Mit Livs Eventyr [RWBY]

The obvious answer is the woman that already initiated conversation with you. Voluntarily, even. She may be with someone else she clearly knows already, but it's a better 'in' than you'll have with anyone else. She seems approachable enough anyway. You finish off your sixth glass of water and cross the common room. The two of them notice you coming halfway and turn to meet you - good, that's a good sign.

The girl on the left is clearly several years younger than everyone else on the airship, and close to a foot shorter than the woman beside her. Even if she's got some growing left to do, you doubt it'll take her far. You get a few glimpses of what she's wearing - mostly a lot of black, a knee-length-or-so skirt and rugged boots - but overall she just seems to vanish inside the folds of her cloak. Ankle-length and the richest scarlet you've ever seen, redder than fresh blood.

A milk-pale face peers out at you from within the hood, framed by black hair. There's a subtle cant to her eyes, a little like the golden-haired woman's but not entirely. The irises themselves are the colour of dying leaves clinging to the branch by withered stalks, only days from falling for good. Her stare is... disconcerting. She seems to see through you. Past you. As if she can stare deep enough into the hollow beneath your stolen skin that she can see the Snow Queen's ice where your heart should be.

"Hey Vomit Boy!" she says cheerily.

"I- what?" you reply.

"Ruby," the horned woman chides her gently. "He had a bigger night than he could handle, it happens."

"A-ah. Yeah. Yes. Was uh," you clear your throat, "was pretty nervous about this. Big day. Starting a lot of new things. Ooooverestimated how easy it'd be to get up in the morning." Lies are easiest when they're technically true, Jaune and the detective seem to agree in the back of your mind.

You pause. Wait. Neither gives you a reply. Quick. Say something else. Make conversation. Think think wait what did the Groom say about confidence? That's it! Torchwick clearly exuded it, the golden-haired woman glows with it, Jaune clearly longed for it given how he seems to twinge in the back of your mind. Go for it!

"The name's Jaune Arc. Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue, ladies love it," you say suavely.

The horned woman quirks one eyebrow up an inch. "Do they?"

You purse your lips. You did not plan for this response. "(I don't know, that was my first time trying)," you reply. Again also true. She snorts and playfully smacks your shoulder. It feels like being winged by a warhammer.

Maybe they're not outright suspicious of you yet but this is going very poorly unless you can draw attention elsewhere. More conversation. Quick.

"Uh, sooo," you say, turning to face the softer target. "Ruby, right? You seem uh, kind of young to be here, don't you?"

"Yep!" she answers readily. "But I got a scholarship 'cause of that Grimm I killed."

"... beg pardon?"

"Well this was earlier this year when I was still living with Dad and Yang had already moved to Vale - I mean back from Vale we only moved to the country like five or six years ago doesn't matter - so point is I was home alone with Dad and I was getting suuuuper bored because nothing happens out in the country that's kinda the point when y'know you've not got a lot of people around and Beacon blocking like 99% of Grimm getting into the valley and anyway Dad was kinda worried about Grandma - his mum not one of our mums' mums - 'cause he heard she was getting sick but he couldn't really just up and leave to see her 'cause it's a really long trip and he's the Huntsman in town even if he is kinda sorta semi-retired-"

You just kind of marvel at her. Has she breathed? You glance at the golden-haired woman -Yang you surmise- and she meets your gaze with a look of long-suffering solidarity. You look back at Ruby.

"-so I begged and begged and beeeeeeegged to just go myself and he was getting all protective about it and I was all 'dad it's not that far I'll just stay the night it's a weekend tops' and he was all 'you're just a young girl you can't go that far alone' and I was like 'excuse you I am fourteen I can make my own decisions and besides my Semblance makes me super fast' and he was like 'I still forbid you' so I went out anyway of course 'cause it's just my grandma so I went over with some food and stuff for her but when I got there it was all dark and she didn't have any lights on and she sounded weird and looked weird."

Yes, yes that does sound familiar. You've consumed the likes of them before. They lurk at the edges of the forest, able to walk on their hind legs and mimic speech just well enough to lure unattended prey off the path and to their dooms. Some of the more crafty ones are known to dress in the clothes of previous victims to better fool friends and relatives.

"And then what happened?" you ask. You feel the urge to instantly leap in and finish her own story for her - you've already consumed the likes of the Grimm she encountered - but you refrain. The detective tells you that the best way to get information from someone is to just let them talk.

"Turned out a buhh... buh- whatsitsname," Ruby snaps her fingers a few times. "Yang help me?"

"Biiiiggggg...?"

"A buuhhhhh begins with a beeeeee..."

"Baaaald...."

Okay this is getting painful. "Bösenwulf?" you prompt her.

"That's the one!" Ruby exclaims. "Yeah a Bösenwulf ate her three days ago, tricked the other townspeople into thinking 'she' was just sick to lure me in." She leans in and lowers her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Sometimes monsters can be nearby, just waiting to pounce, when you leeeeeast expect it."

You aren't quite sure how you should react to that, for several reasons. When in doubt, tap into Jaune's anxiety. "That... so?" you reply with what you hope is the appropriate amount of hesitation.

"Sometimes... they could be riiiiight in front of you," she murmurs, staring a hole in your head, autumn-coloured eyes like amber lanterns.

... there's no way she-

"Dressed like sheep!" she finishes at normal volume, making you jump.

"Iiiii don't think Bösenwulves have ever dressed up like sheep," you say uncertainly, head half-turned to Yang in a silent plea for help even as you hold eye-contact with Ruby.

"One must've at one point! Otherwise why do we say 'wolves in sheep's clothing'?" Ruby retorts proudly. "Boom. Fact."

"Uh... then what happened?" you ask. "You were trapped in a tight space with it, how'd you kill it?"

"With this!"

Ruby retrieves something from the small of her back, hidden beneath her voluminous cloak. It unfolds with a whirring, clacking, ratcheting, snapping and magnetic hum. A bright red scythe practically as long as she is tall, the silver blade gleaming over her head like a crescent moon.

"(And here comes the scythe)," Yang mutters.

"I call it Crescent Rose 'cause anyone could tell you a decent weapon needs a decent name!" She launches straight into a fresh tirade with unearthly vigour. "See here here and here it snaps together on these joints and the scythe-blade can fold back too if I wanna use it more like a spear kinda thing and all along the shaft here there's a barrel and here's where the magazine goes."

You blink. You've... heard of the elaborate magical weapons of Hunters, as far as you can say you 'heard' anything by devouring your fellow Grimm. But to see one in the flesh, close enough to touch, is a strange combination of disquieting and exhilarating. You can smell the metallic tang of magnet-aspect Dust holding the disparate pieces together and powering the transition between forms. Come to think of it, you can smell Yang's weapons too. You give her a second glance - ah, there they are. Golden bracelets around her wrists, but she seems to be storing secondary components elsewhere. Interesting. You turn your full attention back to Ruby.

"Oh, you made it yourself?" you ask.

"Yeah! I mean not myself-myself, Uncle Qrow helped me out a lot in his letters. Kinda the most I've talked to him in a long time. But I heard every proper Huntress has to make her own weapon!" She pauses. "Why, didn't you make yours?"

"O-oh I uh..." Lie, you need a believable lie- do you even need to lie? You rifle rapidly through drawers full of Jaune's useless memories in the back of your head and find a half-fogged snippet of recollection, a wall covered in the well-maintained ancestral weapons of past Arcs. "No. No I picked up one of the older family ones. But they were all kept in working order!"

"What's it do?" Ruby asks innocently.

Shit you did not plan for a follow-up. Fake it, fake it, if there's one thing being inundated in his memories has taught you it's that Jaune fakes it more than he breathes.

"Iiiiii haven't actually... tested it out properly," you admit. Technical truth. The best kind of truth. The detective says the best lies are believable to you as well as the intended rube. "But that's what coming to Beacon's for, right? Working all of that out?"

Ruby considers you for a moment. As if studying Jaune's sweaty, stolen face. Then she bobs on the balls of her feet in agreement. "Fair enough!"

You try not to breathe a sigh of relief. Which turns out to be very much for the best because you turn your head and now Yang's the one shooting you a curious look. You blink rapidly. You don't think you did anything outrageous. Was it something you said? The way you're holding yourself? Have you been forgetting to make your shadow move?

"What's your deal?" she asks, folding her arms.

" 'Deal'?" you repeat, mostly to buy time. "I don't- why would I have a 'deal'?"

" 'cause you hit it off with Ruby," she replies simply. "She usually only latches onto other weird people."

"I do not!" Ruby protests, balling up her fists in a display of impotent fury. "I hit it off with everybody!"

"You made us six minutes late talking to a dead cat this morning."

"Its soul was lonely!" Ruby whines. Yang just tugs her hood down over her eyes and ruffles her hair through the fabric. "(nnyooooohhhhh)," the blooded huntress softly wails. Yang chuckles. You immediately look away and try to find an excuse to disengage because that conversation was near-constantly skirting extremely dangerous waters.

Through the window you spy what you assume must be Beacon, a man-made shape rising like a spire above the treetops, guarding the mouth of the valley. Even when you squint you can't make out much - ugh, it's too bright this time of day - but at the rate the airship is moving it can't be too much longer. In fact it looks like it's already begun to descend.

There's a thunk and a clatter and a crash as half the breakfast buffet starts sliding off the prow-side of the table, spilling everywhere across the carpet. Everyone in the common room staggers and has to catch themselves, voicing various levels and flavours of surprise. Oh, this isn't normal. Best to play along then. You deliberately leave yourself unsteady-

-just in time for the airship to dip especially hard, knocking you clean off your feet ("Shit-!") and sending you down the slanted floor. You land in the divot where the two sloped walls of windows meet and make to rise and at least pretend to help. Your pursuing weapon-case hits you square in the face a second later. You decide that's as good an excuse as any to just lie down and hope everyone else knows how to resolve the situation.

"Someone get into the cockpit! Where's the crew?"

"I was just there! It's on autopilot, we're the only ones here!"

"Don't come back here and tell me, start pushing buttons!"

"This is a high-class airship you can't just 'start pushing buttons'!"

"Do you want to crash for certain or start pushing buttons and maybe crash?"

"I think I know a lot more abou- hey!"

You crane your neck to surreptitiously peek at the two arguing voices while still pretending to be stunned. The higher-pitched (and yes, very whiny) voice belongs to the Snow Queen-looking one that you would very much like to stay on the opposite side of the ship, the deeper and harsher one belonging to the flame-haired woman. The latter forges past the former and takes off at a jog down the corridor, headed for wherever or whatever a 'cockpit' is.

"We're all gonna die!" a male voice wails.

"Probably!" Ruby's replies cheerily.

The craft jostles you, a dull snapping sound filtering through the hull - ah, you've started hitting some trees. Are you actually levelling out or

Oh dear you never actually worked out how durable you are now that you're in Jaune's body.

This may actually hur-

***

Everything hurts and you want to die. The detective thinks that's pretty normal, Jaune agrees with a couple caveats. You groan softly and force yourself up on all fours, nudging your weapon case out of the way as you go. The airship's stopped falling at least, and nothing is on fire. The glass even held up for the most part, the toughened panes fracturing along jagged lines but none actually giving way fully. Food's ruined of course, furniture all overturned, many other Hunters-to-be lying in tangled heaps strewn about the common room. As you watch the flame-haired woman comes back down the hallway from the cockpit, steadying herself against the wall.

"Anyone hurt?" she calls out.

"Um, I'm alright but I think Sky's-" the tall, broad, muscular man standing right next to her starts.

"Fa-aalll fucking Maiden where did you come from?" the woman blurts out, lurching away from him in shock.

"Um. I was here the entire time?" he replies.

"No you weren't, I would've seen you," she says irritably.

"Okay."

She furrows her brow, shakes her head, and just turns back to the others. "Alright, listen up! You don't need to be a genius to tell we've had an unexpected early landing, but what you should know is we were barely halfway when we started diving. That means miles and miles of uncharted forest between us and Beacon, and we didn't exactly come flush with gear for a camp and a cookout. Even when they do realise we're missing and start looking for us, that's a lot of ground to cover before they find us, if they find us."

"Why'd we even crash in the first place?" the man with slicked-back hair asks. The woman shrugs.

"I think I saw a Dust gauge flashing empty? I don't know and it doesn't matter right now, we can dish about the whys after we've reached Beacon."

"If I'd known this ship was running on inferior local Dust I'd have never come aboard this death-trap," the white-haired woman sniffs. Everyone else in the room studiously ignores her, though the man with slicked-back hair briefly scowls.

"Point is I'm not about to sit here and let a hardware issue cheat me out of time at Beacon I damn well earned," the flame-haired woman finishes. She snaps her fingers. "Everyone, weapons out. If you know what your Semblance is, say it. We're walking and we'll fight if we have to."

"Hey now, let's just slow down a second," the man with slicked-back hair interjects, raising one hand. "I mean you're enthusiastic about getting to be a Huntress, that's great and all, but are you sure it's a great idea to go off half-cocked into the forest when-"

"Oh, we're just heading to Beacon? Cool, I'll go tell 'em you're coming!" Ruby exclaims. She draws her scythe again, barely giving it time to finish unfolding and locking together before she... well, vanishes. One moment she's there, the next she's a scarlet streak, and the one after that the nearest window is completely shattered and she's just gone. Yang's left stunned, halfway through whatever it was she was going to say, blinking at what might as well be a Ruby-shaped hole in the wall.

"(or fuck me I guess alright)" the man mutters.

"Excuse you, strutting around here making all the decisions for us like you have some kind of authority!" the white-haired woman says, having seemingly completely missed Ruby's exit in favour of yelling at whatever-her-name-is.

"So what, you do?" the cat-eared one asks.

"Yes, in fact!" she replies. "My Semblance is actually Authority. And you may call me 'Miss Schnee'."

"Oh you are just gonna be a bundle of fun," the cat-eared one says flatly.

"Alright!" the flame-haired woman snaps, throwing her hands up. "Y'know what? Fine. Hunters split off into teams anyway, so let's split off into some teams! We can get some early teambuilding in or however you wanna slice it! Now get those weapons out so we can leave!"

There's plenty more grumbling, but everyone complies all the same. You drag your weapon-case in front of you and pause, glancing at everyone else's first. Yang's bracelets fold out into golden gauntlets, readily accepting the extra contraptions she snaps into place on top of her forearms. The cat-eared just draws out a curved sword with a sheath, simple enough. The flame-haired woman has a sword and shield, seems simple enough too- oh no, wait, the handle telescopes out and makes it a spear, your mistake. The man with slicked-back hair reveals what looks like a flanged mace that's been hollowed out, probably so it can fire something out the middle too. The big one that showed up out of nowhere brings out an ordinary-looking sword with a trigger just behind the guard, and the hungry-looking one with a half-shaved head draws a pair of knives you can't actually smell any Dust on at all. The man with longer bluish-grey hair doesn't bring out anything, cradling his badly-bruised arm instead.

Hm. There were two more before you left. Did they just wander off in the middle of the argument? That wouldn't really shock you you suppose, after Ruby set the tone things more or less went nowhere but downhill. Still, moment of truth for you. You undo the clasps on Jaune's weapon case and retrieve what lies in the shaped hollow within. Holding it aloft as it unfurls...

...-a banner. Very much not what you expected. It takes you a moment to even find the dangerous part, a spear-like spiked tip just above the dangling cloth. Embroidered with golden Dust-active thread on a pure white background, the scent of radiating power hits you like a wall. You actually recoil a little, holding it at arm's length as you stand. It stands out among all the other actual deadly weapons enough that it draws all attention to you immediately.

"Huh," says Yang. "So what's that do?"

You surreptitiously sniff to examine the scent of the Dust a little more closely. "It's uh, I didn't make it myself, it's a family weapon, but I think it... amplifies. Stuff." You indicate the banner itself. "See this thread? The type of Dust in this thread is sort of like a repeater. It doesn't have an element of its own, but it can strengthen others."

"Congratulations, you just made it into Team Pyrrha," the flame-haired woman -Pyrrha, obviously- says as she immediately starts towards you.

"N-now hold on a minute!" The white-haired woman interjects. "As the resident Dust expert with the Semblance most conducive to amplification across a wide area, it only makes the most sense to place him under my command-"

"ichoosepyrrha" you say immediately.

"Excuse you!"

The cat-eared one snorts.

"And you!"

Your focus narrows as Pyrrha finishes crossing the room, filling your field of vision. You judged her pretty tall from a distance but that's still nothing compared to actually seeing her up-close. She's muscled like a feline predator, power and agility combined without having to sacrifice either, stretched along a statuesque frame. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail so as not to obscure the jewelled bronze tiara on her brow. Breastplate and gauntlets, shoulders bare, plated boots and more armour over her trousers from roughly the mid-thigh down. A scarlet half-skirt hangs down over her hips and rear, a matching half-cape from her left shoulder. Without so much as stopping to say 'hello' she reaches out and yanks your arms into position until you're posed just the way she apparently wishes her banner-bearer to pose.

"Follow me, keep up, stay out of the way. Make it through the forest without pissing me off, I might just learn your name," she says curtly. "Until then, you're a battery with legs. Got it?"

Seems you'll have to spend more or less an entire day with this woman. You'd best pick a tack and stick with it.

[ ] Acquiesce completely. Seems fairly in-character for Jaune as far as you can tell, and you aren't in the mood to risk your cover or indeed the chance of getting to Beacon and all for the sake of being assertive.
[ ] Try to play along, but don't be a complete kiss-ass. As far as the detective's concerned, simpering toadies are only tolerated until the second they aren't. You... may be missing some subtlety in that statement.
[ ] Be assertive. If you're going to be at Beacon until winter you should at least pretend to have a personality. That means not rolling over just because someone talked at you in a loud voice. You may know essentially nothing about most aspects of being a Hunter, but you're uniquely positioned to know plenty. Potentially enough to knock Pyrrha out of her stride a couple of times.