stone, but you can’t ever recall seeing such a thing on a Grimm before.
It’s strange.
“Ruby,” Maria calls to you from where she is directly in front of Wrath’s snout, waving you over. “Come here. I’d like to show you something.”
“Is this really a good teaching moment?” Yang raises a brow with a wrinkle to her nose but you listen to Maria anyway. Stepping carefully by the ledge until you saddle up right by her side.
“Now’s as good a time as any. I doubt she’ll get a chance like this again,” she responds to your sister before focusing solely on you now. Asking so simply, “Tell me, in all your journeys, have you ever come across a petrified Grimm that you didn’t cause?”
“I barely came across any that I did.”
You can list off on one hand. The Wyvern from Beacon, your only proper success, and the Leviathan in Argus that you couldn’t even petrify correctly. You can barely remember the first one- all you can hear is screaming and the world going white- and the second one doesn’t count to you because you failed so it didn’t matter.
But now that she’s brought it up, this is the first time you’re coming across the statue of a Grimm that’s been turned to stone by the light of another silver-eyed warrior that wasn’t you.
“I figured as much,” Maria sighs, not inherently disappointed by your lack of experience, more so… downcast. Like she feels sorry for you that you’ve never been truly trained with your ability, never had anyone to guide you, never had anyone to even tell you about it. Even after meeting her, there were so many other things going on you couldn’t spare the time to sit down and chat about it outside of a few minutes at most. She at least had her father to teach her whatever he knew, and whatever personal studies she discovered in her own life. “My father always believed that the light is connected. That it recognizes each other in every individual with silver eyes. Acknowledging our shared burden.”
She shuffles aside a little bit, makes room for you where she once was. Motions for you to get closer to the ledge, closer to Wrath. And though it makes you nervous, you listen. You kneel on the cliff’s edge and pray that the beast doesn’t wake up in this instance because if it does, it’ll immediately chomp down on your entire body as its time resumes.
“Even though you never met him, your light should, in theory, recognize the first Chief’s in the stone. All you need to do is concentrate, put your hand upon it, and let the light guide you.”
“What… will that do?”
“Do it wrong and it does nothing. Don’t worry, you won’t accidentally quicken the process of the petrification deteriorating.”
“And if I do it right?”
“You’ll have to do it right first to find out.”
“Why can’t you just tell me?” You grumble but even your breaths regardless, settling more comfortably- as much as you can, considering stone isn’t the softest surface to kneel on- and lifting a hand. The one that’s been rune-marked.
Maria shrugs one shoulder, “If I just give you the answers, how will you learn?”
True, but…
It would be nice to know what you’re getting yourself into before you’re stuck in a mess of your own design. Again.
Nevertheless, you reach forward and it is… a unique experience. Touching a petrified Grimm, knowing it was caused by another silver-eyed warrior. The stone feels different from the one underneath you. It’s almost… warm. Your skin tingles where you are in contact with it.
Alive.
You close your eyes. Do as you’ve been told and concentrate. On the oddity of the stone. On your breaths, making them as steady as possible. On the heartbeat that thumps in your chest, almost resonating with the prickling pins and needles sensation at your hand.
On the light. Deep within your soul.
For the longest time, you don’t notice anything happening. And it’s a bit frustrating because it’s so hard- and so boring- keeping your mind focused on just this, this moment, these feelings. You’ve never been the best at meditation, your thoughts like to wander away from you too much and down spiral, and you don’t predict that changing anytime soon.
You’re wasting time.
But no one rushes you.
Not the world. Not the Grimm. Not your team, nor Ashe, nor Maria.
Everything is perfectly still. Quiet.
And it starts to feel like you’re dozing off. Like the weight is leaving your body and you’re about to fall forward into the mouth of the beast, into the darkness that’s been trying it’s f*cking hardest to get you back and you can’t, you can’t, you-
You pull away from it before you can fall with a sharp intake of air.
But fingers wrap around your wrist, preventing you from getting too far, and you snap to the side where Maria is. Having moved around you from one side to the other. Perhaps knowing that you were about to retreat, or perhaps predicting that you would at one point or another.
Her hold on you is gentle, encouraging, rather than restrictive. It’ll take next to nothing to tear yourself free from her and get away (you hate falling, you hate falling, you hate falling) but you don’t.
“Lean into it,” she murmurs, somehow too loud and too low at the same time and all of your senses are fuzzy. Like you’re waking up from a nap or a long, long sleep.
And the one thing that comes out of your mouth is a pitiful little; “I hate falling…”
“Ruby-”
“I hate falling,” you repeat, sterner and clearer than the first time. “Please, don’t make me fall again.”
Again.
Again?
Yes, again.
Once, you fell to darkness.
And now she’s asking you to fall into the light.
…you don’t want to fall again.
For a second, it’s as though Maria is about to give in. Take it all back. Come up with something else if need be or just simply never teach you whatever you’re trying to do. Is it really that important?
Yes.
“If you ever want to get answers in life,” she shakes her head, gives a squeeze to your wrist that’s strong even at her age, “sometimes you have to face what you’re afraid of. Let yourself fall.” She lets go of you but moves her hand to your shoulder instead. Supportive. “Let yourself fall- knowing there are people here who will catch you if we have to.”
That’s right.
No longer will you fall and get hurt from it.
You have your team behind you. You have Maria beside you. You have Ashe too, always nearby, always alert.
This fall will not kill you.
You exhale harshly, let the pain of the stone digging into your knees ground you. Focus on your hand again.
And close the distance between your palm and the Grimm. The warmth resonates through you, within you. Your heartbeat thrums to the rhythm of ancient times. Your eyelids flutter shut and there is darkness for a second before there is your light again. Eager, almost. Called forth from your soul.
That weightlessness comes quicker. So startlingly fast you nearly jerk away again, but instead, you do as Maria has told you and lean into it. Let yourself slip, slip, slip. There is a buzzing in your ears that threaten to pop and the taste of fresh copper on your tongue you worry you might’ve bitten into it by accident.
There is…
Flashes.
Screams. Distant and desperate and dying. There is a panic in the air and there is panic in you as your heartbeat starts to pick up and there is-
A deep, horrifying roar that all but deafens you and your eyes snap open in a haste, believing Maria might’ve been wrong and you did wake up Wrath faster but…
No.
You’re still kneeling, and you come to discover that you can’t move.
All you can do is watch.
Watch… as the past plays out in front of you.
There is Nature’s Wrath in its full glory. Tearing the forest apart by just slithering through it, moving so lightning fast when it strikes out at the next person who tries to run away from it. Biting them clean in half with a single chomp as the parts of their body hit the ground and it so rudely, carelessly, glides over them. Crushing their corpse completely under its body and weight and forcibly burying them without even trying.
There’s so much blood.
And none of it belongs to Wrath.
In fact, it doesn’t even look damaged. Whatsoever. There are no spear stabs or slashes from swords- because none of their weapons could break through its feathers and scales. Even if it did, they’re all just shallow wounds that mean nothing to a beast such as this.
This crater that you’re currently in, you realize with haunting clarity, had once been filled with more buildings. More tiny huts. More parts of the village. More people.
But with a single flap of its wings, the resulting gale not only brings down this entire section of the forest full of trees, but absolutely decimates all of the buildings. People are sent flying; some crash into debris, broken bones upon impact if they’re lucky and death if they’re not. Others are sent so far from the wind blast they fall into the ravine, their shouts echoing, echoing, echoing until they go silent.
And in the midst of it all, there is a man. In ceremonial garb not unlike the one you’ve seen Ghira wear. The robe designated for a chief.
He’s easy to notice because the scales he has on his arms and on his neck shine. Reflecting the light of the morning sun- It had been dawn. It had been early dawn when Wrath decided to kill everyone. Gods, how many were still asleep in their huts when it happened? How many died instantly while they were in their beds?- as he somehow manages to dodge getting crushed by Wrath’s slinking body. He stabs at it with his spear but it's the weapon that breaks and not the beast.
His teeth bare in frustration and you can identify fangs. It reminds you of a dragon.
There is a brief moment of reprieve as Wrath decides to fly into the air. Circling above the area, the entire landscape. You hope that it will turn its interest elsewhere but know that it won’t. Maybe it’s just playing with them at this point. Trying to find anybody that ran away or probably already choosing its next target because it knows it has won here.
Wrath spots the man that gleams of gold and screeches once more, the shriek itself creating a soundwave that splinters even more trees. Mouth agape as it dives straight for the first Chief, intending to eat him in a single bite like all the others.
But the Chief is tackled aside by another man before that can happen. Swift, nimble, somehow able to get to him on time before Wrath can reach him.
This man has a leopard’s tail, the rosette pattern is rather beautiful even in the chaos. Even as the fur along it bristles, lashing in distress.
They’re so far away from you.
But somehow you can hear them, and understand them, from where you are. (Because try as you might, you still can’t move. For you are not a part of this. You are not allowed to interfere. All you can do is watch.)
“Run,” it’s from the Chief. More concerned over the other man and the fact that he’s apparently still here- you get the sense that the one with the leopard’s tail was already told to escape earlier. But he clearly didn’t- rather than the fact that he almost died. He gets to his knees in front of his companion, cradling his face oh so delicately. “Run, I told you to run!”
“You told me to run without you,” the other man snarls, grabbing the Chief’s wrists in a kind of desperation you relate to all too well. “And I am not about to-”
Wrath roars, goes in for another dive.
But not toward them.
To a group of kids- of children that look as though they’re just barely coming out of their toddler years. They stumble more than they sprint through the underbrush. Crying in fear, in anguish, for their parents, for help. For anyone.
And neither you or the first Chief or his companion can even think to get to them on time.
Before they’re all dead in the beat of a second.
And again…
Nature’s Wrath flies upward. Circling the area like a vulture wanting to pick off those that have managed to get away from the initial massacre but are destined for death anyway.
“My love,” the Chief turns pleading, grabbing his partner’s hands and bringing them close to his chest. Begging, “Please, you must go. Take the others and go. I will hold it off for you, but you must go.”
“We can’t live without you,” the man cries now, gripping onto the front of the Chief’s robes as if to drag him along to safety as well. “I can’t live without you, my heart.”
“You can. You will,” the Chief sniffles, lifting his knuckles up to his lips to place a kiss on either side of them. “Protect our people. My hope resides with you, Pardus. Please, you have to keep them safe, you have to get them out of here! I won’t be able to.”
“You can come with us! Please, you can-”
“Pardus,” his voice breaks as his tears fall, “please.”
You want to jump in to help. Even if it means dealing with Wrath alone. So long as they can leave together, so long as no one has to say goodbye.
…but you can’t.
Because you are not a part of this, you are only a witness to a tragedy.
You do not belong here.
“Okay.” There must be something in his love’s voice and expression that finally makes Pardus give in, defeated as he may be. Trembling. “Okay, I will.”
“Thank you, my kindred,” the Chief wipes away a tear trail even as more replaces it, leaning back just enough so that he can take off whatever necklace he wears and carefully places it in Pardus’s hands. You’re too far to determine the design or what it’s made of, but it must be meaningful. “You keep this safe for me, alright?”
“I shall return it to you when you get back to me,” Pardus cups his partner’s cheek with one hand, brushing his thumb against it tenderly. They share a final kiss and the agony of it echoes within you. “I’ll be waiting until then, Aureum et Argenteus. Do not make me wait forever. Promise?”
The first Chief- Aureum- does not make the promise as Pardus stands. Hesitates a moment more, no doubt wanting to try and argue until he can convince the leader to come along too. The chances of getting away from Wrath unscathed are slim to none, both of them must know that, but if someone is distracting it then…
Then at the very least, the escapees can get one percentage more of a chance to get out of this alive. Just one percent.
One percent.
Those are the odds Pardus has to work with. Those are the odds that are in his favor.
Just one.
And it might not work, but his Chief, his partner, his love has asked him to try regardless. Take the chance.
So with that one percent chance of survival, Pardus leaves. Bolting in the direction you know now to be the rest of the village. The hamlet you passed by earlier on your quest here.
And the Chief stays where he is. Breathing a sigh of relief that resonates with you because yes, he is alone now. He is alone to face this great evil. He is alone to die.
But his people have a chance. Everyone left he cares about. His partner.
So if he must deal with this alone so that they can get away, so that they can survive…
Then so be it.
A leader will do anything to protect their people.
You sacrificed yourself for yours. You shattered for yours, all to free them from the darkness.
And here, Aureum et Argenteus, the first Chief of Menagerie…
…does the same.
It is a surprisingly fierce battle. The man has a semblance that grants him more draconic features, shaped by the ethereal glow of his aura. Claws, wings, tail, horns. He meets with Wrath in the sky and though he can’t do any damage regardless, he catches the Grimm’s attention- and that’s his main priority here.
To keep the demon focused on him for as long as possible.
And it works.
Wrath, perhaps amused or enraged by this point, is unable to get him with any of its attacks. Be it the whip of its tail or another blast of wind from its wings that can punch holes into rocks or bite after bite after bite of its vicious teeth. It’s unable to wrap around the man and squeeze him to death and break his bones into smithereens. It even has a breath attack when it grows beyond frustrated, sharp shards of rock shredding through everything within its range.
You don’t know how long it lasts.
It could’ve been hours.
But more likely, it’s only a handful of minutes before the first Chief’s aura breaks. He loses his extra help, his extra mobility. Mid-air as well, so when he lands on the ground- directly in front of you at that- he breaks multiple bones.
You want to reach out and grab him. Take him away from here, save him from his own death.
But your body still doesn’t move.
Even when there’s an almighty crash not far from either of you. Nature’s Wrath curls its body on the ground, raising the upper half of it higher to tower over the now kneeling Chief. Wounded and bloody, with one arm and one leg broken. Coughing from the resulting dust cloud, spitting up a wad of scarlet.
The creature blots out the rising morning sun entirely and your body shakes as you gaze up at it. Aureum does the same.
Its draconic lips upon its maw… almost seem to smirk in sick victory. And it’s as though you can hear its taunt as clear as day;
You lost.
Here, today, the Chief has lost.
Here, today, a huntsman has lost.
Here, today… the light has lost.
You feel that sense of defeat in your soul. But it’s not anything new. Not for you.
Because you’ve felt it before.
When you were watching your team be consumed by darkness. When you met your partner in the eye and she looked at you with nothing but love and pain that you reflected because you would never be able to see them again, you would never be able to talk to them again, you would never be able to hug Yang or sit in a corner of the library with Blake reading or tell Weiss that you loved her. When all your effort and all their effort to free you from the corruption and Salem’s shadows were for nothing.
When you fought with everything you had left in you to reach the puddle made by your own tears and willingly throw yourself into a different prison than the one you were in… and use your light through sorrow.
Wrath lunges. Jaws parted, ready to feast.
And Aureum makes the same choice you did.
He uses sorrow.
…but equally, somehow…
He also uses love.
You don’t quite know how you can tell either. After all, you’ve never been in the presence of another silver-eyed warrior while they were able to use their eyes in the same way you do. Maria can’t anymore and she’s the only one you’ve ever come across.
But you can sense it in your own light. The outflux of emotion that comes from the Chief as you kneel in the blast radius of his radiance. It rushes by you with the warmth that only someone who loves you can show; be it from a friend or a family member or a partner. All of them are unique but all of them are warm in their own way. You feel it and you instantly think of everyone who loves you because it reminds you of them.
But just as there is this warmth that surrounds you, there is a deep-seated sorrow like no other alongside it. One that breaks your heart in two and drains the color from the world with its melancholy. That makes you want to double over and scream and sob until you’ve cried out all of the pain through your tears so that you may be free of it. It reminds you of that terrible moment of the war and you want to pull away from all of this, run the other direction. Because this misery, his sorrow, is so much. Too much.
It ends as suddenly as it started.
He meets the same fate you did, and your eyes barely adjust in time to catch the last of his body fading away to the aether. Vanishing. Shattering.
And the world falls silent.
…At least until you blink again, and in a snap, you’re greeted with the sound of hysterical panting and-
Oh.
That’s you.
You’re the one whose panting.
You jerk back on instinct, away from the edge, and it takes an entire minute for you to come back to full attention. Back to the present. Back to yourself. You touch your face, maybe trying to hide, you don’t know, or at least check that you have sensation there again, and your fingers become wet from the tears you’ve been shedding for… who knows how long at this point.
But as promised, there is a hand at the back of your shoulder. Another at your other side. You peek to the right first and there is Weiss- and oh, the blue. Gods, the blue, it brings back so many memories; both the pleasant and the bad- and you reach for her instantly. Start to relax only when her hand is in yours and she’s here, she’s safe, she’s okay.
At your other side, there is Maria.
“What…?” Is all you can manage to get out. You’re still shaking too much to function properly.
“The past always has a message for us. Listen closely, and it will tell you.” She nods her head to the petrified Grimm in front of you all. “Look in the right direction, and it just might show you.”
There’s a rush in the air. Like…
A deep exhale.
A low growl.
You scramble to your feet and back up until you’re able to meet Wrath in the eye.
And it glares back at you. With nothing but pure scarlet hate and anger. An entire section of its face has been revealed from the weakening stone, and it is aware. It is watching.
Waiting.
Weeks.
You and the whole of Menagerie have two, maybe three weeks if you’re lucky to prepare for the end. Less if Wrath actively tries to break itself free the same way the Leviathan did back in Argus when it had a bit of wriggle room to work with.
That’s not enough time by any means, but…
Well, the people of this small village had seconds. They had a one percent chance of some of them making it out alive.
And they did.
Because look at what Menagerie has become now because of them. Because of those survivors that took that one percent chance no matter how unlikely it was to come to fruition. A flourishing island for all Faunus far and wide to find refuge in. Build a home. Settle down some roots.
And it’s all because of those few people, that one percent chance, that all of this has been possible.
They had worse odds than you do and somehow, some way, they prevailed. They survived.
And they thrived.
Compared to what they had, the two to three weeks that you have is a blessing.
But even with that much amount of prep time, how can you hope to defeat this thing? To escape this beast? If it’s determined enough, you’re sure it’ll be faster than Weiss’s Nevermore, the one thing that you’re all counting on.
It took the first Chief of Menagerie sacrificing himself to seal it. Not even kill it, but lock it away because there would’ve been no other way to defeat it.
And from what you’ve gathered from Blake and Weiss, there are others. Other beasts that are just as strong, maybe even stronger than Nature’s Wrath out there.
How will you defeat them?
You can’t just run from all of them. You can’t distract them all forever.
Eventually, you’re going to have to stand your ground and fight.
Eventually…
Sacrifices are going to have to be made.
…Will you do it again? Shatter if it means saving them?
Can you do that to them again? On good conscience, knowing what your disappearance did to your team and the rest of your friends and family? The weight of responsibility that you burdened them with? Can you do that?
But most importantly…
Will you even get a choice? If it truly comes down to it…
What if that’s your only option?
