Adding on to the theory crafting of what the hell Ozpin is, maybe he is a hunter become a farmer and thus become something else entirely. Soaking in the ambience of the radiant stories unfolding around him, no longer burning him with hunger and envy for not having his own. Now he has his own story, created as a scrapbook from all the other stories happening around him.
[X] The faculty accommodations. If you follow Gotthard's scent you should find these just fine. The other two teachers she and Ozpin mentioned must be back by now too. Forewarned is forearmed - and they could be discussing things they never would in front of students.
Want to hear the teachers bitch about the new class.
The neckline is cut low and square, a rust-coloured amulet the size of a compass hanging there securely on a silver chain, embossed in rose-thorns tangled around an unassuming keyhole.
Now I'm suspicious what Gotthards deal is. Something chained to service and not too happy about it is my wager.
Maybe she is a witch (because Goodwitch lol) that Ozpin cuffed around the ears and took into his employ to stop her from meddling in his things. My other bet would be a fairy godmother, mainly because the rose thorns reminded me of Sleeping Beauty. Either way, stuffing one of those into a pretty dress and making them teach on top of that seems something this Ozpin would draw immense schadenfreude from.
So what's our team name? While they're not named off letters, each team probably still gets it's own name at some point.
We've got The Mask of Many Faces, The Invicible Girl, Your God, and Journey to the West. So we should be... The Avengers?
We're Loki(I'll take a better betrayer character...Ultron?) and Cap, Phyrra is both Black Widow and Hulk, Nora is both Stark and Thor, and Ren is Hawk Guy and Coulson.
So what's our team name? While they're not named off letters, each team probably still gets it's own name at some point.
We've got The Mask of Many Faces, The Invicible Girl, Your God, and Journey to the West. So we should be... The Avengers?
We're Loki(I'll take a better betrayer character...Ultron?) and Cap, Phyrra is both Black Widow and Hulk, Nora is both Stark and Thor, and Ren is Hawk Guy.
The teachers. It's the only option that makes sense - your fellow students are an easy target, but they're almost as ignorant as you. A candid look at the professors, insight into how they really feel, well... honestly the very idea makes Jaune practically jump up and down inside the well of shadows like a hyperactive bunny. You had no idea that being a 'fly on the wall' was such a deeply-held wish among humans.
You move like a whispered secret in the night and this, this is what you've been missing. Flowing up and out of the window like smoke, keeping low to the grass outside, slithering between individual blades like a thousand indistinct black serpents. It's familiar. It's safe. It's comforting. You aren't 'happy', of course. Such things are reserved only for humans, but you are content and filled with a certain zealous eagerness to see this through.
You no longer have a physical nose but you catch Gotthard's scent all the same. It's strange - human of course, but carrying a faint and familiar scent. Grimm but old, baked-in like carrion too aged to even reek right. You catch a few scant glimpses of the greater castle as you follow the scent, flitting and flickering between the deeper shadows in the alcoves. Several more outbuildings, a towering central keep with entry hall, and the grand clock tower crowning it all that must certainly be Ozpin's abode. Several more floors and so many rooms to explore, but you follow the scent to its source. Swarming across time-worn stone floors, pressing practically flat against rough and rocky walls like a shifting oil-black mural. Flow through the cracks in one door and into some sort of antechamber.
Voices. This is it. You compress down, down, a flat puddle of shadow and ash. Seeping beneath the door like water and darting into the first patch of true shadow you can find.
Hold still. Were you discovered? Wait and listen. You have no heart to beat faster, no breath to hold, but you wait all the same. No shouts of alarm. No weapons being drawn. You're safe. You can observe.
It looks a lot like Jaune's memories of the family living room. Hunting lodge? It stands out from what you've seen of the castle merely by its state of repair. It's a comfortable place, warm and relatively cheery, the roaring orange fire of the fireplace casting the flickering black shadows in which you hide. A brass-framed, silver-backed mirror sits above - you make sure to keep beyond its sight. You're hiding behind and beneath one of the half-dozen or so armchairs arranged artfully around the space, seated atop a broad carpet. There's a table against the far end of the room with food and coffee, the latter of which is clearly in high demand. The room practically reeks of the stuff but there's a fresh pot brewing already.
"He can be insufferable sometimes, I swear." Gotthard finally catches the twig tangled up in her hair and plucks it out with an incensed grumble. "He could stand to at least be less cavalier about school property."
"Hell with school property, that airship was supposed to be our ride here!" another woman interjects. She's blonde and young, probably the youngest in the room, dressed for travel and nursing what looks like the latest of many cups. "Poor Urdr couldn't take the strain on her tired old bones, we had to carry her up those horrible steps."
"You had to carry her up the steps. I had to carry all the luggage," interjects another woman. She's older, but nonetheless the spitting image of the first. She's dressed in a simpler gown, and leans over the back of a large plush armchair in which an ancient old woman sleeps like the dead. Steel-grey hair, wrinkled skin, a simple dark grey shift draped over her wizened frame like a blanket. Clearly the 'Urdr' being referred to.
"Let's just try to keep this in perspective." What you mistook for a barrel draped in a false beard turns out to be another teacher, squeezed into a vast chair that still seems far too small wrapped around him. There's really no doubt in your mind that he's the aforementioned forgemaster - he looks like he could smelt ingots by grinding raw ore between his palms. "Is this really worse than the time he set Grimm on the train three kilometres out from Vale?"
"Hah! That's right, it nearly derailed," laughs another, younger man. Dark-skinned, smooth-faced and kind-eyed, a pair of equine ears emerge from his tousled hair like a pair of furred quotation marks. "Had to do his fair share of fast-talking, didn't he?"
"I did ninety percent of it," Gotthard grumbles.
"The year he dropped all pretence and just set the students on a bracing cross-country hike for Beacon, now that was a test," the final teacher reminisces. He'd be the oldest in the room were it not for the unconscious crone. His hair and voluminous moustache are completely silver, and his frame is wrestler-broad with a stomach that's long-since become a single rounded slab of intermingled flab and brawn. "Nothing but grit, determination, and survivalism."
"There was one team," the young blonde woman says to herself in a low voice, clicking her fingers to jog her memory. "Wandered off-course- oh that's right. They just bartered for train tickets and got here that way, right? I forget, did Ozpin even fail them?"
"You know, I honestly couldn't say," Gotthard replies. She glances down at the pot. "I have refills, if anyone's biting? Skuld? Helmutt?"
"Oh bless you Glynda, you're a lifesaver," the blonde woman - Skuld, you presume - breathes as she hurries over for her refill.
"Do slow down," Glynda teases. "You'll age yourself with all this caffeine."
Skuld and her older doppelganger - her mother? - share a laugh at what must be an inside joke. The horse-eared man makes to get up for his refill, but something occurs to him halfway through, and he slowly sinks back down in his chair. He cradles his empty mug thoughtfully, drumming black nails on the ceramic.
"You've had a good look at her," he says at last, looking up at Gotthard. "Is it true? It's really her daughter?"
Gotthard grows more sombre at the question. She rests one hand on the table and nods slightly. "Without a doubt. No mistaking eyes like that. And to have so much control over her Semblance at such a young age..."
"That's why Ozpin let her in, isn't it?" the horse-eared man says with a certain grimness in his voice. "Killing some Bösenwulf all by herself was just a pretext."
"In fairness I feel Ozpin is more like a dog and just does things arbitrarily," Skuld comments.
"So you don't think he had any ulterior motives in giving Aurora Rose's only daughter a scholarship?"
Skuld has no answer to that beyond the patently obvious, so she falls silent. The mustachioed man fills the gap readily.
"Not that we should downplay her own achievements too severely. To enter an elder Bösenwulf's lair alone and emerge victorious, in part due to a weapon of her own design, is no small feat at such a young age. We must only keep in mind that she is still a child, and her Semblance has her thinking that she can simply run from any consequence of her actions."
"Helmutt's right," Gotthard says. "Rose needs to be handled carefully, but don't mistake my meaning. We mustn't judge her unfairly but nor can we afford to coddle her. She succeeds, or fails, on nothing but her own merits. We owe her mother no less for her service."
The mood grows sombre. All present take on melancholy casts, staring into space or into their own coffee mugs. The horse-eared one is the first to recover, a slight smile crossing his lips.
"We have quite a few faunus in this batch, don't we?" he says. "That's something. Russell and Yang are natural-born Vale citizens, right? Yang seems to have done fine for herself sofar, but poor Russell. To think of all that potential being wasted if we hadn't picked him up."
He trails off, frowning. "Although to speak of wasted potential..."
"Belladonna?" the mustachio'd man prompts him. The horse-eared young professor nods.
"Her I don't understand. How can she be so dismissive about this? It's the kind of opportunity so many could only dream of and she's already acting like it's some sort of... I don't know, imposition." He lets his empty mug dangle freely by the handle on two fingers. "I'm just glad Ozpin didn't throw all three faunus on the same team for one of his arcane 'plans'. The three of them couldn't be more different."
"Or heaven fucking forbid with that Weiss girl," Gotthard adds. Pausing to badly suppress a grimace. "Just two of them."
The horse-earned one just leans forward and kneads his eyes with the heels of his palms, groaning like he's about to be sick. A heavy sigh travels around the room, carried by the voices of a faculty coming to terms with what they'll have to handle for the year. The mustachioed one tops up his mug with his hip flask.
"If you ask me, she's the real mystery," he says, taking a generous sip. He gestures with his free hand. "Now Winchester, Bronzewing, Arc, they're easy. Family business, get half a dozen applicants like them every year. Ren, Valkyrie, Yang, Nikos, they just want to kill Grimm, get them every year too - even if Nikos had to cross half the world to come here as well. Schnee?" He shrugs. "I can't think of one good reason why she would become a Huntress, let alone of Vale. If you ask me she doesn't have the temperament for it at all. In Ozpin's place I would've failed her in an instant."
"Yes, well... a lot of us would do things differently in Ozpin's place. Yet the school still stands." Gotthard sighs and shakes her head. "Even if he makes it very difficult to trust his judgement sometimes. He put her on a team with two faunus for Maiden's sake! For all we know Belladonna's parents are both working themselves to death in a Schnee-run colonial debtor's prison. This isn't just interpersonal friction, this is homicide waiting to happen."
"Let's try to look on the bright side!" the horse faunus interjects with a tone of somewhat-strained optimism, raking his nails down his cheeks and throwing on a smile. "Maybe this will be good for her? Faunus teammates, mandatory Arcadian studies courses, some distance from her family - maybe we can turn her around?"
Gotthard purses her lips and stares at nothing, deep in thought. She takes a long sip from her mug. "I hope so. I just think we should temper our expectations a little."
The old crone lurches awake and upright, creaking like a rusty door hinge. "NIKOS KNOWS HER DOOM BUT NOT THE- oh, hello dears. I must have dozed off."
"(Oh did you now, I hadn't noticed)," Skuld mutters under her breath.
"WHAT?" the old woman shouts.
"And on that note I think it's best we all retire," Gotthard says, setting down her mug. "The students won't be the only ones run ragged this year. Lovely to chat with you all, regardless."
You sink down into the shadows, lying as still as still can be as the professors exchange a few more platitudes and goodbyes on the way out. The three women take the longest, burdened by their elder, who appears to have fallen straight into a sleep as deep as death once more. There are a few muttered curses from the youngest. But soon enough you hear the door click, and you're alone in the teacher's lounge at last.
You rise to your full 'height', a shifting assortment of shadow and smoke in a vaguely humanoid form, and ponder what you heard. You've been given a great deal to think about, and yet you've still come away with more questions than answers. Vexing, but a matter for another night. You've done what you came to do and it's best you not stay out of bed longer than absolutely necessary. You slither and flow over to the door, stretching out your form to slip through the lock once more.
The door opens at your touch instead, swinging inward. You know for a fact it opened the other way.
What lies beyond is not the hallway, but a room. A room just like the one you were leaving - you glance back to confirm that it's still there, just the way you left it - different in only a few subtle ways. The mirror above the fire is gone, the coffee-maker replaced by a liquor cabinet filled to the brim with exquisite labels in crystal vessels. Only one chair beside the roaring fire, backlit by the silver moon shining through the tall windows.
"Snooping around after dark, I see. Dangerous. Very dangerous indeed."
The Groom sits in the armchair, leafing through a leather-bound book with practiced idleness. He 'glances' up at you with the hollow pits behind his glasses, still mechanically turning pages.
"The Snow Queen gave you a gift and sent you packing before I could so much as properly greet you. I'm hurt, Shadow. Truly, deeply hurt."
You just look at him. In your true form you don't have the capacity for much else. He barely even seems to notice. He closes his book around his thumb and adjusts himself in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. Taking a long, deep breath of comfort and satisfaction. The very picture of opulence and elegance.
"Make no mistake, you won't survive this without my help. You need charm. You need charisma. You need, in other words-" a mirthless smile that exposes too many teeth stretches across his masked face "-to woo a fine woman. And I can provide what you need. Help me help you, Shadow."
He uncrosses his leg and leans forward, the upholstery creaking and squeaking gently as his weight shifts. "Tell me; which fine lady draws your eye the most? I'm positively dying to know."
You get the sense that he's making this out to be something it isn't, but you don't care to argue with an elder Grimm when it's offering to help you. If he has answers or advice, you'll gladly take them.
[ ] Ruby Rose. She was the first thing on the professors' minds, a mystery and a prodigy, all centred around this 'Aurora Rose' you just heard so little and yet so much about.
[ ] Xiaolong Yang. A fighter and a killer, a true Huntress, yet strangely close to Ruby. What history do they share?
[ ] Blake Belladonna. A faunus accepted to a prestigious Hunter academy, yet surly and disdainful. Even the teachers are struggling with her attitude.
[ ] Weiss Schnee. The spitting image of the Snow Queen. Some sort of princess from a faraway land, her motives for coming here at all a mystery twice over. Lonely and yet violently opposed to comfort and company.
[ ] Pyrrha Nikos. You've made a little headway with her already, but you can tell you've still got a long road ahead. And then there was the old woman's strange outburst, coupled with what you already know about how strange it is to come to Beacon from abroad.
[ ] Nora Valkyrie. You know vanishingly little about her, but she's going to be on your team so you might as well start somewhere. As an added bonus, an 'in' with her is an 'in' with Ren.
Adhoc vote count started by ZerbanDaGreat on Dec 16, 2017 at 8:20 AM, finished with 81 posts and 51 votes.
[X] Weiss Schnee. The spitting image of the Snow Queen. Some sort of princess from a faraway land, her motives for coming here at all a mystery twice over. Lonely and yet violently opposed to comfort and company.
[X] Pyrrha Nikos. You've made a little headway with her already, but you can tell you've still got a long road ahead. And then there was the old woman's strange outburst, coupled with what you already know about how strange it is to come to Beacon from abroad.
[X] Nora Valkyrie. You know vanishingly little about her, but she's going to be on your team so you might as well start somewhere. As an added bonus, an 'in' with her is an 'in' with Ren.
[X] Professor Glynda Gotthard: You're a seasoned Grimm and you need a real woman in your life, not a mere babe. Also she smells like Grimm, what's up with that.
[X] Ruby Rose. She was the first thing on the professors' minds, a mystery and a prodigy, all centred around this 'Aurora Rose' you just heard so little and yet so much about.
[X] Weiss Schnee. The spitting image of the Snow Queen. Some sort of princess from a faraway land, her motives for coming here at all a mystery twice over. Lonely and yet violently opposed to comfort and company.
Most interesting of the bunch. I rather feel she's here precisely because her Authority can override the Snow Queen and bring Grimm like ourselves onto Ozpin's side.
I rather suspect he might be grooming her to be his replacement body, as well.
Likely due to her connection with Achilles. Kinda like Cu. He chose to defy the gods, so he knew he won't have a long life, but it's one filled with glory.
I'd certainly hope people would put some consideration into why this offer is being made and just what The Groom is getting out of it before rushing to vote for their waifu.
I mean, given the nature of The Groom, I'm not sure I'd care to bring anyone I liked to his attention.
You move like a whispered secret in the night and this, this is what you've been missing. Flowing up and out of the window like smoke, keeping low to the grass outside, slithering between individual blades like a thousand indistinct black serpents. It's familiar. It's safe. It's comforting. You aren't 'happy', of course. Such things are reserved only for humans, but you are content and filled with a certain zealous eagerness to see this through.
"Make no mistake, you won't survive this without my help. You need charm. You need charisma. You need, in other words-" a mirthless smile that exposes too many teeth stretches across his masked face "-to woo a fine woman. And I can provide what you need. Help me help you, Shadow."
He uncrosses his leg and leans forward, the upholstery creaking and squeaking gently as his weight shifts. "Tell me; which fine lady draws your eye the most? I'm positively dying to know."
Oh, you want me to ship het? You might be an eldritch creature born from stories older than my known family, but you have no idea what you're about to unleash here? Do you recall that the last time this happened in this Quest I asked for the Snow Queen's phone number? And we both know that that would probably end in the death of everybody involved.
So to avoid that, why don't we say this instead?
[X] The Groom. No way you could take your eyes off him even for a second. Even if you discount his presence as a entity who could kill you in a nanosecond if you looked at the wrong place, he's still someone with a grace and aura that pulls in his targets whenever he's in the room. If you are to be called a shadow, The Groom cannot be less than a sun.
Oh, you want me to ship het? You might be an eldritch creature born from stories older than my known family, but you have no idea what you're about to unleash here? Do you recall that the last time this happened in this Quest I asked for the Snow Queen's phone number? And we both know that that would probably end in the death of everybody involved.
So to avoid that, why don't we say this instead?
[X] The Groom. No way you could take your eyes off him even for a second. Even if you discount his presence as a entity who could kill you in a nanosecond if you looked at the wrong place, he's still someone with a grace and aura that pulls in his targets whenever he's in the room. If you are to be called a shadow, The Groom cannot be less than a sun.
I feel like the Groom would prefer to be compared to darkness?
Maybe something like If you are to be called a shadow, The Groom cannot be less than the abyss
Or
If you are to be called a shadow, The Groom cannot be less than a black hole
You move like a whispered secret in the night and this, this is what you've been missing. Flowing up and out of the window like smoke, keeping low to the grass outside, slithering between individual blades like a thousand indistinct black serpents. It's familiar. It's safe. It's comforting. You aren't 'happy', of course. Such things are reserved only for humans, but you are content and filled with a certain zealous eagerness to see this through.
For a short time, we turned into a multitude of tiny cute serpents. You know what that means!
[X] Pyrrha Nikos. You've made a little headway with her already, but you can tell you've still got a long road ahead. And then there was the old woman's strange outburst, coupled with what you already know about how strange it is to come to Beacon from abroad.
Always go for the shield. When you are a multiheaded monstrous serpent, always always go for the shield.
[X] Weiss Schnee. The spitting image of the Snow Queen. Some sort of princess from a faraway land, her motives for coming here at all a mystery twice over. Lonely and yet violently opposed to comfort and company.
We've earned a modicum of Pyrra's respect. We've endeared ourselves to Yang, and by extension to her sister Ruby. Forming deeper bonds with them won't necessarily be easy, but its something we know how to do.
But Weiss? Weiss is exceedingly tricky. She's a sufficiently complex bundle of strong and contradictory emotions (aggression, pride, loneliness etc.) that we are going to need help connecting with her. I don't think any voters here has the time or patience to distangle Weiss without some idea of what makes her tick.
Oh, and Weiss is going to be our teammate, yet subordinate to us. Given her nature, that is potentially a very large headache that we want to nip in the bud.
Whether we choose to "go native" or exploit our human relationships for the sake of the Grimm, getting a better idea of our potentially volatile teammate is a good idea. We can exploit her for our own gain, or we can build a genuine rapport with her...as we choose.
[x] Weiss Schnee. The spitting image of the Snow Queen. Some sort of princess from a faraway land, her motives for coming here at all a mystery twice over. Lonely and yet violently opposed to comfort and company.
We are the most afraid of her and acquiring information about her is going to be the hardest. I mean we can talk with Ruby and Yang at lunchtime to get information. They don't seem to opposed to a chat every now and then.
Pyrrha and Nora are our team members, so we should naturally have an in to get more information on them.
Blake, I am not sure how important she is the greater scheme. Her stealth could screw us over, and we can't really approach her easily for more information. Honestly, I am not quite sure if picking her or Weiss is better.
Narratively Blake makes little sense as we have no real connection or interaction with her yet and none of what has been said appears promissing. Nora at least is on our team but she appears to be in a relationship with Ren or at least really close which could complicate things, also we have had little reason to want to investigate her beyond her being pretty rad. I would say pass on both for the time being.
Weiss is prickly but I do sort of want to hug her, given that this is the groom we are talking about I am not sure if that is pro or a con. Practically speaking though her apparent connection to the Snow Queen and her last name could make her very significant in our plans if we can bring her on board, which given her loneliness could be viable, if we are feeling predatory enough to exploit it. Her being on a different team does make this hard to exploit though. No real risk of discovery though if we avoid Ruby, who seems more insightful than I am comfortable with. A promising option.
Ruby has a lot of hints going on about her between the reference to the eyes (not sure how much we want to draw from cannon in inferring significance about that though), her own skills, her insights, and her mysterious mother. So I suspect important things are going on with her but I am unsure as to what exactly, which makes her a bit of a risk especially as the insight could give us away. She is also adorable which could be a pro or con because of the groom and how picking her will probably be unpleasant for her. Potentially very valuable but very risky, best avoided for now.
Pyrrha is really cool, insightful, tough as nails, and while we are not friends we do seem to have a rapport, but she lacks Ruby's ability to know things she should not. She is also on our team and not in any apparent relationship so building from what we have would look and feel organic to onlookers. Not to mention this might help smooth over any ruffled feathers about who got to be Captain. Her value to our end goal though is uncertain, she is certainly skilled but that alone does not seem to significant relative to what Weiss and Ruby bring to the table. Rather her real value is probably found in whatever that prophecy thing was (provided it was nor a red herring), tentatively inferring her narrative weight from cannon, and her nature as an Achilles expy. Very low risk, easily available, with potentially high payoff.
Yang is harder to access than Pyrrha and has fewer hints about her future, so I would say that she probably would not provide the same payoff. This might be balanced out by getting a degree of access to Ruby. As covered earlier Ruby has her own risks associated with her though and going after Yang could expose us to them to a lesser extent, so I think that potential benefit is nill in terms of cost benefit analysis. She is best girl however, but given we are getting help from the groom I am ambivalent as to whether that is a pro or con. I feel any advantage Yang provides we can better get from Pyrrha or Ruby directly, rather than trying to split the difference here.
So with all of that in mind I am going for Pyrrha, with Weiss as a close second.
[X] Pyrrha Nikos. You've made a little headway with her already, but you can tell you've still got a long road ahead. And then there was the old woman's strange outburst, coupled with what you already know about how strange it is to come to Beacon from abroad.
