Archive of Our Own ^beta

Maria had never really been the type of person to regret her decisions, not really, and she certainly hadn’t regretted any of the choices she’d made in the last week, but she was thinking about them now. In the midst of a long flight to Atlas there wasn’t much else to do. The kids were getting some much needed sleep, all of them, despite some valiant efforts to stay awake. Even Qrow had slipped off in the seat next to her, though she was sure even the slightest twitch of the ship would wake that poor man up. They were all piled up and looking so much younger than they had facing down manticores and sphynxes or apathy or a mech or a gods damned leviathan. They more than deserved their rest, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have a few hours.  

Still, without anyone to talk to, all she could do was think. 

She didn’t regret staying on the more dangerous part of the train, not when she’d been so curious. Even with her new eyes obscuring colours, there was something in the shine of that young huntress’ eyes, something she’d once seen so often in the mirror. Silver eyed warriors were so rare, she’d often wondered if she was the last one, she couldn’t just walk away and be separated from her. Something in her gut, something formed from years of being a huntress that had never faded, told her she had to stick around. So she had. 

Even if it meant a cold trek in the snow, even if it meant world shattering revelations at the hands of a glowing blue woman, and gods if Salem didn’t make everything make sense. Even if it meant dealing with emotional kids, and stumbling into a horror house of Apathy grimm, she knew it had been the right decision. 

There was something painful about discovering a legacy she’d never intended to leave, a young huntsman determined to be like the stories he’d heard of her, and a silver eyed niece who’d wanted to be like him. It was like the gods were laughing at them, though of course the gods weren’t watching anymore. What a strange and unnerving thought that was. That the gods were real and not just a turn of phrase, and that they had left this world to it’s own devices, until such a time as a judgement day. A judgement day an immortal witch was trying to bring. The immortal witch who’d sent those assassins after her eyes and forced her into retirement.  

Still, she hadn’t exactly regretted going into hiding.  

It had been the right choice at the time. Healing from her wounds while constantly moving, just in case they were still after her, making the Grimm Reaper vanish and just becoming Maria, it had kept her alive. The assassin had made it clear ripping out her eyes wasn’t enough, they wanted her dead, and so she’d made sure the Grimm Reaper died. Going to ground, living the quiet life, it hadn’t been the life she’d envisioned for herself, but it had kept her and those around her free from those forces in the shadows set to snuff her out. Still, the more time she spent with Ruby and her friends, the more she wondered if there was more she could have done. 

More as a huntress, more as a teacher. For Remnant, she could have aided a new generation of huntsmen, or even just gone town to town teaching people how to defend from grimm, at least once she’d recovered enough to manage. She'd thought the risk too great, but could she have helped people then? Clearly there were other silver eyed warriors out there, and it seemed they had less information than she did, at least in Ruby’s case. And her mother, from what little she’d picked up, the few that remained without the information that could keep them alive. What if she could have helped some of them, passed on what she knew, the things her father had taught her. Given them either better control of their abilities or more understanding of why to hide them. 

The girl had no fear of being hunted. 

Or at least, she wasn’t letting that fear stop her. From the day she’d been discovered she’d been hunted, but she stood against the Leviathan anyway, simply because it was right, because all those lives were on the line. A true huntress, a true silver eyed warrior. She wondered what her father would say about Ruby, brave but reckless most likely, but there was a part of Maria that wondered if she’d ever truly been that brave.  

She'd been taught how to use her eyes young, an advantage Ruby had never had, and it had made her confident. Beyond being a skilled fighter with a honed semblance, she could take out any grimm that breached her defences, a secret weapon, one she probably wouldn’t ever have risked using to publicly. That confidence had cost Maria her eyes in the end. Ruby was different, she had confidence and strength, but not from her eyes, from her experience. Her eyes were the unknown, unreliable, a last resort, but she was using them because they had no other choice and because Maria had told her how. She wasn’t brave because she had a secret weapon in her pocket, she was brave because she was brave. 

She had stood upon that lancer and said to the world, to Salem, ‘Come and get me’ because she could not hide away and let others suffer. 

Like she had. 

Even without her eyes she’d had her semblance, her training, she could have continued as a huntress, kept helping people, like Yang clearly had. Could have just kept going like Qrow. Something in that family, huh. Every single one of those kids had looked at the worst of the world and chosen to keep fighting, chosen to keep helping, no matter how hard things got, even when they got her. Instead, she’d fled, hidden, made herself vanish. The Grimm Reaper had become stories and Maria had slipped away. 

The empty ocean passed below them, spanning to the horizon in all directions, bathed in broken moonlight.  

How many lives could she had saved if she’d just been a little bit braver?