V. Through Heaven's Eyes
- Location
- not here any more
V. Through Heaven's Eyes
Jay stared at the man that had been stalking the group at least since she joined it. He wasn't pointing his sword at her just yet, but he was clearly unfriendly, and he positively stank.
"Hey, Uncle Qrow," Ruby said, weakly, from where she was lying.
"Hey, kiddo," he said, glancing her way before turning back to Jay. "You've got some explaining to do," he told her again.
"Yeah, I think I do," Jay said with a frown. "But not to you. You did, after all, stalk Team RNJR for the whole time I've been travelling with them. Though…" She closed her eyes for a moment. "You bring misfortune, don't you? So you stay away… curious."
"How do you know?" Qrow demanded; if before he was suspicious, now his body language and tone were downright hostile.
Jay's answer was her usual impassive glare, and Qrow was having none of it; his sword segmented and expanded into its scythe form, to which Jay responded by half-raising her rifle.
"No, don't!" Ruby cried. She tried to get up, but failed, grabbing her midriff and grunting in pain. "Uncle Qrow, she helped us, she's a friend," she added, smiling. "Did you see the last thing she did? She pointed at that guy, said something, and poof, he became all freaky." She chuckled, weakly.
Jay closed her eyes for a moment, then she sighed. "Alright, I'll explain things. But first let's make sure everybody is alright." She glared at Qrow.
"Fine," he said, his tone and expression grumpy, and let his weapon fold back into its inactive form.
Jay gave him another impassive look, then turned and walked up to Ruby. She stared intensely at her for a moment. "You'll be fine," she declared, "you're not wounded. You need rest, that's all."
With that, she left Ruby to be helped to her feet by her uncle and went to the other members of Team RNJR. Her prognosis was similar; no wounds, but rest was required.
A sort of camp was swiftly established at the shadow of the town's walls. The group sat on logs around the campfire, with RNJR huddled together, Qrow to one side and Jay to the other.
For a long while, Jay stared impassively at Ruby, then she sighed. "Before I start explaining, there's something I need to know." She paused. "Tell me, what do you remember of what I did back then?" she asked the team.
"There was darkness all of a sudden," Ren said, promptly. "I think I saw thin threads, too; and there was too much cawing to be just Snuggly."
Said raven was sleeping in its "nest"; that is to say, Jay's headscarf.
"Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I saw raven feathers, too," Nora added.
Jay rubbed her chin, but said nothing.
"I saw… when you pointed at him, and said these words — parts of that guy seemed to age on fast-forward," Ruby said slowly. "And parts of him looked like… baby versions of him? It was weird."
"And you can all remember this?" Jay asked.
"Yeah. Why shouldn't we?" Jaune asked, confusion evident on his face.
Jay frowned. "Because of something called the Curse of Quiescence," she said, rubbing her chin. "Alright, I need to test something, then I can start to maybe explain."
"Alright…" Ruby said, hesitantly. "What do you need to do?"
"I need you to promise something to… Jaune, say, then fulfill this promise," Jay said. "It can and should be something trivial, like hugging him. But! Don't tell me what it is."
"Okay…" Ruby said. While she leaned to the side and whispered something in Jaune's ear, Qrow shot Jay a doubting look, but she had her eyes closed and didn't see him.
Then, out of nowhere, Ruby tickled Jaune. He jumped.
At the same time, Jay said, "you fulfilled your promise by… tickling Jaune?"
She looked down at her arms — Ren thought he saw her wince — but nothing happened. "Odd. Very odd," she said, more to herself than to anybody else.
"What's odd?" Ren asked.
"Remember the Curse of Quiescence?" Jay asked. "It's the name given to the fact that, among others, performing vulgar magic where Sleepers can see it triggers Paradox."
"What do you mean, magic?" Qrow asked, somehow managing to sound nonchalant and suspicious at the same time.
Jay rolled her eyes, pointed at ornate raven's feather quill at him, and all of a sudden Qrow had a pair of large, beautiful crow's wings in lieu of arms. "Magic," she said, dryly, then winced. She inspected her arms but saw nothing; she rubbed her chin, hmming to herself.
Qrow gave his arms an experimental flap, causing the campfire to flicker. "So…" he said, tone neutral, "am I stuck like this?"
"Of course not," Jay told him impatiently; she waved a hand at him and his arms returned back to normal. "Making this Lasting would've required a lot of time and energy." She snorted. "And as amusing as it would be to have uncle Qrow here be a bit more of a crow, it's, you know, immoral to do such things."
"Such things…?" Qrow asked, looking over his hands (they were back to normal, as far as he could tell).
"The fact that I can make your hair pink like Nora's skirt, or give you gills, or grow poisonous quills doesn't mean that I should," Jay explained, "and any willworker worth something will say that transforming someone permanently without their consent is an act of Hubris. I didn't stop being human just because I can see the Supernal."
"The Supernal? I assume you don't mean the sky," Ren said. If his expression was anything to judge by, he was taking the coming revelations rather calmly.
"No. Here, I'll explain," Jay said. She took a stick and drew a large circle on the ground; inside it, she drew three smaller ones grouped together (but not touching), then finally drew five lines between two of the smaller circles. She named the large circle The Abyss; the middle of the smaller circles The Supernal; the circle connected to it The Fallen World; the connections Watchtowers; and the last circle Remnant. "I'll spare you the legends, but the gist of things is that the Abyss is full of things that are not to be. Un-entities that wish to corrupt reality, whole worlds that seek to replace the proper one, and worse. The Supernal, on the other hand, is the Truth. It is what things are, and it is by accessing and manipulating the Supernal that I can do magic."
"Hey, that sounds unfair," Nora said. "How come you can do magic and I can't?"
"Good question. The answer is that, back in the old days, most of everybody had the potential to be a willworker — a Mage," Jay answered. "However, it is not the case anymore." She tapped the word Fallen with her stick. "I'll spare you the speculative legends; suffice to say that the world — my world — Fell, and people could not reach the Supernal on their own any more. This is the Curse of Quiescence I mentioned earlier: instead of resonating with the Supernal Truth, people's souls now resonate with the Abyss, with the Lie. This is why I was surprised that you remembered the spell I cast on our scorpion-tailed friend, and why I was surprised when I didn't have to tamp down outrageous amounts of Paradox when I gave Qrow wings."
"So…" Ren said, slowly, "this Paradox you mention aside, isn't the Curse good for you? You could use magic, and others would simply forget."
"Not exactly. Paradox is a big problem. Basically, it is the result of the Abyss polluting a spell. Remember that I said that people's souls resonate with the Abyss? The more Sleepers witness a spell, the worse the risk of Paradox is. Paradox can happen in other ways too — if you Reach too far and try to cast something that's past your abilities, for example — but casting around Sleepers is almost a surefire way to cause Paradox. Now, you might say I could suffer some bruises and be done with it, right? But the thing is that this is the least-bad result of Paradox, and it requires spending energy I'd rather spend on spellcasting."
"Can't you just… not spend it, then?" The question, surprisingly enough, came from Jaune; he'd stayed silent until now, and seemed almost afraid.
"I can, but the results aren't pretty. At best, the spell gets messed up — it can affect the wrong person, get inverted, or other such things; at worst, I taint myself with the Abyss, or summon an Abyssal entity." Jay shook her head. "Letting Paradox run wild is one of the things we Mages consider immoral; it endangers others because of our own Hubris, and that is unacceptable."
"That's nice and all," Nora said, frowning, "but you still haven't answered my question."
"I was getting there. See these?" Jay tapped the lines connecting The Fallen World to the Supernal. "There exist five Watchtowers, which allow certain people to Awaken and see the Supernal. Why certain people Awaken, we don't know — we just know that they do." She rubbed her chin. "I assume I'm correct in saying that there is no magic in your world — Qrow's transformation aside, that is? Ahh, yes, your expression says 'yes'. I would imagine, Nora, that there are no Watchtowers that connect Remnant to the Supernal, so you cannot Awaken."
"So how come Uncle Qrow has magic?" Ruby asked the question that was bothering her team.
"I'm not sure. Assuming he doesn't want to tell us himself" — Jay looked at him and he shook his head — "I can only speculate. I can't even examine his soul and look for hints there; I don't know Death."
"What do you mean, you don't know Death?" Jaune asked. "You can do magic."
"Supernal magic is traditionally divided into ten Arcana, each with its own sphere — Life and Spirit; Space and Mind; Matter and Death; Forces and Prime; and Time and Fate."
"These are paired for a reason, correct?" Ren asked.
"An astute observation. When you Awaken, you Awaken to a specific Watchtower, which in turn governs which Arcana you have a natural affinity to. You can learn other Arcana, but usually you won't be as good with them, and furthermore each Watchtower also dictates an Inferior Arcanum — one with which you have weak affinity and would have great difficulty learning." Jay sighed. "The soul falls under the Arcanum of Death, and I know not the simplest Death spell."
"So… back then…?" Ruby trailed off. "When that scorpion Faunus attacked us…?"
"That was a Time spell. Qrow's transformation, on the other hand, falls under the purview of Life."
"Wait a sec," Nora said. "You paired Time and Fate, and Life and Spirit. This doesn't add up."
"Each Path has a pair of Ruling Arcana — with which it is affiliated — and an Inferior Arcanum, as I mentioned earlier. The rest count as Common Arcana, which, while lacking inherent affinity, are not as hard to grasp as an Inferior one," Jay answered. "I'm an ornithologist, Nora. I've been chasing birds since I was three." With a soft smile, she raised a hand and stroked the head of the raven sleeping on top of hers. "Invictus would've no doubt benefited from another Acanthus with an affinity for Space, but—"
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," Jaune said, gesturing with his hands. "Invictus? Acanthus? What're those?"
Jay smiled again. She stood up. "Let me properly introduce myself, then: I am Orvanit, member of Invictus, the Adamant Sage of Silver Rapids. And I apologise for hiding my name and nature from you." She bowed, hand on her heart.
Jaune raised a finger and opened his mouth to speak, then closed it with a sigh. That was too much jargon and not enough explanation for him.
"So you're not… Jay?" Ruby asked in a small voice.
"In a way," Jay — no, Orvanit — said, sitting down again. "In my mother tongue, 'orvanit' means 'female jay'." She sighed, and the smile vanished from her face, replaced by her ever-present stony expression. "Names have power, Ruby Rose; anything with a strong connection does. And where there's sympathy, there's the ability to use it. That is why the Awakened use Shadow Names, pseudonyms designed to safeguard their true, Sympathetic names. That's why — even though Orvanit is my Shadow Name — I won't be telling you my real one. I'm sorry."
"You know," Qrow said, sounding rather nonchalant, "you explained some things. But you didn't tell me why you joined them." He indicated Ruby and the rest with his chin. "And you've said very little about where you came from."
Orvanit glared at him. "I could ask you the same thing, you know — why were you stalking th—" She stopped mid-word and squinted at him for a few seconds. "You don't want to spread your misfortune, so that's why you—"
Qrow's hand strayed to Harbinger, his weapon. "How do you know?" he demanded.
Orvanit sighed. "Take your hand off your weapon, please. Didn't you listen? I'm a Mage. Specifically, I'm an Acanthus; mine are Time and Fate to manipulate. How will I not see this?" She crossed her arms. "I can show you, if you want. How I see things."
Qrow gave her a doubting look, but took his canteen out instead. He drank, letting the alcohol burn its way down his throat, and said, "Sure, why not."
She nodded and reached out, tapping his forehead with her raven's feather quill. For a moment, everything became blurry and segmented by hexagon — a bee's eye view — then Qrow could see… himself and Team RNJR, from the perspective of Orvanit. Clearly, it wasn't what she was seeing right now — in the vision, he just put his hand on Harbinger —
But, more importantly, it was markedly different from how he usually saw the world in two important ways. The first was the fact that there were symbols he couldn't read — and hurt to look at for too long — around everything. They moved around things like leaves in the wind, and as he watched some of the symbols surrounding him flowed into the log he was sitting on. The second was the large amount of might've-beens, maybes and possibilities that, again, surrounded everything — he could spot, out of the multitude, a hazy image of him grasping his midriff, which was bandaged near himself, and a worried-looking Ruby near his niece — and, as the symbols snaked from him into the log, a hazy mirage of the same log but cracked in half appeared and joined the rest. Then the vision vanished, replaced by a splitting headache. He groaned and grasped his head.
"Sorry," Orvanit said, quietly. "Sleepers usually can't handle Mage Sight; information overload, I'm told." After a moment, she added, "I'd offer to heal you, but it's not the sort of pain Life magic could heal."
"Ugh, what was that?" Qrow asked. "This is worse than a hangover."
"It's how I see the world," Orvanit told him, dryly, "and how I figured out your misfortune-spreading effect. It's also—" She stopped herself, squinted at him, and sighed. "No, of course not, why would you tell the kids anything about that."
"About what?" Jaune wondered.
"None of your business," Qrow replied.
"Hey, I think—" Jaune started.
"Don't ask him to reveal secrets that aren't his to reveal, Jaune," Orvanit said, interrupting him. Her expression softened. "Since I've given a lecture, I might as well: any questions?"
"Yeah," Ruby said excitedly, "you're a teacher? Why didn't you tell us? What do you teach? Is it shooting? What do Academies in your world look like?"
"Slow down, Ruby," Orvanit said with a lopsided smile. "Yes, I'm a teacher. I haven't told you because, well, I haven't told you almost anything." She chuckled. "I teach ornithology."
"Orni… you teach people to be ornery?"
"No, Ruby, I teach people about birds." Orvanit rubbed her chin, staring off to the distance for a moment. She muttered something about languages under her breath. "I specialise in ravens."
"What, not pigeons?" Jaune asked, then wilted under Orvanit's glare. "Sorry…"
The latter sighed. "If there are any other questions…?"
"Yeah," Nora said, leaning a little on Ren, "why don't you like fair—"
"Don't say their name!" Orvanit said, forcefully. "Look, Nora, the fact that my world doesn't have Grimm doesn't mean it's free of dangers! And some of these things, it's dangerous to even talk about them!" She made a curious gesture, pointing backwards with her thumb at nobody in particular. "Even Mordred's girlfriend didn't deserve what happened to her, damn it — so do not mention their name!"
"So…" Jaune said slowly, warily, not wanting Orvanit to pick him as a rant target, "that raises a lot more questions. Like 'who's Mordred' and 'what happened to his girlfriend' and 'wait, your world doesn't have Grimm?!'. But if I had to choose, I'd ask the last one."
"Yes, Jaune. Grimm, as far as I can tell, are something Remnant has" — in disturbing abundance, she didn't add — "and my world doesn't. No, it has other dangers. Fellow men aside, there are evil Mages, all manner of things that go bump in the night, and worse things besides: what the victims of Those Assholes suffer is horrible." Orvanit shook her head. "What happened to his girlfriend — it's not my secret to share." She sighed and tapped her left wrist. "As to who is Mordred, he's one of my Cabal-mates and, technically, an underling of mine." A pause, in which she smiled her lopsided smile again. "I sometimes wish he was here. He is more combat-capable than I." Another pause. "Any other questions?"
"You mentioned that you are an 'Adamant Sage', and now that Mordred is an underling of yours," Ren said. Compared to Jaune's wariness, Ruby's excitement and Nora's suspiciousness, his tone was even, as though he was sitting in a classroom. "You don't look military or police. Where is Mordred your underling?"
"Mage society has its own organisations. You do not need to know the details, but I lead the local branch of the Adamantine Arrow."
"You cannot tell us anything?" Despite the even tone and calm expression, Ren sounded doubtful.
Orvanit sighed again. She closed her eyes for a moment, nodded to herself and opened them. "I shall tell you the creed; I don't think any harm will come from that. Succinctly put: challenge is magical." She smiled her lopsided smile again. "The Adamant Way has five Phalanxes or precepts: Existence is War; Adaptability is Strength; Service is Mastery; the Supernal is the Self; and Enlightenment is Honour." Out of nowhere, she yawned, hastily covering her mouth. "We should all get some rest," she said. "Class dismissed."
So they dispersed a bit, each going to get their own things ready for the night.
Some time later Ruby approached Orvanit. "Hey, Orvanit," she said.
"Oh, hello Ruby." Orvanit was stroking Snuggly's head, muttering softly to the bird, but when Ruby approached her she turned around.
"I wanted to say thanks."
"What for?" Orvanit's face was as impassive as ever.
"You saved me back there."
The older woman smiled lopsidedly. "Service is Mastery," she intoned. "And even more importantly — 'him who saves one soul, it is as if he saved a whole world', our Sages have said. Think nothing of it."
Ruby blinked. It was much easier to understand Jay — Orvanit — when she wasn't talking about ethics. "Also," she powered on, "I wanted to ask a question."
"Sure," Orvanit said, absentmindedly stroking Snuggly's head, "go ahead."
"Who's Meir?"
The stroking stopped. Orvanit's expression, however, didn't change. "Where have you heard that name?" she asked, quietly.
"You were mumbling," Ruby said quietly. "When you slept. It sounded like a nightmare."
"Oh." Orvanit shook her head. "Meir's my husband. I miss him," she said, simply. "And I'm worried for him."
"Is he—"
"In danger? Yes. Comes with being a Mage." Orvanit sighed. "And he's… well, not new-new, but new."
"Can't you do anything to help?"
"From over here? Across the Abyss?" Orvanit shook her head. "This is why I have to get back. People back home need me."
"Then I'll help you." Ruby's expression was resolute. "It's only fair."
Surprisingly, Orvanit smiled — a regular, somewhat nostalgic smile, not her usual lopsided one. "That's nice of you, Ruby," she said softly, "but right now the best thing you can do for me? Get me to Mistral. I've a feeling I'll know the next step once I get there."
Weiss stopped following the security guards when they had Alex enter Jacques' study and stayed outside. She doubted that her father wanted her to be present. Instead, she headed back to her room. Once there, she sat down on her bed, put her head in her hands and sighed. She wondered what would've happened if Alex wouldn't have stepped up to scream at that woman. Weiss herself only really stayed back because Alex was already shouting. How would her father have reacted if she had embarrassed him so?
At the end, though, it didn't matter, did it? What was done was done and now Alex was probably… what, exactly? It's not like Alex was a family member, or an SDC employee. But Jacques would no doubt want to punish Alex for causing a scene.
Weiss's hands shot up to her mouth when she realised what it meant; Jacques would probably throw Alex out. A knock on the door stopped her rumination. "Enter," she said weakly, and a somewhat dishevelled-looking Alex entered, gave Weiss a glance, and proceeded to collapse on her own bed. Weiss looked at her, wordlessly.
"Well, that was stupid," Alex said, but she didn't sound too convinced that what she did was, in fact, stupid. "If this is the sort of nonsense you have to suffer through, I get why you want to leave, you know?"
"What did Father say…?"
"Oh, that he'll 'reexamine my presence in this house', and some hints about the courts." Alex snorted. "Just as thin-skinned as his counterparts back home. Of course, since I don't know anybody here, that'll be somewhat of a problem for me… but maybe you can take advantage of that."
"What do you mean, take advantage? He's throwing you out to the streets!" Weiss balled her hands and got up.
"You said you wanted to leave, but he's not letting you, right?"
Weiss stopped in place, halfway through to the door of her room. She turned around to face Alex. "What about that?"
"Remember what money-for-brains said before I went ahead and caused a scene?"
Weiss blinked. Money-for-brains…? Oh, Alex must mean Henry. Now what did he say? "'I didn't know you had a twin'— you're not serious."
"Dead serious." Alex got up. "Look at me. All I need is a wig and a fake scar. The rest, well. I'll manage." She smiled.
"That's crazy." Weiss believed it, too. She only met Alex last week. There's no way she could fool Jacques. Or Whitley. Or Klein. Or… anybody, really.
"From the way Jacques talked, we have a couple days before he throws me out. Probably so SDC's PR department can prepare their spin. We can make this work, Weiss. You could be free of this." Alex waved her hand around, indicating the room. "You could go help your friends."
Weiss gave her a sceptical look. As tempting it was to leave her Father and annoyance of a little brother behind and go do something that actually mattered, Alex's plan was simply too crazy, and Alex herself didn't show that she could be trusted, certainly not to the degree required for her plan to work.
Alex opened her mouth to say more, but closed it. She looked rather surprised, all of a sudden; raising her arm and pointing at something behind Weiss.
Weiss whirled, hand on Myrtenaster's hilt.
Before her stood — well, not her grandfather, but a somewhat transparent holo of him, anyway. "What— how—" she sputtered.
"Weiss?" the holo asked. "Little Weiss? You've grown…"
"Explain this," Weiss demanded from Alex.
Alex looked from side to side. "It looks like a ghost," she said slowly. "A relative…?"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "That looks like my grandfather, Nicholas Schnee. My dead grandfather." She turned back to the holo and stuck her hand through it, expecting to feel nothing but air. Instead, the moment she actually touched it — it was like putting her hand in a bucket of nearly-frozen water. She snatched her hand back with a yelp.
"I couldn't move on," the ghost of Nicholas explained. "Not with how my son-in-law manages the Company. Profits have soared, yes, but at what cost? Every night I hear the wailing of the workers that died in work accidents and couldn't move on, of the people that froze to death after being evicted from their Schnee Dust Company-owned apartments, of—"
"You're…" Weiss said while the ghost droned on, listing the crimes of Weiss's father. "You're not a holo…"
"No, I'm not," Nicholas agreed, quite amicably. "I couldn't move on. I stayed, following my son-in-law, and seeing the effect he had on the Company, and on the Kingdom. I cannot rest until my business here is done."
"If you're haunting Father," Weiss said, still not quite willing to believe she was talking with the ghost of her grandfather, "what are you doing here? I'm not Father."
"I was called, and I came."
"Why?"
"I, too, was complicit. After Jacques married Willow, I let him do as he would, content in the knowledge that the Company was in safe hands. Weiss…" Nicholas kneeled in front of her so his head was level with hers and put a hand on her shoulder. Unlike last time, this time there was no chill, just an ethereal touch. "You have an opportunity. The young lady there" — he nodded at Alex — "is giving it to you. Use it. Don't be complacent."
Weiss looked from the ghost to Alex. He certainly sounded like her grandfather, and he talked in a way that stirred what few memories of him she had. She wavered. While Alex's plan was crazy, if that was truly her grandfather… and besides, it wouldn't be the first crazy plan that actually worked.
"It's going to work," Alex said, with fervour. She balled her hands and there was a glint in her eyes. "We can make it work, Weiss. Trust me."
Weiss looked, again, from Alex to the ghost and back to Alex. She wanted to believe the other girl. She really did. But if it failed— So what if it failed, she cut her internal debate short. She was a Huntress, in practice if not officially, and she would make it work. Every minute she was wasting her time here was a minute her friends were endangering themselves without her to support them. She hesitated one last moment, then said, "Alright. I hope I won't regret this, Alex."
"You won't, I promise." Alex's face was set with determination. "Listen, what we need to do is…"
As they started planning, Nicholas's ghost gave his granddaughter one last wistful look, then vanished back into the Twilight.
