Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

January 7th, 797 E.A
Coast of Anima, Kingdom of Mistral Territory

Red.

It happened again. That color, which she had somehow tamed into a comfort, now poisoned her world.

The blade flashed red as it descended upon all those she couldn't save. Her hopes that now lay buried in that city, same color as the insides of her waking dreams, all red.

It infected her world.

Was there anything there beyond that which stole everything from her?

Ruby Rose gazed at the sea, clenching her fists, inhaling. Begging. Yet the waves wouldn't answer.

Behind her a village—if it could still be called that—lay in ruins. The structures of its port loomed over the ocean, the wood long since having rotten away, caressed by the winds and occasional flood. It had nothing to do with her, held no meaning to her. Just another monolith of snuffed out life, whispering to her of what had happened just a few months ago.

What was left there for her? What path lay ahead now as red covered her dreams once again?

The breeze washed over her. Waves smashed against the pier beneath her feet. The cargo ship heaved up and down, the ocean dragging it away from the land.

Moon dyed the world in pale silver, outlining the shape of that which lay below, the form of the ocean and its waves as night hid away the world.

Ruby closed her eyes, yet the fire and ash of that burning city lingered. The screams of the dying city, strangled her from beneath the waves.

Red, like roses, like death.

She gritted her teeth as it hit her again and again.

The arrow whistling through the air as it tore into her friend's chest. A tower, crumbling apart. A town in ruins, those aberrations, those beasts of hate and despair swarming over its carcass. Humans tearing into each other, divided. The world, falling apart, spinning, dying, crumbling. She was alone. There was nobody there left. The dream that lasted too long and then, with a scream gave way to harsh winds that tore into all that she treasured.

She gasped, opening her eyes.

To Ruby Rose, Pyrrha, Nikos, and Beacon Academy were one and the same.

A symbol of hope. A light piercing the skies, parting the veil of the dark covering the land. A source of inspiration to be better. No wonder a symbol like that would have turned out to be the perfect target for those aiming to tear apart Huntsmen as a concept.

Pyrrha Nikos—or as the people would call her the invincible champion of Mistral—was everything Ruby pictured as a Huntress to be. A kind, caring, selfless, soul, striving to be better, radiating forgiveness.

Pyrrha was the hero of her childhood fairytales, a knight from the stories that would chase her nightmares away. The valiant hero embodying all good in the world. Pyrrha was a constant and Ruby could never imagine a situation where Pyrrha would have had to compromise her ideals.

Her greatest idol. A moral center, an example for everyone. Someone others would want to live up to, someone who would embody the Huntsmen Academies. Before she knew it, Pyrrha had become the driving force behind Ruby’s wish to become better, stronger, and smarter. Had she been allowed to continue, Pyrrha would have saved countless lives, transformed the world into a paradise, forcing others around her to be better people.

As sappy as it would have sounded, one would have had to only meet her once to believe this.

Instead cruelty and hate took her from the world that needed her as Ruby gazed upon her fading life, frozen for a second too long, the eyes wide with terror and disbelief.

What is the point? What is the point of moving forward if singel act of malice is all it takes for everything to turn to dust?

Towers built, towers fallen. Towns rising through a lifetime, crumbling to the waves within a single moment. Ruins littered the lands of Remnant. Gravestones for people abandoned to their fates. The foundation of every monument had been the ones who were not strong enough to protect themselves. The ones that others would not.

That island they used as the midway point for the journey through the Shallows had been no different and neither were these ruins, this fishing village on the coast of Anima.

Another gravestone, fading away, erased by time.

A spot of crimson red splashed upon the Land.

It doesn’t matter how many people I save. It will never undo the weight of the ones I didn’t. Why do I keep failing? Why can’t I ever save those that matter the most?

Penny Polendina, a naïve girl from a country far away.

Unlike Pyrrha embodying her ideal, Penny represented everything Ruby never knew she wanted.

Growing up she had come to shy away from others, hiding away beneath the red of her cloak. Social interactions never came easy to her. They’d require to open up, to smile, to find the right words, to let others in only to lose them again some day.

Penny tore through that, somehow. Empathy, friendship, bonds. This girl’s presence made Ruby long for actual friendship. With Penny all doubts vanished as their friendship bloomed within the moment’s notice. The day Penny crashed into her life had forced Ruby to rethink her belief of Crimson Rose as the only friend she needed.

What would have happened if she hadn’t met her? Would she have never opened up, would she have stayed a recluse? Who knows. Weiss had already managed to worm her way into her heart, after all. Would she have taken the other steps forward without Penny in her life? Likely not.

But she did meet Penny, the girl who made her believe the world had more to offer than the ever-repeating stories of heroes and villains. Penny Polendina showed her what humanity was, that there was more to it than duty and heroism. That encounter made her further open up to her teammates, letting them in.

Penny Polendina. A loyal friend, now in pieces.

All because Ruby Rose, the self-proclaimed hero, wasn’t fast enough.

I am never fast enough. Would anything change if I were faster, stronger, if I had more experience, training? Doesn’t that mean that all that matters in this world is power? Power to make ideals a reality, no matter what mine are? Power to survive?

Ruby frowned, clenching her fists. The seabreeze had made her head spin, questioning the depths of the ocean that lay ahead.

Roman.

A petty criminal. The first villain that she faced after arriving in Vale. Just some tiny crook indulging in robbery and deceit. Ruby never thought much of him. Another spot of malice, painting the town red.

And yet, his final moments haunted Ruby. They’d echo in her dreams, lingering like a curse. In his dying moments what Ruby had written off as malice revealed itself as desperation. Who was he or what life he had led? That question never came up in her mind. Roman Torchwick was a ma nknown for his evil deeds. And yet, in his last moments, he was just another human. Filled with anger, fear, and hate. Driven by the need to survive. A living embodiment of everything she hates, everything she fears, everything that angers her.

“This is the real world. The real world is cold. The real world doesn’t care about spirit. You want to be a hero? Then play the part and die like every other Huntsman in history! As for me, I’ll do what I do best—lie, steal, cheat, and survive!”

His words echoed inside her like a scar, a searing wound that ached with every second of her existence.

And now she stood here, on the other side of an ocean, on a journey with no destination in sight. Yet despite his end being left back there in Vale, his words still echoed, refusing to let her escape him.

She stared at the horizon, where her home was, somewhere, out of sight. When she set out on this journey chaos still shrouded Vale. And in Patch, just on the other side of the wall, her sister laid there, in bed, hurt, shattered by yet another thing Ruby couldn’t stop. She should have helped her, she should have been there for here. Instead she fled to another continent, on a journey without purpose, driven by a single sliver of misguided hope, chasing after fading dreams of heroism.

Just like Mom, who faded somewhere far away.

Mom, scattering in the wind, in the lands unknown. Neither Dad nor Qrow would tell me where it happened. What was the ending to her heroic struggle? Did anything she did matter in the end?

Crescent Rose.

A weapon. A symbol of her relentless pursuit of being a huntsman, walking in the footsteps that her mom had left behind. A tool she built to save lives now weighed heavy in her hands. Every swing, every move reminded her of that inescapable truth that all things die. Whether by her hand, by an unpredictable preplanned act of malice, or by mere coincidence, an accident.

She had been a hero wielding a symbol of death in her hands, a tool out of the legends she loved.

Every sailor would grow up reading of the sea. Every knight would have once played with sticks and stones screaming chivalry.

For her the inspiration came from multiple things—the tales about the moon her mother whispered during bedtime, the way her uncle would speak about cutting down the Grimm with his scythe, and the dreams she had ever since she was little. She’d shroud herself in red, that which haunted her, claiming it and overcoming it.

Lots of good that did.

What will I do now? What is the point of this journey? Why am I even here? Why am I lying to myself? What does “moving forward” even mean? What is the point of a hero if, in the end, power decides right from wrong?

The wind picked up, the breath of the ocean tearing into her hair, caressing her face. A chill, like death, welcoming and endless.

Steps, weary and slow, behind her. Ruby turned her head.

A bald man worn down by life. Sideburns and ash-white beard.

The smuggler captain. She never learned his name.

“Sea can be calming, kid.” – The man smiled. – “Just be sure to not get lost in those waves. That’s never good.”

Ruby fell silent.

What could she answer to that? Her chest hurt, heart aching. Every single breath of air was a struggle, a fight.

“It’s easy to lose sense of time or even distance when staring at the sea. The waves are chaotic, yes, unpredictable even, but all of them have a reason to flow the way they do.” – The man continued. – “Will I ever know why the waves carry my ship the way they do? Likely not, no, but they carry it all the same. They do.”

Ruby sighed, turning her gaze back to the sea.

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I can see you have a lot on your mind, kid. Lots of turmoil, like waves. But your heart’s in the right place.” – He scratched his head. – “Back on the Isle, you jumped headfirst blindly. You act to protect, even if we folk did not seem right in your eyes. You lot made sure to avoid me all journey, yes. And yet, when things got dangerous, you still, without a second of hesitation, jumped to fight.”

“That’s what Huntsmen do.”

“Really? Alongside you, three other huntsmen were on a ship. And you were the only ones to do so. And that matters in this dark world.”

“Does it?” – She chuckled. – “If nothing changes, does it matter? Does it matter if nothing matters?”

“It should, to you. I can’t change the direction the waves flow, you see. The sea is fickle and chaotic and can carry me to the ends of this land. All I can do is sail my ship where I want it to.” – The man stood next to her, taring at the sea. – “The sea will object, if it wants to. It will try to stop me. But as long as I have a direction, I’ll still end up somewhere, yes.”

“I am not sure I can believe that.”

“Well,” – The Old Captain laughed. – “That’s something you’ll need to work on by yourself, kid. Learn to be yourself and never stop.”

She frowned. The Old Captain’s words weren’t what she’d have expected his type to say.

Here stood a smuggler, a criminal, a villain. There were thousands of smugglers through Remnant, land and sea—someone who indulged in bribery, theft, and a life of debauchery. She might even fought some among the countless goons over her time at Beacon. And yet, here she was again, even if in a friendlier context, getting advice from one. And yet, at this moment, what stood here had been a weary old man with friendly advice.

“I’m sorry for mistrusting you.” – Ruby sighed. – “I shouldn’t assume things about people.”

“Oh, you absolutely should beware, kid. Especially here. Trusting everyone would make you an idiot. I am not a good person.” – The Old Captain scratched his forehead. – “Just because the world is full of evil, doesn’t mean you can’t find good too. You did something good, and now I return the favor.”

The two gazed at the sea in silence.

The Old Captain broke it first.

“You are about to set off on your journey, yes?”

“In an hour, maybe. A friend went ahead. Now we are waiting for a response, but—”

“You guys are careful. Good. Vigilance is always preferred here, yes. Anima’s a beauty, but a treacherous one. And Mistral is not big on empathy or friendship.This place could use people like you, kids. That is if it doesn’t end up eating you alive first.”

A bell rang in the distance, interrupting them.

“Ruby!”

She took her eyes off the sea, turning around to see a familiar figure.

Nora bolted forward toward them, waving, Ren right behind her.

“Ruby, there’s fire over the forest, up north.” – Nora was out of breath. – “Grimm are attacking a village.”

All the air vanished from her lungs. Crescent Rose grew heavier in her hand once again as the reality of her life came crashing down upon her, like the waves.

Nora said something else, but the ringing noise in Ruby’s ears obscured it. Within a blink of an eye she stood in a swamp, the earth swallowing her deeper and deeper if she did not move. The words of hope were stuck in her throat, unable to escape as death lingered, waiting for its turn to claim her too.

Death.

Red, like Roses, painting her world.

January 7th, 797 E. A
Patch Island, Kingdom of Vale Territory

The crimson and emerald leaves had long since faded from the treetops, leaving only barren branches, frozen by snow and ice.

The afternoon breeze burned her lungs with every breath, mocking her.

Yang shook her head, quickening her steps.

She couldn’t just avoid this. The doctor had recommended physical activity as part of the recovery proccess. The wounds were already healing, but he could have done nothing more.

Nothing was ever simple anymore.

Yang had to re-learn a lot of what had been as natural as breathing before. In the beginning, even getting out of bed had been a challenge, let alone anything else. Doing chores, and taking these short walks to—and from—the village had been one way to improve. After all, a nice afternoon stroll should have helped her take her mind off the things.

Should have.

Are you surprised this did not work, you useless dumbass? You never learn.

She clacked her tongue, frowning.

What happened over the last few months haunted her every step.

The flames licking the streets of Vale, Beacon crumbling to the ground, all the things she had screamed at Ruby.

Sometimes she’d have this urge to rush to the other room to apologize, before remembering she can’t. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that Ruby had just up and left.

She left and they never got a chance to speak again, to clear up the air between them. The rift that grew between them would stay for however long this would take and no matter what scenarios and fantasies Yang would cook up in her brain, it wouldn’t change reality.

Even now, if Ruby had been in front of her, could Yang even do or say something, anything differently? Or would it end the same way?

With regret.

Yang longed to scream.

You can’t fix this. Ever. Even after everything that happened, you can’t fix any single thing. You only ever knew how to hide behind that smile or lash out hurting others. You are worthless waste of space who has never amounted to anything! Maybe the world was right to treat you this way!

She stopped in her tracks.

“Damn it Yang. You must be quite scary to have everyone running away from you,” – the blond woman joked to herself, out-loud. – “What a freakshow.”

Little self-deprecating mockery would always come in handy for her. Yet it didn’t help this time. Has it ever?

Are you at the part where you laugh at your own jokes yet, Yang? It’s fine, nobody else would laugh at them, anyway. Stupid puns

She clenched her fist.

Could she have smiled through it all, bottling up the anger and the hurt and, instead, being supportive? Should she have matched Ruby’s desperate longing for hope and positivity? Entertain her naivety? Would Ruby not have left then—would she have asked her to go with her? Would Yang do that? COULD she have done that back then or even now? Would Ruby refuse her help? Shower her with pity? Strangle her with empathy? Drown her in kindness?

Was there any outcome of that quarrel where she wouldn’t have ended up a burden she was?

That thought haunted her every day now. The only solution that came to her had been isolation. All that her pain accomplished was hurting others, so she should stay out of their way. Just wither in some room, counting the days.

On the flip side, Ruby never was the person to know tact or when to shut up. A needy little brat, so ignorant of the moments she’d hurt someone. So, who’s saying it would have gone any differently had Yang done everything right? If Ruby could not see what it meant, then she was an idiot, and she had always been an idiot wasting her time with...

 She gritted her teeth, biting her lip till it drew blood. She itched to punch something—or someone. Or maybe herself?

 Tiresome steps. Tiresome thoughts. Tiresome sights.

 Tired.

Tired of always being okay just because she had to be. Tired of being forced to set an example, to show others the right path, all while herself aimless wandering through her life.

Tired of being the responsible one.

She has always been there for Ruby.

She has always been there for her dad.

She has been there for the team.

Always, always, always. 

She opened her heart—she burned for them, till there was nothing left—and yet now she had been left alone. All alone.

Is it too much to expect them, any of them, to be here for you now? To allow yourself to be selfish just this once? To hope for something more than leaving without even a goodbye?

Of course only one of them had left that way, abandoning her. Leaving her with realization of who Yang had always been.

A useless wreck who can’t ever do anything right. Someone whose sole value had been to punch things when others asked for it or to take a hit.

A useless mess that never amounted to anything and would always fail. A nobody with no ideals or dreams or hopes to call her own.

Someone who couldn’t even look in the mirror without breaking down to tears and suffering an anxiety attack now.

Yang wasn’t going to admit it.

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes.

The trees, the snow, the village rooftops up ahead. Cold winter winds. A moment of respite, a pause.

How ironic life could be. Vale crumbled down in flames, ash and death covering Beacon Academy. People she knew lost their homes or their lives.

The world hung on the cusp of war, with the communications between Kingdoms cut and every dark thing creeping out of the shadows to get its due.

Yet here she was.

In Path Village.

Like nothing had changed.

Wasting her time being useless.

The same people were still going about their day. Houses loomed beyond the hill, monuments, and the trees, the same forest to suffer through back and forth, the same dirt and snow. This village, disconnected from the reality that surrounded her, existed, continuing like nothing.

Different, yet unchanging. Because no matter how bad things got, everything would stay the same.

She had always been useless, she had always been weak. That man—

She winced.

That man just revealed to her what she had always been. A weakling, a coward, an aimless mess who’d get into bar fights just to feel something. Always living through excuses.

Even now, if she were to just shut her brain off and imagine nothing changed, she would likely fool herself into actually believing it.

Just for a split second. If only she didn’t think about it, it would be like always—

Too late. Well, that didn’t last long.

Good job on irritating even yourself, Yang. Real good job. You are an expert on this optimism thing, aren’t you, real talented at driving everyone away with your nonsense and whining?

Yang bolted forward, if only to run away from those thoughts, till she had reached the Patch Village outskirts.

She moved forward, just like Uncle Qrow told her to.

But why? What was the point?

It didn’t take long for what she had feared to manifest again here.

The reality of her everyday life since the tournament, since that rigged fight that tainted her to entire world.

“That was Taiyang’s little one? The one who—” – older adult woman outside hurriedly folded her laundry, looking over to the side as she whispered to someone through the window. – “You know what she did.”

Even at the edge of the village the whispers could reach her. The first house on the left belonged to an older couple who used to come over back in the day and even gifted Ruby that sweater she hated. 

“She comes every day, poor girl. A tough one to get over. So young. fiery one too...” – old man’s voice rang from inside the house, only interrupted by the newspaper being crumpled and folded. – “Must be hard on old Tai to have someone like...”

“Shh, dear, don’t. She might hear us. You don’t want her to lose it and—”

Yang, shifted her gaze away from them and increased her pace, hurrying along as fast as she could, past that stupid house, the stupid garden, the stupid people, doing her best not to look at them.

Morning air pressed down against her as if crushing her to the ground. She forced a smile to appear on her face. Not for anyone around. For herself.

All the gossiping idiots did not matter, nor did the stares.

Country folk would always gossip, even when she had been younger.

About her fights, or hair, or about how she thrashed some bar, or that time she and her team made a giant mech explode all over the highway.

The youngling, the village disappointment, the hooligan.

The same old countryside story.

Sometimes they’d whisper calling her “Reckless Brat” or speculate that she had broken into some building. Never to the face, though.

The Goldie, the Beast of Patch, the Wild One, The Brass Knuckle Brat—dozens of nicknames followed her infamy through the years. Ever since that day when she had punched the idiots teeth in for harassing her sister.

It never mattered and it wouldn’t matter now.

She’d raise her head, smile, and get through this.

It’s all fine, you are fine. Those idiots can burn for all you care. Even you don’t care about yourself, why should you care about what they think?

Just working on her bike or, at least, attempting to, was everything she wanted right now. A sense of normalcy. She couldn’t drive it now, but she might one day and working on it calmed her.

And for that she needed supplies from the village..

Getting supplies meant braving the village—belittled and insulted—worse than thrown away trash.

Take a deep breath. It’s all fine. You are fine.

“Just think of this as training, Yang, training to handle idiots.”

Did she think out-loud yet again? That had become a habit now.

Likely because she had nobody to talk to about this.

Always alone.

Ruby ran away. Weiss had to leave. Blake abandoned her.

Good riddance. You don’t need their pity.

She wiped her eyes before the tears could form.

Dad would come and go, moving back and forth between Vale and Patch, trying to help her, ignorant of the fact that she just wanted him to stay with her, to be there for her.

Yet he could barely look at her without smiling it peppering her with fake reassurances about how it all will be fine. Not a single honest conversation, running on autopilot.

He cared, he cared so much and that hurt even more.

She was desperate to hear her own voice. To reassure herself she still had it, that she still existed.

Just like back then when Summer passed.

As Yang wandered closer to the smithy, her ears caught the buzz of the radio growing louder, till she could make out the words.

With CCTS gone the village and Vale—and likely the whole world—had turned towards the olden things, the pre-war technology and gear that still functioned. Short-range radio systems catching the transmissions from the pre-war communication Relay Stations. Those old things were now the only source of news in Patch, the only connection to Vale.

A signal from the Relay Station in Vale’s Upper-Class District could still reach Patch Island. Nothing but government announcements, news bits, and pompous politicians discussing things.

Usually it would be some droning voice of yet another pompous asshole. Irritating. Thanks to these transmissions and uncertainty that reigned, everyone, including her father, would yap on, speculating about what the future holds for Remnant. Even if the Council kept reassuring the townsfolk that they shouldn’t panic and that the forces of Vale stand stalwart and true, tensions still ran high among the displaced survivors now transferred into Patch’s care. Meanwhile, the Grimm had overrun most of the city, Beacon was still off-limits, and the dead were still dead.

She approached the smithy. Clang after clang, the sound of someone hammering at steel inside reached her ears. The sign in front said “Please ring the bell and wait.”

And so she waited. The radio kept blabbering on and on about the dangers and the necessity for old-fashioned messengers.

“Where has the complacency and broad-mindedness gotten us?! Can this successful and Great nation even handle potential threats, its very heart devastated by savagery? And the Kingdom of Atlas?! What of them? According to several eyewitness accounts, the fabled Atlas soldiers with their machinery led the terrifying butchery of the Beacon Academy—where our children, our future, come to learn! And yet the Council of Vale stays silent now! I say it is time for a change! In the next election, make your voices heard! Now, I have been no stranger to politics and governance, my dear citizens. The Upper-Class District stands undamaged by the assaulting Faunus hordes and the mechanical abominations, both because of the vigilance and character of people like us!”

Yang spat on the ground.

Egotistical pricks like that annoyed her the most, using someone’s tragedy for personal gain, to stir up hate.

Yang could almost imagine Blake standing there fuming at the radio, lecturing the radio about using tragedy to further discriminatory agen—

But she wasn’t there. 

Are you really surprised you are alone, Yang? You have such a short fuse. Do you really think all that baggage you carry would look attractive to anyone around you?

Impressions of rust and oil surrounded the smithy. The burning furnace inside emitted hellish heat, smoke rising from the chimney.

Yang kept tapping her leg at the ground, waiting, as if to a beat hidden behind that discomfort gripping her heart.

World shifts.

The chaotic melody around her fuses together, twisting itself.

She needs to touch her arm, even if for a second. Why can’t she?

She watches herself in that burning hall.

Yang’s terrified face looking at her, that mask hovering above.

Her arm.

Her arm. Her Arm. Her Arm. Her. Arm. Her Arm. Her Arm. Her Arm.

Everything in her life burns.

She needs to take a few steps back, run from what’s about to happen.

She wants to scream.

She wants to hit something. 

No sound can escape before the shadow swings its blade, cutting her in half.

She needs to breathe. Why can’t she breathe? Why can’t she breathe? Why can’t she breathe?

The world is dark; sun is gone; the snow is gone.

The Sun is the Snow is the World is the Dark.

A gurgling deep sound interrupted her thoughts, birds screeching in the sky, bringing her back to the present.

Cold sweat drenched her forehead. Her arm and her legs shook ready to give out any moment.

Yang focused on that sound of the birds, on people talking in the street, on the annoying radio, on anything else but that memory. She told herself a joke in her mind. And another. And another. And another.

It was not enough.

Every time she’d close her eyes, he was there, he was there, he was there.

She ran.

She didn’t dare to open her eyes nor lock back.

She didn’t care about her bike or what she came here for. Just a few more steps to her home. Her bike could wait another day. Everything could wait another damn day.

She needed to get back now.

She needed to get back now.

She needed to get back now.

Before she knew it, she was already out of the village, running through the forest.

She slowed down, panting, chest heaving as she struggled for a breath of air.

Her legs wobbled as if rubber, feet as if they were a pinprick cushion.

Of course, you couldn’t talk to even a single person, Yang. How pathetic. You are pathetic.

She stared at what lay in front.

An empty family home, lights out. Once a place of comfort, now it loomed alone and cold.

“They just…left... without saying a single word!” – she found herself screaming through gritted teeth. – “They left!”

She crumbled to the ground, sobbing.

You idiot, of course, there’s nobody here as THEY. ALL. LEFT. Get that into your dumb head. Everybody leaves you. They always will. They are better off without you.

Memories of Weiss flashed through her mind. 

Weiss had no choice. She was a victim, just like all of them. She got dragged back home, confused and startled. Weiss last visit still had been fresh on her mind. Just ten days or so after Yang had opened her eyes to the changing world crashing against her like ocean waves.

Yang was still bedridden back then. She remembered Weiss, confused and lost, entering Ruby’s room and then rushing out again, even more distraught. Weiss couldn’t say much, just staring at the wall after, hugging herself.

She said those words to Yang: “I have to leave”.

They pierced her like a thousand daggers. The people she opened up her heart to? The entire team? Just like that all of them were gone.

For Ruby, being unconscious was out of Ruby’s control. She did not choose to spend over a month in a coma, nor suffer like she did that night when Beacon fell. But her reckless decision to journey out who knows where without a moment’s notice? Yeah, she’s dumb.

But Blake? Blake did not have any excuses in Yang’s mind.

She left, she abandoned them.

Unlike Ruby she didn’t get in a fight with Yang, trying to reassure her.

Unlike Weiss she didn’t come to say goodbye.

She abandoned her.

Another person in her life who would rather be somewhere else than near her.

Blake had abandoned her. And Yang deserved it.

That day when she had realized she was alone something inside her had vanished, never to return.

Those bonds faded so fast that Yang still suffocated from their absence itself as she rotted here, thrown away by the damn fools rushing ahead with zero care for what awaits them.

And Blake—

Yang shook her head.

Who cares about her!?

The forest began to warp and twist around her. The branches cracked, shifting as they threatened to devour her.

Once again, she wanted to run, to be anywhere but here, but the ground moved beneath her feet as if to run away from her.

She struggled to push the feeling away, to calm down, to get back on her feet and rush back inside. 

It’s all fine. It’s going to be fine. Everything is fine. It is going to be fine. It’s going to be fine. You are fine. Aren’t you fine? Everything is great.

She bolted towards the door, struggling to put a key in.

Soon she had been inside her home.

Empty. Cold. Not a single sound around her. Deafening silence only interrupted by her own breathing.

A tone of nothingness ringing in her ears, like a thought she could not escape no matter how far she ran.

“I miss you guys...”

Another sob.

Not even an echo could answer her.

Something missing. Part of her. The wounds one can’t see would always burn the worst.

January 8th, 797 E. A
Shipping District, City of Argus, Kingdom Of Mistral Territory

A lone man sat on a crate, overlooking the sea.

Something he had done many times before.

A sense of poetry. Of repetition. Moments like these, the sight ahead—waves crashing at the pier—welcomed him.

It would still be a while before they manage to get back from this journey. Awareness of what his niece would face lingered in his mind. Yet the alternative was far worse.

Winter, at the turn of the century.

As the sun emerged from the clouds, chatter would soon fill the City. Thousands of people rushing to work, dock workers hauling a container up, some bigwig screaming at them to hurry.

All of them unaware, uncaring that the world had taken a step for worse almost overnight.

He never much cared cities crawling with people—docks and the sea were the only way to get away from the idyllic repetition of the modern day. 

Some might have called him a bohemian vagrant, wasting away his life in booze and skinship, but Qrow Branwen didn’t much care for the titles placed upon him.

The world could go screw itself for what he cared. Nobody had a right to judge him, not after everything he had experienced through his life.

A cliff towered behind him, overlooking the pier. A cliff where nothing interesting would await him. Gazing upon others all high and mighty was Oz’s thing, not his. On that cliff above lay a basilica dedicated to Anima, watching over the ocean for a century, surrounded by the monuments and buildings of all the important people. And Qrow never cared for myths or religion.

So here he sat, a rotten vermin, brooding, eyes wandering over the horizon that hung ever so above the screaming seawater.

Self pity ran in the family, and so did regret, like acid pouring in their veins. Nobody in that damned team STRQ ever had managed to be content with their lives, not even Tai. Sure they could pretend for a while, but the whole Summer thing soon had shattered that illusion.

Qrow sighed, taking a sip from his flask.

Just over the city walls and the forest, a ship would drop the anchor in an abandoned village. It held a peculiar crew on a journey thrown their way that he hoped would keep them busy.

He didn’t much like manipulating his niece, but, once again, it would have been better than the alternative.

Qrow struggled to figure out the time he had left before war drowned everything in the putrid stench of death.

Decisions never came easy for him. All his life he had been stuck between picking between bad and the worse.

Even now, when everything fell apart, all he could see would be consequences of each step he could take.

So what could he do? Should he keep true to the path he had trodden for so many years now, the one that had torn his sister away from him? Or should he betray himself and his only friend and stray off the road and into the forest, hoping for a destination anywhere but at the bottom of the ocean?

If Oz were here, he would encourage him to view every desperate situation as a new window of opportunity, a way to turn things around. “Life is a path that’s full of open doors” and all that.

Back then, all those years ago, to that pale kid, those words Ozpin had said left such a powerful impression. Words so strong that surviving wasn’t enough anymore.

He had battled hunger and fear for so long and yet that pale kid would be plagued with thoughts of how it might no longer be enough. As a kid he never had the best life, even though he never complained about his fate. He just knew—he would die in a ditch somewhere. The world around him had no place for plans, hopes, goodwill—devoid of anything but the promise of indulging himself in the continuous decadence. Whirlpool of chaos and adrenaline, the rush that came with living one more day, even if others wouldn’t. 

To the kid, from an early age, it dawned as clear as as the sun threatening to burn them—the realization that the world is like a parasite sucking his essence to feed itself. 

His sister, however, always had this air of indifference around her. The kind of eternal fire intending to burn through any obstacles in her path. Of course, as with him, most of that was just a mask, a way to hide all the hurt, while she’d lick her wounds clean. His sister had her fair share of worries, doubts, aspirations, and despair. She hid it better and channeled those conflicting emotions into different things than him.

Where Qrow would find his reprieve at the bottom of that whiskey glass, Raven would soar on wings on pride and arrogance, dedicating all of it to her borrowed dream.

Ozpin’s words back then resonated with both of them. They let them soar through the skies even before that man had cursed them with wings.

From the kind headmaster of Beacon Academy that young kid had gained something he never had. For the first time, he experienced hope, and with it had begun his oldest friendship.

For once, he had a direction to move towards! He believed life to be more than just scraps he could clutch onto with all his might! This world had more to offer than just grasping at power—any means necessary—and using it to survive.

A sense of right and wrong, tangible and real, heart no longer an empty abyss. A conviction, a purpose, a path. Not something that you could bend to your will by merely having more power.

“Even if the doors in front of you were to close shut, no matter how tough the road is, if you just keep moving forward, before you know it, more doors will open. An insurmountable number of choices. Then, eventually, you will enter the one meant for you as your destination, the heavy journey left behind. That is what life is meant to be, Qrow.”

Ozpin’s words would echo in his mind for all his life. 

Would that kid, if he saw his future, stare straight into his eyes and proclaim it had been worth it?Or would he curse at his soon-to-be-only-friend for leading him down this path?

Qrow had no answer to that question. He has long since outgrown the worries and aspirations bottled inside that pale kid. Even if he weer to force himself to, he couldn’t even make himself think how his younger self did anymore. Too much baggage weighed upon his soul. 

Now? Now, all those doors in front of him were crashing shut one after another. Everything around him had burned to ash.

He had stalled and hesitated and put it off for weeks now, but with everything in ruins, he ran out of options.

The choices ahead all reeked of betrayal, like daggers he’d plunge in the backs of those he cared about.

A shiver ran through his body, like ice, clawing deeper as if to the depths of his soul.

The weight of emptiness in his every step, the meaningless worth of the footprints he left behind. Alcohol has dulled his senses far too long. While sweet vertigo could wash the guilt away, the names and faces would still stare into his eyes no matter what. He’d strangle them with the taste of whiskey in his mouth, he’d drown them in whispers of those who found him beautiful, and he’d stab their hearts all over again with the exhilarating feeling of another’s blade this close to his throat.

Only then could he see what was going on in his brain and put the right words to the thoughts that cursed him as a failure. 

The kid had chased his dreams till one day he would look into the mirror and see a grown man, a hollow shell with none of that shine that had driven him forward.

A realization had pierced him that cursed moment.

He has become a parasite himself, subsisting on nothing but violence, idling, rotting under the sun, longing for the only way to fill himself with something other than guilt and despair.

What could this worthless carrion say to his hopeful past self? To that bright kid that just found purpose and was approaching him, for once in his lifetime, smiling?

He would say that the promise of hope is like any other lie, the source of it always disappearing into the fog. He would say that hope is a cruel yet sweet and addicting curse, even when it had left you behind, you could not help but want to chase after it. Futile, even if eventually you’d chase all the impossible, plausible replacements for it you can find. Running till but an ocean of nothingness lingered in your heart not even remembering what it was that you were so desperately chasing after.

What would this insignificant speck of dust say to himself in the mirror now, in this exact moment?

Qrow would say that before it comes to that, if an opportunity presents itself, he shall take it, no matter how unclear. Even if he has to kick the damn doors open by force this time.

And in that moment he’d be no better than his dear sister, a rat driven into a corner, deciding who lives and who days just so it can take just one more step forward.

Qrow smiled.

Slow, deliberate steps cut through his thoughts, welcoming an uninvited guest invading his world.

Qrow tensed up, his paranoia bringing him back to reality. Just above on the slope, in the shadow cast by the church and the cliff it stood upon, there lingered a figure of someone he didn’t want to see.

Most would miss her—a woman clad in red like an omen. Hell, most couldn’t see her. No human could see that far ahead, up above a whole city district away.

She hadn’t gotten here yet, of course. The tint of red had only now lit up there like a star.

But he could still hear those steps even before she had found her way here.

Siblings would be connected in ways that defied reason, after all.

“Now, now, I know I am not lucky enough for you to help me with Oz,” – he smirked, his expression soon souring. – “Or am I somehow wrong, Raven?”

His sister—the one person in this world that had carried the same burden—had already appeared behind him.

Raven would always find a way to be where she had wanted to be and to avoid those she didn’t want to meet. To arrange this encounter, Qrow had to barter.

Yet their paths have drifted apart over the years, ever since that day, cursing Qrow to sink into a purgatory of indecisiveness, driven by hope and naivety.

 “Sorry,” – Raven narrowed her gaze, standing atop the shipping container. – “I have places to be, Qrow.”

Qrow observed his wayward sister as she hopped into the air, crashing down to the docks.

Undeterred, she approached, her steps calculated and slow. If his sister hadn’t changed, that was to be expected.

Raven Branwen had grown obsessed with being in control. She would never ever again let herself be puppeteered by the whims and goals of someone else.

Back then, when she were about to leave Qrow had asked her why. To that, his sister had uttered that she had enough being a sacrifice.

They’d still speak from time to time, of course, and Ozpin had been none the wiser. Their differing worldviews couldn’t break the sibling bond forged in the hell of their childhood. Yet, every conversation had been a barter, borne out of either of them needing something.

His sister was still as pale and thin as ever, as if recovering from a terrible illness. For some she’d seem like an illness itself arriving with the wind. An omen of things to come, a Grimm mask covering her face.

He knew better, however.

Raven, for him, had been sword, cutting through the damp seashore air as she moved.

Sharp, and dangerous. Whether it had been her words or her blade, it could still kill.

“I think you know what happened in Vale, right?” – Qrow said. – “A little bird chirped to me that you had been there when the things went down. You wonder the old man knew?”

“Not here to banter about Ozpin, Qrow.” – She took off her mask, affixing it to her belt. – “Nothing we ever say will change how we see things. That ship sailed long ago.”

How he had hoped things would change, that one of the two most important people in his life would find a better way.

Alas, the world had remained cruel and indifferent, reminding him of just how sweet the aftertaste of whiskey could be. 

“Even now, after Beacon.” – Qrow spat onto the ground. – “I am sorry, I still can’t see any other way.”

“Then, you’ve been watching over Summer’s child, I take it? My brother, you are ever so obsessed.”

Condescending notes rang in his sister’s voice, like always.

The sheer hypocrisy—her ever-present companion—would creep to her every action, as always. But he wouldn’t push it. He needed her help, after all.

“You already know the answer,” – Qrow turned his gaze back at the sea as if Raven wasn’t even there. – “I needed to make sure they crossed the ocean safely. Even if it’s The Shallows, you never know with some things deep below the surface.”

“Are you still playing the hero? I hope it works out better than it did for all the others.” – Raven smirked. – “Not that you were ever any good at this role.”

“Did you grow to be even more condescending during our time apart?” – He scratched his head. – “No, I am not playing anything. I am just what I can, before I have do what I need to.”

Qrow averted his gaze, staring in the distance behind him.

“I am not so full of myself as to see myself a savior, unlike some here.”

“Now who’s being condescending, brother?”

Qrow kicked the whiskey bottle on the ground—not his, there were plenty of drunkards in the docks—the glass rolling toward the sea.

His sister and he really were kindred spirits, after all.

“Did you hear? The Council of Vale has officially given up on taking back the city. For once, the death toll is too high.” – He turned his head toward his sister. – “The news from Port Lagoon has them spooked, too, I guess, and the idiots don’t even know about Iosal.”

“Really, now?”

“Yeah. And then you have what’s going on in Atlas and Mistral.” – Qrow said, turning back toward her, meeting her gaze. – “Here in Argus, especially.”

His sister just shrugged.

“Once the illusion of peace shatters, before you know, things spiral out of control, don’t they? Lies build a pretty fragile peace. Try to grasp at everything and nothing you will gain.” – Raven smirked, tilting her head. – “And now part of you is thinking about whether you can truly fulfill your vow and protect her daughter now. And yet if you stay babysitting and do nothing, it will only get worse.”

Qrow gritted his teeth. He hated that his sister could read him like a book.

“You know me well. With that system down, there’s only so much that I can do. And, unless you found a solution to my little problem, it’s not like I can just stay close as that would make things even worse.” – He smiled. – “Screwing things up. People say I’m very talented at doing that. So I have got to believe that everything they went through has prepared them well enough without me messing everything up.”

 “And yet you still don’t have it in you to blame him. You’d rather send your niece on some goose chase and bear the burden alone. I, honestly, can’t decide if you are pitiful or admirable, but you certainly are fascinating.”

The woman in red studied Qrow, squinting, her gaze burning a hole through him. He knew full well what his sister thought right now.

They could always agree on everything but the most important things, after all.

“Yang and Ruby, both, are way older now than we were when we got thrown into all this chaos by that dreadful trickster.” – Raven’s gaze grew muddy, voice cracking. – “His so-called guidance, the tales and lies he weaved.”

Part of him couldn’t stand her talking about his friend this way, but Raven wasn’t exactly wrong. And that made it so much worse.

Before long, her eyes cleared up, and a slight grin appeared.

“But we turned out alright, don’t you think?” 

“Oh, we are model citizens, I’m sure! Society’s finest and most heroic! Would we, as children, even believe it if someone were to tell them their future? You have got to admit that we no longer have much in common with who we were back then.” 

“I wouldn’t say that, my dear, dear brother.”

Raven still kept smiling, not a tinge of condescension in her voice. The bond of two siblings, after all the hardships they went through, had still been there.

Raven sighed, patting her sword on her belt.

“Memory and Thought. Two things we can’t ever be free of. No matter how much you claim otherwise, every single thing that happens is etched into our hearts, seeds taking root inside, overcoming everything else, till they blossom and burn. We are what we lived through, Qrow.”

“Have you become a poet, my dear sister? Will you sing me a pretty song?” – Qrow burst out laughing. – “Seriously, what do you want?” 

The contradictory nature of her sister’s tendency to trail off into metaphors and the way it clashed with her stoicism was still endearing to him.

“Just delivering a warning to someone I care about. When things get confusing, those lines in the sand? They blur. Please follow your advice and stay away when they do. I will do what I think is right—whatever your opinion or stance on it might be.”

The fire flashed in her eyes, powerful enough to melt the sea into ash.

“Besides you’re the one who asked for this, so here I am.”

Qrow nodded.

Despite all the melancholy and the shared memories, Raven had stayed true to her convictions. He stood still, his gaze locked with hers. He wasn’t going to get all confrontational with his sister now.

The meeting concluded, Raven then unsheathed her sword. 

“No matter how much we obsess over the past and everything with Ozpin, things here have long since gone beyond his ancient conflicts and lies,” – Raven swung her sword, opening a portal. – “Maybe he couldn’t see it or, maybe, saw it too late. For all I know it had been all part of his twisted game. And as always, while he plots his schemes, everyone else has to deal with it. It's always us who have to pick up the pieces and clean up his mess.”

“So, what now?”

“You know well what.” – Raven responded, her back turned to him. – “I’ll do what I believe is right. What about you? What do you plan to do, Qrow?” 

“People keep asking us that, again and again, like a record endlessly looping. It’s annoying, you know?”

He stashed his hands in his pocked. Even if his heart got worn down by reality and years, he was still the same sarcastic yet confrontational man.

Qrow smiled.

“You know me! I’ll try to deal with my problem, that’s what.”

“Oh, do enlighten me. Which one? You have so many I gave up counting long before you started drinking.” 

“Please. You know which one.” – He whistled. – “A trip to make, down the memory lane.”

Raven didn’t reply. She didn’t have to really. Everything that could have been said, already had been. There was nothing he could do to change this and neither could she.

Qrow slumbed down back onto the crate.

Raven left without another single word said between them. Alone, he finally dropped the facade.

Qrow’s blood boiled. He did not know what to do. He and Raven had been be on different paths for so long, yet she was still his sister. He loved her dearly and he understood why she had chosen to do this. And with just a few different choices, their positions could have switched back then. 

“Show them gods and deities,”

– Qrow whistled.

He turned his gaze towards the sea again as Raven disappeared into that red wretched portal. He never liked those things, even before discovering what they were.

After? Even more so.

That knowledge forced him to ask questions about his old friend that he never wanted to. 

Still, he had no choice.

He had to trust what Ozpin told him. The steps he had to take. The intricate game at play that Qrow could not comprehend. But after? He did not know what he was going to do after that.

The choice he was about to make could doom the last few people he had cared about. And no matter what he decided to do, that would still be true.

Every second he stood still, time eroded something precious, forever.

Qrow had to do something, anything. 

He took out Ozpin’s cane from the case that lay on the crate. He knew well what it had in common with Raven’s sword and his scythe, the kind of narrative Ozpin had weaved for it.

The secret, hidden from the world, the tapestry of repetition woven by all the lies—the truth behind it all, the meaning behind the conflict, behind Dust.

“Well, Oz, old buddy, I hope, luck willing, this works,” – His expression soured as reality set in. – “Damn it, I am so screwed.” 

January 8th, 797 E. A
Patch Island, Kingdom of Vale Territory

Disgusting Mask.

A moment of disbelief.

Smell of burning flesh.

PAIN. NO. STOP.

She’s falling through the void.

Her heart is pounding, beating faster and faster.

A hand is reaching for her neck.

Yang gasped, jolting awake, screaming.

Trembling she grasped at her neck to pull away that—.

She froze mid-motion.

She was back in her bed.

The snowstorm raged outside, the wind and tree branches smashing at her window. A faint light from the lantern illuminated the room, giving it an abstract shape as if someone scribbled vague lines on a crumpled sheet of paper.

“It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream.” – Yang repeated to herself, like a mantra. Hearing her voice would help her calm down, as if reasserting reality around her.

This was her reality for a few weeks now. A thought flashed in her mind—did Ruby feel this way all those years ago as night terrors tormented her?

Yang sat up, after a few tries. Even the most basic actions—like getting up from her bed—would remind her of what happened, frustrate her, make her feel like a useless wreck.

The room was clearer now as the nightmare subsided and her eyes adjusted to the ambiance. Instead of a vague shape of nothingness, she could make out details now. Just like that her mind filled the empty square with a semblance of identity.

A semi torn curtain. When she first got out of bed a few weeks back, she almost fell over, grabbing onto it, the fabric tearing. She asked her dad to leave it there. She needed that reminder, that fury, to get better.

He’d glance at it whenever he’d enter her room.

Her bedside desk and a pile of books.

She wouldn’t admit it to others, but after she lost her arm, she has only slept soundly once. It was like a part of her brain had shut off, her mind unlearning how to sleep. She would go to bed in the evening, turn off the lights, and lay there as if waiting for the end. Then, either nightmares would come or insomnia would visit. In the morning, she would feign being asleep and get up as if nothing. She knew this couldn’t go on. She could tolerate only so many nights lying in the dark, wide awake.

So she took up reading.

She used to read back in the day, to her sister. Fairy tales. She hasn’t touched a book in a while as her life got consumed by that raging storm she had called her life. She’d chase leads, get into fights, and throw jokes to shield herself as she’d get by for one more day.

If she had just kept doing that, she wouldn’t need to look back and realize how empty her life had been.

Lots of good that did.

The books here weren’t hers. They had been among the things from the dorms, alongside Blake’s belongings—primarily fictional stories, poetry, folk stuff—that kind of stuff.

Taiyang and Qrow couldn’t differentiate between what belongeds to who in the team RWBY dorm room. They just grabbed everything they could.

A bunch of posters still plastered the walls, belonging to Ruby. Dad had hung them in her room, to make it more lively.

Little did he know it only had made it worse.

In another box in the corner lay a stone bust Weiss had bought from the tournament fair. Ruby would burst out laughing the moment she’d see it and that would lead to Weiss launching herself onto a tirade about how it had been some valuable piece of art and using all those weird words to praise its unique features. Once Weiss refused to speak to Blake for a week after she had called it an abomination.

She shriveled upon herself, sighing.

Yang had left crates untouched for weeks, up until the day she would finally give up hope they’d come back.

Now? Every night, to escape the ghosts taunting her, Yang turned to those books. Some of those Blake would read in the dorm. Some of them she never took out. Sometimes they were corny, sometimes they were profound, sometimes they were boring, and some—should she just burn those?

She rolled her eyes. She should probably burn a few of those. Blake would have never admitted to have owned them anyway.

With some books Yang would struggle through a few chapters before giving up. Yet sometimes, she would consume an entire book overnight.

Either way time still flew by, giving a moment of comfort to her. Yang liked to imagine them still living in the dorms and that she just borrowed Blake’s books, planning to tease her about the weird stuff she read.

There was a sense of voyeur satisfaction to all of this.

After all, if your friends were to object to you going through their stuff, they should be there to do that. Oh, they aren’t?! Too damn bad for them, then.

It would have been fair to rummage through everything then if they didn’t need it.

She slapped her forehead.

This now was the life of one Yang Xiao Long, a hot-headed warrior, devoted sister, and a noted party beast, the revered and feared huntsman in training, the menace of Patch.

Weary and still reeling from the nightmare, she grabbed the book closest to her. It had been the one she started last night. Right now it had become a single item in this room, containing her hope of driving away the terrors that gnawed at her once she would close her eyes.

It was a heavy book. Not physically, though. The book itself felt light, especially compared to the Huntsman Compendium tomes at Beacon.

Heavy, in a metaphorical sense.

It was a story about an aspiring musician who, chasing his dreams, traveled to another continent but would get scammed and lose all his money. Through the book the musician wrote back home, asking for help, but would receive no answer. Fed up and loathing his family, he would end up taking every job he could find, eventually crossing every line. After a few months, the musician would save enough money for a boat ride and more. The musician would come home, his pockets lined with gold, ready to boast to his family that in his eyes had abandoned him. Yet arriving home, he would find out that a war had broken out in his kingdom. His town was no more. Flames have devoured his village whole—buildings, people and everything.

Currently Yang had reached the part where he would the loss of everyone he knew, regretting having left in the first place, as fire and war consumed the familiar landscape around him.

Heavy book.

Serves the idiot right.

The themes might not have helped her mood, but she found comfort in this sense of control over the character’s life. Being able to reread earlier parts, as if moving forward and backward in time.

You can’t do that in real life, can you?. You can’t go back to the pages where the protagonist hasn’t even left the village in question. You are stuck here, useless and alone. A burden to them all. You are just an afterthought, Yang.

She flipped through the pages.

“I lament my murdered dreams, my lost light and the coming of the dark” – Yang read out-loud the line that had especially felt like a stab in her heart. – “Take back all the coins in my pocked, but bring them back, please.”

She shut the book with a smack.

“I guess it’s not the book I should have tried to get through now.” – She gripped her forehead, headache tearing through it. – “Stupid book.”

Rap, tap, tap.

Yang froze, chill running through her spin

A sound broke through the howling wind outside.

Something or someone kept tapping on Yang’s window from outside again. The same sound every day, for days.

A Mask, nausea, the burning flesh.

Rap, Tap, Tap.

Yang attempted to push those thoughts away again, but the sound beneath her window lattice kept interrupting her. She would reassure herself that it was just wind. Or maybe some weary traveler dumb enough to travel during a winter storm.

“Hey!” – She tried to shout, her voice shaking. – “Is there anyone out there?”

She clutched the bedsheets. If there had been anyone malicious out there, whether it be beast or man, this would have been a massive mistake.

Unless her dad had returned early, Yang had been alone in her home, all alone. And through the storm it would be a while before anyone would notice an attack.

Could she fight? Could she do it like back then?

She tasted metal on her tongue, as her head spun.

“Seriously, who would be dumb enough to wander around at night in the middle of a winter.” – Yang cracked a smile. – “Let alone knock on someone’s window like this?”

Maybe her dear sister had decided to crawl back?

Her smile vanished.

“Who am I kidding. Plenty of stupid people out there.”

Her mind wandered back to the day she woke without her arm and found out what had happened. Weiss, visiting and leaving. Blake, having vanished without a word. The moment Yang screamed at Ruby with all her might, unloading every thought, every emotion bottled up inside.

That moment when she found out Ruby had left them.

Tap. Rap, tap, tap. Tap. Tap, tap.

Seriously. Enough of this!

She had to do something about this, even if it would turn out to be a huge mistake.

Her head rang, room growing blurry once again. She could feel something—her aura, her semblance—flaring up and down.

Yang stumbled towards the window, building up courage as she stumbled towards window, legs shaking.

What a proud and powerful Huntress you are, Yang.

“Hey! Whoever out there, this is private property. Not a bar, not a hotel,” – Yang screamed at the window glass, her heart hammering. – “If you are lost, please follow the road to the nearby guard post for directions. Otherwise, don’t bother people here, or you’ll be sorry!”

Silence, once again.

She longed to peek through the window outside but to no avail. The window glass, painted shut in black by the night, separated her from the eerie winds outside.

Semi-content with the silence, Yang spun around, about to go back to the dreadful book within the confines of the lantern and her bed when—

“...a…V...d..”

She froze.

Blood ran cold through her spine as if millions of ants coursed through her limbs. Was that a human voice? A monster? Her imagination?

She lunged back to the the window, opening it.

“Ruby? Weiss?” – She swallowed. – “B-Blake? Is that you?”

Cold winter wind poured into the room.

There was nobody outside in the darkness, the snowstorm howling at her.

Just some wind and nothing more. 

Yang hugged herself, staring into the pitch black darkness on the other side. An abyss, an ocean of nothingness, snowflakes swirling through it.

Soon, as her eyes adjusted, she noticed it.

A lone raven held on to a tree branch in front of her window, swinging in the wind. The bird, unbothered by the storm, turned her head, questioning the noise coming from Yang’s mouth.

All the thoughts or hopes she had just crashed into that storm. Did she seriously entertain that idea?

Are you an idiot, Yang? Why would they ever come back? Don’t you know how this goes?They leave and never come back.

They’d never come back. She should have known this already. Always.

The cold wind, like a knife cutting through her heart—her memories pierced right through her.

She stumbled back, barely holding on to a cardboard box, legs shaking, as she tried to to close the window.

Just as she had worked up the strength to lift her hand to the window, the raven flew inside, landing on top of the bookshelf. It sat there, silent, turning her head, high-pitched cawing ringing in Yang’s ears.

“Well, well, well,” – Yang tried to crack a joke as if to recover, to push down the lump stuck in her throat. – “You certainly are an ominous visitor, birdie. I don’t suppose you have a name?”

Silence. Wind howling.

The bird gazed upon her, its eyes dark as the abyss.

Yang’s heart beat faster and faster. A feeling washed over her. A premonition of inviting something dangerous and otherworldly to her room. An invitation she did not have any power to rescind. Her mind wandered to the day Team RWBY first fought a Nevermore, but she quickly chased away those thoughts, realizing that she needed to get the bird out and close the window again, or she would freeze.

“Well, if I’m good at something, it’s to drive things away anyway.” – Yang waved her hand. – Shoo shoo, go back outside, birdie. Fly back outside.”

The bird gazed at her, its eyes dark as the abyss.

For a split second, the vision warped, the construct in front of her expressing emotion, the head tilting to the side as if its neck had been broken, the beak unnaturally bending, defying its owner’s anatomy itself.

The bird smiled at her, its eyes dark as the abyss.

Her head spun as Yang stumbled to the ground, averting her eyes.

Gasping for breath, she tried to wrap her mind around what she had seen. Finally after gathering composure she looked back at the bookshelf.

The top of it now stood empty. She lost sight of the damn bird.

Yang stumbled back to her feet

“Yang.”

A familiar yet also so distant voice rang behind her.

A sound of a window being closed.

Yang spun around toward the sound.

“We need to talk.” – said the woman with dark curly hair and a weird mask in her hand, her eyes fixated on Yang.

She knew her. She was here. Why was she here?

“Raven.” – Yang said. – “You? Talk? About what?”

How laughable. Is this one of your pitiful dreams, Yang? Talk about wish fulfillment.

“About what happened at Beacon.” – Raven’s eyes pierced right through her, eventually fixating on her arm. – “About me. About you. About everything.”

“You must be joking.” – Yang’s head pounded. – “Now? Why Now? After all this time, after all the conflicting messages? Now?!”

“Not my fault that things keep changing.” – Her mother scanned the room. – “And whether either of us likes it or not, you need to know the truth.”

“Okay! Whatever! Fine. Fine!” – Yang caught herself shouting, voice erupting loudly from her like a volcano, reverberating through an empty house amidst the storm. – “Talk!”

January 8th, 797 E.A
Wilderness near the coast of Anima, Kingdom of Mistral Territory

Ruby’s cloak felt heavier, the crimson shade weighing her down. 

Red.

The slowed she had been the more would die!

She gritted her teeth. Ruby was moving as fast as she could, although never fast enough. 

"R...by...wh…"

The scroll came to life, crackling. Ruby still could not get used to how messy and confusing the scrolls were now. Unless you were close to a Relay Station, more than often, you would only hear static. And even when in range of a Relay Station, the signal, for reasons unknown to Ruby, would sometimes come out gibberish, warped by something in the air.

In this case that benefited her.

She didn't want Nora and Ren grilling her for rushing ahead right now. She had sprinted away in the middle of an argument.

Why did she do that? The moment that disaster signal echoed through the short-range communications—the moment they saw fire lighting up the sky in the distance—she bolted forward past them.

An instinctual decision made in the heat of the moment. After all, wasn’t this what a Huntress should do? Help people? And help them as soon as possible, without waiting around and discussing things and having annoying arguments as they did till it's too late and—

She didn't want to think about what would happen. She wouldn’t let it happen again. If it meant blitzing through the woods mid-sentence, so be it.

As the village came into view, Ruby caught herself feeling disappointed.

Just five or six houses surrounded by shoddily made wooden walls and a stone tower in the middle, likely where villagers would store water and food as well as hide in case of a bandit or Grimm attacks. She read somewhere about towers like that and how they were everywhere before the Huntsman Academies became commonplace—both as a warning system and a place to hide.

Rightfully, even now, all of the townspeople have gathered together near the stone tower, whatever resembling a weapon they could grab in their hands. 

The fact that people would live there, out in the wilds, beyond the safety of the Kingdoms’ main cities baffled her. Lives left to fend for themselves. Even if the huntsmen were constantly wandering through the continents, following their calling to clean the lands, it was still a horrifying thought.

She slowed down, dragging her feet, hiding Crimson Rose on her belt beneath her cloak.

”Hello there, good people.” – Ruby attempted to be as polite and as calm as she could manage to be. – “Everything is going to be okay. I am a licensed huntress. Could you please tell me the situation so I can help?”

She raised her hands, keeping them away from her weapon.

Of course, she had no license. She hadn’t even graduated yet.

Thanks to Cinder.

But they did not need to know that. Among the usual training at Beacon were the courses on negotiation and dispute deescalation, as the last thing a huntress would want is to have to fight terrified people she was to protect. 

One of the villagers turned his head. It was a balding man in a torn linen vest. He held an empty bucket. Ruby was about to ask if they planned to defend against Grimm with a bucket.

Her gaze then wandered to one of the houses that wasn't a house anymore. A smoldering pile of wood and ash, likely having burned down, probably in the chaos of Grimm's onslaught.

The townsfolk likely just finished putting out the fire, with the older man holding the only means. From how he held himself as the others gathered around him, Ruby assumed him to be the village Elder. 

The man stepped forward, spitting on the ground, right by her feet

"Oh, High and Mighty Huntsman, what does our village owe to make you grace us with your presence after all this time?" 

Ignoring the flippant tone, she let the sarcasm slide and attempted again.

"It's okay, I am here to help now. Please tell me what happened so we can figure this out."

As she spoke, she observed the villagers' faces. Sisappointment, fear, anger, confusion, sadness. These were scared, weary people, worn down by their everyday lives and fear of the unknown. Ruby never experienced the life they led, but she could imagine something like this hadn’t been uncommon in whatever villages that remained further away from the Kingdom walls. 

“You are too late. It took two today, Gris and her child, both, we couldn't even get to her as she screamed, and then the house went up in flames.” – The man frowned. – “You Kingdoms folk and your bureaucracy are faster at handing out death certificates than sending actual help.” 

“Yes, you are all the same.” – Shouted a woman from the crowd, encouraged by the elder's voice. – “Leaving us to die while you flaunt your fame and riches in big cities”

Those words shook her to her core.

This wasn't how it should go.

Her body trembled as she struggled to find the right words to rebuke what had been said.

“It's not true. Huntsmen and Huntresses are there to protect you. We care. Not all might, but protecting people is our primary code. I am here now. Please tell me how I can help?”

Laughter.

That stung even more, something she couldn’t even argue or defend against.

The villagers erupted in a screech of accusations as paranoia and fear drove their words, each talking over the others. The incoherent, almost inhuman, melding of voices made Ruby's head spin.

She just wanted it to stop.

“I didn't abandon anyone. I would never do it. I only need information. Any information. Any clues about the nature of the threat? Please, please talk to me, we don't have much time. The last thing needed is more panic.”

But with every word, nothing changed. More screams, more laughter and accusations thrown her way.

Should I disappear? Shrink and vanish into the ground so I wouldn't have to listen to this or be here?

No use. The voices only grew louder, intermixed with cries and whimpering.

She had only spent a day on Anima and yet Ruby had already found herself thrown into a world different from the one she had lived all entire life in.

She ran forward, rushing again, crashing against something so utterly alien to her.

She couldn't bear it any longer. Screams rang like a discordant noise. Walls closed in, the air grew heavy, and her blood howled, trying to to escape out of her veins. She wished to find any way to make it a stop. 

This wasn’t what a huntsman usually did.

She shouldn’t do this.

She shouldn’t say this.

She should stop.

Red.

“OKAY. I won't stand and be accused of things I never did! If you are not going to help me, I'll look for it myself.” – She shouted, her scythe transforming in her hands. – “Just DON'T get in my way!” She followed the threat with a burst of semblance, flying up onto the rooftop of one of the nearby houses, its roof cracking under her boots, Crimson Rose transformed into the scythe, it’s blade smashing against the straw the roof had been made of.

Gasps. Shock. Screams.

From up high, as she observed them, she knew. They weren't going to help her in any way. It's obvious why. Back then, during the fall of Beacon, Vale was painted over by burning houses and torn-apart market stalls. People were running for their lives. Back then, Huntsmen and soldiers meant safety to people there. Even as her world crumbled, Ruby could attempt to make a difference. 

These people here? They would be as likely to run away from huntsmen and soldiers as they were from the Grimm or the White Fang.

Fear.

To these people, the concept of a Huntsman seemed as alien and as terrifying as the Creatures of Grimm themselves. A powerful being capable of causing great harm if one were to stand in its way. An outside force with no regard for their well-being that sometimes would pass by. Not a disappointment that the huntsmen stopped doing something, no. Huntsmen and Huntresses always never were anything else to them. These people would be born, live, and die with that thought in their heads, probably reinforced by every Huntsman and Huntress they ever met. 

For them there was no difference between a creature of Grimm, a huntress, or a white fang member.

This had never crossed her mind before, the idea of the power someone like her would wield. She had always seen Huntsmen as force of benevolent good. The scope of what would happen if it was in the wrong hands? She never even thought of that. In hindsight, she should have, considering people like that petty criminal with his cane differed little from Huntsmen in terms of their skill set. 

This new thought, worming into her brain, scared her more than any Grimm ever did. She did her best to get it out of her mind, put it away, and lock it away in a dark corner of her soul.

Ruby’s eyes darted around as she held her breath, looking for the threat.

If what villagers managed to say, along with all the accusations, was true —a woman and her child got ambushed in a house, now smoldering pile of ash and wood—that would mean a creature of Grimm hiding somewhere.

The fact that the village chief still held an empty water bucket and the ruins still emitted smoke meant one thing, the tragedy just happened. It was not something old that had happened earlier in the day. The terrified villagers just experienced that.

Which meant Ruby was once again too late to save someone.

The house fire itself made little sense. She couldn’t think of a type of Grimm that would hunt via burning its victims this way. But, more importantly for now whatever killed them had to be nearby and needed to be stopped. 

Her eyes scanned through the nearby houses.

Nothing.

Her sight fixated on a dark shadow up the top of the tower villagers had gathered nearby. 

A shadow? 

She squinted. That was not a shadow. Shadows wouldn’t move that way. 

This one shifted, shimmered. A blindspot at the edge of the eyesight.

Ruby stared at it, till eventually it’s features became clearer somehow.

An improbably long dark hand latched onto the top of the tower, keeping the thing secure and safe. Dark robes, or something resembling robes—they seemed to grow right out of the creature’s neck—covered a grotesque emptiness. At the top where the head should be it had donned a mask reminiscent of a human skull or, maybe, a snake.

Or a human skull with a snake tongue. Something, hidden by the shadows clinging to it. 

As she locked her gaze onto it, the thing shifted slightly, its motions making it look out of place with the world around it, like an out-of-focus camera lens chasing a moving shadow. The twisted presence turned its head in a way no human could have and emitted a low-pitched screech.

As if somehow it had been alerted to her gaze.

The shriek reverberated through her. A worm slowly burrowing inside her skull, gnawing at her brain, like guilt or a misplaced thought or a misunderstanding causing a rift the size of a bottomless abyss. Like the sense of something stolen, something one would fight to take back no matter what. 

"A Wraith." – She said, hoping for the words to break the hold that vision had on her.

Desperation.

The warped shadow of its form seared in her brain, the very image making her stomach heave.

The world turned inside out, painting everything red and green.

Ruby wanted to vomit.

She heard of creatures of Grimm like that back at Beacon. They were rare enough in Vale. A Wraith was an Instigator type, a creature of Grimm whose sole purpose was to elicit and feed on negative emotions. Some Instigator types would instill fear, some panic, some paranoia. Some would do it through sight, and some—through smell or sound.

Cogitwhatevers or something, as teachers called them.

A Wraith would emit low-pitched sounds and instill paranoia and terror in people. This one likely intended to play around with the village for weeks, picking them off, one by one, and feasting on the resulting panic.

They wouldn’t have anything fire-related, though, as they’d avoid confrontations altogether.

An Instigator type was, usually, weak. Even the villagers, had they banded together, could have killed one.

The issue lay in its ability to hide and avoid detection.

Instigator types instinctively avoided confrontation and hid themselves from human sight. By the time it would make itself known to the remaining survivors, the place would be crawling with Grimm already, attracted by its effect.

It had been a miracle she could even detect this one, but that didn't matter right now.

The screams of the villagers, the emptiness inside, the red drowning her every waking hour. She had found something to blame.

Blood boiling in her veins, rushing to her head, she shot up towards it, rose petals falling behind her. 

Good and Evil held no meaning here. Anger and desperation drove this confrontation.

True hatred for this sadistic parasite of a creature coursed through her. What kind of sick, twisted force could think up something like this? There had been enough suffering and death in the world as is, and here it was—this weak, sniveling, pathetic creature doing something Ruby could only describe as savoring the moment, drinking in the suffering of others.

Even if it was logical, even if it had been evolution, one single thought looped in her brain.

Why should I accept this? 

The creature, surprised by her rush, reacted far too late and barely had time to fight back or run. 

A swing and then another one. 

Again and again. Yelling followed those motions. Who was the person screaming?

Realization washed over that it was her who was screaming as loud as she could. 

Ruby gritted her teeth as she hacked away with the scythe.

Even as the Wraith, its long, veiny, black arm holding onto the stone—severed from its body, the tendrils of the dark mass slithering through the cut—fell from the tower to the ground below, the scythe still swung over and over again.

She howled, flying after its falling carcass. 

Red.

Red.

Red!

The same motion, again and again, till it dissolved into nothingness.

But she did not stop, hacking away at the ground below her, screaming till her throat hurt, till she could recognize the creature was gone and convince herself that it wouldn't hurt anyone anymore. 

This isn't how I should fight! This isn’t a huntress!

Her sister was the one usually getting into brawls because of her temper. She shouldn't use her weapon, Crescent Rose, this way. It was not a hammer or a pair of gauntlets. 

She stared at the ground.

Below her lay an empty void eating away at the colors of her world. No matter how much she’d grasp at them as they, like ink, would slip through her fingers.

Nothing I did mattered. Nothing that I am doing matters. Nothing I do will matter.

She was drowning, pulled downwards by the weight of her weapon, which, too, one day, would chip and fall apart.

She felt alive.

Her eyes locked onto the villagers. They were staring at her weapon. The silence lasted for what might have been forever or maybe a few seconds. Then they screamed, falling over themselves backward, running inside the tower, and locking up the doors behind them. 

This wasn't how I'd usually save people.

Were they scared of the Grimm, the terrifying sounds in the night? Or was it her? She couldn't tell.

Hissing closed in on the village from all sides, the branches cracking as something rushed through the forest towards them, towards her, from beyond the falling apart wooden palisade walls.

The night's terror finally attracted the other things roaming the area, slithering through the ground. 

She did not know how many there were. Judging by how deafening the hissing had been, at least ten, maybe more.

These weren't Beowulves. They wouldn’t hiss. Possibly some of the serpentine ones, considering they had been close to the coast. 

Scroll in her hands came to life with a scratching nose.

Ruby shivered, the Wraith's growl still rang in her ears, mixed with the discordant melody of human anger thrown at her like a dagger. 

She gazed at the device.

"Guys," – She said, sending the message to others, as calm and collected as she could force herself to be. – “You might have to hurry up”

As the answer crackled through the scroll, She positioned herself between the sound and the tower door and waited.

The night was just beginning.